"IVORY! IVORY!"
Ivory stirred in a sleep that had been troubled by too great happiness. To travel a dreary1 path alone, a path leading seemingly nowhere, and then suddenly to have a companion by one's side, the very sight of whom enchanted2 the eye, the very touch of whom delighted the senses--what joy unspeakable! Who could sleep soundly when wakefulness brought a train of such blissful thoughts?
"Ivory! Ivory!"
He was fully3 awake now, for he knew his mother's voice. In all the years, ever thoughtful of his comfort and of the constant strain upon his strength, Lois had never wakened her son at night.
"Coming, mother, coming!" he said, when he realized she was calling him; and hastily drawing on some clothing, for the night was bitterly cold, he came out of his room and saw his mother standing4 at the foot of the stairway, with a lighted candle in her hand.
"Can you come down, Ivory? It is a strange hour to call you but I have something to tell you; something I have been piecing together for weeks; something I have just clearly remembered."
"If it's something that won't keep till morning, mother, you creep back into bed and we'll hear it comfortably," he said, coming downstairs and leading her to her room. "I'll smooth the covers, so; beat up the pillows,--there, and throw another log on the sitting-room5 fire. Now, what's the matter? Couldn't you sleep?"
"All summer long I have been trying to remember something; something untrue that you have been believing, some falsehood for which I was responsible. I have pursued and pursued it, but it has always escaped me. Once it was clear as daylight, for Rodman read me from the Bible a plain answer to all the questions that tortured me."
"That must have been the night that she fainted," thought Ivory.
"When I awoke next morning from my long sleep, the old puzzle had come back, a thousand times worse than before, for then I knew that I had held the clue in my own hand and had lost it. Now, praise God! I know the truth, and you, the only one to whom I can tell it, are close at hand."
Ivory looked at his mother and saw that the veil that had separated them mentally seemed to five vanished in the night that had passed. Often and often it had blown away, as it were, for the fraction of a moment and then blown back again. Now her eyes met his with an altogether new clearness that startled him, while her health came with ease and she seemed stronger than for many days.
"You remember the winter I was here at the farm alone, when you were at the Academy?"
"Yes; it was then that I came home and found you so terribly ill. Do you think we need go back to that old time now, mother dear?"
"Yes, I must, I must! One morning I received a strange letter, bearing no signature, in which the writer said that if I wished to see my husband I had only to go to a certain address in Brentville, New Hampshire. The letter went on to say that Mr. Aaron Boynton was ill and longed for nothing so much as to speak with me; but there were reasons why he did not wish to return to Edgewood,--would I come to him without delay."
Ivory now sat straight in his chair and listened keenly, feeling that this was to be no vague, uncertain, and misleading memory, but something true and tangible6.
"The letter excited me greatly after your father's long absence and silence. I knew it could mean nothing but sorrow, but although I was half ill at the time, my plain duty was to go, so I thought, and go without making any explanation in the village."
All this was new to Ivory and he hung upon his mother's words, dreading7 yet hoping for the light that they might shed upon the past.
"I arrived at Brentville quite exhausted9 with the journey and weighed down by anxiety and dread8. I found the house mentioned in the letter at seven o'clock in the evening, and knocked at the door. A common, hard-featured woman answered the knock and, seeming to expect me, ushered10 me in. I do not remember the room; I remember only a child leaning patiently against the window-sill looking out into the dark, and that the place was bare and cheerless.
"I came to call upon Mr. Aaron Boynton,' I said, with my heart sinking lower and lower as I spoke11. The woman opened a door into the next room and when I walked in, instead of seeing your father, I confronted a haggard, death-stricken young woman sitting up in bed, her great eyes bright with pain, her lips as white as her hollow cheeks, and her long, black hair streaming over the pillow. The very sight of her struck a knell12 to the little hope I had of soothing13 your father's sick bed and forgiving him if he had done me any wrong.
"'Well, you came, as I thought you would,' said the girl, looking me over from head to foot in a way that somehow made me burn with shame. 'Now sit down in that chair and hear what I've got to say while I've got the strength to say it. I haven't the time nor the desire to put a gloss14 on it. Aaron Boynton isn't here, as you plainly see, but that's not my fault, for he belongs here as much as anywhere, though he wouldn't have much interest in a dying woman. If you have suffered on account of him, so have I and you haven't had this pain boring into you and eating your life away for months, as I have.'
"I pitied her, she seemed so distraught, but I was in terror of her all the same, and urged her to tell her story calmly and I would do my best to hear it in the same way.
"'Calm,' she exclaimed, 'with this agony tearing me to pieces! Well, to make beginning and end in one, Aaron Boynton was my husband for three years.'
"I caught hold of the chair to keep myself from falling and cried: 'I do not believe it!' 'Believe it or not, she answered scornfully, 'it makes no difference to me, but I can give you twenty proofs in as many seconds. We met at a Cochrane meeting and he chose me from all the others as his true wife. For two years we travelled together, but long before they came to an end there was no happiness for either of us. He had a conscience--not much of a one, but just enough to keep him miserable15. At last I felt he was not believing the doctrines16 he preached and I caught him trying to get news of you and your boy, just because you were out of reach, and neglecting my boy and me, who had given up everything to wander with him and live on whatever the brethren and sisters chose to give us.'
"'So there was a child, a boy,' I gasped17. 'Did--did he live?' 'He's in the next room,' she answered, 'and it's him I brought you here for. Aaron Boynton has served us both the same. He left you for me and me for Heaven knows who. If I could live I wouldn't ask any favors, of you least of all, but I haven't a penny in the world, though I shan't need one very long. My friend that's nursing me hasn't a roof to her head and she wouldn't share it with the boy if she had--she's a bigoted18 Orthodox.'
"'But what do you expect me to do?' I asked angrily, for she was stabbing me with every word.
"'The boy is your husband's child and he always represented you as a saint upon earth. I expect you to take him home and provide for him. He doesn't mean very much to me--just enough so that I don't relish19 his going to the poorhouse, that's all.'
"'He'll go to something very like that if he comes to mine,' I said.
"'Don't worry me with talk, for I can't stand it,' she wailed20, clutching at her nightgown and flinging back her hair. 'Either you take the child or I send somebody to Edgewood with him, somebody to tell the whole story. Some of the Cochranites can support him if you won't; or, at the worst, Aaron Boynton's town can take care of his son. The doctor has given me two days to live. If it's a minute longer I've warned him and I warn you, that I'll end it myself; and if you don't take the boy I'll do the same for him. He's a good sight better off dead than knocking about the world alone; he's innocent and there's no sense in his being punished for the sins of other folks.'"
"I see it all! Why did I never think of it before; my poor, poor Rod!" said Ivory, clenching21 his hands and burying his head in them.
"Don't grieve, Ivory; it has all turned out so much better than we could have hoped; just listen to the end. She was frightful22 to hear and to look at, the girl was, though all the time I could feel that she must have had a gipsy beauty and vigor23 that answered to something in your father.
"'Go along out now,' she cried suddenly. 'I can't stand anybody near. The doctor never gives me half enough medicine and for the hour before he comes I fairly die for lack of it--though little he cares! Go upstairs and have your sleep and to-morrow you can make up your mind.'
"'You don't leave me much freedom to do that,' I tried to answer; but she interrupted me, rocking her body to and fro. 'Neither of us will ever see Aaron Boynton again; you no more than I. He's in the West, and a man with two families and no means of providing for them doesn't come back where he's known.--Come and take her away, Eliza! Take her away, quick!' she called.
"I stumbled out of the room and the woman waved me upstairs. 'You mustn't mind Hetty,' she apologized; 'she never had a good disposition24 at the best, but she's frantic25 with the pain now, and good reason, too. It's about over and I'll be thankful when it is. You'd better swallow the shame and take the child; I can't and won't have him and it'll be easy enough for you to say he belongs to some of your own folks.'
"By this time I was mentally bewildered. When the iron first entered my soul, when I first heard the truth about your father, at that moment my mind gave way--I know it now."
"Poor, poor mother! My poor, gentle little mother!" murmured Ivory brokenly, as he asked her hand.
"Don't cry, my son; it is all past; the sorrow and the bitterness and the struggle. I will just finish the story and then we'll close the book forever. The woman gave me some bread and tea, and I flung myself on the bed without undressing. I don't know how long afterward27 it was, but the door opened and a little boy stole in; a sad, strange, dark-eyed little boy who said: 'Can I sleep up here? Mother's screaming and I'm afraid.' He climbed to the couch. I covered him with a blanket, and I soon heard his deep breathing. But later in the night, when I must have fallen asleep myself, I suddenly awoke and felt him lying beside me. He had dragged the blanket along and crept up on the bed to get close to my side for the warmth I could give, or the comfort of my nearness. The touch of him almost broke my heart; I could not push the little creature away when he was lying there so near and warm and confiding--he, all unconscious of the agony his mere28 existence was to me. I must have slept again and when the day broke I was alone. I thought the presence of the child in the night was a dream and I could not remember where I was, nor why I was there."
"Mother, dear mother, don't tell me any more to-night. I fear for your strength," urged Ivory, his eyes full of tears at the remembrance of her sufferings.
"There is only a little more and the weight will be off my heart and on yours, my poor son. Would that I need not tell you! The house was still and I thought at first that no one was awake, but when I opened the sitting-room door the child ran towards me and took my hand as the woman came in from the sick-room. 'Go into the kitchen, Rodman,' she said, 'and lace up your boots; you're going right out with this lady. Hetty died in the night,' she continued impassively. 'The doctor was here about ten o'clock and I've never seen her so bad. He gave her a big dose of sleeping powder and put another in the table drawer for me to mix for her towards morning. She was helpless to move, we thought, but all the same she must have got out of bed when my back was turned and taken the powder dry on her tongue, for it was gone when I looked for it. It didn't hasten things much and I don't blame her. If ever there was a wild, reckless creature it was Hetty Rodman, but I, who am just the opposite, would have done the same if I'd been her.'
"She hurriedly gave me a cup of coffee, and, putting a coat and a cap on the boy, literally29 pushed me out of the house. 'I've got to report things to the doctor,' she said, 'and you're better out of the way. Go down that side street to the station and mind you say the boy belonged to your sister who died and left him to you. You're a Cochranite, ain't you? So was Hetty, and they're all sisters, so you'll be telling no lies. Good-bye, Rodman, be a good boy and don't be any trouble to the lady.'
"How I found the station I do not know, nor how I made the journey, nor where I took the stage-coach. The snow began to fall and by noon there was a drifting storm. I could not remember where I was going, nor who the boy was, for just as the snow was whirling outside, so it was whirling in my brain."
"Mother, I can hardly bear to hear any more; it is too terrible!" cried Ivory, rising from his chair and pacing the floor.
"I can recall nothing of any account till I awoke in my own bed weeks afterwards. The strange little boy was there, but Mrs. Day and Dr. Perry told me what I must have told them--that he was the child of my dead sister. Those were the last words uttered by the woman in Brentville; I carried them straight through my illness and brought them out on the other side more firmly intrenched than ever."
"If only the truth had come back to you sooner!" sighed Ivory, coming back to her bedside. "I could have helped you to bear it all these years. Sorrow is so much lighter30 when you can share it with some one else. And the girl who died was called Hetty Rodman, then, and she simply gave the child her last name?"
"Yes, poor suffering creature. I feel no anger against her now; it has burned itself all away. Nor do I feel any bitterness against your father. I forgot all this miserable story for so long, loving and watching for him all the time, that it is as if it did not belong to my own life, but had to do with some unhappy stranger. Can you forgive, too, Ivory?"
"I can try," he answered. "God knows I ought to be able to if you can!"
"And will it turn you away from Rod?"
"No, it draws me nearer to him than ever. He shall never know the truth--why should he? Just as he crept close to you that night, all unconscious of the reason you had for shrinking from him, so he has crept close to me in these years of trial, when your mind has been wandering."
"Life is so strange. To think that this child, of all others, should have been a comfort to you. The Lord's hand is in it!" whispered Mrs. Boynton feebly.
"His boyish belief in me, his companionship, have kept the breath of hope alive in me--that's all I can say."
"The Bible story is happening over again in our lives, then. Don't you remember that Aaron's rod budded and blossomed and bore fruit, and that the miracle kept the rebels from murmuring?"
"This rebel never will murmur26 again, mother," and Ivory rose to leave the room. "Now that you have shed your burden you will grow stronger and life will be all joy, for Waitstill will come to us soon and we can shake off these miseries31 and be a happy family once more."
"It is she who has helped me most to find the thread; pouring sympathy and strength into me, nursing me, loving me, because she loved my wonderful son. Oh! how blest among women I am to have lived long enough to see you happy!"
And as Ivory kissed his mother and blew out the candle, she whispered to herself: "Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly!"
收听单词发音 |
1
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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7
dreading
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| v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的现在分词 ) | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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ushered
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| v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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12
knell
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| n.丧钟声；v.敲丧钟 | |
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13
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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gloss
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| n.光泽，光滑；虚饰；注释；vt.加光泽于；掩饰 | |
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15
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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16
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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bigoted
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| adj.固执己见的，心胸狭窄的 | |
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relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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20
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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clenching
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的现在分词 ) | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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30
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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