The next morning, while Madame Von Bruyin, Lilith Hereward, and Monsieur Le Grange were seated at breakfast together, a card was brought in on a silver waiter and offered to Lilith.
She picked it up and read:
Señor Zuniga.
And underneath2, in brackets, the lightly-penciled name of Alfred Ancillon.
Lilith could scarcely suppress a cry as she started to her feet.
“Indeed! I congratulate you. Go to him at once, my dear,” said the baroness, cordially. Then turning to the page, she inquired:
“Where have you shown the gentleman, Henri?”
“Quite right. Attend Madame Wyvil thither6. Go, my dear. Do not keep your friend a moment waiting,” said the baroness, sympathetically.
Lilith left the room, attended by the page, and 208crossed the hall to enter the small salon overlooking the Champs d’Elysées.
Mr. Alfred Ancillon, or Señor Zuniga, stood in the middle of the bright room, looking the image of glorious, immortal8 youth.
He came eagerly forward and opened his arms.
He embraced her warmly, straining her to his heart, pressing kisses on her face, before either of them spoke12 a syllable13.
Their first utterances14 were almost incoherent in their gladness.
“Oh, thank Heaven that you still live!”
“Thanks be to the Lord that I find you safe, my darling child!”
“At last! Oh, at last you are vindicated15!”
“Restored to life, almost from the grave. Oh! my child!”
“By what happy chance did you drift into Aunt Sophie’s house?”
“I will tell you presently, my dear, for——”
“And how is dear Aunt Sophie?”
“You must judge for yourself, darling! Look up! There—there she is!”
Lilith lifted herself from the señor’s breast and turned her head to see a round, black bundle of a little old woman, on the bottom of an easy-chair, unroll itself and come towards her in the form of Mrs. Downie.
Yes, it was indeed Aunt Sophie! There was the same soft, round form, the same careless though clean black gown and shawl, the same little mashed16 black silk bonnet17, the same smiling, babyish old face, with its fair skin, blue eyes and rumpled18 gray hair. It 209was dear Aunt Sophie in person, wonderful as the fact appeared.
With a half-suppressed cry of joy Lilith ran to her, caught her in her arms and covered her face with kisses, while Aunt Sophie cried quietly without speaking a word.
Presently Lilith led her to a seat on the sofa and sat down beside her, holding her hand, gazing into her sweet old face, and uttering her delight in fragmentary words.
“How comes it that I have the joy of seeing you? It was only yesterday evening that I got your dear letter. This very day I was going to write to you to come here to us. Was not that strange? But you always anticipated my wishes, did you not? But what happy inspiration, what angel sent you here?”
“Why, it was him,” replied Aunt Sophie, simply, pointing to the señor. “He fetched me. I believe he could persuade anybody in this world to do anything he wanted. And all in such a hurry, too! I never made up my mind so quick in all my life before; and never shall in all my life again. I declare I was on board of the ship before I well knowed what I was doing.”
The Señor Zuniga broke into one of Alfred Ancillon’s joyous bursts of laughter as he explained:
“If I had given her time to reflect she might have hesitated to come. If I had not hurried her out of her senses I could not have brought her. Hear! I saw your advertisement in the Personal column of the Pursuivant, by chance, just thirteen days ago. I saw that it had been in for some weeks, though I had not observed it. This was on Tuesday. I reflected that I could go to you in person as quickly as I could communicate with you by letter, so I made up my mind to sail the next day by the City of Paris. The steamers from America to Europe are not crowded 210at this season, whatever the steamers from Europe to America may be. I went to the agent’s office, feeling sure of getting berths19, and I got them. I got two tickets, one for myself and one for Aunt Sophie, for I felt sure of persuading her to accompany me——”
“He could persuade any mortal man or woman to do anything he wanted them to do,” put in the old lady.
“Well, you may call it whim20, eccentricity21 or inspiration, but I felt a great desire to take Mrs. Downie with me, and I was resolved to gratify that desire.”
“Yes, he did,” again put in Aunt Sophie. “He come right in the kitchen, where I was sitting down with a blue check apron22 on, paring apples to make pies for dinner; for, my dear, he went all over the house like a tame kitten; and he says to me all of a sudden:
“‘I want you to let the house take care of itself and go to Europe with me to-morrow morning to see your favorite’ (that was you, my dear).
“And I declare I was so startled I give a jump and let the pan fall, and the apples rolled all over the kitchen floor. Asking me all in a minute to go to Europe with him to-morrow as if it had been going to Harlem or Brooklyn!”
“Well, you are not sorry you came?”
“Oh, no! But, goodness, child, think of it! I, who had lived nigh seventy years in this world without ever going more than fifty miles from home, and that only once in my life, to be asked all of a sudden to go to Europe next day!”
“It was startling!” said Lilith, smiling.
“Startling! And then to hear him talk. Why, to hear him you would think to go from New York to 211Havre was no more than to row across a river. Then he got my boarders on his side. I think they thought it was fun. And they all got me in such a whirl that I hardly knowed whether I was awake or asleep. And before I rightly knowed what I was about I was on the steamer and out of sight of land!”
“I hope you left them all well at your house,” said Lilith.
“Oh, yes, honey, all mons’ous well. Mrs. Farquier is going to be married to Elder Perkins, of our church. I believe I told you in my letter.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Well, child, he is rich—awful rich. And they are to be married next spring. He is a building of a fine new house way up town, facing on the Park, and soon as it’s finished and furnished they’re going to be married and move right in. She’s giv’ up her employment, and hasn’t got much to do; so she offered if I would only go along of this young gentleman to Europe, how she would keep house for me until I come back. She is a dear, good woman and deserves all the prosperity she will have.”
“So you need have no anxious cares about the house,” said Lilith.
“No, honey. And I expect I shall feel right down well satisfied, once I get settled. But I was that whirled around before I started that I hardly knowed what I was doing of, or even who I was. Now what do you think? When I opened my trunk to get out a change of clothes, what do you think I found out!”
“I do not know,” said Lilith, smiling.
“Well, I found that I had left behind my Sunday gown—that black silk gown as I have worn to church more years than I remember.”
“That was unlucky; but never mind; you must have a new one. Silk is cheap in Paris.”
“Yes, honey, but that is not the worst of it. Instead 212of my own Sunday gown, what do you think I had packed away in my trunk?”
“A common gown?”
“No, child! But poor, dear, young Brother Burney’s best black trousers, as I had taken out’n his room that very morning to clean for him, with benzine. And what he’ll do for a decent pair to wear to church, I don’t know; for he’s only got one more pair, and they are patched awful, so as when the wind blows—well, I have to pin the flaps of his coat together. ’Deed I am mons’ous sorry I took his trousers. I hope he will never s’picion as I pawned24 ’em or anything.”
“Of course he won’t. But who is Brother Burney?” inquired Lilith.
“Oh, a hopeful young brother as is studying for the ministry25. He has got the little teenty room at the end of the passage in the third story. And I reckon he’s very poor. Ah me! I am sorry about them there trousers.”
Here Lilith bent26 and whispered to Aunt Sophie: “We could send him, anonymously27, a letter of credit for fifty or a hundred dollars, to get him a complete outfit28.”
“Could we, now? Without letting him know where it comes from? Without hurting his feelings? For it’s very hard to be beholden, you know. Hard for a gentleman, let alone how poor he may be.”
“We can fix it, Aunt Sophie; a letter shall go out to him this very day. And now I want you to come into my room and take off your bonnet. You will, I am sure, excuse us,” said Lilith, turning with a smile to the señor.
“I will go back to the hotel, where I have some business to attend to. I will call later to pay my respects to Madame Von Bruyin,” said Zuniga, as he arose and prepared to leave.
213“But—hadn’t I better be going, too? The baroness might think I was intruding,” said Aunt Sophie, uneasily.
“Indeed she will not! She will be rejoiced to see you. She commissioned me to write to you, and urge you to come over to us.”
“Indeed she did! I was to have written to you this very day, as I told you. Come, now, into my room and take off your bonnet and consider yourself quite at home; for I know the baroness will not allow you to return to the hotel,” said Lilith.
“I will bid you good-morning,” said the señor, bowing.
“Stay—one moment! Will you now release me from my promise? May I now tell the secret?” demanded Lilith, in an eager whisper.
“Yes! You might have given it to the winds, had you chosen, on the day that you read Estel’s confession30. You might have known then that it would be quite safe to do so.”
“Yes, but I had not then been released from my promise.”
“That, my child, shows a morbid31 conscientiousness32 in you. You were morally released from the moment that I was vindicated. Good-morning, my brave girl! I will see you later! By the way, though—where is your husband?” he suddenly stopped to ask.
“Still at the Court of ——, I think, where he has been Secretary of Legation for nearly two years.”
“Do you ever hear from him?”
“Never.”
“Does he know that you are living?”
“I think not.”
“Then I exonerate33 him. I have a great deal to say to you, my darling, which I must defer34 for the present. Good-morning again.”
214And the señor bowed himself out.
Lilith took Aunt Sophie’s hand and led her across the hall to a beautiful chamber35 with an alcove36.
She gave the good woman a soft easy-chair, and then with her own hands took off her bonnet and her shawl, and made her comfortable.
“Now, have you been to breakfast, Aunt Sophie?”
“Yes, honey, at the hotel! And such a breakfast! Instead of good, wholesome37 tea and coffee and beefsteak, and buckwheat cakes, there was wine, if you believe me! And oranges, and grapes, and figs38, and kickshaws! And I tried to be polite and ‘do at Rome as the Romans do,’ but la! I tasted the wine, and it tasted for all the world like vinegar and water, and sugar of lead! And I asked, please, mightn’t I have a cup of coffee, and the waiter, as they called the gosling, or something like that——”
“Wasn’t it the garçon?”
“Yes, gosoon, and he did go soon! He was spry! He asked me, ‘Caffynore or caffylay,’ and I had a hard time to make him understand that I didn’t want no caffy at all, nor any other of their foreign wines, but just coffee, and I did get it at last, just about the splendidest cup of coffee as ever I tasted in all my life. I would have asked the gosling how they made it; but, law! he couldn’t understand more’n half I said to him. The ignorance of these foreigners is amazing. A ’Merican child three years old could have understood what I said better than he did. But they know how to make good coffee.”
“No, no, honey; but they had good bread, too—excellent bread, and nice fresh butter. And so, you see, I didn’t suffer. And they had a number of different sorts of stews40, or hashes, I should call them, but the gosling called them awful hard names. They 215smelt mighty41 nice, all of ’em, but I was afeard to ventur’ on any of ’em. I was afeard of frogs. And that gosling was always a sticking one or other of them stews under my very nose, too.”
“Well, Aunt Sophie, you need not be afraid of anything you may find on our table, though we have a French chef.”
“A French shay? That may be good to ride in, but what has that got to do with cooking, honey?”
“I should have said a French cook.”
“Oh, I see. It was a slip of the tongue.”
“Did you have a fine voyage, Aunt Sophie?”
“Splendid.”
“And you were not sea-sick?”
“Oh, yes, I was. For two days I was just as sick as if I had taken an old-fashioned dose of calomel and jalap. And I think it did me a heap of good, too, for after I got over it I was that hungry! Indeed, I was so hungry I was ashamed to eat as much as I wanted. And all the rest of the voyage I thought more of eating than of anything else in the world.”
“When did you reach Havre?”
“Yesterday; and it so happened as there was a train for Paris in an hour afterwards; so we took that train and came right on, and got here last night. We slept at that hotel, and, if you please to believe me, I had one of the goslings for a chamber-maid. I don’t like foreign ways, myself.”
“Never mind, dear; you will be more comfortable with us. But now tell me, Aunt Sophie, did you know that the señor was a near relation of mine?”
“What makes you call him the sinner, honey? He’s no more of a sinner than the rest of us, I reckon. We are all sinners, for that matter.”
“I said señor, Aunt Sophie, which is all the same as if I had said Sir or Mr.”
“Oh! Well, I shall never get used to foreign words. 216Yes, honey, he did tell me; but not till he had pumped me of every single thing I knowed about you. Then, to account for his curiosity, he told me as you was a very near and dear relative of his’n as he had given up for dead.”
“How did he come to board at your house? He is not a minister or a theological student.”
“No, honey; but he do look just like a preacher. Don’t he, now?”
“Perhaps.”
“Well, my sign is always out, you know, and he saw it, and wanting board, he stepped up and rang the bell, like any other applicant42. Anyways, that’s how he came into the house, and he looked so much like a hopeful young minister of the Gospel that I took him, without once remembering to ask for his references. Afterwards he happened to see your photographs on the mantelpiece, and he took it down and gazed at it, and read your writing, and seemed so upset I didn’t know what to make of him. And he asked about one hundred questions about you, and I told him all I knowed. Then he let on as you was a near relation of his’n,” said the old lady, as she settled herself comfortably in her chair.
“Thank you, dear Aunt Sophie. And now if you will excuse me for a few moments, I will go and let the baroness know that you are here. She will be delighted,” said Lilith, rising, and leaving the room to tell the good news.
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1
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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baroness
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| n.男爵夫人，女男爵 | |
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joyfully
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| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
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salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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7
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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8
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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9
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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12
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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13
syllable
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| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
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14
utterances
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| n.发声( utterance的名词复数 )；说话方式；语调；言论 | |
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15
vindicated
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| v.澄清（某人/某事物）受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的过去式和过去分词 )；表明或证明（所争辩的事物）属实、正当、有效等；维护 | |
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mashed
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| a.捣烂的 | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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rumpled
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| v.弄皱，使凌乱( rumple的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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berths
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| n.（船、列车等的）卧铺( berth的名词复数 )；（船舶的）停泊位或锚位；差事；船台vt.v.停泊( berth的第三人称单数 )；占铺位 | |
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whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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eccentricity
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| n.古怪，反常，怪癖 | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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pawned
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| v.典当，抵押( pawn的过去式和过去分词 )；以（某事物）担保 | |
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ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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26
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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anonymously
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| ad.用匿名的方式 | |
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outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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32
conscientiousness
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| 责任心 | |
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exonerate
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| v.免除责任，确定无罪 | |
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defer
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| vt.推迟，拖延；vi.(to)遵从，听从，服从 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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alcove
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| n.凹室 | |
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wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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figs
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| figures 数字，图形，外形 | |
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39
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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40
stews
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| n.炖煮的菜肴( stew的名词复数 )；烦恼，焦虑v.炖( stew的第三人称单数 )；煨；思考；担忧 | |
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41
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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42
applicant
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| n.申请人，求职者，请求者 | |
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