Array Коллектив авторов - 30 лучших рассказов американских писателей

‘Joy of the desolate, Light of the straying, Hope of the penitent – fadeless and pure; Here speaks the Comforter, tenderly saying, Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot cure!’

The hymn was old and familiar enough, Heaven knows. It had been quite popular at funerals, and some who sat there had had its strange melancholy borne upon them in time of loss and tribulations, but never had they felt its full power before. Accustomed as they were to emotional appeal and to respond to it, as the singer’s voice died away above them, their very tears flowed and fell with that voice. A few sobbed aloud, and then a voice asked tremulously, —

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s Mr. Hamlin,’ said Seth quietly. ‘I’ve heard him often hummin’ things before.’

There was another silence, and the voice of Deacon Stubbs broke in harshly, —

‘It’s rank blasphemy.’

‘If it’s rank blasphemy to sing the praise o’ God, not only better than some folks in the choir, but like an angel o’ light, I wish you’d do a little o’ that blaspheming on Sundays, Mr. Stubbs.’

The speaker was Mrs. Stubbs, and as Deacon Stubbs was a notoriously bad singer the shot told.

‘If he’s sincere, why does he stand aloof? Why does he not join us?’ asked the parson.

‘He hasn’t been asked,’ said Seth quietly. ‘If I ain’t mistaken this yer gathering this evening was specially to see how to get rid of him.’

There was a quick murmur of protest at this. The parson exchanged glances with the deacon and saw that they were hopelessly in the minority.

‘I will ask him myself,’ said Mrs. Rivers suddenly.

‘So do, Sister Rivers; so do,’ was the unmistakable response.

Mrs. Rivers left the room and returned in a few moments with a handsome young man, pale, elegant, composed, even to a grave indifference. What his eyes might have said was another thing; the long lashes were scarcely raised.

‘I don’t mind playing a little,’ he said quietly to Mrs. Rivers, as if continuing a conversation, ‘but you’ll have to let me trust my memory.’

‘Then you – er – play the harmonium?’ said the parson, with an attempt at formal courtesy.

‘I was for a year or two the organist in the choir of Dr. Todd’s church at Sacramento,’ returned Mr. Hamlin quietly.

The blank amazement on the faces of Deacons Stubbs and Turner and the parson was followed by wreathed smiles from the other auditors and especially from the ladies. Mr. Hamlin sat down to the instrument, and in another moment took possession of it as it had never been held before. He played from memory as he had implied, but it was the memory of a musician. He began with one or two familiar anthems, in which they all joined. A fragment of a mass and a Latin chant followed. An ‘Ave Maria’ from an opera was his first secular departure, but his delighted audience did not detect it. Then he hurried them along in unfamiliar language to ‘O mío Fernando’ and ‘Spiritu gentil,’ which they fondly imagined were hymns, until, with crowning audacity, after a few preliminary chords of the ‘Miserere,’ he landed them broken-hearted in the Trovatore’s donjon tower with ‘Non te scordar de mi.’

Amidst the applause he heard the preacher suavely explain that those Popish masses were always in the Latin language, and rose from the instrument satisfied with his experiment. Excusing himself as an invalid from joining them in a light collation in the dining room, and begging his hostess’s permission to retire, he nevertheless lingered a few moments by the door as the ladies filed out of the room, followed by the gentlemen, until Deacon Turner, who was bringing up the rear, was abreast of him. Here Mr. Hamlin became suddenly deeply interested in a framed pencil drawing which hung on the wall. It was evidently a schoolgirl’s amateur portrait, done by Mrs. Rivers. Deacon Turner halted quickly by his side as the others passed out – which was exactly what Mr. Hamlin expected.

‘Do you know the face?’ said the deacon eagerly.

Thanks to the faithful Melinda, Mr. Hamlin did know it perfectly. It was a pencil sketch of Mrs. Rivers’s youthfully erring sister. But he only said he thought he recognized a likeness to someone he had seen in Sacramento.

The deacon’s eye brightened. ‘Perhaps the same one – perhaps,’ he added in a submissive and significant tone ‘a – er – painful story.’

‘Rather – to him,’ observed Hamlin quietly.

‘How? – I – er – don’t understand,’ said Deacon Turner.

‘Well, the portrait looks like a lady I knew in Sacramento who had been in some trouble when she was a silly girl, but had got over it quietly. She was, however, troubled a good deal by some mean hound who was every now and then raking up the story wherever she went. Well, one of her friends – I might have been among them, I don’t exactly remember just now – challenged him, but although he had no conscientious convictions about slandering a woman, he had some about being shot for it, and declined. The consequence was he was cowhided once in the street, and the second time tarred and feathered [92] tarred and feathered – punished (originally by putting tar on smb. and then covering with feathers). and ridden on a rail out of town. That, I suppose, was what you meant by your “painful story.” But is this the woman?’

‘No, no,’ said the deacon hurriedly, with a white face, ‘you have quite misunderstood.’

‘But whose is this portrait?’ persisted Jack.

‘I believe that – I don’t know exactly – but I think it is a sister of Mrs. Rivers’s,’ stammered the deacon.

‘Then, of course, it isn’t the same woman,’ said Jack in simulated indignation.

‘Certainly – of course not,’ returned the deacon.

‘Phew!’ said Jack. ‘That was a mighty close call. Lucky we were alone, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said the deacon, with a feeble smile.

‘Seth,’ continued Jack, with a thoughtful air, ‘looks like a quiet man, but I shouldn’t like to have made that mistake about his sister-in-law before him. These quiet men are apt to shoot straight. Better keep this to ourselves.’

Deacon Turner not only kept the revelation to himself but apparently his own sacred person also, as he did not call again at Windy Hill Rancho during Mr. Hamlin’s stay. But he was exceedingly polite in his references to Jack, and alluded patronizingly to a ‘little chat’ they had had together. And when the usual reaction took place in Mr. Hamlin’s favor and Jack was actually induced to perform on the organ at Hightown Church next Sunday, the deacon’s voice was loudest in his praise. Even Parson Greenwood allowed himself to be non-committal as to the truth of the rumor, largely circulated, that one of the most desperate gamblers in the State had been converted through his exhortations.

So, with breezy walks and games with the children, occasional confidences with Melinda and Silas, and the Sabbath ‘singing of anthems,’ Mr. Hamlin’s three weeks of convalescence drew to a close. He had lately relaxed his habit of seclusion so far as to mingle with the company gathered for more social purposes at the rancho, and once or twice unbent so far as to satisfy their curiosity in regard to certain details of his profession.

‘I have no personal knowledge of games of cards,’ said Parson Greenwood patronizingly, ‘and think I am right in saying that our brothers and sisters are equally inexperienced. I am – ahem – far from believing, however, that entire ignorance of evil is the best preparation for combating it, and I should be glad if you’d explain to the company the intricacies of various games. There is one that you mentioned, with a – er – scriptural name.’