Array Коллектив авторов - 75 лучших рассказов / 75 Best Short Stories

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 mio 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 [271]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.’

‘Faro,’ said Hamlin, with an unmoved face.

‘Pharaoh,’ repeated the parson gravely; ‘and one which you call “poker,” which seems to require great self-control.’

‘I couldn’t make you understand poker without your playing it,’ said Jack decidedly.

‘As long as we don’t gamble – that is, play for money – I see no objection,’ returned the parson.

‘And,’ said Jack musingly, ‘you could use beans.’

It was agreed finally that there would be no falling from grace in their playing among themselves, in an inquiring Christian spirit, under Jack’s guidance, he having decided to abstain from card playing during his convalescence, and Jack permitted himself to be persuaded to show them the following evening.

It so chanced, however, that Dr. Duchesne, finding the end of Jack’s ‘cure’ approaching, and not hearing from that interesting invalid, resolved to visit him at about this time. Having no chance to apprise Jack of his intention, on coming to Hightown at night he procured a conveyance at the depot to carry him to Windy Hill Rancho. The wind blew with its usual nocturnal rollicking persistency, and at the end of his turbulent drive it seemed almost impossible to make himself heard amongst the roaring of the pines and some astounding preoccupation of the inmates. After vainly knocking, the doctor pushed open the front door and entered. He rapped at the closed sitting room door, but receiving no reply, pushed it open upon the most unexpected and astounding scene he had ever witnessed. Around the centre table several respectable members of the Hightown Church, including the parson, were gathered with intense and eager faces playing poker, and behind the parson, with his hands in his pockets, carelessly lounged the doctor’s patient, the picture of health and vigor. A disused pack of cards was scattered on the floor, and before the gentle and precise Mrs. Rivers was heaped a pile of beans that would have filled a quart measure.