Anne Part 35

On the 29th he quarrelled with her, and hotly, leaving her overwhelmed with grief and surprise.

On the 30th he came back to her. They had but three minutes together on the piazza, and then Mr. Dexter joined them. But in those minutes he had asked forgiveness, and seemed also to yield all at once the points over which heretofore he had been immovable.

On the 31st Helen came.

It was late. Anne had gone to her room. She had not seen Heathcote that day. She had extinguished the candle, and was looking at the bra.s.sy moon slowly rising above the trees, when a light tap sounded on her door.

"Who is it?" she said.

"Helen, of course," answered a sweet voice she knew. She drew back the bolt swiftly, and Mrs. Lorrington came in, dressed in travelling attire.

She had just arrived. She kissed Anne, saying, gayly: "Are you not glad to see me? Grandfather has again recovered, and dismissed me. I spend my life on the road. Are you well, Crystal? And how do you like Caryl's?

No, do not light the candle; I can see you in the moonlight, all draped in white. I shall stay half an hour--no longer. My maid is waiting, and I must not lose my beauty-sleep. But I wanted to see you first of all.

Tell me about yourself, and everything. Did you put down what happened in a note-book, as I asked you?"

"Yes; here it is. But the record is brief--only names and dates. How glad I am to see you, Helen! How very, very glad! It seemed as if you would never come." She took Helen's hands, and held them as she spoke.

She was very deeply attached to her brilliant friend.

Helen laughed, kissed her again, and began asking questions. She was full of plans. "Heretofore they have not staid at Caryl's in the autumn," she said, "but this year I shall make them. September and part of October would be pleasant here, I know. Has any one spoken of going?"

"Mrs. Bannert has, I think."

"You mean my dearest friend Rachel. But she will stay now that _I_ have come; that is, if I succeed in keeping--somebody else. The Bishop has been devoted to her, of course, and likewise the Tenor; the Haunted Man and others skirmish on her borders. Even the Knight-errant is not, I am sorry to say, above suspicion. Who has it especially been?"

"I do not know; every one seems to admire her. I think she has not favored one more than another."

"Oh, has she not?" said Mrs. Lorrington, laughing. "It is well I have come, Crystal. You are too innocent to live." She tapped her cheek as she spoke, and then turned her face to the moonlight. "And whom do you like best?" she said. "Mr. Dexter?"

"Yes," said Anne; "I like him sincerely. And you will find his name very often there," she added, looking at the note-book by Helen's side.

"Yes, but the others too, I hope. What _I_ want to know, of course, is the wicked career of the Knight-errant."

"But is not Mr. Dexter the Knight-errant?"

"By no means. Mr. Dexter is the Bishop; have you not discovered that?

The Knight-errant is very decidedly some one else. And, by-the-way, how do you like Some One Else--that is, Mr. Heathcote?"

"Mr. Heathcote!"

"It is not polite to repeat one's words, Crystal. But--I suppose you do _not_ like him; and half the time, I confess, he is detestable. However, now that I have come, he shall behave better, and I shall make you like each other, for my sake. There is just one question I wish to ask here: has he been much with Rachel?"

"No--yes--yes, I suppose he has," murmured Anne, sitting still as a statue in the shadow. The bra.s.sy moon had gone slowly and coldly behind a cloud, and the room was dim.

"You suppose? Do you not know?"

"Yes, I know he has." She stopped abruptly. She had never before thought whether Heathcote was or was not with Rachel more than with others; but now she began to recall. "Yes, he _has_ been with her," she said again, struck by a sudden pang.

"Very well; I shall see to it, now that I am here," said Helen, with a sharp tone in her voice. "He will perhaps be sorry that I have arrived just at the end of the season--the time for grand climaxes, you know; but he will have to yield. My half-hour is over; I must go. How is the Grand Llama? Endurable?"

"She is helping the children; I am grateful to her," replied Anne's voice, mechanically.

"Which means that she is worse than ever. What a dead-alive voice you said it in! Now that I am here, I will do battle for you, Crystal, never fear. I must go. You shall see my triumphal entrance to-morrow at breakfast. Our rooms are not far from yours. Good-night."

She was gone. The door was closed. Anne was alone.

CHAPTER XVI.

"You who keep account Of crisis and transition in this life, Set down the first time Nature says plain 'no'

To some 'yes' in you, and walks over you In gorgeous sweeps of scorn. We all begin By singing with the birds, and running fast With June days hand in hand; but, once for all, The birds must sing against us, and the sun Strike down upon us like a friend's sword, caught By an enemy to slay us, while we read The dear name on the blade which bites at us."

--ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

It is easy for the young to be happy before the deep feelings of the heart have been stirred. It is easy to be good when there has been no strong temptation to be evil; easy to be unselfish when nothing is ardently craved; easy to be faithful when faithfulness does not tear the soul out of its abiding-place. Some persons pa.s.s through all of life without strong temptations; not having deep feelings, they are likewise exempt from deep sins. These pa.s.s for saints. But when one thinks of the cause of their faultlessness, one understands perhaps better the meaning of those words, otherwise mysterious, that "joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance."

Anne went through that night her first real torture; heretofore she had felt only grief--a very different pain.

Being a woman, her first feeling, even before the consciousness of what it meant, was jealousy. What did Helen mean by speaking of him as though he belonged to her? She had never spoken in that way before. Although she--Anne--had mistaken the fict.i.tious t.i.tles, still, even under the t.i.tle, there had been no such open appropriation of the Knight-errant.

What did she mean? And then into this burning jealous anger came the low-voiced question, asked somewhere down in the depths of her being, as though a judge was speaking, "What--is--it--to--you?" And again, "What is it to you?" She buried her face tremblingly in her hands, for all at once she realized what it was, what it had been, unconsciously perhaps, but for a long time really, to her.

She made no attempt at self-deception. Her strongest trait from childhood had been her sincerity, and now it would not let her go. She had begun to love Ward Heathcote unconsciously, but now she loved him consciously. That was the bare fact. It confronted her, it loomed above her, a dark menacing shape, from whose presence she could not flee. She s.h.i.+vered, and her breath seemed to stop during the slow moment while the truth made itself known to her. "O G.o.d!" she murmured, bursting into tears; and there was no irreverence in the cry. She recognized the faithlessness which had taken possession of her--unawares, it is true, yet loyal hearts are not conquered so. She had been living in a dream, and had suddenly found the dream reality, and the actors flesh and blood--one of them at least, a poor wildly loving girl, with the mark of Judas upon her brow. She tried to pray, but could think of no words. For she was false to Rast, she loved Heathcote, and hated Helen, yet could not bring herself to ask that any of these feelings should be otherwise.

This was so new to her that she sank down upon the floor in utter despair and self-abas.e.m.e.nt. She was bound to Rast; she was bound to Helen. Yet she had, in her heart at least, betrayed them both.

Still, so complex is human nature that even here in the midst of her abas.e.m.e.nt the question stole in, whispering its way along as it came, "_Does_ he care for me?" And "he" was not Rast. She forgot all else to weigh every word and look of the weeks and days that had pa.s.sed. Slowly she lived over in memory all their conversations, not forgetting the most trivial, and even raised her arm to get a pillow in order that she might lie more easily; but the little action brought reality again, and her arm fell, while part of her consciousness drew off, and sat in judgment upon the other part. The sentence was scathing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SHE BURIED HER FACE TREMBLINGLY IN HER HANDS."]

Then jealousy seized her again. She had admired Helen so warmly as a woman, that even now she could not escape the feeling. She went over in quick, hot review all that the sweet voice and delicate lips had ever said concerning the person veiled under the name of Knight-errant, and the result was a miserable conviction that she had been mistaken; that there was a tie of some kind--slight, perhaps, yet still a tie. And then, as she crushed her hands together in impotent anger, she again realized what she was thinking, and began to sob in her grief like a child. Poor Anne! she would never be a child again. Never again would be hers that proud dauntless confidence of the untried, which makes all life seem easy and secure. And here suddenly into her grief darted this new and withering thought: Had Heathcote perceived her feeling for him?

and had he been playing upon it to amuse himself?

Anne knew vaguely that people treated her as though she was hardly more than a child. She was conscious of it, but did not dispute it, accepting it humbly as something--some fault in herself--which she could not change. But now the sleeping woman was aroused at last, and she blushed deeply in the darkness at the thought that while she had remained unconscious, this man of the world had perhaps detected the truth immediately, and had acted as he had in consequence of it. This was the deepest sting of all, and again hurriedly she went over all their conversations a second time; and imagined that she found indications of what she feared. She rose to her feet with the nervous idea of fleeing somewhere, she did not know where.

The night had pa.s.sed. The sun had not yet risen, but the eastern sky was waiting for his coming with all its banners aflame. Standing by the window, she watched the first gold rim appear. The small birds were twittering in the near trees, the earth was awaking to another day, and for the first time Anne realized the joy of that part of creation which knows not sorrow or care; for the first time wished herself a flower of the field, or a sweet-voiced bird singing his happy morning anthem on a spray. There were three hours yet before breakfast, two before any one would be stirring. She dressed herself, stole through the hall and down the stairs, unbolted the side door, and went into the garden; she longed for the freshness of the morning air. Her steps led her toward the arbor; she stopped, and turned in another direction--toward the bank of the little river. Here she began to walk to and fro from a pile of drift-wood to a bush covered with dew-drops, from the bush back to the drift-wood again. Her feet were wet, her head ached dully, but she kept her mind down to the purpose before her. The nightmare of the darkness was gone; she now faced her grief, and knew what it was, and had decided upon her course. This course was to leave Caryl's. She hoped to return to Mademoiselle at the half-house, and remain there until the school opened--if her grandaunt was willing. If her grandaunt was willing--there came the difficulty. Yet why should she not be willing?

The season was over; the summer flowers were gone; it was but antic.i.p.ating departure by a week or two. Thus she reasoned with herself, yet felt all the time by intuition that Miss Vanhorn would refuse her consent. And if she should so refuse, what then? It could make no difference in the necessity for going, but it would make the going hard.

She was considering this point when she heard a footstep. She looked up, and saw--Ward Heathcote. She had been there some time; it was now seven o'clock. They both heard the old clock in the office strike as they stood there looking at each other. In half an hour the early risers would be coming into the garden.

Anne did not move or speak; the great effort she had made to retain her composure, when she saw him, kept her motionless and dumb. Her first darting thought had been to show him that she was at ease and indifferent. But this required words, and she had not one ready; she was afraid to speak, too, lest her voice should tremble. She saw, standing there before her, the man who had made her forget Rast, who had made her jealous of Helen, who had played with her holiest feelings, who had deceived and laughed at her, the man whom she--hated? No, no--whom she loved, loved, loved: this was the desperate ending. She turned very white, standing motionless beside the dew-spangled bush.

And Heathcote saw, standing there before him, a young girl with her fair face strangely pale and worn, her eyes fixed, her lips compressed; she was trembling slightly and constantly, in spite of the rigidity of her att.i.tude.

He looked at her in silence for a moment; then, knocking down at one blow all the barriers she had erected, he came to her and took her cold hands in his. "What is it she has said to you?" he asked.

She drew herself away without speaking.

"What has Helen said to you? Has she told you that I have deceived you?

That I have played a part?"