Anne Part 49

When this second letter was sent, she asked herself whether she could write to Helen. But instantly the feeling came surging over her that she could not. In addition there was the necessity of keeping her new abode hidden. No one knew were mademoiselle was, and the younger woman had now the benefit of that carefully woven mystery. She was safe. She must not disturb that safety.

To one other person she felt that she must write, namely, Miss Vanhorn.

Harsh as had been the treatment she had received, it came from her mother's aunt. She wrote, therefore, briefly, stating that she had obtained a teacher's place, but without saying where it was. This letter, inclosed in another envelope, was sent to a friend of Jeanne-Armande in Boston, and mailed from that city. Anne had written that a letter sent to the Boston address, which she inclosed, would be immediately forwarded to her. But no reply came. Old Katharine never forgave.

The school opened; the young teacher had a cla.s.s of new scholars. To her also were given the little brothers who were allowed to mingle with the flock until they reached the age of eleven, when they were banished to rougher trials elsewhere; to these little boys she taught Latin grammar, and the various pursuits in the imperfect tense of those two well-known grammar worthies, Caius and Balbus. Jeanne-Armande had not failed to proclaim far and wide her candidate's qualifications as to vocal music.

"A pupil of Belzini," she remarked, with a stately air, "was not often to be obtained so far inland." The princ.i.p.al, a clear-headed Western woman, with a keen sense of humor, perceived at once (although smiling at it) the value of the phrase. It was soon in circulation. And it was understood that at Christmas-time the pupil of Belzini, who was not often to be obtained so far inland, would a.s.sume charge of the music cla.s.s, and lift it to a plane of Italian perfection hitherto unattained.

The autumn opened. Anne, walking on the lake sh.o.r.e at sunset, saw the vessels steal out from port one by one, and opening white sails, glide away in the breeze of evening silently as spirits. Then came the colored leaves. The town, even in its meanest streets, was now so beautiful that the wonder was that the people did not leave their houses, and live out-of-doors altogether, merely to gaze; every leaf was a flower, and brighter than the brightest blossom. Then came a wild storm, tearing the splendor from the branches in a single night; in the morning, November rain was falling, and all was desolate and bare. But after this, the last respite, came Indian summer.

If there is a time when the American of to-day recalls the red-skinned men who preceded him in this land he now calls his own, it is during these few days of stillness and beauty which bear the name of the vanished race. Work is over in the fields, they are ready for their winter rest; the leaves are gone, the trees are ready too. The last red apple is gathered; men and the squirrels together have gleaned the last nut. There is nothing more to be done; and he who with a delicate imagination walks abroad, or drives slowly along country roads, finds himself thinking, in the stillness, of those who roved over this same ground not many years ago, and tardily gathering in at this season their small crops of corn beside the rivers, gave to the beautiful golden-purple-hued days the name they bear. Through the naked woods he sees them stealing, bow in hand; on the stream he sees their birch-bark canoes; the smoke in the atmosphere must surely rise from their hidden camp fires. They have come back to their old haunts from the happy hunting grounds for these few golden days. Is it not the Indian summer?

The winter came early, with whirling snow followed by bitter cold. Ice formed; navigation was over until spring. Anne had heard from Dr. Gaston and Miss Lois, but not from Rast. For Rast had gone; he had started on his preliminary journey through the western country, where he proposed to engage in business enterprises, although their nature remained as yet vague. The chaplain wrote that a letter addressed to Erastus in her handwriting had been brought to him the day after the youth's departure, and that he had sent it to the frontier town which was to be his first stopping-place. Erastus had written to her the day before his departure, but the letter had of course gone to Caryl's. Miss Vanhorn, without doubt, would forward it to her niece. The old man wrote with an effort to appear cheerful, but he confessed that he missed his two children sadly. The boys were well, and Angelique was growing pretty. In another year it would be better that she should be with her sister; it was somewhat doubtful whether Miss Lois understood the child.

Miss Lois's letter was emphatic, beginning and ending with her opinion of Miss Vanhorn in the threefold character of grandaunt, Christian, and woman. She was able to let out her feelings at last, unhindered by the now-withdrawn allowance. The old bitter resentment against the woman who had slighted William Douglas found vent, and the characterization was withering and picturesque. When she had finished the arraignment, trial, and execution, at least in words, she turned at last to the children; and here it was evident that her pen paused and went more slowly. The boys, she hoped (rather as a last resort), were "good-hearted." She had but little trouble, comparatively, with t.i.ta now; the child was very attentive to her lessons, and had been over to Pere Michaux at his hermitage almost every other day. The boys went sometimes; and Erastus had been kind enough to accompany the children, to see that they were not drowned. And then, dropping the irksome theme, Miss Lois dipped her pen in romance, and filled the remainder of her letter with praise of golden-haired Rast, not so much because she herself loved him, as because Anne did. For the old maid believed with her whole heart in this young affection which had sprung into being under her fostering care, and looked forward to the day when the two should kneel together before Dr. Gaston in the little fort chapel, to receive the solemn benediction of the marriage service, as the happiest remaining in her life on earth.

Anne read the fervid words with troubled heart. If Rast felt all that Miss Lois said he felt, if he had borne as impatiently as Miss Lois described their present partial separation, even when he was sure of her love, how would he suffer when he read her letter! She looked forward feverishly to the arrival of his answer; but none came. The delay was hard to bear.

Dr. Gaston wrote a second time. Rast had remained but a day at the first town, and not liking it, had gone forward. Not having heard from Anne, he sent, inclosed to the chaplain's care, a letter for her. With nervous haste she opened it; but it contained nothing save an account of his journey, with a description of the frontier village--"shanties, drinking saloons, tin cans, and a grave-yard already. This will never do for a home for us. I shall push on farther." The tone of the letter was affectionate, as sure as ever of her love. Rast had always been sure of that. She read the pages sadly; it seemed as if she was willfully deceiving him. Where was her letter, the letter that told all? She wrote to the postmaster of the first town, requesting him to return it. After some delay, she received answer that it had been sent westward to another town, which the person addressed, namely, Erastus p.r.o.nando, had said should be his next stopping-place. But a second letter from Rast, sent also to the chaplain's care, had mentioned pa.s.sing through that very town without stopping--"it was such an infernal den"; and again Anne wrote, addressing the second postmaster, and asking for the letter.

This postmaster replied, after some tardiness, owing to his conflicting engagements as politician, hunter, and occasionally miner, that the letter described had been forwarded to the Dead-letter Office. This correspondence occupied October and November; and during this time Rast was still roaming through the West, writing frequently, but sending no permanent address. Now rumors of a silver mine attracted him; now it was a scheme for cattle-raising; now speculation in lands along the line of the coming railway It was impossible to follow him--and in truth he did not wish to be followed. He was tasting his first liberty. He meant to look around the world awhile before choosing his home: not long, only awhile. Still, awhile.

The chaplain added a few lines of his own when he sent these letters to Anne. Winter had seized them; they were now fast fettered; the mail came over the ice. Miss Lois was kind, and sometimes came up to regulate his housekeeping; but nothing went as formerly. His coffee was seldom good; and he found himself growing peevish--at least his present domestic, a worthy widow named McGlathery, had remarked upon it. But Anne must not think the domestic was in fault; he had reason to believe that she meant well even when she addressed him on the subject of his own short-comings. And here the chaplain's old humor peeped through, as he added, quaintly, that poor Mistress McGlathery's health was far from strong, she being subject to "inward tremblings," which tremblings she had several times described to him with tears in her eyes, while he had as often recommended peppermint and ginger, but without success; on the contrary, she always went away with a motion of the skirts and a manner as to closing the door which, the chaplain thought, betokened offense.

Anne smiled over these letters, and then sighed. If she could only be with him again--with them all! She dreamed at night of the old man in his arm-chair, of Miss Lois, of the boys, of t.i.ta curled in her furry corner, which she had transferred, in spite of Miss Lois's remonstrances, to the sitting-room of the church-house. Neither t.i.ta nor Pere Michaux had written; she wondered over their new silence.

Anne's pupils had, of course, exhaustively weighed and sifted the new teacher, and had decided to like her. Some of them decided to adore her, and expressed their adoration in bouquets, autograph alb.u.ms, and various articles in card-board supposed to be of an ornamental nature. They watched her guardedly, and were jealous of every one to whom she spoke; she little knew what a net-work of plots, observation, mines and countermines, surrounded her as patiently she toiled through each long monotonous day. These adorations of school-girls, although but unconscious rehearsals of the future, are yet real while they last; Anne's adorers went sleepless if by chance she gave especial attention to any other pupil. The adored one meanwhile did not notice these little intensities; her mind was absorbed by other thoughts.

Four days before Christmas two letters came; one was her own to Rast, returned at last from the Dead-letter Office; the other was from Miss Lois, telling of the serious illness of Dr. Gaston. The old chaplain had had a stroke of paralysis, and Rast had been summoned; fortunately his last letter had been from St. Louis, to which place he had unexpectedly returned, and therefore they had been able to reach him by message to Chicago and a telegraphic dispatch. Dr. Gaston wished to see him; the youth had been his ward as well as almost child, and there were business matters to be arranged between them. Anne's tears fell as she read of her dear old teacher's danger, and the impulse came to her to go to him at once. Was she not his child as well as Rast? But the impulse was checked by the remainder of the letter. Miss Lois wrote, sadly, that she had tried to keep it from Anne, but had not succeeded: since August her small income had been much reduced, owing to the failure of a New Hampshire bank, and she now found that with all her effort they could not quite live on what was left. "Very nearly, dear child. I think, with _thirty_ dollars, I can manage until spring. Then everything will be _cheaper_. I should not have kept it from you if it had not happened at the _very time_ of your trouble with that _wicked old woman_, and I did not wish to add to your care. But the boys have what is called _fine_ appet.i.tes (I wish they were not quite so 'fine'), and of course _this_ winter, and never before, my provisions were spoiled in my own cellar."

Anne had intended to send to Miss Lois all her small savings on Christmas-day. She now went to the princ.i.p.al of the school, asked that the payment of her salary might be advanced, and forwarded all she was able to send to the poverty-stricken little household in the church-house. That night she wept bitter tears; the old chaplain was dying, and she could not go to him; the children were perhaps suffering.

For the first time in a life of poverty she felt its iron hand crushing her down. Her letter to Rast lay before her; she could not send it now and disturb the last hours on earth of their dear old friend. She laid it aside and waited--waited through those long hours of dreary suspense which those must bear who are distant from the dying beds of their loved ones.

In the mean time Rast had arrived. Miss Lois wrote of the chaplain's joy at seeing him. The next letter contained the tidings that death had come; early in the morning, peacefully, with scarcely a sigh, the old man's soul had pa.s.sed from earth. Colonel Bryden, coming in soon afterward, and looking upon the calm face, had said, gently,

"Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time; Say not good-night, but, in some brighter clime, Bid me good-morning."

When Anne knew that the funeral was over, that another grave had been made under the snow in the little military cemetery, and that, with the strange swiftness which is so hard for mourning hearts to realize, daily life was moving on again in the small island circle where the kind old face would be seen no more, she sent her letter, the same old letter, unaltered and travel-worn. Then she waited. She could not receive her answer before the eighth or ninth day. But on the fifth came two letters; on the seventh, three. The first were from Miss Lois and Mrs.

Bryden; the others from t.i.ta, Pere Michaux, and--Rast. And the extraordinary tidings they brought were these: Rast had married t.i.ta.

The little sister was now his wife.

CHAPTER XXII.

"A slave had long worn a chain upon his ankle. By the order of his master it was removed. 'Why dost thou spring aloft and sing, O slave? Surely the sun is as fierce and thy burden as heavy as before.' The slave replied: 'Ten times the sun and the burden would seem light, now that the chain is removed.'"--_From the Arabic._

Miss Lois's letter was a wail:

"MY POOR DEAR OUTRAGED CHILD,--What _can_ I say to you? There is no use in trying to _prepare_ you for it, since you would never _conceive_ such _double-dyed_ blackness of heart! t.i.ta has _run away_. She slipped off clandestinely, and they think she has followed _Rast_, who left yesterday on his way back to St. Louis and the West. Pere Michaux has followed _her_, saying that if he found them together he should, acting as t.i.ta's guardian, insist upon a _marriage_ before he returned! He feels himself responsible for _t.i.ta_, he says, and paid no attention when I asked him if no one was to be responsible for _you_! My poor child, it seems that I have been blind all along; I never _dreamed_ of what was going on. The little minx deceived me completely. I thought her so much improved, so studious, while all the time she was meeting Erastus, or planning to meet him, with a skill far beyond _my_ comprehension. All last summer, they tell me, she was with him constantly; those daily journeys to Pere Michaux's island were for that purpose, while I supposed they were for prayers. What _Erastus_ thought or meant, no one seems to know; but they all combined in declaring that the child (child no longer!) was deeply in love with him, and that everybody saw it save _me_. My New England blood could not, I am proud to say, grasp it! You know, my poor darling, the opinion I have _always_ had concerning t.i.ta's mother, who slyly and artfully inveigled your honored father into a _trap_. t.i.ta has therefore but followed in her mother's footsteps.

"That Erastus has ever _cared_, or cares now in the least, for her, save as a plaything, I will _never_ believe. But Pere Michaux is like a _mule_ for stubbornness, as you know, and I fear he will marry them in _any_ case. He did not seem to think of _you_ at all, and when I said, 'Anne will _die_ of grief!' he only smiled--yes, _smiled_--and Frenchly shrugged his shoulders! My poor child, I have but little hope, because if he appeals to Erastus's _honor_, what can the boy do? He is the soul of honor.

"I can hardly write, my brain has been so overturned. To think that _t.i.ta_ should have outwitted us all at her age, and gained her point over everything, over you and over Rast--poor, poor Rast, who will be so _miserably_ sacrificed! I will write again to-morrow; but if Pere Michaux carries out his strange _Jesuitical_ design, you will hear from him probably before you can hear again from me. Bear up, my dearest Anne. I acknowledge that, so far, I have found it difficult to see the Divine purpose in this, unless indeed it be to inform us that we are all but cinders and ashes; which, however, I for one have long known."

Mrs. Bryden's letter:

"DEAR ANNE,--I feel drawn toward you more closely since the illness and death of our dear Dr. Gaston, who loved you so tenderly, and talked so much of you during his last days with us. It is but a short time since I wrote to you, giving some of the messages he left, and telling of his peaceful departure; but now I feel that I must write again upon a subject which is painful, yet one upon which you should have, I think, all the correct details immediately. Miss Hinsdale is no doubt writing to you also; but she does not know all. She has not perceived, as we have, the gradual approaches to this catastrophe--I can call it by no other name.

"When you went away, your half-sister was a child. With what has seemed lightning rapidity she has grown to womanhood, and for months it has been plainly evident that she was striving in every way to gain and hold the attention of Erastus p.r.o.nando. He lingered here almost all summer, as you will remember; t.i.ta followed him everywhere. Miss Hinsdale, absorbed in the cares of housekeeping, knew nothing of it; but daily, on one pretext or another, they were together. Whether Erastus was interested I have no means of knowing; but that t.i.ta is now extremely pretty in a certain style, and that she was absorbed in him, we could all see. It was not our affair; yet we might have felt called upon to make it ours if it had not been for Pere Michaux. He was her constant guardian.

"Erastus went away yesterday in advance of the mail-train. He bade us all good-by, and I am positive that he had no plan, not even a suspicion of what was to follow. We have a new mail-carrier this winter, Denis being confined to his cabin with rheumatism. t.i.ta must have slipped away unperceived, and joined this man at dusk on the ice a mile or two below the island; her track was found this morning. Erastus expected to join the mail-train to-day, and she knew it, of course; the probability is, therefore, that they are now together. It seems hardly credible that so young a head could have arranged its plans so deftly; yet it is certainly true that, even if Rast wished to bring her back, he could not do so immediately, not until the up-train pa.s.sed them. Pere Michaux started after them this morning, travelling in his own sledge. He thinks (it is better that you should know it, Anne) that Erastus _is_ fond of t.i.ta, and that only his engagement to you has held him back. Now that the step has been taken, he has no real doubt but that Rast himself will wish to marry her, and without delay.

"All this will seem very strange to you, my dear child; but I trust it will not be so hard a blow as Miss Hinsdale apprehends. Pere Michaux told me this morning in so many words: 'Anne has never loved the boy with anything more than the affection of childhood. It will be for her a release.' He was convinced of this, and went off on his journey with what looked very much like gladness. I hope, with all my heart, that he is right." Then, with a few more words of kindly friendship, the letter ended.

The other envelope bore the rude pen-and-ink postmark of a Northwestern lumber settlement, where travellers coming down, from the North in the winter over the ice and snow met the pioneer railway, which had pushed its track to that point before the blockade of the cold began.

t.i.ta's letter:

"DEEREST SISTER,--You will not I am sure blaime your little t.i.ta for following the impulse of her _hart_. Since you were hear I have grown up and it is the truth that Rast has loved me for _yeers_ of his own accord and because he could not help it--deerest sister who can. But he never ment to break his word to you and he tryed not to but was devowered by his love for me and you will forgive him deerest sister will you not since there is no more hope for you as we were married by Pere Michaux an hour ago who approved of all and has hartily given us his bennydiction. Since my spiritual directeur has no reproche you will not have enny I am sure and remain your loving sister,

ANGeLIQUE p.r.o.nANDO."

"P. S. We go to Chicago to-day. Enny money for _close_ for me could be sent to the Illinois Hotel, where my deerest husband says we are to stay.

A. P."

Pere Michaux's letter:

"DEAR ANNE,--It is not often that I speak so bluntly as I shall speak now. In marrying, this morning, your half-sister Angelique to Erastus p.r.o.nando I feel that I have done you a great service. You did not love him with the real love of a nature like yours--the love that will certainly come to you some day; perhaps has already come. I have always known this, and, in accordance with it, did all I could to prevent the engagement originally. I failed; but this day's work has made up for the failure.

"Angelique has grown into a woman. She is also very beautiful, after a peculiar fashion of her own. All the strength of her nature, such as it is, is concentrated upon the young man who is now her husband. From childhood she has loved him; she was bitterly jealous of you even before you went away. I have been aware of this, but until lately I was not sure of Rast. Her increasing beauty, however, added to her intense absorbed interest in him, has conquered. Seeing this, I have watched with satisfaction the events of the past summer, and have even a.s.sisted somewhat (and with a clear conscience) in their development.

"Erastus, even if you had loved him, Anne, could not have made you happy. And neither would you have made him happy; for he is quick-witted, and he would have inevitably, and in spite of all your tender humility, my child, discovered your intellectual superiority, and in time would have angrily resented it. For he is vain; his nature is light; he needs adulation in order to feel contented. On the other hand, he is kind-hearted and affectionate, and to t.i.ta will be a demi-G.o.d always. The faults that would have been death to you, she will never see. She is therefore the fit wife for him.

"You will ask, Does he love her? I answer, Yes. When he came back to the island, and found her so different, the same elfish little creature, but now strangely pretty, openly fond of him, following him everywhere, with the words of a child but the eyes of a woman, he was at first surprised, then annoyed, then amused, interested, and finally fascinated. He struggled against it. I give him the due of justice--he did struggle.

But t.i.ta was always _there_. He went away hurriedly at the last, and if it had not been for Dr. Gaston's illness and his own recall to the island, it might not have gone farther. t.i.ta understood this as well as I did; she made the most of her time. Still, I am quite sure that he had no suspicion she intended to follow him; the plan was all her own. She did follow him. And I followed her. I caught up with them that very day at sunset, and an hour ago I married them. If you have not already forgiven me, Anne, you will do so some day. I have no fear. I can wait.

I shall go on with them as far as Chicago, and then, after a day or two, I shall return to the island. Do not be disturbed by anything Miss Lois may write. She has been blindly mistaken from the beginning. In truth, there is a vein of obstinate weakness on some subjects in that otherwise estimable woman, for which I have always been at a loss to account."

Ah, wise old priest, there are some things too deep for even you to know!

Rast's letter was short. It touched Anne more than any of the others:

"What must you think of me, Annet? Forgive me, and forget me. I _did_ try. But would you have cared for a man who had to try? When I think of you I scorn myself. But she is the sweetest, dearest, most winning little creature the world ever saw; and my only excuse is that--I love her.

E. P."

These few lines, in which the young husband made out no case for himself, sought no shield in the little bride's own rashness, but simply avowed his love, and took all the responsibility upon himself, pleased the elder sister. It was manly. She was glad that t.i.ta had a defender.

She had read these last letters standing in the centre of her room, Jeanne-Armande anxiously watching her from the open door. The Frenchwoman had poured out a gla.s.s of water, and had it in readiness: she thought that perhaps Anne was going to faint. With no distinct idea of what had happened, she had lived in a riot of conjecture for two days.