Anne Part 54

"Not immediately."

"Promise that you will not go to-night or to-morrow."

"I promise."

And then, as if satisfied, he fell asleep.

He slept all night peacefully. But Anne did not once lose consciousness.

At dawn she left her sleepless couch, and dressed herself, moving about the room cautiously, so as not to awaken the sleeper below. When she was ready to go down, she paused a moment, thinking. Raising her eyes, she found herself standing by chance opposite the small mirror, and her gaze rested half unconsciously upon her own reflected image. She drew nearer, and leaning with folded arms upon the chest of drawers, looked at herself, as if striving to see something hitherto hidden.

We think we know our own faces, yet they are in reality less known to us than the countenances of our acquaintances, of our servants, even of our dogs. If any one will stand alone close to a mirror, and look intently at his own reflection for several minutes or longer, the impression produced on his mind will be extraordinary. At first it is nothing but his own well-known, perhaps well-worn, face that confronts him. Whatever there may be of novelty in the faces of others, there is certainly nothing of it here. So at least he believes. But after a while it grows strange. What do those eyes mean, meeting his so mysteriously and silently? Whose mouth is that? Whose brow? What vague suggestions of something stronger than he is, some dormant force which laughs him to scorn, are lurking behind that mask? In the outline of the features, the curve of the jaw and chin, perhaps he notes a suggested likeness to this or that animal of the lower cla.s.s--a sign of some trait which he was not conscious he possessed. And then--those strange eyes! They are his own; nothing new; yet in their depths all sorts of mocking meanings seem to rise. The world, with all its a.s.sociations, even his own history also, drops from him like a garment, and he is left alone, facing the problem of his own existence. It is the old riddle of the Sphinx.

Something of this pa.s.sed through Anne's mind at that moment. She was too young to accept misery, to generalize on sorrow, to place herself among the large percentage of women to whom, in the great balance of population, a happy love is denied. She felt her own wretchedness acutely, unceasingly, while the man she loved was so near. She knew that she would leave him, that he would go back to Helen; that she would return to her hospital work and to Weston, and that that would be the end. There was not in her mind a thought of anything else. Yet this certainty did not prevent the two large slow tears that rose and welled over as she watched the eyes in the gla.s.s, watched them as though they were the eyes of some one else.

Diana's head now appeared, giving the morning bulletin: the captain had slept "like a cherrb," and was already "'mos' well." Anne went down by the outside stairway, and ate her breakfast under the trees not far from Mrs. Redd's out-door hearth. She told July that she should return to the hospital during the coming night, or, if the mountain path could not be traversed in the darkness, they must start at dawn.

"I don't think it's quite fair of you to quit so soon," objected Mrs.

Redd, loath to lose her profit.

"If you can find any one to escort me, I will leave you Diana and July,"

answered Anne. "For myself, I can not stay longer."

July went in with the sick man's breakfast, but came forth again immediately. "He wants _yo'_ to come, miss."

"I can not come now. If he eats his breakfast obediently, I will come in and see him later," said the nurse.

"Isn't much trouble 'bout _eating_," said July, grinning. "Cap'n he eats like he 'mos' starved."

Anne remained sitting under the trees, while the two black servants attended to her patient. At ten o'clock he was reported as "sittin' up in bed, and powerful smart." This bulletin was soon followed by another, "Him all tired out now, and gone to sleep."

Leaving directions for the next hour, she strolled into the woods behind the house. She had intended to go but a short distance, but, led on by her own restlessness and the dull pain in her heart, she wandered farther than she knew.

Jacob Redd's little farm was on the northern edge of the valley; its fields and wood-lot ascended the side of the mountain. Anne, reaching the end of the wood-lot, opened the gate, and went on up the hill. She followed a little trail. The trees were larger than those through which she had travelled on the opposite side of the valley; it was a wood, not a thicket; the sunshine was hot, the green silent shade pleasant. She went on, although now the trail was climbing upward steeply, and rocks appeared. She had been ascending for half an hour, when she came suddenly upon a narrow, deep ravine, crossing from left to right; the trail turned and followed its edge; but as its depths looked cool and inviting, and as she thought she heard the sound of a brook below, she left the little path, and went downward into the glen. When she reached the bottom she found herself beside a brook, flowing along over white pebbles; it was not more than a foot wide, but full of life and merriment, going no one knew whither, and in a great hurry about it. A little brook is a fascinating object to persons unaccustomed to its coaxing, vagrant witcheries. There were no brooks on the island, only springs that trickled down from the cliffs into the lake in tiny silver water-falls. Anne followed the brook. Absorbed in her own thoughts, and naturally fearless, it did not occur to her that there might be danger even in this quiet forest. She went round a curve, then round another, when--what was that? She paused. Could he have seen her? Was he asleep?

Or--dead?

It was a common sight enough, a dead soldier in the uniform of the United States infantry. He was young, and his face, turned toward her, was as peaceful as if he was sleeping; there was almost a smile on his cold lips. With beating heart she looked around. There were twisted broken branches above on the steep side of the ravine; he had either fallen over, or else had dragged himself down to be out of danger, or perhaps to get water from the brook. The death-wound was in his breast; she could see traces of blood. But he could not have been long dead. It had been said that there was no danger in that neighborhood at present; then what was this? Only one of the chances of war, and a common one in that region: an isolated soldier taken off by a bullet from behind a tree. She stood looking sorrowfully down upon the prostrate form; then a thought came to her. She stooped to see if she could discover the ident.i.ty of the slain man from anything his pockets contained. There was no money, but various little possessions, a soldier's wealth--a puzzle carved in wood and neatly fitted together, a pocket-knife, a ball of twine, a pipe, and a ragged song-book. At last she came upon what she had hoped to find--a letter. It was from the soldier's mother, full of love and little items of neighborhood news, and ending, "May G.o.d bless you, my dear and only son!" The postmark was that of a small village in Michigan, and the mother's name was signed in full.

One page of the letter was blank; with the poor soldier's own pencil Anne drew upon this half sheet a sketch of his figure, lying there peacefully beside the little brook. Then she severed a lock of his hair, and went sadly away. July should come up and bury him; but the mother, far away in Michigan, should have something more than the silence and heart-breaking suspense of that terrible word "missing." The lock of hair, the picture, and the poor little articles taken from his pockets would be her greatest earthly treasures. For the girl forgets her lover, and the wife forgets her husband; but the mother never forgets her dear and only son.

When Anne reached the farm-house it was nearly four o'clock. July's black anxious face met hers as she glanced through the open door of the main room; he was sitting near the bed waving a long plume of feathers backward and forward to keep the flies from the sleeping face below. The negro came out on tiptoe, his enormous patched old shoes looking like caricatures, yet making no more sound, as he stole along, than the small slippers of a woman. "Cap'en he orful disappointed 'cause you worn't yere at dinner-time," he whispered. "An' Mars' Redd, Mis' Redd's husband, you know, him jess come home, and they's bote gone 'cross de valley to see some pusson they know that's sick; but they'll he back 'fore long. And Di she's gone to look fer _you_, 'cause she was moughty oneasy 'bout yer. An' she's been gone so long that _I'm_ moughty oneasy 'bout Di. P'r'aps you seen her, miss?"

No, Anne had not seen her. July looked toward the mountain-side anxiously. "Cap'en he's had 'em broth, and taken 'em medicine, and has jess settled down to a good long sleep; reckon he won't wake up till sunset. If you'll allow, miss, I'll run up and look for Di."

Anne saw that he intended to go, whether she wished it or not: the lazy fellow was fond of his wife. She gave her consent, therefore, on the condition that he would return speedily, and telling him of the dead soldier, suggested that when Farmer Redd returned the two men should go up the mountain together and bury him. Was there a burial-ground or church-yard in the neighborhood?

No; July knew of none; each family buried its dead on its own ground, "in a corner of a meddar." He went away, and Anne sat down to keep the watch.

She moved the long plume to and fro, refraining from even looking at the sleeper, lest by some occult influence he might feel the gaze and waken.

Mrs. Redd's clock in another room struck five. The atmosphere grew breathless; the flies became tenacious, almost adhesive; the heat was intense. She knew that a thunder-storm must be near, but from where she sat she could not see the sky, and she was afraid to stop the motion of the waving fan. Each moment she hoped to hear the sound of July's returning footsteps, or those of the Redds, but none came. Then at last with a gust and a whirl of hot sand the stillness was broken, and the storm was upon them. She ran to close the doors, but happily the sleeper was not awakened. The flies retreated to the ceiling, and she stood looking at the black rushing rain. The thunder was not loud, but the lightning was almost incessant. She now hoped that in the cooler air his sleep would be even deeper than before.

But when the storm had sobered down into steady soft gray rain, so that she could open the doors again, she heard a voice speaking her name:

"Anne."

She turned. Heathcote was awake, and gazing at her, almost as he had gazed in health.

Summoning all her self-possession, yet feeling drearily, unshakenly sure, even during the short instant of crossing the floor, that no matter what he might say (and perhaps he would say nothing), she should not swerve, and that this little moment, with all its pain and all its sweetness, would, for all its pain and all its sweetness, soon be gone, she sat down by the bedside, and taking up the fan, said, quietly:

"I am glad you are so much better. As the fever has not returned, in a week or two you may hope to be quite strong again. Do not try to talk, please. I will fan you to sleep."

"Very well," replied Heathcote, but reaching out as he spoke, and taking hold of the edge of her sleeve, which was near him.

"Why do you do that?" said his nurse, smiling, like one who humors the fancies of a child.

"To keep you from going away. You said you would be here at dinner, and you were not."

"I was detained. I intended to be here, but--"

She stopped, for Heathcote had closed his eyes, and she thought he was falling asleep. But no.

"It is raining," he said presently, still with closed eyes.

"Yes; a summer shower."

"Do you remember that thunder-storm when we were in the little cave? You are changed since then."

She made no answer.

"Your face has grown grave. No one would take you for a child now, but that day in the cave you were hardly more than one."

"You too are changed," she answered, turning the conversation from herself; "you are thin and pale. You must sleep and eat. Surrender yourself to that duty for the time being." She spoke with matter-of-fact cheerfulness, but her ears were strained to catch the sound of footsteps. None came, and the rain fell steadily. She began to dread rain.

Heathcote in his turn did not reply, but she was conscious that his eyes were open, and that he was looking at her. At last he said, gently,

"_I_ should have placed it there, Anne."

She turned; his gaze was fixed upon her left hand, and the gold ring given by the school-girls.

"He is kind to you? And you--are happy?" he continued, still gazing at the circlet.

She did not speak; she was startled and confused. He supposed, then, that she was married. Would it not be best to leave the error uncorrected? But--could she succeed in this?

"You do not answer," said Heathcote, lifting his eyes to her face. "Are you not happy, then?"

"Yes, I am happy," she answered, trying to smile. "But please do not talk; you are not strong enough for talking."

"I hope he is not here, or expected. Do not let him come in _here_, Anne: promise me."