Anne Part 60

The musical instrument maker's window was entirely frozen over, the frost was like a white curtain shutting him out from the world; it was to be hoped that he found comfort in playing on his tambourine within.

This time Herr Scheffel was at home, and he had a hope concerning a place in another choir. Anne returned to Lancaster cheered. As she walked homeward from the railway station down the hard country road, darkness was falling, and she wondered why the faithful Li was not there as usual to meet her. When she came within sight of the half-house, it was blazing with light; from every window radiance streamed, smoke ascended from the chimneys, and she could see figures within moving about as if at work. What could it mean? She went up the steps, opened the door, and entered. Was this her barren home?

Workmen were putting the finishing touches to what seemed to have been an afternoon's labor; Li, in a fever of excitement, was directing everybody. Through the open door Nora could be seen moving to and fro amid barrels, boxes, and bags. The men had evidently received their orders, for as soon as the young mistress of the house appeared they hastily concluded their labors, and, taking their tools, vanished like so many genii of the ring. Anne called them back, but they were already far down the road. Li and Nora explained together that the men and two wagon-loads of furniture had arrived at the door of the half-house at two o'clock, and that the head workman, showing Mr. Dexter's card, had claimed entrance and liberty to carry out his orders; he had a rough plan of the rooms, sketched by Dexter, and was to follow his directions.

Li and Nora, already warm adherents, entered into the scheme with all their hearts, and the result was that mademoiselle's little house was now carpeted, and warmed, and filled from top to bottom. The bare store-room was crowded, the cupboards garnished; there were easy-chairs, curtains, pictures, and even flowers--tea-roses in a vase. The furniture was perhaps too ma.s.sive, the carpets and curtains too costly for the plain abode; Dexter always erred on the side of magnificence. His lavishness had been brought up at Caryl's as a testimony against him, for it was a decided evidence of newness. But on this gloomy freezing winter night no one could have the heart to say that the rich fabrics were not full of comfort both to the eye and touch, and Anne, sinking into one of the easy-chairs, uncertain what to do, was at least not at all uncertain as to the comfort of the cushioned back; it was luxurious.

Later, in her own room, she sat looking at the unexpected gifts which faced her from all sides. What should she do? It was not right to force them upon her; and yet how like him was the lavish quick generosity! In her poverty the gift seemed enormous; yet it was not. The little home possessed few rooms, had seemed hardly more than a toy house to the city workmen who had hastily filled it. But to Anne it seemed magical. Books had been bought for her also, the well-proved standard works which Dexter always selected for his own reading. In his busy life this American had not had time to study the new writers; he was the one person left who still quoted Addison. After looking at the books, Anne, opening the closet door by chance, saw a long cedar case upon the floor; it was locked, but the key was in an envelope bearing her name. She opened the case; a faint fragrance floated out, as, from its wrappings, she drew forth an India shawl, dark, rich, and costly enough for a d.u.c.h.ess. There was a note inside the case from Dexter--a note hastily written in pencil:

"DEAR MISS DOUGLAS,--I do not know whether this is anything you can wear, but at least it is warm. On the night I first met you you were shivering, and I have thought of it ever since. Please accept the shawl, therefore, and the other trifles, from your friend, G. D."

The trifles were furs--sable. Here, as usual, Dexter had selected the costly; he knew no other way. And thus surrounded by all the new luxury of the room, with the shawl and the furs in her hands, Anne stood, an image of perplexity.

The next day the giver came out. She received him gravely. There was a look in her eyes which told him that he had not won her approval.

"Of course I do not intend to trouble you often with visits," he said, as he gave his furred overcoat to Li. "But one or two may be allowed, I think, from such an old friend."

"And to such a desolate girl."

"Desolate no longer," he answered, choosing to ignore the reproach of the phrase.

He installed himself in one of the new arm-chairs (looking, it must be confessed, much more comfortable than before), and began to talk in a fluent general way, approaching no topics that were personal. Meanwhile old Nora, hearing from Li that the benefactor of the household was present, appeared, strong in the new richness of her store-room, at the door, and dropping a courtesy, wished to know at what hour it would please him to dine. She said "your honor"; she had almost said "your highness." Her homage was so sincere that Anne smiled, and Dexter laughed outright.

"You see I am expected to stay, whether you wish it or not," he said.

"Do let me; it shall be for the last time." Then turning to Nora, he said, "At four." And with another reverence, the old woman withdrew.

"It is a viciously disagreeable afternoon. You would not, I think, have the heart to turn out even a dog," he continued, leaning back at ease, and looking at his hostess, his eyes shining with amus.e.m.e.nt: he was reading her objections, and triumphing over them. Then, as he saw her soberness deepen, he grew grave immediately. "I am staying to-day because I wish to talk with you, Anne," he said. "I shall not come again. I know as well as you do, of course, that you can not receive me while you have no better chaperon than Nora." He paused, looking at her downcast face. "You do not like what I have done?"

"No."

"Why?"

"You have loaded me with too heavy an obligation."

"Any other reason?"

"I can never repay you."

"In addition?"

"It is not right that you should treat me as though I were a child."

"I knew you would object, and strongly; yet I hope to bring you over yet to my view of the case," said Dexter. "You say that I have placed you under too heavy an obligation. But pray consider what a slight affair the little gift seems to me. The house is very small; I have spent but a few hundreds; in all, with the exception of the shawl and furs, not much over five. What is that to an income like mine? You say you can never repay me. You repay me by accepting. It seems to me a n.o.ble quality to accept, simply and generously accept; and I have believed that yours was a n.o.ble nature. Accept, then, generously what it is such a pleasure to me to give. On my own side, I say this: the woman Gregory Dexter once asked to be his wife shall not suffer from want while Gregory Dexter lives, and knows where to find her. This has nothing to do with you; it is my side of the subject."

He spoke with much feeling. Anne looked at him. Then she rose, and with quiet dignity gave him, as he rose also, her hand. He understood the silent little action. "You have answered my expectation," he said, and the subject was at an end forever.

After dinner, in the twilight, he spoke again. "You said, an hour or two ago, that I had treated you as though you were a child. It is true; for you were a child at Caryl's, and I remembered you as you were then. But you are much changed; looking at you now, it is impossible that I should ever think of you in the same way again."

She made no reply.

"Can you tell me nothing of yourself, of your personal life since we parted? Your engagement, for instance?"

"It is ended. Mr. p.r.o.nando is married; he married my sister. You did not see the notice?" (Anne's thoughts were back in the West Virginia farm-house now with the folded slip of newspaper.)

"No; I was in the far West until April. I did not come eastward until the war broke out. Then you are free, Anne? Do not be afraid to tell me; I remember every word you said in Miss Vanhorn's little red parlor, and I shall not repeat my mistake. You are, then, free?"

"I can not answer you."

"Then I will not ask; it all belongs to the one subject, I suppose. The only part intrusted to me--the secret of your being here--I will religiously guard. As to your present life--you would rather let this Herr Scheffel continue looking for a place for you?"

"Yes."

"I will not interfere. But I shall write to you now and then, and you must answer. If at the end of a month you have not obtained this position you are hoping for--in a church choir, is it not?--you must let me know. Will you promise?"

"I promise."

"And bear in mind this: you shall never be left friendless again while I am on earth to protect you."

"But I have no right to--"

"Yes, you have; you have been more to me than you know." Here he paused, and looked away as if debating with himself. "I have always intended that you should know it some time," he continued; "perhaps this is as good a time as any. Will you listen?"

"Yes."

He settled himself anew in his chair, meditated a moment, and then, with all his natural fluency, which nothing could abate, with the self-absorption which men of his temperament always show when speaking of themselves, and yet with a certain guarded look at Anne too all the while, as if curious to see how she would take his words, he began:

"You know what my life has been--that is, generally. What I wish to tell you now is an inner phase. When, at the beginning of middle age, at last I had gained the wealth I always intended to have, I decided that I would marry. I wished to have a home. Of course, during all those toiling years, I had not been without what are called love affairs, but I was far too intensely absorbed in my own purposes to spend much time upon them. Besides, I had preserved an ideal.

"I do not intend to conceal or deny that I am ambitious: I made a deliberate effort to gain admittance into what is called the best society in the Eastern cities, and in a measure I succeeded. I enjoyed the life; it was another world; but still, wherever I went it seemed to me that the women were artificial. Beautiful, attractive, women I could not help admiring, but--not like my ideal of what my wife must be. They would never make for me that home I coveted; for while I stood ready to surround that home with luxury, in its centre I wanted, for myself alone, a true and loving heart, a heart absorbed in me. And then, while I knew that I wanted this, while I still cherished my old ideal closely, what did I do? I began to love Rachel Bannert!

"You look at me; you do not understand why I speak in that tone. It is as well that you should not. I can only say that I worshipped her. It was not her fault that I began to love her, but it was her fault that I was borne on so far; for she made me believe that she loved me; she gave me the privileges of a lover. I never doubted (how could I?) that she would be my wife in the end, although, for reasons of her own, she wished to keep the engagement, for the time being, a secret. I submitted, because I loved her. And then, when I was helpless, because I was so sure of her, she turned upon me and cast me off. Like a worn-out glove!

"Anne, I could not believe it. We were in the ravine; she had strolled off in that direction, as though by chance, and I had followed her. I asked her what she meant: no doubt I looked like a dolt. She laughed in my face. It seemed that she had only been amusing herself; that she had never had any intention of marrying me; a 'comedy of the summer.' But no one laughs in my face twice--not even a woman. When, at last, I understood her, my infatuation vanished; and I said some words to her that night which I think she will not soon forget. Then I turned and left.

"Remember that this was no boy whose feelings she had played with, whose respect she had forfeited; it was a man, and one who had expected to find in this Eastern society a perfection of delicacy and refinement not elsewhere seen. I scorned myself for having loved her, and for the moment I scorned all women too. Then it was, Anne, that the thought of _you_ saved me. I said to myself that if you would be my wife, I could be happy with your fresh sincerity, and not sink into that unbelieving, disagreeable cynicism which I had always despised in other men. Acting on the impulse, I asked you.

"I did not love you, save as all right-minded men love and admire a sweet young girl; but I believed in you; there was something about you that aroused trust and confidence. Besides--I tell you this frankly--I thought I should succeed. I certainly did not want to be repulsed twice in one day. I see now that I was misled by Miss Vanhorn. But I did not see it then, and when I spoke to you, I fully expected that you would answer yes.

"You answered no, Anne, but you still saved me. I still believed in you.

And more than ever after that last interview. I went away from Caryl's early the next morning, and two days later started for the West. I was hurt through and through, angry with myself, disgusted with life. I wanted to breathe again the freedom of the border. Yet through it all your memory was with me as that of one true, pure, steadfast woman-heart which compelled me to believe in goodness and steadfastness as possibilities in women, although I myself had been so blindly befooled.

This is what you, although unconsciously, have done for me: it is an inestimable service.

"I was not much moved from my disgust until something occurred which swept me out of myself--I mean the breaking out of the war. I had not believed in its possibility; but when the first gun was fired, I started eastward at an hour's notice." Here Dexter rose, and with folded arms walked to and fro across the floor. "The cla.s.s of people you met at Caryl's used to smile and shrug their shoulders over what is called patriotism--I think they are smiling no longer."--(Here Anne remembered "After that attack on Fort Sumter, it seemed to me the only thing to do") "but the tidings of that first gun stirred something in _my_ breast which is, I suppose, what that word means. As soon as I reached Pennsylvania, I went up to the district where my mines are, gathered together and equipped all the volunteers who would go. I have been doing similar work on a larger scale ever since. I should long ago have been at the front in person were it not that the Governor requires my presence at home, and I am well aware also that I am worth twenty times more in matters of organization than I should be simply as one more man in the field."

This was true. Gregory Dexter's remarkable business powers and energy, together with his wealth, force, and lavish liberality, made him the strong arm of his State throughout the entire war.

He asked for no comment upon his story; he had told it briefly as a series of facts. But from it he hoped that the listener would draw a feeling which would make her rest content under his friendly aid. And he succeeded.