Anne Part 76

By this time they were in the kitchen, and Mrs. Young went out to the porch to receive and pay for the fish, her niece Ruth silently following. Croom took off his old hat and made a backward sc.r.a.pe with his foot by way of salutation; his small head was covered with a mat of boyish-looking yellow curls, which contrasted strangely with his red face.

"Here's yer fish," he said, holding them out toward Anne.

But she could not take them: she was gazing, fascinated, at his hand--that broad short left hand which haunted her like a horrible phantom day and night. She raised her handkerchief to her lips in order to conceal, as far as possible, the horror she feared her face must betray.

"You never _could_ abide a fishy smell, Ruth," said Mrs. Young, interposing. She paid the fisherman, and asked whether he fished in the winter. He said "no," but gave no reason. He did not, as she had hoped, p.r.o.nounce the desired word. Then, after another gaze at Anne, he went away, but turned twice to look back before he reached the end of the garden.

"It can not be that he suspects!" murmured Anne.

"No; it's your face, child. Happy or unhappy, you can not help having just the same eyes, hair, and skin, thank the Lord!"

They went upstairs and watched him from the window; he pushed off his dug-out, got in, and paddled toward the village.

"More whiskey!" said Miss Lois, sitting down and rubbing her forehead.

"I wish, Ruth Young--I devoutly wish that I knew what it is best to do _now_!"

"Then you think with me?" said Anne, eagerly.

"By no means. There isn't a particle of _certainty_. But--I don't deny that there _is_ a chance. The trouble is that we can hardly stir in the matter without arousing his suspicion. If he had lived in the village among other people, it would not have been difficult; but, all alone in that far-off cabin--"

Anne clasped her hands suddenly. "Let us send for Pere Michaux!" she said. "There was a picture of the Madonna in his cabin--he is a Roman Catholic. Let us send for Pere Michaux."

They gazed at each other in excited silence. Miss Lois was the first to speak. "I'm not at all sure but that you have got hold of the difficulty by the right handle at last, Anne," she said, slowly, drawing a long audible breath. It was the first time she had used the name since their departure from New York.

And the letter was written immediately.

"It's a long journey for a small chance," said the elder woman, surveying it as it lay sealed on the table. "Still, I think he will come."

"Yes, for humanity's sake," replied Anne.

"I don't know about humanity," replied her companion, huskily; "but he will come for _yours_. Let us get out in the open air; I'm perfectly tired out by this everlasting whispering. It would be easier to roar."

The letter was sent. Four days for it to go, four days for the answer to return, one day for chance. They agreed not to become impatient before the tenth day.

But on the ninth came, not a letter, but something better--Pere Michaux in person.

They were in the fields at sunset, at some distance from the house, when Anne's eyes rested upon him, walking along the country road in his old robust fashion, on his way to the farm-house. She ran across the field to the fence, calling his name. Miss Lois followed, but more slowly; her mind was in a turmoil regarding his unexpected arrival, and the difficulty of making him comprehend or conform to the net-work of fable she had woven round their history.

The old priest gave Anne his blessing; he was much moved at seeing her again. She held his hand in both of her own, and could scarcely realize that it was he, her dear old island friend, standing there in person beside her.

"Dear, dear Pere Michaux, how good you are to come!" she said, incoherently, the tears filling her eyes, half in sorrow, half in joy.

Miss Lois now came up and greeted him. "I am glad to see you," she said.

Then, in the same breath: "Our names, Father Michaux, are Young; Young--please remember."

"How good you are to come!" said Anne again, the weight on her heart lightened for the moment as she looked into the clear, kind, wise old eyes that met her own.

"Not so very good," said Pere Michaux, smiling. "I have been wishing to see you for some time, and I think I should have taken the journey before long in any case. Vacations are due me; it is years since I have had one, and I am an old man now."

"You will never be old," said the girl, affectionately.

"Young is the name," repeated Miss Lois, with unconscious appositeness--"Deborah and Ruth Young."

"I am glad at least that I am not too old to help you, my child,"

answered Pere Michaux, paying little heed to the elder woman's anxious voice.

They were still standing by the road-side. Pere Michaux proposed that they should remain in the open air while the beautiful hues of the sunset lasted, and they therefore returned to the field, and sat down under an elm-tree. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances, Miss Lois would have strenuously objected to this sylvan indulgence, having peculiarly combative feelings regarding dew; but this evening the maze of doubt in which she was wandering as to whether or not Pere Michaux would stay in her web made dew a secondary consideration. Remaining in the fields would at least give time.

Pere Michaux was as clear-headed and energetic as ever. After the first few expressions of gladness and satisfaction, it was not long before he turned to Anne, and spoke of the subject which lay before them. "Tell me all," he said. "This is as good a time and place as any we could have, and there should be, I think, no delay."

But though he spoke to Anne, it was Miss Lois who answered: it would have been simply impossible for her not to take that narrative into her own hands.

He listened to the tale with careful attention, not interrupting her many details with so much as a smile or a shrug. This was very unlike his old way with Miss Lois, and showed more than anything else could have done his absorbed interest in the story.

"It is the old truth," he said, after the long stream of words had finally ceased. "Regarding the unravelling of mysteries, women seem sometimes endowed with a sixth sense. A diamond is lost on a turnpike. A man goes along the turnpike searching for it. A woman, searching for it also, turns vaguely off into a field, giving no logical reason for her course, and--finds it."

But while he talked, his mind was in reality dwelling upon the pale girl beside him, the young girl in whom he had felt such strong interest, for whom he had involuntarily cherished such high hope in those early days on the island.

He knew of her testimony at the trial; he had not been surprised. What he had prophesied for her had come indeed. But not so fortunately or so happily as he had hoped. He had saved her from Erastus p.r.o.nando for this! Was it well done? He roused himself at last, perceiving that Anne was noticing his abstraction; her eyes were fixed upon him with anxious expectation.

"I must go to work in my own way," he said, stroking her hair. "One point, however, I have already decided: _you_ must leave this neighborhood immediately. I wish you had never come."

"But she can not be separated from me," said Miss Lois; "and of course _I_ shall be necessary in the search--_I_ must be here."

"I do not see that there is any necessity at present," replied Pere Michaux. "You have done all you could, and I shall work better, I think, alone." Then, as the old quick anger flashed from her eyes, he turned to Anne. "It is on your account, child," he said. "I must _make_ you go. I know it is like taking your life from you to send you away now. But if anything comes of this--if your woman's blind leap into the dark proves to have been guided by intuition, the lime-light of publicity will instantly be turned upon this neighborhood, and you could not escape discovery. Your precautions, or rather those of our good friend Miss Lois, have availed so far: you can still depart in their shadow un.o.bserved. Do so, then, while you can. My first wish is--can not help being--that you should escape. I would rather even have the clew fail than have your name further connected with the matter."

"This is what we get by applying to a _man_," said Miss Lois, in high indignation. "Always thinking of evil!"

"Yes, men do think of it. But Anne will yield to my judgment, will she not?"

"I will do as you think best," she answered. But no color rose in her pale face, as he had expected; the pressing danger and the fear clothed the subject with a shroud.

Miss Lois did not hide her anger and disappointment. Yet she would not leave Anne. And therefore the next morning Mrs. Young and her niece, with health much improved by their sojourn in the country, bade good-by to their hostess, and went southward in the little stage on their way back to "Washington."

Pere Michaux was not seen at the farm-house at all; he had returned to the village from the fields, and had taken rooms for a short sojourn at the Timloe hotel.

The "Washington," in this instance, was a small town seventy miles distant; here Mrs. Young and her niece took lodgings, and began, with what patience they could muster, their hard task of waiting.

As for Pere Michaux, he went fishing.

EXTRACT FROM THE LETTER OF A SUMMER FISHERMAN.

"I have labored hard, Anne--harder than ever before in my life. I thought I knew what patience was, in my experience with my Indians and half-breeds. I never dreamed of its breadth until now! For my task has been the hard one of winning the trust of a trustless mind--trustless, yet crafty; of subduing its ever-rising reasonless suspicion; of rousing its nearly extinct affections; of touching its undeveloped, almost dead, conscience, and raising it to the point of confession. I said to myself that I would do all this in sincerity; that I would make myself do it in sincerity; that I would teach the poor creature to love me, and having once gained his warped affection, I would a.s.sume the task of caring for him as long as life lasted. If I did this in truth and real earnestness I might succeed, as the missionaries of my Church succeed, with the most brutal savages, _because_ they are in earnest. Undertaking this, of course I also accepted the chance that all my labor, regarding the hope that _you_ have cherished, might be in vain, and that this poor bundle of clay might not be, after all, the criminal we seek. Yet had it been so, my care of him through life must have been the same; having gained his confidence, I could never have deserted him while I lived. Each day I have labored steadily; but often I have advanced so slowly that I seemed to myself not to advance at all.

"I began by going to the pond to fish. We met daily. At first I did not speak; I allowed him to become accustomed to my presence. It was a long time before I even returned his glance of confused respect and acquaintance as our boats pa.s.sed near each other, for he had at once recognized the priest. I built my foundations with exactest care and patience, often absenting myself in order to remove all suspicion of watchfulness or regularity from his continually suspicious mind; for suspicion, enormously developed, is one of his few mental powers. I had to make my way through its layers as a minute blood-vessel penetrates the c.u.mbrous leathern hide of the rhinoceros.

"I will not tell you all the details now; but at last, one morning, by a little chance event, my long, weary, and apparently unsuccessful labor was crowned with success. He became attached to me. I suppose in all his poor warped life before no one had ever shown confidence in him or tried to win his affection.