The Rector of St. Mark's Part 3

"What does she mean?" the rector thought. "Is she trying to tantalize me? I expected her to be natural, as her aunt laid great stress on that, but she need not overdo the matter by showing me how little she cares for having hurt me so."

Then, as a flash of pride came to his aid, he thought, "I will at least be even with her. She shall not have the satisfaction of guessing how much I suffer," and as Lucy then called to him from the opposite side of the lawn, he asked Anna to accompany him thither, just as he would have done a week before. Once that afternoon he found himself alone with her in a quiet part of the woods, where the long branches of a great oak came nearly to the ground, and formed a little bower which looked so inviting that Anna sat down upon the gnarled roots of the tree, and, tossing her hat upon the gra.s.s, exclaimed, "How nice and pleasant it is here. Come, sit down, too, while I tell you about my cla.s.s in Sunday-school, and that poor Mrs. Hobbs across the mill stream. You won't forget her, will you? I told her you would visit her the oftener when I was gone. Do you know she cried because I was going? It made me feel so badly that I doubted if it was right for me to go," and, pulling down a handful of the oak leaves above her head, Anna began weaving together a chaplet, while the rector stood watching her with a puzzled expression upon his face. She did not act as if she ever could have dictated that letter, but he had no suspicion of the truth and answered rather coldly, "I did not suppose you cared how much we might miss you at home."

Something in his tone made Anna look up into his face, and her eyes immediately filled with tears, for she knew that in some way she had displeased him.

"Then you mistake me," she replied, the tears still glittering on her long eyelashes, and her fingers trembling among the oaken leaves. "I do care whether I am missed or not."

"Missed by whom?" the rector asked, and Anna impetuously replied, "Missed by the parish poor, and by you, too, Mr. Leighton. You don't know how often I shall think of you, or how sorry I am that----"

She did not finish the sentence, for the rector had leaped madly at the conclusion, and was down in the gra.s.s at her side with both her hands in his.

"Anna, oh Anna," he began so pleadingly, "have you repented of your decision? Tell me that you have and it will make me so happy. I have been so wretched ever since."

She thought he meant her decision about going to Saratoga, and she replied: "I have not repented, Mr. Leighton. Aunt Meredith thinks it best, and so do I, though I am sorry for you, if you really do care so much."

Anna was talking blindly, her thoughts upon one subject, while the rector's were upon another, and matters were getting somewhat mixed when, "Arthur, Arthur, where are you?" came ringing through the woods and Lucy Harcourt appeared, telling them that the refreshments were ready.

"We are only waiting for you two, wondering where you had gone, but never dreaming that you had stolen away to make love," she said, playfully, adding more earnestly as she saw the traces of agitation visible in Anna's face, "and I do believe you were. If so, I beg pardon for my intrusion."

She spoke a little sharply and glanced inquiringly at Mr. Leighton; who, feeling that he had virtually been repulsed a second time by Anna, answered her, "On the contrary, I am very glad you came, and so, I am sure, is Miss Anna. I am ready to join you at the table. Come, Anna, they are waiting," and he offered his arm to the bewildered girl, who replied, "Not just now, please. Leave me for a moment. I won't be long."

Very curiously Lucy looked at Anna and then at Mr. Leighton, who, fully appreciating the feelings of the latter, said, by way of explanation: "You see, she has not quite finished that chaplet, which, I suspect, is intended for you. I think we had better leave her," and, drawing Lucy's hand under his own, he walked away, leaving Anna more stunned and pained than she had ever been before. Surely if love had ever spoken in tone and voice and manner, it had spoken when Mr.

Leighton was kneeling on the gra.s.s, holding her hands in his. "Anna, oh, Anna!" How she had thrilled at the sound of those words and waited for what might follow next. Why had his manner changed so suddenly, and why had he been so glad to be interrupted? Had he really no intention of making love to her, and if he had, why did he rouse her hopes so suddenly and then cruelly dash them to the ground? Was it that he loved Lucy best, and that the sight of her froze the words upon his lips?

"Let him take her, then. He is welcome, for all of me," she thought; and then, as a keen pang of shame and disappointment swept over her, she laid her head for a moment upon the gra.s.s and wept bitterly. "He must have seen what I expected and I care most for that," she sobbed, resolving henceforth to guard herself at every point and do all that lay in her power to further Lucy's interests, "He will thus see how little I really care," she thought, and, lifting up her head, she tore in fragments the wreath she had been making, but which she could not now place on the head of her rival.

Mr. Leighton was flirting terribly with her when she joined the party a.s.sembled around the table, and he never once looked at Anna, though he saw that her plate was well supplied with the best of everything, and when at one draught she drained her gla.s.s of ice-water, he quietly placed another within her reach, standing a little before her and trying evidently to shield her from too critical observation. There were two at least who were glad when the picnic was over, and various were the private opinions of the company with regard to the entertainment. Dr. Bellamy, who had been repeatedly foiled in his attempts to be especially attentive to Lucy Harcourt, p.r.o.nounced the whole thing "a bore." f.a.n.n.y, who had been highly displeased with the doctor's deportment, came to the conclusion that the enjoyment did not compensate for all the trouble, and while the rector thought he had never spent a more thoroughly wretched day, and Anna would have given worlds if she had stayed at home, Lucy declared that never in her life had she had so perfectly delightful a time, always excepting, of course, "that moonlight sail in Venice."

CHAPTER VI.

WEDNESDAY.

There was a heavy shower the night succeeding the picnic and the morning following was as balmy and bright as June mornings are wont to be after a fall of rain. They were always early risers at the farmhouse, but this morning Anna, who had slept but little, arose earlier than usual and, leaning from the window to inhale the bracing air and gather a bunch of roses fresh with the glittering raindrops, she felt her spirits grow lighter and wondered at her discomposure of the previous day. Particularly was she grieved that she should have harbored a feeling of bitterness toward Lucy Harcourt, who was not to blame for having won the love she had been foolish enough to covet.

"He knew her first," she said, "and if he has since been pleased with me, the sight of her has won him back to his allegiance, and it is right. She is a pretty creature, but strangely unsuited, I fear, to be his wife," and then, as she remembered Lucy's wish to go with her when next she visited the poor, she said:

"I will take her to see the Widow Hobbs. That will give her some idea of the duties which will devolve upon her as a rector's wife. I can go directly there from Prospect Hill, where, I suppose, I must call with Aunt Meredith."

Anna made herself believe that in doing this she was acting only from a magnanimous desire to fit Lucy for her work, if, indeed, she was to be Arthur's wife--that in taking the mantle from her own shoulders, and wrapping it around her rival, she was doing a most amiable deed, when down in her inmost heart, where the tempter had put it, there was an unrecognized wish to see how the little dainty girl would shrink from the miserable abode, and recoil from the touch of the little, dirty hands which were sure to be laid upon her dress if the children were at home, and she waited a little impatiently to start on her errand of mercy.

It was four o'clock when, with her aunt, she arrived at Colonel Hetherton's and found the family a.s.sembled upon the broad piazza, the doctor dutifully holding the skein of worsted from which Miss f.a.n.n.y was crocheting, and Lucy playing with a kitten, whose movements were scarcely more graceful than her own, as she sprang up and ran to welcome Anna.

"Oh, yes, I am delighted to go with you. Pray let us start at once,"

she exclaimed, when, after a few moments of conversation, Anna told where she was going.

Lucy was very gayly dressed, enough so for a party, Anna thought, smiling to herself as she imagined the startling effect the white muslin and bright plaid ribbons would have upon the inmates of the shanty where they were going. There was a remonstrance from Mrs.

Hetherton against her niece's walking so far, and Mrs. Meredith suggested that they should ride, but to this Lucy objected. She meant to take Anna's place among the poor when she was gone, she said, and how was she ever to do it if she could not walk such a little way as that? Anna, too, was averse to riding and she felt a kind of grim satisfaction when, after a time, the little figure, which at first had skipped along ahead with all the airiness of a bird, began to lag, and even pant for breath, as the way grew steeper and the path more stony and rough. Anna's evil spirit was in the ascendant that afternoon, steeling her heart against Lucy's doleful exclamations, as one after another her delicate slippers were torn, and the sharp thistles, of which the path was full, penetrated to her soft flesh. Straight and unbending as a young Indian, Anna walked on, shutting her ears against the sighs of weariness which reached them from time to time. But when there came a half sobbing cry of actual pain, she stopped suddenly and turned towards Lucy, whose breath came gaspingly, and whose cheeks were almost purple with the exertion she had made.

"I cannot go any farther until I rest," she said, sinking down, exhausted, upon a large flat rock beneath a walnut tree.

Touched with pity at the sight of the heated face, from which the sweat was dripping, Anna too sat down beside her, and, laying her curly head in her lap, smoothed the golden hair, hating herself cordially, as Lucy said:

"You've walked so fast I could not keep up. You do not know, perhaps, how weak I am, and how little it takes to tire me. They say my heart is diseased, and an unusual excitement might kill me."

"No, oh, no!" Anna answered with a shudder, as she thought of what might have been the result of her rashness, and then she smoothed the wet hair, which, dried by the warm sunbeams, coiled itself up in golden ma.s.ses, which her fingers softly threaded.

"I did not know until that time in Venice, when Arthur talked to me so good, trying to make me feel that it was not hard to die, even if I was so young and the world so full of beauty," Lucy went on, her voice sounding very low and her bright shoulder-knots of ribbon trembling with the rapid beating of her heart. "When he was talking to me I could almost be willing to die, but the moment he was gone the doubts and fears came back, and death was terrible again. I was always better with Arthur. Everybody is, and I think your seeing so much of him is one reason why you are so good."

"No, no, I am not good," and Anna's hands pressed hard upon the girlish head lying in her lap. "I am wicked beyond what you can guess.

I led you this rough way when I might have chosen a smooth, though longer, road, and walked so fast on purpose to worry you."

"To worry me. Why should you wish to do that?" and, lifting up her head, Lucy looked wonderingly at the conscience-stricken Anna, who could not confess to the jealousy, but who, in all other respects, answered truthfully, "I think an evil spirit possessed me for a time, and I wanted to show you that it was not so nice to visit the poor as you seemed to think; but I am sorry, oh, so sorry, and you'll forgive me, won't you?"

A loving kiss was pressed upon her lips and a warm cheek was laid against her own, as Lucy said, "Of course, I'll forgive you, though I do not quite understand why you should wish to discourage me or tease me either, when I liked you so much from the first moment I heard your voice and saw you in the choir. You don't dislike me, do you?"

"No, oh, no. I love you very dearly," Anna replied, her tears falling like rain upon the slight form she hugged so pa.s.sionately to her, and which she would willingly have borne in her arms the remainder of their way, as a kind of penance for her past misdeeds; but Lucy was much better, she said, and so the two, between whom there was now a bond of love which nothing could sever, went on together to the low, dismal house where the Widow Hobbs lived.

The gate was off the hinges, and Lucy's muslin was torn upon a nail as she pa.s.sed through, while the long fringe of her fleecy shawl was caught in the tall tufts of thistle growing by the path. In a muddy pool of water a few rods from the house a flock of ducks were swimming, pelted occasionally by the group of dirty, ragged children playing on the gra.s.s, and who at sight of the strangers and the basket Anna carried, sprang up like a flock of pigeons and came trooping towards her. It was not the sweet, pastoral scene which Lucy had pictured to herself, with Arthur for the background, and her ardor was greatly dampened even before the threshold was crossed, and she stood in the low, close room where the sick woman lay, her large eyes unnaturally bright, and turned wistfully upon them as she entered.

There were ashes upon the hearth and ashes upon the floor, a hair-brush upon the table and an empty plate upon the chair, with swarms of flies sipping the few drops of mola.s.ses and feeding upon the crumbs of bread left there by the elfish-looking child now in the bed beside its mother. There was nothing but poverty--squalid, disgusting poverty--visible everywhere, and Lucy grew sick and faint at the, to her, unusual sight.

"They have not lived here long. We only found them three weeks ago; they will look better by and by," Anna whispered, feeling that some apology was necessary for the dest.i.tution and filth visible everywhere.

Daintily removing the plate to the table, and carefully tucking up her skirts, Lucy sat down upon the wooden chair and looked dubiously on while Anna made the sick woman more tidy in appearance, and then fed her from the basket of provisions which Grandma Humphreys had sent.

"I never could do that," Lucy thought, as, shoving off the little dirty hand fingering her shoulder-knots she watched Anna washing the poor woman's face, bending over her pillow as unhesitatingly as if it had been covered with ruffled linen like those at Prospect Hill, instead of the coa.r.s.e, soiled rag which hardly deserved the name of pillow-case. "No, I never could do that," and the possible life with Arthur which the maiden had more than once imagined began to look very dreary, when, suddenly, a shadow darkened the door, and Lucy knew before she turned her head that the rector was standing at her back, the blood tingling through her veins with a delicious feeling; as, laying both hands upon her shoulders, and bending over her so that she felt his breath upon her brow he said:

"What, my Lady Lucy here? I hardly expected to find two ministering angels, though I was almost sure of one," and his fine eyes rested on Anna with a strange, wistful look of tenderness, which neither she nor Lucy saw.

"Then you knew she was coming," Lucy said, an uneasy thought flashing across her mind as she remembered the picnic, and the scene she had stumbled upon.

But Arthur's reply, "I did not know she was coming, I only knew it was like her," rea.s.sured her for a time, making her resolve to emulate the virtues which Arthur seemed to prize so highly. What a difference his presence made in that wretched room! She did not mind the poverty now, or care if her dress was stained with the mola.s.ses left in the chair, and the inquisitive child with tattered gown and bare brown legs was welcome to examine and admire the bright plaid ribbons as much as she chose.

Lucy had no thought for anything but Arthur, and the subdued expression of his face as, kneeling by the sick woman's bedside, he said the prayers she had hungered for more than for the contents of Anna's basket, now being purloined by the children crouched upon the hearth and fighting over the last bit of gingerbread.

"Hush-sh, little one," and Lucy's white, jeweled hand rested on the head of the princ.i.p.al belligerent, who, awed by the beauty of her face and the authoritative tone of her voice, kept quiet till the prayer was over and Arthur had risen from his knees.

"Thank you, Lucy; I think I must const.i.tute you my deaconess when Miss Ruthven is gone. Your very presence has a subduing effect upon the little savages. I never knew them so quiet before for a long time,"

Arthur said to Lucy in a low tone, which, low as it was, reached Anna's ear, but brought no pang of jealousy, or a sharp regret for what she felt was lost forever.

She was giving Lucy to Arthur Leighton, resolving that by every means in her power she would further her rival's cause, and the hot tears which dropped so fast upon Mrs. Hobbs' pillow while Arthur said the prayer was but the baptism of that vow, and not, as Lucy thought, because she felt so sorry for the suffering woman to whom she had brought so much comfort.

"G.o.d bless you wherever you go," she said, "and if there is any great good which you desire, may He bring it to pa.s.s."

"He never will--no, never," was the sad response in Anna's heart, as she joined the clergyman and Lucy outside the door, the former pointing to the ruined slippers and asking how she ever expected to walk home in such dilapidated things.