Way Down East Part 3

It seemed to Anna when Friday came, that human experience had nothing further to offer in the way of mental anguish and suspense. She had thrashed out the question of her secret marriage to Sanderson till her brain refused to work further, and there was in her mind only dread and a haunting sense of loss. If she had only herself to consider, she would not have hesitated a moment. But Sanderson, his father, and her own mother were all involved.

Was she doing right by her mother? At times, the advantage to the invalid accruing from this marriage seemed manifold. Again it seemed to Anna but a senseless piece of folly, prompted by her own selfish love for Sanderson. And so the days wore on until the eventful Friday came, and Anna said good-bye to Mrs. Standish Tremont with livid cheeks and tearful eyes.

"And do you feel so badly about going away, my dear?" said the great lady, looking at those visible signs of distress and feeling not a little flattered by her young cousin's show of affection. "We must have you down soon again," and she patted Anna's cheek and hurried her into the car, for Mrs. Tremont had a horror of scenes and signals warned her that Anna was on the verge of tears.

The locomotive whistled, the cars gave a jolt, and Anna Moore was launched on her tragic fate. She never knew how the time pa.s.sed after leaving Mrs. Tremont, till Sanderson joined her at the next station.

She felt as if her will power had deserted her, and she was dumbly obeying the behests of some unseen relentless force. She looked at the strange faces about her, hopelessly. Perhaps it was not too late---perhaps some kind motherly woman would tell her if she were doing right. But they all looked so strange and forbidding, and while she turned the question over and over in her mind, the car stopped, the brakeman called the station and Lennox Sanderson got on.

She turned to him in her utter perplexity, forgetting he was the cause of it.

"My darling, how pale you are. Are you ill?"

"Not ill, but----" He would not let her finish, but rea.s.sured her by the tenderest of looks, the warmest of hand clasps, and the terrified girl began to lose the hunted feeling that she had.

They rode on for fully an hour. Sanderson was perfectly self-possessed. He might have been married every day in the year, for any difference it made in his demeanor. He was perfectly composed, laughed and chatted as wittily as ever. In time, Anna partook of his mood and laughed back. She felt as if a weight had been lifted off her mind. At last they stopped at a little station called Whiteford. An old-fashioned carriage was waiting for them; they entered it and the driver, whipped up his horses. A drive of a half mile brought them to an ideal white cottage surrounded by porches and hidden in a tangle of vines. The door was opened for them by the Rev. John Langdon in person.

He seemed a preternaturally grave young man to Anna and his clerical attire was above reproach. Any misgivings one might have had regarding him on the score of his youth, were more than counterbalanced by his almost supernatural gravity.

He apologized for the absence of his wife, saying she had been called away suddenly, owing to the illness of her mother. His housekeeper and gardener would act as witnesses. Sanderson hastily took Anna to one side and said: "I forgot to tell you, darling, that I am going to be married by my two first names only, George Lennox. It is just the same, but if the Sanderson got into any of those country marriage license papers, I should be afraid the governor would hear of it--penalty of having a great name, you know," he concluded gayly.

"Thought I had better mention it, as it would not do to have you surprised over your husband's name."

Again the feeling of dread completely over-powered her. She looked at him with her great sorrowful eyes, as a trapped animal will sometimes look at its captor, but she could not speak. Some terrible blight seemed to have overgrown her brain, depriving her of speech and willpower.

The witnesses entered. Anna was too agitated to notice that the Rev.

John Langdon's housekeeper was a very singular looking young woman for her position. Her hair was conspicuously dark at the roots and conspicuously light on the ends. Her face was hard and when she smiled her mouth, a.s.sumed a wolfish expression. She was loudly dressed and wore a profusion of jewelry--altogether a most remarkable looking woman for the place she occupied.

The gardener had the appearance of having been suddenly wakened before nature had had her full quota of sleep. He was blear-eyed and his breath was more redolent of liquor than one might have expected in the gardener of a parsonage.

The room in which the ceremony was to take place was the ordinary cottage parlor, with crochet work on the chairs, and a profusion of vases and bric-a-brac on the tables. The Rev. John Langdon requested Anna and Sanderson to stand by a little marble table from which the housekeeper brushed a profusion of knick-knacks. There was no Bible.

Anna was the first to notice the omission. This seemed to deprive the young clergyman of his dignity. He looked confused, blushed, and turning to the housekeeper told her to fetch the Bible. This seemed to appeal to the housekeeper's sense of humor. She burst out laughing and said something about looking for a needle in a haystack. Sanderson turned on her furiously, and she left the room, looking sour, and muttering indignantly. She returned, after what seemed an interminable s.p.a.ce of time, and the ceremony proceeded.

Anna did not recognize her own voice as she answered the responses.

Sanderson's was clear and ringing; his tones never faltered. When the time came to put the ring on her finger, Anna's hand trembled so violently that the ring fell to the floor and rolled away. Sanderson's face turned pale. It seemed to him like a providential dispensation.

For some minutes, the a.s.sembled company joined in the hunt for the ring. It was found at length by the yellow-haired housekeeper, who returned it with her most wolfish grin.

"Trust Bertha Harris to find things!" said the clergyman.

The ceremony proceeded without further incident. The final words were p.r.o.nounced and Anna sank into a chair, relieved that it was over, whether it was for better or for worse.

Sanderson hurried her into the carriage before the clergyman and the witnesses could offer their congratulations. He pulled her away from the yellow-haired housekeeper, who would have smothered her in an embrace, and they departed without the customary handshake from the officiating clergyman.

"You were not very cordial, dear," she said, as they rolled along through the early winter landscape.

"Confound them all. I hated to see them near you"--and then, in answer to her questioning gaze--"because I love you so much, darling. I hate to see anyone touch you."

The trees were bare; the fields stretched away brown and flat, like the folds of a shroud, and the sun was veiled by lowering clouds of gray.

It was not a cheerful day for a wedding.

"Lennox, did you remember that this is Friday? And I have on a black dress."

"And now that Mrs. Lennox has settled the question of to wed or not to wed, by wedding--behold, she is worrying herself about her frock and the color of it, and the day of the week and everything else. Was there ever such a dear little goose?" He pinched her cheek, and she--she smiled up at him, her fears allayed.

"And why don't you ask where we are going, least curious of women?"

"I forgot; indeed I did."

"We are going to the White Rose Inn. Ideal name for a place in which to spend one's honeymoon, isn't it?"

"Any place would be ideal with you Lennie," and she slipped her little hand into his ruggeder palm.

At last the White Rose Inn was sighted; it was one of those modern hostelries, built on an old English model. The windows were muslined, the rooms were wainscoted in oak, the furniture was heavy and c.u.mbersome. Anna was delighted with everything she saw. Sanderson had had their sitting-room filled with crimson roses, they were everywhere; banked on the mantelpiece, on the tables and window-sills. Their perfume was to Anna like the loving embrace of an old friend.

Jacqueminots had been so closely a.s.sociated with her acquaintance with Sanderson, in after years she could never endure their perfume and their scarlet petals unnerved her, as the sight of blood does some women.

A trim English maid came to a.s.sist "Mrs. Lennox," to unpack her things.

Lunch was waiting in the sitting-room. Sanderson gave minute orders about the icing of his own particular brand of champagne, which he had had sent from Boston.

Anna had recovered her good spirits. It seemed "such a jolly lark," as her husband said.

"Sweetheart, your happiness," he said, and raised his gla.s.s to hers.

Her eyes sparkled like the champagne. The honeymoon at the White Rose Tavern had begun very merrily.

CHAPTER V.

A LITTLE GLIMPSE OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN.

"The moon--the moon, so silver and cold, Her fickle temper has oft been told, Now shady--now bright and sunny-- But of all the lunar things that change, The one that shows most fickle and strange, And takes the most eccentric range Is the moon--so called--of honey."--_Hood_.

"My dear, will you kindly pour me a second cup of coffee? Not because I really want it, you know, but entirely for the aesthetic pleasure of seeing your pretty little hands pattering about the cups."

Lennox Sanderson, in a crimson velvet smoking jacket, was regarding Anna with the most undisguised admiration from the other side of the round table, that held their breakfast,--their first honeymoon breakfast, as Anna supposed it to be.

"Anything to please my husband," she answered with a flitting blush.

"Your husband? Ah, say it again; it sounds awfully good from you."

"So you don't really care for any more coffee, but just want to see my hands among the cups. How appreciative you are!" And there was a mischievous twinkle in her eye as she began with great elaboration the pantomimic representation of pouring a cup of coffee, adding sugar and cream; and concluded by handing the empty cup to Sanderson. "It would be such a pity to waste the coffee, Lennie, when you only wanted to see my hands."

"If I am not going to have the coffee, I insist on both the hands," he said, taking them and kissing them repeatedly.

"I suppose I'll have to give it to you on those terms," and she proceeded to fill the cup in earnest this time.

"Let me see. How is it that you like it? One lump of sugar and quite a bit of cream? And tea perfectly clear with nothing at all and toast very crisp and dry. Dear me, how do women ever remember all their husband's likes and dislikes? It's worse than learning a new multiplication table over again," and the most adorable pucker contracted her pretty brows.