"Manners—not what, buthow. Manners are happy ways of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of love—now repeated and hardened into usage. Manners require time; nothing is more vulgar than haste."—Emerson.
"Manners—not what, buthow. Manners are happy ways of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of love—now repeated and hardened into usage. Manners require time; nothing is more vulgar than haste."—Emerson.
Madame Moreau was a Frenchwoman, small and old, with a thin shrewd face and large features. She wore a plain black satin gown, the narrow skirt gathered in the old-fashioned style, and falling straight to the floor; the waist of the gown, fastened behind, was in front plaited into a long rounded point. Broad ruffles of fine lace shielded her throat and hands, and her cap, garnished with violet velvet, was trimmed with the same delicate fabric. She was never a handsome woman even in youth, and she was now seventy-five years of age; yet she was charming.
She rose, kissed the young girl lightly on each cheek, and said a few words of welcome. Her manner was affectionate, but impersonal. She never took fancies; but neither did she take dislikes. That her young ladies were all charming young persons was an axiom never allowed to be brought into question; that they were simply and gracefully feminine was with equal firmness established. Other schools of modern and American origin might make a feature of public examinations, with questions by bearded professors from boys' colleges; but the establishment of Madame Moreau knew nothing of such innovations. The Frenchwoman's idea was not a bad one; good or bad, it was inflexible. She was a woman of marked character, and may be said to have accomplished much good in a mannerless generation and land. Thoroughly French, she was respected and loved by all her Americanscholars; and it will be long ere her name and memory fade away.
Miss Vanhorn did not come to see her niece until a week had passed. Anne had been assigned to the lowest French class among the children, had taken her first singing lesson from one Italian, fat, rosy, and smiling, and her first Italian lesson from another, lean, old, and soiled, had learned to answer questions in the Moreau French, and to talk a little, as well as to comprehend the fact that her clothes were remarkable, and that she herself was considered an oddity, when one morning Tante sent word that she was to come down to the drawing-room to see a visitor.
The visitor was an old woman with black eyes, a black wig, shining false teeth, a Roman nose, and a high color (which was, however, natural), and she was talking to Tante, who, with her own soft gray hair, and teeth which if false did not appear so, looked charmingly real beside her. Miss Vanhorn was short and stout; she was muffled in an India shawl, and upon her hands were a pair of cream-colored kid gloves much too large for her, so that when she fumbled, as she did every few moments, in an embroidered bag for aromatic seeds coated with sugar, she had much difficulty in finding them, owing to the empty wrinkled ends of the glove fingers. She lifted a gold-rimmed eye-glass to her eyes as Anne entered, and coolly inspected her.
"Dear me! dear me!" she said. Then, in execrable French, "What can be done with such a young savage as this?"
"How do you do, aunt?" said Anne, using the conventional words with a slight tremor in her voice. This was the woman who had brought up her mother—her dear, unremembered mother.
"Grandaunt," said Miss Vanhorn, tartly. "Sit down; I can not bear to have people standing in front of me. How old are you?"
"I am seventeen, grandaunt."
"DEAR ME, WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH SUCH A YOUNG SAVAGE?""DEAR ME, WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH SUCH A YOUNG SAVAGE?"
Miss Vanhorn let her eyeglass drop, and groaned. "Cananything be done with her?" she asked, closingher eyes tightly, and turning toward Tante, while Anne flushed crimson, not so much from the criticism as the unkindness.
"Oh yes," said Tante, taking the opportunity given by the closed eyes to pat the young girl's hand encouragingly. "Miss Douglas is very intelligent; and she has a fine mezzo-soprano voice. Signor Belzini is much pleased with it. It would be well, also, I think, if you would allow her to take a few dancing lessons."
"She will have no occasion for dancing," answered Miss Vanhorn, still with her eyes closed.
"It was not so much for the dancing itself as for grace of carriage," replied Tante. "Miss Douglas has a type of figure rare among American girls."
"I should say so, indeed!" groaned the other, shaking her head gloomily, still voluntarily blinded.
"But none the less beautiful in its way," continued Tante, unmoved. "It is the Greek type."
"I am not acquainted with any Greeks," replied Miss Vanhorn.
"You are still as devoted as ever to the beautiful and refined study of plant life, dear madame," pursued Tante, changing the current of conversation. "How delightful to have a young relative to assist you, with the fresh and ardent interest belonging to her age, when the flowers bloom again upon the rural slopes of Haarderwyck!" As Tante said this, she looked off dreamily into space, as if she saw aunt and niece wandering together through groves of allegorical flowers.
"She is not likely to see Haarderwyck," answered Miss Vanhorn. Then, after a moment's pause—a pause which Tante did not break—she peered at Anne with half-open eyes, and asked, abruptly, "Do you, then, know anything of botany?"
Tante made a slight motion with her delicate withered old hand. But Anne did not comprehend her, and answered, honestly, "No, grandaunt, I do not."
"Bah!" said Miss Vanhorn; "I might have known without the asking. Make what you can of her, madame. I will pay your bill for one year: no longer.But no nonsense, no extras, mind that." Again she sought a caraway seed, pursuing it vindictively along the bottom of her bag, and losing it at the last, after all.
"As regards wardrobe, I would advise some few changes," said Tante, smoothly. "It is one of my axioms that pupils study to greater advantage when their thoughts are not disturbed by deficiencies in dress. Conformity to our simple standard is therefore desirable."
"It may be desirable; it is not always, on that account, attainable," answered Miss Vanhorn, conveying a finally caught seed to her mouth, dropping it at the last moment, and carefully and firmly biting the seam of the glove finger in its place.
"Purchases are made for the pupils with discretion by one of our most experienced teachers," continued Tante.
"Glad to hear it," said her visitor, releasing the glove finger, and pretending to chew the seed which was not there.
"But I do not need anything, Tante," interposed Anne, the deep color deepening in her cheeks.
"So much the better," said her grandaunt, dryly, "since you will have nothing."
She went away soon afterward somewhat placated, owing to skillful reminiscences of a favorite cousin, who, it seemed, had been one of Tante's "dearest pupils" in times past; "a true Vanhorn, worthy of her Knickerbocker blood." The word "Neeker-bo-ker," delicately comprehended, applied, and, what was more important still, limited, was one of Tante's most telling achievements—a shibboleth. She knew all the old Dutch names, and remembered their intermarriages; she was acquainted with the peculiar flavor of Huguenot descent; she comprehended the especial aristocracy of Tory families, whose original property had been confiscated by a raw republic under George Washington. Ah! skillful old Tante, what a general you would have made!
Anne Douglas, the new pupil, was now left to face the school with her island-made gowns, and what courage she could muster. Fortunately the gowns were blackand severely plain. Tante, not at all disturbed by Miss Vanhorn's refusal, ordered a simple cloak and bonnet for her through an inexpensive French channel, so that in the street she passed unremarked; but, in the house, every-day life required more courage than scaling a wall. Girls are not brutal, like boys, but their light wit is pitiless. The Southern pupils, provided generously with money in the lavish old-time Southern way, the day scholars, dressed with the exquisite simplicity of Northern school-girls of good family, glanced with amusement at the attire of this girl from the Northwest. This girl, being young, felt their glances; as a refuge, she threw herself into her studies with double energy, and gaining confidence respecting what she had been afraid was her island patois, she advanced so rapidly in the French classes that she passed from the lowest to the highest, and was publicly congratulated by Tante herself. In Italian her progress was more slow. Her companion, in the class of two, was a beautiful dark-eyed Southern girl, who read musically, but seldom deigned to open her grammar. The forlorn, soiled old exile to whom, with unconscious irony, the bath-room had been assigned for recitations in the crowded house, regarded this pupil with mixed admiration and despair. Her remarks on Mary Stuart, represented by Alfieri, were nicely calculated to rouse him to patriotic fury, and then, when the old man burst forth in a torrent of excited words, she would raise her soft eyes in surprise, and inquire if he was ill. The two girls sat on the bath-tub, which was decorously covered over and cushioned; the exile had a chair for dignity's sake. Above, in a corresponding room, a screen was drawn round the tub, and a piano placed against it. Here, all day long, another exile, a German music-master, with little gold rings in his ears, gave piano lessons, and Anne was one of his pupils. To Signor Belzini, the teacher of vocal music, the drawing-room itself was assigned. He was a prosperous and smiling Italian, who had a habit of bringing pieces of pink cream candy with him, and arranging them in a row on the piano for his own refreshment after each song. There was an atmosphere of perfumeand mystery about Belzini. It was whispered that he knew the leading opera-singers, even taking supper with them sometimes after the opera. The pupils exhausted their imaginations in picturing to each other the probable poetry and romance of these occasions.
Belzini was a musical trick-master; but he was not ignorant. When Anne came to take her first lesson, he smiled effusively, as usual, took a piece of candy, and, while enjoying it, asked if she could read notes, and gave her the "Drinking Song" fromLucrezia Borgiaas a trial. Anne sang it correctly without accompaniment, but slowly and solemnly as a dead march. It is probable that "Il Segreto" never heard itself so sung before or since. Belzini was walking up and down with his plump hands behind him.
"You have never heard it sung?" he said.
"No," replied Anne.
"Sing something else, then. Something you like yourself."
After a moment's hesitation, Anne sang an island ballad in the voyageur patois.
"May I ask who has taught you, mademoiselle?"
"My father," said the pupil, with a slight tremor in her voice.
"He must be a cultivated musician, although of the German school," said Belzini, seating himself at the piano and running his white fingers over the keys. "Try these scales."
It was soon understood that "the islander" could sing as well as study. Tolerance was therefore accorded to her. But not much more. It is only in "books for the young" that poorly clad girls are found leading whole schools by the mere power of intellectual or moral supremacy. The emotional type of boarding-school, also, is seldom seen in cities; its home is amid the dead lethargy of a winter-bound country village.
The great event in the opening of Anne's school life was her first opera. Tante, not at all blinded by the country garb and silence of the new pupil, had written her name with her own hand upon the opera list for the winter,without consulting Miss Vanhorn, who would, however, pay for it in the end, as she would also pay for the drawing and dancing lessons ordered by the same autocratic command. For it was one of Tante's rules to cultivate every talent of the agreeable and decorative order which her pupils possessed; she bathed them as the photographer bathes his shadowy plate, bringing out and "setting," as it were, as deeply as possible, their colors, whatever they happened to be. Tante always attended the opera in person. Preceded by the usher, the old Frenchwoman glided down the awkward central aisle of the Academy of Music, with her inimitable step, clad in her narrow satin gown and all her laces, well aware that tongues in every direction were saying: "There is Madame Moreau at the head of her school, as usual. What a wonderful old lady she is!" While the pupils were filing into their places, Tante remained in the aisle fanning herself majestically, and surveying them with a benignant smile. When all were seated, with a graceful little bend she glided into her place at the end, the motion of sitting down and the bend fused into one in a manner known only to herself.
Anne's strong idealism, shown in her vivid although mistaken conceptions of Shakspeare's women, was now turned into the channel of opera music. After hearing several operas, she threw herself into her Italian songs with so much fervor that Belzini sat aghast; this was not the manner in which demoiselles of private life should sing. Tante, passing one day (by the merest chance, of course) through the drawing-room while Anne was singing, paused a moment to listen. "Ma fille," she said, when the song was ended, tapping Anne's shoulder affably, "give no more expression to the Italian words you sing than to the syllables of your scales. Interpretations are not required." The old Frenchwoman always put down with iron hand what she called the predominant tendency toward too great freedom—sensationalism—in young girls. She spent her life in a constant struggle with the American "jeune fille."
During this time Rast wrote regularly; but his letters,not being authorized by Miss Vanhorn, Anne's guardian, passed first through the hands of one of the teachers, and the knowledge of this inspection naturally dulled the youth's pen. But Anne's letters to him passed the same ordeal without change in word or in spirit. Miss Lois and Dr. Gaston wrote once a week; Père Michaux contented himself with postscripts added to the long, badly spelled, but elaborately worded epistles with which Mademoiselle Tita favored her elder sister. It was evident to Anne that Miss Lois was having a severe winter.
The second event in Anne's school life was the gaining of a friend.
At first it was but a musical companion. Helen Lorrington lived not far from the school; she was one of Tante's old scholars, and this Napoleon of teachers especially liked this pupil, who was modelled after her own heart. Helen held what may be called a woman's most untrammelled position in life, namely, that of a young widow, protected but not controlled, rich, beautiful, and without children. She was also heir to the estate of an eccentric grandfather, who detested her, yet would not allow his money to go to any collateral branch. He detested her because her father was a Spaniard, whose dark eyes had so reprehensibly fascinated his little Dutch daughter that she had unexpectedly plucked up courage to marry in spite of the paternal prohibition, and not only that, but to be very happy also during the short portion of life allotted to her afterward. The young Spanish husband, with an unaccountable indifference to the wealth for which he was supposed to have plotted so perseveringly, was pusillanimous enough to die soon afterward, leaving only one little pale-faced child, a puny girl, to inherit the money. The baby Helen had never possessed the dimples and rose tints that make the beauty of childhood; the girl Helen had not the rounded curves and peach-like bloom that make the beauty of youth. At seventeen she was what she was now; therefore at seventeen she was old. At twenty-seven she was what she was then; therefore at twenty-seven she was young.
She was tall, and extremely, marvellously slender; yether bones were so small that there were no angles visible in all her graceful length. She was a long woman; her arms were long, her throat was long, her eyes and face were long. Her form, slight enough for a spirit, was as natural as the swaying grasses on a hill-side. She was as flexible as a ribbon. Her beauties were a regally poised little head, a delicately cut profile, and a remarkable length of hair; her peculiarities, the color of this hair, the color of her skin, and the narrowness of her eyes. The hue of her hair was called flaxen; but it was more than that—it was the color of bleached straw. There was not a trace of gold in it, nor did it ever shine, but hung, when unbound, a soft even mass straight down below the knee. It was very thick, but so fine that it was manageable; it was never rough, because there were no short locks. The complexion which accompanied this hair was white, with an under-tint of ivory. There are skins with under-tints of pink, of blue, and of brown; but this was different in that it shaded off into cream, without any indication of these hues. This soft ivory-color gave a shade of fuller richness to the slender straw-haired woman—an effect increased by the hue of the eyes, when visible under the long light lashes. For Helen's eyes were of a bright dark unexpected brown. The eyes were so long and narrow, however, that generally only a line of bright brown looked at you when you met their gaze. Small features, narrow cheeks, delicate lips, and little milk-white teeth, like a child's, completed this face which never had a red tint, even the lips being but faintly colored. There were many men who, seeing Helen Lorrington for the first time, thought her exquisitely beautiful; there were others who, seeing her for the first time, thought her singularly ugly. Thesecondtime, there was never a question. Her grandfather called her an albino; but he was nearly blind, and could only see the color of her hair. He could not see the strong brown light of her eyes, or the soft ivory complexion, which never changed in the wind, the heat, or the cold.
Mrs. Lorrington was always dressed richly, but after a fashion of her own. Instead of disguising the slendernessof her form, she intensified it; instead of contrasting hues, she often wore amber tints like her hair. Amid all her silks, jewels, and laces, there was always supreme her own personality, which reduced her costumes to what, after all, costumes should be, merely the subordinate coverings of a beautiful woman.
Helen had a clear, flute-like voice, with few low notes, and a remarkably high range. She continued her lessons with Belzini whenever she was in the city, more in order that he might transpose her songs for her than for any instruction he could now bestow. She was an old pupil of his, and the sentimental Italian adored her; this adoration, however, did not prevent him from being very comfortable at home with his portly wife. One morning Helen, coming in for a moment to leave a new song, found Anne at the piano taking her lesson. Belzini, always anxious to please his fair-haired divinity, motioned to her to stay and listen. Anne's rich voice pleased her ears; but she had heard rich voices before. What held her attention now was the girl herself. For although Helen was a marvel of self-belief, although she made her own peculiar beauty an object of worship, and was so saturated with knowledge of herself that she could not take an attitude which did not become her, she yet possessed a comprehension of other types of beauty, and had, if not an admiration for, at least a curiosity about, them. In Anne she recognized at once what Tante had also recognized—unfolding beauty of an unfamiliar type, the curves of a nobly shaped form hidden under an ugly gown, above the round white throat a beautiful head, and a singularly young face shadowed by a thoughtfulness which was very grave and impersonal when compared with the usual light, self-centred expressions of young girls' faces. At once Helen's artistic eye had Anne before her, robed in fit attire; in imagination she dressed her slowly from head to foot as the song went on, and was considering the question of jewels when the music ceased, and Belzini was turning toward her.
"I hope I may become better acquainted with this rich voice," she said, coming back gracefully to the present."May I introduce myself? I should like to try a duet with you, if you will allow me, Miss—"
"Douglas," said Belzini; "and this, mademoiselle, is Mrs. Lorrington."
Such was the beginning.
In addition to Helen's fancy for Anne's fair grave face, the young girl's voice proved a firmer support for her high soprano than it had ever obtained. Her own circle in society and the music classes had been searched in vain more than once. For she needed a soprano, not a contralto. And as soprani are particularly human, there had never been any lasting co-operation. Anne, however, cheerfully sang whatever Belzini put before her, remained admiringly silent while Helen executed the rapid runs and trills with which she always decorated her part, and then, when the mezzo was needed again, gave her full voice willingly, supporting the other as the notes of an organ meet and support a flute after its solo.
Belzini was in ecstasies; he sat up all night to copy music for them. He said, anxiously, to Helen: "And the young girl? You like her, do you not? Such a voice for you!"
"But I can not exactly buy young girls, can I?" said Mrs. Lorrington, smiling.
More and more, however, each day she liked "the young girl" for herself alone. She was an original, of course; almost an aboriginal; for she told the truth exactly upon all occasions, appropriate or inappropriate, and she had convictions. She was not aware, apparently, of the old-fashioned and cumbrous appearance of these last-named articles of mental furniture. But the real secret of Helen's liking lay in the fact that Anne admired her, and was at the same time neither envious nor jealous, and from her youth she had been troubled by the sure development of these two feelings, sooner or later, in all her girl companions. In truth, Helen's lotwasenviable; and also, whether consciously or unconsciously, she had a skill in provoking jealousy. She was the spoiled child of fortune. It was no wonder, therefore, that those ofher own sex and age seldom enjoyed being with her: the contrast was too great. Helen was, besides, the very queen of Whim.
The queen of Whim! By nature; which means that she had a highly developed imagination. By the life she had led, having never, save for the six short months of her husband's adoring rule, been under the control, or even advice, of any man. For whim can be thoroughly developed only in feminine households: it is essentially feminine. And Helen had been brought up by a maiden aunt, who lived alone. A man, however mild, demands in a home at least a pretense of fixed hours and regularity; only a household of women is capable of no regularity at all, of changing the serious dinner hour capriciously, and even giving up dinner altogether. Only a household of women has sudden inspirations as to journeys and departures within the hour; brings forth sudden ideas as to changes of route while actually on the way, and a going southward instead of westward, with a total indifference to supper. Helen's present whim was Anne.
"I want you to spend part of the holidays with me," she said, a few days before Christmas. "Come on Monday, and stay over New-Year's Day."
"Oh, I can not," said Anne, startled.
"Why not? Tante will consent if I ask her; she always does. Do you love this crowded house so much that you can not leave it?"
"It is not that. But—"
"But you are shy. But Miss Vanhorn might not like it. You do not know Aunt Margaretta. You have no silk gown. Now letmetalk. I will write to Miss Vanhorn. Aunt Margaretta is as gentle as a dove. I am bold enough for two. And the silk dress shall come from me."
"I could not take that, Mrs. Lorrington."
"Because you are proud?"
"No; but because I would rather not. It would be too great an obligation."
"You repay me by your voice a thousandfold, Anne. I have never had the right voice for mine until now;and therefore the obligation is on my side. I do not speak of the pleasure your visit will give me, because I hope to make that mutual. But say no more. I intend to have my way."
And she had her way. "I have always detested Miss Vanhorn, with her caraway seeds, and her malice," she explained to Tante. "Much as I like Anne for herself alone, it will be delicious also to annoy the old dragon by bringing into notice this unknown niece whom she is hiding here so carefully. Now confess, Tante, that it will be delicious."
Tante shook her head reprovingly. But she herself was in her heart by no means fond of Miss Vanhorn; she had had more than one battle royal with that venerable Knickerbocker, which had tested even her celebrated suavity.
Helen's note was as follows:
"Dear Miss Vanhorn,—I very much wish to persuade your charming niece, Miss Douglas, to spend a portion of the holidays with me. Her voice is marvellously sweet, and Aunt Margaretta is most anxious to hear it; whileIam desirous to have her in my own home, even if but for a few days, in order that I may learn more of her truly admirable qualities, which she inherits, no doubt, from your family.
"I trust you will add your consent to Tante's, already willingly bestowed, and make me thereby still more your obliged friend,
"Helen Roosbroeck Lorrington."
The obliged friend had the following answer:
"Miss Vanhorn presents her compliments to Mrs. Lorrington, with thanks for her note, which, however, was an unnecessary attention, Miss Vanhorn claiming no authority over the movements of Anne Douglas (whose relationship to her is remote), beyond a due respect for the rules of the institution where she has been placed. Miss Vanhorn is gratified to learn that Miss Douglas's voice isalready of practical use to her, and has the honor of remaining Mrs. Lorrington's obliged and humble servant.
"Madison Square,Tuesday."
Tears sprang to Anne's eyes when Helen showed her this note.
"Why do you care? She was always a dragon; forget her. Now, Anne, remember that it is all understood, and the carriage will come for you on Monday." Then, seeing the face before her still irresolute, she added: "If you are to have pupils, some of them may be like me. You ought, therefore, to learn how to manageme, you know."
"You are right," said Anne, seriously. "It is strange how little confidence I feel."
Helen, looking at her as she stood there in her island gown, coarse shoes, and old-fashioned collar, did not think it strange at all, but wondered, as she had wondered a hundred times before, why it was that this girl did not think of herself and her own appearance. "And you must let me have my way, too, about something for you to wear," she added.
"It shall be as you wish, Helen. It can not be otherwise, I suppose, if I go to you. But—I hope the time will come when I can do something for you."
"Never fear; it will. I feel it instinctively. You will either save my life or take it—one or the other; but I am not sure which."
Monday came; and after her lonely Christmas, Anne was glad to step into Miss Teller's carriage, and be taken to the home on the Avenue. The cordial welcome she received there was delightful to her, the luxury novel. She enjoyed everything simply and sincerely, from the late breakfast in the small warm breakfast-room, from which the raw light of the winter morning was carefully excluded, to the chat with Helen over the dressing-room fire late at night, when all the house was still. Helen's aunt, Miss Teller, was a thin, light-eyed person of fifty-five years of age. Richly dressed, very tall, with a back as immovable and erect as though made of steel,and a tower of blonde lace on her head, she was a personage of imposing aspect, but in reality as mild as a sheep.
"Yes, my dear," she said, when Anne noticed the tinted light in the breakfast-room; "I take great care about light, which I consider an influence in our households too much neglected. The hideous white glare in most American breakfast-rooms on snowy winter mornings has often made me shudder when I have been visiting my friends; only the extremely vigorous can enjoy this sharp contact with the new day. Then the æsthetic effect: children are always homely when the teeth are changing and the shoulder-blades prominent; and who wishes to see, besides, each freckle and imperfection upon the countenances of those he loves? I have observed, too, that even morning prayer, as a family observance, fails to counter-act the influence of this painful light. For if as you kneel you cover your face with your hands, the glare will be doubly unbearable when you remove them; and if you donotcover your brow, you will inevitably blink. Those who do not close their eyes at all are the most comfortable, but I trust we would all prefer to suffer rather than be guilty of such irreverence."
"Now that is Aunt Gretta exactly," said Helen, as Miss Teller left the room. "When you are once accustomed to her height and blonde caps, you will find her soft as a down coverlet."
Here Miss Teller returned. "My dear," she said, anxiously, addressing Anne, "as to soap for the hands—what kind do you prefer?"
"Anne's hands are beautiful, and she will have the white soap in the second box on the first shelf of the store-room—the rose;notthe heliotrope, which is mine," said Helen, taking one of the young girl's hands, and spreading out the firm taper fingers. "See her wrists! Now my wrists are small too, but then there is nothing but wrist all the way up."
"My dear, your arms have been much admired," said Miss Margaretta, with a shade of bewilderment in her voice.
"Yes, because I choose they shall be. But when I spoke of Anne's hands, I spoke artistically, aunt."
"Do you expect Mr. Blum to-day?" said Miss Teller.
"Oh no," said Helen, smiling. "Mr. Blum, Anne, is a poor artist whom Aunt Gretta is cruel enough to dislike."
"Not on account of his poverty," said Miss Margaretta, "but on account of my having half-brothers, with large families, all with weak lungs, taking cold, I may say, at a breath—a mere breath; and Mr. Blum insists upon coming here without overshoes when there has been a thaw, and sitting all the evening in wet boots, which naturally makes me think of my brothers' weak families, to say nothing of the danger to himself."
"Well, Mr. Blum is not coming. But Mr. Heathcote is."
"Ah."
"And Mr. Dexter may."
"I am always glad to see Mr. Dexter," said Aunt Margaretta.
Mr. Heathcote did not come; Mr. Dexter did. But Anne was driving with Miss Teller, and missed the visit.
"A remarkable man," said the elder lady, as they sat at the dinner table in the soft radiance of wax lights.
"You mean Mr. Blum?" said Helen. "This straw-colored jelly exactly matches me, Anne."
"I mean Mr. Dexter," said Miss Teller, nodding her head impressively. "Sent through college by the bounty of a relative (who died immediately afterward, in the most reprehensible way, leaving him absolutely nothing), Gregory Dexter, at thirty-eight, is to-day a man of modern and distinct importance. Handsome—you do not contradict me there, Helen?"
"No, aunt."
"Handsome," repeated Miss Teller, triumphantly, "successful, moral, kind-hearted, and rich—what would you have more? I ask you, Miss Douglas, what would you have more?"
"Nothing," said Helen. "Anne has confided to me—nothing. Long live Gregory Dexter! And I feel sure,too, that he will outlive us all. I shall go first. You will see. I always wanted to be first in everything—even the grave."
"My dear!" said Miss Margaretta.
"Well, aunt, now would you like to be last? Think how lonely you would be. Besides, all the best places would be taken," said Helen, in business-like tones, taking a spray of heliotrope from the vase before her.
New-Year's Day was, in the eyes of Margaretta Teller, a solemn festival; thought was given to it in June, preparation for it began in September. Many a call was made at the house on that day which neither Miss Margaretta, nor her niece, Mrs. Lorrington, attracted, but rather the old-time dishes and the old-time punch on their dining-room table. Old men with gouty feet, amateur antiquarians of mild but obstinate aspect, to whom Helen was "a slip of a girl," and Miss Margaretta still too youthful a person to be of much interest, called regularly on the old Dutch holiday, and tasted this New-Year's punch. They cherished the idea that they were thus maintaining the "solid old customs," and they spoke to each other in moist, husky under-tones when they met in the hall, as much as to say, "Ah, ah! you here? That's right—that's right. A barrier, sir—a barrier against modern innovation!"
Helen had several friends besides Anne to assist her in receiving, and the young island girl remained, therefore, more or less unnoticed, owing to her lack of the ready, graceful smiles and phrases which are the current coin of New-Year's Day. She passed rapidly through the different phases of timidity, bewilderment, and fatigue; and then, when more accustomed to the scene, she regained her composure, and even began to feel amused. She ceased hiding behind the others; she learned to repeat the same answers to the same questions without caring for their inanity; she gave up trying to distinguish names, and (like the others) massed all callers into a constantly arriving repetition of the same person, who was to be treated with a cordiality as impersonal as it was glittering. She tried to select Mr. Dexter, and at lengthdecided that he was a certain person standing near Helen—a man with brown hair and eyes; but she was not sure, and Helen's manner betrayed nothing.
The fatiguing day was over at last, and then followed an hour or two of comparative quiet; the few familiar guests who remained were glad to sink down in easy-chairs, and enjoy connected sentences again. The faces of the ladies showed fine lines extending from the nostril to the chin; the muscles that had smiled so much were weary.
And now Anne discovered Gregory Dexter; and he was not the person she had selected. Mr. Dexter was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with an appearance of persistent vigor in his bearing, and a look of determination in his strong, squarely cut jaw and chin. His face was rather short, with good features and clear gray eyes, which met the gazer calmly; and there was about him that air of self-reliance which does not irritate in a large strong man, any more than imperiousness in a beautiful woman.
The person with brown eyes proved to be Mr. Heathcote. He seemed indolent, and contributed but few words to the general treasury of conversation.
Mr. Blum was present also; but on this occasion he wore the peculiarly new, shining, patent-leather boots dear to the hearts of his countrymen on festal occasions, and Miss Teller's anxieties were quiescent. Helen liked artists; she said that their ways were a "proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalued all the mere utilities of the world."
"Are bad boots rays of beauty?" inquired Miss Margaretta.
"Yes. That is, a man whose soul is uplifted by art may not always remember his boots; to himself, no doubt, his feet seem winged."
"Very far from winged are Blum's feet," responded Miss Margaretta, shaking her head gravely. "Very, very far."
Late in the evening, when almost all the guests had departed, Helen seemed seized with a sudden determinationto bring Anne into prominence. Mr. Dexter still lingered, and the artist. Also Ward Heathcote.
"Anne, will you sing now? First with me, then alone?" she said, going to the piano.
A bright flush rose in Anne's face; the prominent blue eyes of the German artist were fixed upon her; Gregory Dexter had turned toward her with his usual prompt attention. Even the indolent Heathcote looked up as Helen spoke. But having once decided to do a thing, Anne knew no way save to do it; having accepted Helen's generous kindness, she must now do what Helen asked in return. She rose in silence, and crossed the brightly lighted room on her way to the piano. Few women walk well; by well, is meant naturally. Helen was graceful; she had the lithe shape and long step which give a peculiar swaying grace, like that of elm branches. Yet Helen's walk belonged to the drawing-room, or at best the city pavement; one could not imagine her on a country road. Anne's gait was different. As she crossed the room alone, it drew upon her for the first time the full attention of the three gentlemen who were present. Blum stared gravely. Dexter's eyes moved up to her face, as if he saw it now with new interest. Heathcote leaned back on the sofa with an amused expression, glancing from Anne to Helen, as if saying, "I understand."
Anne wore one of Helen's gifts, a soft silk of pale gray, in deference to her mourning garb; the dress was high over the shoulders, but cut down squarely in front and behind, according to a fashion of the day. The sleeves came to the elbow only; the long skirt was severely plain. They had taken off their gloves, and the girl's beautiful arms were conspicuous, as well as her round, full, white throat.
The American Venus is thin.
American girls are slight; they have visible collar-bones and elbows. When they pass into the fullness of womanhood (if they pass at all), it is suddenly, leaving no time for the beautiful pure virginal outlines which made Anne Douglas an exception to her kind. Anne's walk was entirely natural, her poise natural; yet so perfectwere her proportions that even Tante, artificial and French as she was, refrained from the suggestions and directions as to step and bearing which encircled the other pupils like an atmosphere.
The young girl's hair had been arranged by Helen's maid, under Helen's own direction, in a plain Greek knot, leaving the shape of the head, and the small ear, exposed; and as she stood by the piano, waiting, she looked (as Helen had intended her to look) like some young creature from an earlier world, startled and shy, yet too proud to run away.
They sang together; and in singing Anne recovered her self-possession. Then Helen asked her to sing without accompaniment a little island ballad which was one of her favorites, and leading her to the centre of the room, left her there alone. Poor Anne! But, moved by the one desire of pleasing Helen, she clasped her hands in simple child-like fashion, and began to sing, her eyes raised slightly so as to look above the faces of her audience. It was an old-fashioned ballad or chanson, in the patois of the voyageurs, with a refrain in a minor key, and it told of the vanishing of a certain petite Marie, and the sorrowing of her mother—a common-place theme long drawn out, the constantly recurring refrain, at first monotonous, becoming after a while sweet to the ear, like the wash of small waves on a smooth beach. But it was the ending upon which Helen relied for her effect. Suddenly the lament of the long-winded mother ended, the time changed, and a verse followed picturing the rapture of the lovers as they fled away in their sharp-bowed boat, wing and wing, over the blue lake. Anne sang this as though inspired; she forgot her audience, and sang as she had always sung it on the island for Rast and the children. Her voice floated through the house, she shaded her eyes with her hand, and leaned forward, gazing, as though she saw the boat across the water, and then she smiled, as, with a long soft note, the song ended.
But the instant it was over, her timidity came back with double force, and she hastily sought refuge besideHelen, her voice gone, in her eyes a dangerous nearness to tears.
There was now an outburst of compliments from Blum; but Helen kindly met and parried them. Mr. Dexter began a few well-chosen sentences of praise; but in the midst of his fluent adjectives, Anne glanced up so beseechingly that he caught the mist in her eyes, and instantly ceased. Nor was this all; he opened a discussion with Miss Teller, dragging in Heathcote also (against the latter's will), and thus secured for Anne the time to recover herself. She felt this quick kindness, and was grateful. She decided that she liked him; and she wondered whether Helen liked him also.
The next morning the fairy-time was over; she went back to school.
"There are three sorts of egoists: those who live themselves and let others live; those who live themselves and don't let others live; and those who neither live themselves nor let others live.""With thoughts and feelings very simple but very strong."—Tourguénieff.
"There are three sorts of egoists: those who live themselves and let others live; those who live themselves and don't let others live; and those who neither live themselves nor let others live."
"With thoughts and feelings very simple but very strong."—Tourguénieff.
The winter passed. The new pupil studied with diligence, and insisted upon learning the beginnings of piano-playing so thoroughly that the resigned little German master with ear-rings woke up and began to ask her whether she could not go through a course of ten years or so, and become "a real blayer, not like American blayers, who vant all to learn de same biece, and blay him mit de loud pedal down." Sometimes Helen bore her away to spend a Sunday; but there were no more New-Year's Days, or occasions for the gray silk. When together at Miss Teller's, the two sat over the dressing-room fire at night, talking with that delightful mixture of confidence and sudden little bits of hypocrisy in which women delight, and which undress seems to beget. The bits of hypocrisy, however, were all Helen's.
She had long ago gathered from Anne her whole simple history; she was familiar with the Agency, the fort, MissLois, Père Michaux, Dr. Gaston, Rast, Tita, and the boys, even old Antoine and his dogs, René and Lebeau. Anne, glad to have a listener, had poured out a flood of details from her lonely homesick heart, going back as far as her own lost mother, and her young step-mother Angélique. But it was not until one of these later midnight talks that the girl had spoken of her own betrothal. Helen was much surprised—the only surprise she had shown. "I should never have dreamed it, Crystal!" she exclaimed. "Never!" (Crystal was her name for Anne.)
"Why not?"
"Because you are so—young."
"But it often happens at my age. The fort ladies were married at eighteen and nineteen, and my own dear mother was only twenty."
"You adore this Rast, I suppose?"
"Yes, I like him."
"Nonsense! You mean that you adore him."
"Perhaps I do," said Anne, smiling. "I have noticed that our use of words is different."
"And how long have you adored him?"
"All my life."
The little sentence came forth gravely and sincerely. Helen surveyed the speaker with a quizzical expression in her narrow brown eyes. "No one 'adores' all one's life," she answered. Then, as Anne did not take up the challenge, she paused, and, after surveying her companion in silence for a moment, added, "There is no time fixed as yet for this marriage?"
"No; Rast has his position to make first. And I myself should be better pleased to have four or five years to give to the children before we are married. I am anxious to educate the boys."
"Bon!" said Helen. "All will yet end well, Virginie. My compliments to Paul. It is a pretty island pastoral, this little romance of yours; you have my good wishes."
The island pastoral was simple indeed compared with the net-work of fancies and manœuvres disclosed by Helen. Her life seemed to be a drama. Her personages were masked under fictitious names; the Poet, the HauntedMan, the Knight-errant, the Chanting Tenor, and the Bishop, all figured in her recitals, to which Anne listened with intense interest. Helen was a brilliant story-teller. She could give the salient points of a conversation, and these only. She colored everything, of course, according to her own fancy; but one could forgive her that for her skillful avoidance of dull details, whose stupid repetition, simply because they are true, is a habit with which many good people are afflicted.
The narrations, of course, were of love and lovers: it is always so in the midnight talks of women over the dying fire. Even the most secluded country girl will on such occasions unroll a list as long as Leporello's. The listener may know it is fictitious, and the narrator may know that she knows it. But there seems to be a fascination in the telling and the hearing all the same.
Helen amused herself greatly over the deep interest Anne took in her stories; to do her justice, they were generally true, the conversations only being more dramatic than the reality had been. This was not Helen's fault; she performed her own part brilliantly, and even went over, on occasion, and helped on the other side. But the American man is not distinguished for conversational skill. This comes, not from dullness or lack of appreciation, but rather from overappreciation. Without the rock-like slow self-confidence of the Englishman, the Frenchman's never-failing wish to please, or the idealizing powers of the German, the American, with a quicker apprehension, does not appear so well in conversation as any one of these compeers. He takes in an idea so quickly that elaborate comment seems to him hardly worth while; and thus he only has a word or two where an Englishman has several well-intentioned sentences, a Frenchman an epigram, and a German a whole cloud of philosophical quotations and comments. But it is, more than all else, the enormous strength which ridicule as an influence possesses in America that makes him what he is; he shrinks from the slightest appearance of "fine talking," lest the ever-present harpies of mirth should swoop down and feed upon his vitals.
Helen's friends, therefore, might not always have recognized themselves in her sparkling narratives, as far as their words were concerned; but it is only justice to them to add that she was never obliged to embellish their actions. She related to Anne apart, during their music lessons, the latest events in a whisper, while Belzini gave two minutes to cream candy and rest; the stories became the fairy tales of the school-girl's quiet life. Through all, she found her interest more and more attracted by "the Bishop," who seemed, however, to be anything but an ecclesiastical personage.
Miss Vanhorn had been filled with profound astonishment and annoyance by Helen's note. She knew Helen, and she knew Miss Teller: what could they want of Anne? After due delay, she came in her carriage to find out.
Tante, comprehending her motive, sent Anne up stairs to attire herself in the second dress given by Helen—a plain black costume, simply but becomingly made, and employed the delay in talking to her visitor mellifluously on every conceivable subject save the desired one. She treated her to a dissertation on intaglii, to an argument or two on architecture, and was fervently asking her opinion of certain recently exhibited relics said to be by Benvenuto Cellini, when the door opened and Anne appeared.
The young girl greeted her grandaunt with the same mixture of timidity and hope which she had shown at their first interview. But Miss Vanhorn's face stiffened into rigidity as she surveyed her.
"She is impressed at last," thought the old Frenchwoman, folding her hands contentedly and leaning back in her chair, at rest (temporarily) from her labors.
But if impressed, Miss Vanhorn had no intention of betraying her impression for the amusement of her ancient enemy; she told Anne curtly to put on her bonnet, that she had come to take her for a drive. Once safely in the carriage, she extracted from her niece, who willingly answered, every detail of her acquaintance with Helen, and the holiday visit, bestowing with her own eyes, meanwhile, a close scrutiny upon the black dress, with whosetexture and simplicity even her angry annoyance could find no fault.
"She wants to get something out of you, of course," she said, abruptly, when the story was told; "Helen Lorrington is a thoroughly selfish woman. I know her well. She introduced you, I suppose, as Miss Vanhorn's niece?"
"Oh no, grandaunt. She has no such thought."
"What do you know of her thoughts! You continue to go there?"
"Sometimes, on Sundays—when she asks me."
"Very well. But you are not to go again when company is expected; I positively forbid it. You were not brought down from your island to attend evening parties. You hear me?"
"Yes."
"Perhaps you are planning for a situation here at Moreau's next winter?" said the old woman, after a pause, peering at Anne suspiciously.
"I could not fill it, grandaunt; I could only teach in a country school."
"At Newport, or some such place, then?"
"I could not get a position of that kind."
"Mrs. Lorrington could help you."
"I have not asked her to help me."
"I thought perhaps she had some such idea of her own," continued Miss Vanhorn. "You can probably prop up that fife-like voice of hers in a way she likes; and besides, you are a good foil for her, with your big shoulders and bread-and-milk face. You little simpleton, don't you know that to even the most skillful flirt a woman friend of some kind or other is necessary as background and support?"
"No, I did not know it," said Anne, in a disheartened voice.
"What a friend for Helen Lorrington! No wonder she has pounced upon you! You would never see one of her manœuvres, although done within an inch of you. With your believing eyes, and your sincerity, you are worth your weight in silver to that straw-faced mermaid. But, after all, I do not interfere. Let her only obtain agood situation for you next year, and pay you back in more useful coin than fine dresses, and I make no objection."
She settled herself anew in the corner of the carriage, and began the process of extracting a seed, while Anne, silent and dejected, gazed into the snow-covered street, asking herself whether Helen and all this world were really as selfish and hypocritical as her grandaunt represented. But these thoughts soon gave way to the predominant one, the one that always came to her when with Miss Vanhorn—the thought of her mother.
"During the summer, do you still live in the old country house on the Hudson, grandaunt?"
Miss Vanhorn, who had just secured a seed, dropped it. "I am not aware that my old country house is anything to you," she answered, tartly, fitting on her flapping glove-fingers, and beginning a second search.
A sob rose in Anne's throat; but she quelled it. Her mother had spent all her life, up to the time of her marriage, at that old river homestead.
Soon after this, Madame Moreau sent out cards of invitation for one of her musical evenings. Miss Vanhorn's card was accompanied by a little note in Tante's own handwriting.
"The invitation is merely a compliment which I give myself the pleasure of paying to a distinguished patron of my school" (wrote the old French lady). "There will be nothing worthy of her ear—a simple school-girls' concert, in which Miss Douglas (who will have the kind assistance of Mrs. Lorrington) will take part. I can not urge, for so unimportant an affair, the personal presence of Miss Vanhorn; but I beg her to accept the inclosed card as a respectful remembrance from
"Hortense-Pauline Moreau."
"That will bring her," thought Tante, sealing the missive, in her old-fashioned way, with wax.
She was right; Miss Vanhorn came.
Anne sang first alone. Then with Helen.
"Isn't that Mrs. Lorrington?" said a voice behind Miss Vanhorn.
"Yes. My Louise tells me that she has taken up this Miss Douglas enthusiastically—comes here to sing with her almost every day."
"Who is the girl?"
Miss Vanhorn prepared an especially rigid expression of countenance for the item of relationship which she supposed would follow. But nothing came; Helen was evidently waiting for a more dramatic occasion. She felt herself respited; yet doubly angry and apprehensive.
When the song was ended, there was much applause of the subdued drawing-room kind—applause, however, plainly intended for Helen alone. Singularly enough, Miss Vanhorn resented this. "If I should take Anne, dress her properly, and introduce her as my niece, the Lorrington would be nowhere," she thought, angrily. It was the first germ of the idea.
It was not allowed to disappear. It grew and gathered strength slowly, as Tante and Helen intended it should; the two friendly conspirators never relaxed for a day their efforts concerning it. Anne remained unconscious of these manœuvres; but the old grandaunt was annoyed, and urged, and flattered, and menaced forward with so much skill that it ended in her proposing to Anne, one day in the early spring, that she should come and spend the summer with her, the children on the island to be provided for meanwhile by an allowance, and Anne herself to have a second winter at the Moreau school, if she wished it, so that she might be fitted for a higher position than otherwise she could have hoped to attain.
"Oh, grandaunt!" cried the girl, taking the old loosely gloved hand in hers.
"There is no occasion for shaking hands and grandaunting in that way," said Miss Vanhorn. "If you wish to do what I propose, do it; I am not actuated by any new affection for you. You will take four days to consider; at the end of that period, you may send me your answer. But, with your acceptance, I shall require thestrictest obedience. And—no allusion whatever to your mother."
"What are to be my duties?" asked Anne, in a low voice.
"Whatever I require," answered the old woman, grimly.
At first Anne thought of consulting Tante. But she had a strong under-current of loyalty in her nature, and the tie of blood bound her to her grandaunt, after all: she decided to consult no one but herself. The third day was Sunday. In the twilight she sat alone on her narrow bed, by the window of the dormitory, thinking. It was a boisterous March evening; the wildest month of the twelve was on his mad errands as usual. Her thoughts were on the island with the children; would it not be best for them that she should accept the offered allowance, and go with this strange grandaunt of hers, enduring as best she might her cold severity? Miss Lois's income was small; the allowance would make the little household comfortable. A second winter in New York would enable her to take a higher place as teacher, and also give the self-confidence she lacked. Yes; it was best.
But a great and overwhelming loneliness rose in her heart at the thought of another long year's delay before she could be with those she loved. Rast's last letter was in her pocket; she took it out, and held it in her hand for comfort. In it he had written of the sure success of his future; and Anne believed it as fully as he did. Her hand grew warmer as she held the sheet, and as she recalled his sanguine words. She began to feel courageous again. Then another thought came to her: must she tell Miss Vanhorn of her engagement? In their new conditions, would it not be dishonest to keep the truth back? "I do not see that it can be of any interest to her," she said to herself. "Still, I prefer to tell her." And then, having made her decision, she went to Tante.
Tante was charmed with the news (and with the success of her plan). She discoursed upon family affection in very beautiful language. "You will find a true well-spring of love in the heart of your venerable relative," she remarked, raising her delicate handkerchief, like the suggestion of a happiness that reached even to tears. "Long, long have I held your cherished grandaunt in a warm corner of my memory and heart."
This was true as regarded the time and warmth; only the latter was of a somewhat peppery nature.
The next morning Helen was told the news. She threw back her head in comic despair. "The old dragon has taken the game out of my hands at last," she said, "and ended all the sport. Excuse the title, Anne. But I am morally certain she has all sorts of vinegarish names for me. And now—am I to congratulate you upon your new home?"
"It is more a matter of duty, I think, than congratulation," said Anne, thoughtfully. "And next, I must tell her of my engagement."
"I wouldn't, if I were you, Crystal."
"Why?"
"She would rather have you free."
"I shall be free, as far as she is concerned."
"Do not be too sure of that. And take my advice—do not tell her."
Anne, however, paid no heed to this admonition; some things she did simply because she could not help doing them. She had intended to make her little confession immediately; but Miss Vanhorn gave her no opportunity. "That is enough talking," she said. "I have neuralgia in my eyebrow."
"But, grandaunt, I feel that I ought to tell you."
"Tell me nothing. Don't you know how to be silent? Set about learning, then. When I have neuralgia in my eyebrow, you are to speak only from necessity; when I have it in the eye itself, you are not to speak at all. Find me a caraway, and don't bungle."
She handed her velvet bag to Anne, and refitted the fingers of her yellow glove: evidently the young girl's duties were beginning.
Several days passed, but the neuralgia always prevented the story. At last the eyebrow was released, andthen Anne spoke. "I wish to tell you, grandaunt, before I come to you, that I am engaged—engaged to be married."
"Who cares?" said Miss Vanhorn. "To the man in the moon, I suppose; most school-girls are."
"No, to—"
"Draw up my shawl," interrupted the old woman. "Ido not care who it is. Why do you keep on telling me?"
"Because I did not wish to deceive you."
"Wait till I ask you not to deceive me. Who is the boy?"
"His name is Erastus Pronando," began Anne; "and—"
"Pronando?" cried Katharine Vanhorn, in a loud, bewildered voice—"Pronando? And his father's name?"
"John, I believe," said Anne, startled by the change in the old face. "But he has been dead many years."
Old Katharine rose; her hands trembled, her eyes flashed. "You will give up this boy at once and forever," she said, violently, "or my compact with you is at an end."
"How can I, grandaunt? I have promised—"
"I believe I am mistress of my own actions; and in this affair I will have no sort of hesitation," continued the old woman, taking the words from Anne, and tapping a chair back angrily with her hand. "Decide now—this moment. Break this engagement, and my agreement remains. Refuse to break it, and it falls. That is all."
"You are unjust and cruel," said the girl, roused by these arbitrary words.
Miss Vanhorn waved her hand for silence.
"If you will let me tell you, aunt—"
The old woman bounded forward suddenly, as if on springs, seized her niece by both shoulders, and shook her with all her strength. "There!" she said, breathless. "Willyou stop talking! All I want is your answer—yes, or no."
The drawing-room of Madame Moreau had certainly never witnessed such a sight as this. One of its youngladies shaken—yes, absolutely shaken like a refractory child! The very chairs and tables seemed to tremble, and visibly hope that there was no one in thesalon des élèves, behind.
Anne was more startled than hurt by her grandaunt's violence. "I am sorry to displease you," she said, slowly and very gravely; "but I can not break my engagement."
Without a word, Miss Vanhorn drew her shawl round her shoulders, pinned it, crossed the room, opened the door, and was gone. A moment later her carriage rolled away, and Anne, alone in the drawing-room, listened to the sound of the wheels growing fainter and fainter, with a chilly mixture of blank surprise, disappointment, and grief filling her heart. "But itwasright that I should tell her," she said to herself as she went up stairs—"itwasright."
Right and wrong always presented themselves to her as black and white. She knew no shading. She was wrong; there are grays. But, so far in her life, she had not been taught by sad experience to see them. "Itwasright," she repeated to Helen, a little miserably, but still steadfastly.
"I am not so sure of that," replied Mrs. Lorrington. "You have lost a year's fixed income for those children, and a second winter here for yourself; and for what? For the sake of telling the dragon something which does not concern her, and which she did not wish to know."
"But it was true."
"Are we to go out with trumpets and tell everything we know, just because it is true? Is there not such a thing as egotistical truthfulness?"
"It makes no difference," said Anne, despairingly. "I had to tell her."
"You are stubborn, Crystal, and you see but one side of a question. But never fear; we will circumvent the dragon yet. I wonder, though, why she was so wrought up by the name Pronando? Perhaps Aunt Gretta will know."
Miss Teller did not know; but one of the husky-voiced old gentlemen who kept up the "barrier, sir, againstmodern innovation," remembered the particulars (musty and dusty now) of Kate Vanhorn's engagement to one of the Pronandos—the wild one who ran away. He was younger than she was, a handsome fellow (yes, yes, he remembered it all now), and "she was terribly cut up about it, and went abroad immediately." Abroad—great panacea for American woes! To what continent can those who live "abroad" depart when trouble seizesthemin its pitiless claws?
Time is not so all-erasing as we think. Old Katharine Vanhorn, at seventy, heard from the young lips of her grandniece the name which had not been mentioned in her presence for nearly half a century—the name which still had power to rouse in her heart the old bitter feeling. For John Pronando had turned from her to an uneducated common girl—a market-gardener's daughter. The proud Kate Vanhorn resented the defection instantly; she broke the bond of her betrothal, and sailed for England before Pronando realized that she was offended. This idyl of the gardener's daughter was but one of his passing amusements; and so he wrote to his black-browed goddess. But she replied that if he sought amusement of that kind during the short period of betrothal, he would seek it doubly after marriage, andthenit would not be so easy to sail for Europe. She considered that she had had an escape. Pronando, handsome, light-hearted, and careless, gave up his offended Juno without much heartache, and the episode of Phyllis being by this time finished, he strayed back to his Philadelphia home, to embroil himself as usual with his family, and, later, to follow out the course ordained for him by fate. Kate Vanhorn had other suitors; but the old wound never healed.
"Come and spend the summer with me," said Helen. "I trust I am as agreeable as the dragon."
"No; I must stay here. Even as it is, she is doing a great deal for me; I have no real claim upon her," replied Anne, trying not to give way to the loneliness that oppressed her.
"Only that of being her nearest living relative, and natural heir."
"I have not considered the question of inheritance," replied the island girl, proudly.
"I know you have not; yet it is there. Old ladies, however, instead of natural heirs, are apt to prefer unnatural ones—cold-blooded Societies, Organizations, and the endless Heathen. But I am in earnest about the summer, Crystal: spend it with me."
"You are always generous to me," said Anne, gratefully.
"No; I never was generous in my life. I do not know how to be generous. But this is the way it is: I am rich; I want a companion; and I likeyou. Your voice supports mine perfectly, and is not in the least too loud—a thing I detest. Besides, we look well together. You are an excellent background for me; you make me look poetic; whereas most women make me look like a caricature of myself—of what I really am. As though a straw-bug should go out walking with a very attenuated grasshopper. Now if the straw-bug went out always with a plump young toad or wood-turtle, people might be found to admire evenhishair-like fineness of limb and yellow transparency, by force, you know, of contrast."
Anne laughed; but there was also a slight change of expression in her face.
"I can read you, Crystal," said Helen, laughing in her turn. "Old Katharine has already told you all those things—sweet old lady! She understands me so well! Come; call it selfishness or generosity, as you please; but accept."
"It is generosity, Helen; which, however, I must decline."
"It must be very inconvenient to be so conscientious," said Mrs. Lorrington. "But mind, I do not give it up. What! lose so good a listener as you are? To whom, then, can I confide the latest particulars respecting the Poet, the Bishop, the Knight-errant, and the Haunted Man?"
"I like the Bishop," said Anne, smiling back at her friend. She had acquired the idea, without words, that Helen liked him also.
The story of Miss Vanhorn's change was, of course, related to Tante: Anne had great confidence both in the old Frenchwoman's kindness of heart and excellent judgment.
Tante listened, asked a question or two, and then said: "Yes, yes, I see. For the present, nothing more can be done. She will allow you to finish your year here, and as the time is of value to you, you shall continue your studies through the vacation. But not at my New Jersey farm, as she supposes; at a better place than that. You shall go to Pitre."
"A place, Tante?"
"No; a friend of mine, and a woman."
Mademoiselle Jeanne-Armande Pitre was not so old as Tante (Tante had friends of all ages); she was about fifty, but conveyed the impression of never having been young. "She is an excellent teacher," continued the other Frenchwoman, "and so closely avaricious that she will be glad to take you even for the small sum you will pay. She is employed in a Western seminary somewhere, but always returns to this little house of hers for the summer vacation. Your opportunity for study with her will be excellent; she has a rage for study. Write and tell your grandaunt, ma fille, what I have decided."
"Ma fille" wrote; but Miss Vanhorn made no reply.
Early in June, accompanied by "monsieur," Anne started on her little journey. The German music master said farewell with hearty regret. He was leaving also; he should not be with Madame Moreau another winter, he said. The Italian atmosphere stifled him, and the very sight of Belzini made him "dremble vit a er-righteous er-rage." He gave Anne his address, and begged that she would send to him when she wanted new music; "musicvortsomeding." Monsieur Laurent, Anne's escort, was a nephew of Tante's, a fine-looking middle-aged Frenchman, who taught the verbs with a military air. But it was not so much his air as his dining-room which gave him importance in the eyes of the school. The "salle à manger de monsieur" was a small half-dark apartment, where he took his meals by himself. It was a mysteriousplace; monsieur was never seen there; it was not known even at what hour he dined. But there were stories in whispered circulation of soups, sauces, salads, and wines served there in secret, which made the listeners hungry even in the mere recital. They peered into the dim little room as they passed, but never saw anything save a brown linen table-cloth, an old caster, and one chair. It was stated, however, that this caster was not a common caster, but that it held, instead of the ordinary pepper and mustard, various liquids and spices of mysterious nature, delightfully and wickedly French.
In less than an hour the travellers reached Lancaster. Here monsieur placed Anne in a red wagon which was in waiting, said good-by hastily (being, perhaps, in a hurry to return to his dining-room), and caught the down train back to the city. He had lived in America so long that he could hurry like a native.
The old horse attached to the red wagon walked slowly over a level winding road, switching his tail to and fro, and stopping now and then to cough, with the profundity which only a horse's cough possesses. At last, turning into a field, he stopped before what appeared to be a fragment of a house.
"Is this the place?" said Anne, surprised.
"It's Miss Peter's," replied the boy driver.
The appearance of Mademoiselle Pitre in person at the door now removed all doubt as to her abode. "I am glad to see you," she said, extending a long yellow hand. "Enter."
The house, which had never been finished, was old; the sides and back were of brick, and the front of wood, temporarily boarded across. The kitchen and one room made all the depth; above, there were three small chambers. After a while, apparently, windows and a front door had been set in the temporary boarding, and a flight of steps added. Mademoiselle had bought the house in its unfinished condition, and had gradually become an object of great unpopularity in the neighborhood because, as season after season rolled by, she did nothing more to her purchase. What did she mean, then? Simple commentswelled into suspicion; the penny-saving old maid was now considered a dark and mysterious person at Lancaster. Opinions varied as to whether she had committed a crime in her youth, or intended to commit one in her age. At any rate, she was not like other people—in the country a heinous crime.
The interior of this half-house was not uncomfortable, although arranged with the strictest economy. The chief room had been painted a brilliant blue by the skillful hands of mademoiselle herself; there was no carpet, but in summer one can spare a carpet; and Anne thought the bright color, the growing plants and flowers, the gayly colored crockery, the four white cats, the sunshine, and the cool open space unfilled by furniture, quaintly foreign and attractive.