LITTLE Anne expected Anne to recover after a reasonable time. She had never known a grown person to cry so violently. She had dealt with no abandon of emotion except her own, and after she had cried tempestuously she was always done with it. But Anne’s weeping abated only to begin all over again when little Anne began to hope; despair of its ever ending seized her. Her arm ached, too, but Anne remembered that it would and withdrew from it to lie face downward in the window cushions, which relaxed the muscles of little Anne’s strained body, but tautened the cords of her heart.
“Please, please, please, dear!” little Anne repeated constantly, patting Anne’s shoulder steadily, changing hands that the action in which she had undefined confidence might not cease.
Then little Anne, getting desperate, bent over Anne.
“Wouldn’t you like to see somebody?” she anxiously suggested. “Shall I call the doctor, or someone?”
“I think it’s a priest I need, Anne; I’d like to go to confession!” she sobbed.
Little Anne was not only relieved by this first coherent speech from her patient, but she hailed the suggestion as the most fitting thing.
“Sure you can go!” she cried. “But I guess you’d better go to the church. They’re not just exactly hearing now, I s’pose, but there’s a bell and you ring it and one of ’em comes right out. If you get a chance to choose you’d better go to Father Denny;he’s mine. He’s kind of old, not very old, but his hair’s gray, but he’s as nice! I’ll take you, Miss Anne.” To little Anne’s inexpressible relief Anne laughed, a sorry sound of merriment, but a stride from passionate crying.
“You dear, funny little enthusiast! I don’t go to confession, I’m not a Catholic, though ‛almost thou persuadest me’ to be one! I can see why confession would help. I’d like wise, dispassionate guidance now. Suppose you call Joan, since your mother is out? Ask Joan if she’s too busy to come here and let me talk to her?”
Anne sat erect and dried her eyes. Little Anne ran rejoicing to the telephone; she knew the symptoms of recovery.
She was back in a few moments, short of breath, but beaming.
“Came near missing her! But it wouldn’t have mattered; she was coming with the baby. She’ll be here quick; going to stop at the grocer’s, she said, but that’s all,” little Anne announced.
Little Anne found the interval of waiting for Joan a strain. It was hard to make conversation after such a scene, and with her active brain teeming with curiosity. She was quick to perceive that Anne preferred silence, so little Anne sat mute, hard though it was on her.
Joan arrived full of sympathy; she knew no more than what little Anne had told her, that Anne was crying dreadfully. As Barbara’s mother she felt adequate to cope with any problem, console any grief, though for the latter office she would have nominated her baby as better able to fill it than herself.
“Suppose we go up to Mother’s room, dear,” Joan proposed. “It’s the nicest room in the house; its walls are soaked with her wisdom and love for us. I think Barbara will walk soon; only fancy! We’ll take her with us; she’s darling when you feel blue! Anne, will you ask Peter to get the baby carriage up on thepiazza, dear? Anne, Anne Dallas, what has happened? You look killed!”
“Yes,” assented Anne, wearily. Then she remembered how good to her little Anne had been.
“Don’t mind our leaving you awhile, will you, dear?” she said to the child. “I’ve got to tell Joan a secret that isn’t my own alone. You’ve been a dear little soul, such a comfort! I’d love to tell it to you if only you were as old as Joan.”
“I don’t mind,” said little Anne without the slightest indication that she already knew as much about it as she could understand, and that was all the facts of the case, though not their consequences.
“I think I’ll stay with Peter after I tell him about the carriage. He’s out in the backyard, working. He likes me there; he didn’t use to want me chattering, he said. I think Peter will prob’ly be a priest. He’s so good to me since I was sick that I’m ’most sure he’s got a vocation.”
Little Anne betook herself to the backyard, where she found Peter as she had expected. She helped him with the front wheels of Barbara’s carriage, lifting it up on the piazza, and then returned with him to sit in her favourite attitude, elbows on knees, hands supporting her elfin chin, watching him work. But even to Peter, absorbed though he was, her interest in skis was plainly distracted.
“Would you like a pair, Anne?” he asked. “You see I’m trying to fix up a sort of steering gear, rudder-like attachment. Do you suppose you could use skis without going on your nose?”
“Could I!” exclaimed Anne, scornfully. “Funny if I couldn’t. There isn’t much boys can do I can’t. And those things are only ’cause I’m rather small. When I’m as old as you I’ll do every single thing you do, just’s well you do ’em.”
“That’s no idle dream, either, Anne,” agreed Peter, admiringly. “I’d back you for a Marathon.”
“Well, that’s nice of you, Peter,” Anne said with a deep, indrawn breath, as gratified as if she knew what a Marathon was. “Peter, I’m cast down and ’flicted in my mind.”
“Gee!” exclaimed Peter, stopping short to look at little Anne. “That’s going some, even for you, Miss Berkley! What’s tuned you up on the Lamentations?”
“The Lamentations in Tenebræ; I guess I know that!” little Anne rebuked him. “It isn’t Holy Week in July! Peter, is it perfec’ly awful to love someone and not be going to marry that one, but another who is truly glorious?”
“Oh, my sainted aunt!” cried Peter, sincerely shocked. “Anne, for the love of Mike! Mother doesn’t let you go to movies, and you don’t read novels, as far as we know. Would you mind telling me what under the canopy started you on that?”
“Yes, Peter, I would,” said little Anne with melancholy dignity. “It’s not my secret alone; if ’twas my secret alone I wouldn’t mind telling you. I just asked.”
Peter lacked the clue to this quotation from Anne Dallas which little Anne had adopted on hearing it. She had treasured it up to use on Monica the next time that her most intimate friend wanted to be told a secret, but it came in so admirably now that she tried it first on Peter; these bits of beautiful diction fortunately serve more than once.
It had such an effect upon Peter that little Anne esteemed it more highly than before.
“Anne,” he declared, solemnly, “I’ll be darned! I certainly will be darned! Of all the kids! I hope Mother knows what to make of you!”
“Oh, she does! But you didn’t tell me, Peter-two,” little Anne reminded her anxious brother.
“No, and I’m not going to,” said Peter. “You put your problem-play plots up to Mother, or Father, or Father Denny, orsomeone; I shall not talk to you about such things! Great Scott, what shall we do with you when you’re in your ’teens?”
“You needn’t act’s if I was wicked; it’s not a sin, Peter-two! And when I’m in my ’teens I’ll prob’ly be a Carmelite. The Little Flower went when she was fifteen, and I’ll be eight in October.”
“Well, thank goodness, here comes Mother! You certainly have got on a string to-day, Miss Berkley!” sighed Peter.
Little Anne rushed to meet her. Though she had been talking calmly to Peter, at the sight of her mother all her excitement boiled up again. She threw her arms around Mrs. Berkley’s waist and began to talk as fast as she could.
“Mother, my dearest, there’s something dreadful upstairs!” Mrs. Berkley dropped into a chair.
“Anne! What?” she gasped.
“It’s Anne. Not the old Anne, the middle-aged Anne—no, she isn’t, she’s young, but——”
“Miss Dallas,” suggested her mother, patiently striving to make little Anne realize that all her friends were not at the Christian-name age of equality with her.
Anne nodded. “She’s cried and cried! I really didn’t know what to do about it! We had what to do when people faint; in school, you know, but she didn’t faint. Kit was here and they got to telling each other how they loved——”
“Anne! Anne, my dear child!” protested Mrs. Berkley.
“Mother, it’s the truth and nothing else! Isn’t it fearful?” Little Anne had not been sure how to regard what had happened till she derived from her mother’s horrified face a sense that it was shocking.
“Kit wanted her just to kiss him quick, but Anne wouldn’t. She kept saying she didn’t know a thing about it before, and ‛no, no, no,’ and ‛Richard!’ She told him to think of Richard—that’sMr. Latham, Mother—and how splendid he is, and how well he likes Anne. And Kit said it was more ’portant about the way they loved each other than Mr. Latham, but Anne wouldn’t stand for it ’tall. She kind of got going, you know, Mother! Her nice soft voice that sounds like a sealskin muff got real high and funny, sort of splitted. And she cried awful! Right on my shoulder, Mother! And I told Kit he’d better run along for now, because he made her feel upset,badlyupset! So he went. And I telephoned Joan, not till she’d cried till I thought she’d die, and now she’s upstairs with Joan, telling her and asking her what she thinks. She didn’t know I knew all about it, Mother; please don’t tell her; she might rather not,” wise little Anne ended her story.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear!” sighed Mrs. Berkley. “What a misfortune! If only Mr. Latham weren’t all that he is, or Kit so nice! What shall we do?”
“If you ask me, Mother,” said little Anne. “I’d let me take Anne up a cup of tea.”
Mrs. Berkley looked at her small daughter blankly, her mind so fixed on the insoluble problem given for solution to three people who were dear to her, that she could not quickly shift it to immediate necessities. Then she caught little Anne into her arms and kissed her.
“Small feminine Mr. Dick, who sets us all right!” she cried. “I’ve no doubt that poor Anne Dallas has the postlude headache. Run and ask Bibiana to make a small pot of her brightest tea and take it on a tray, with a plate of biscuits, to—where are they, Anne?”
“In your room. Make them come down, Mother, ’cause Babs will be so tired staying up there if she isn’t asleep,” said Anne.
“Another good suggestion, my dear! Better break up the talk; they’ve said all that can be said—which is nothing! AskBibiana for the tray in the library and I’ll fetch the girls.” Mrs. Berkley arose and went upstairs.
Mrs. Berkley was hailed as a deliverer by Joan and Anne. Rapidly Anne poured out her tale which varied little from the version which Mrs. Berkley had already heard from little Anne; she did not betray that it was not new to her.
“And no matter what pain it entails, I must keep my word, Mrs. Berkley. Don’t you see it so? Especially when my word is given to Richard Latham, of all the world?” Anne ended.
“And I say, Mother, that Anne can’t imagine what it would mean to her to be married to a man, even to such a man as Richard Latham, when she loved another,” Joan took up the burden, shuddering as she spoke. “Isn’t it a sin, Mother? Do you think it right? Oh, I know that there are honour, pity, all sorts of arguments in the other column, but when all is said, how can Anne marry Richard, loving Kit?”
Joan’s vision was unmistakably fixed upon herself married to someone else with Antony Paul in the world.
“It would not be a sin, Joan, that is certain. It would be a supreme sacrifice for the sake of conscience. It might end in sin were the woman not our Anne Dallas; I am not afraid that she, or Kit, would play with danger. The honour that made them fulfil the pledge to Mr. Latham would make them fight against the memory of each other after it was done. I certainly do not think that a hard battle, a tremendous sacrifice, suffering, are to be avoided at the cost of what our conscience says is wrong. The one point for Anne to establish is where her duty lies. That established, she must do it. I have faith to believe that doing it will bring her true happiness. Peace is no slight good, my dears! I’ve not seen people win greater happiness by self-indulgence than by doing a hard thing because it was right.” Mrs. Berkley spoke slowly, her hand on Anne’s head. She was not finding her verdict easy to render.
“Mr. Latham would not let Anne keep her promise if he knew,” said Joan, convinced, but still rebellious.
“Of course not. No man would,” said Anne. “But how could he know? I can play my part. No one would tell him. Kit said he would, but we all know he’d die first, and if he did tell Richard, then I surely would not marry Kit. He would not be himself if he could do such a thing as that. Ah, well, dear Mrs. Berkley and Joan, there’s no way out! And I am a happy girl, even though I am a little bit unhappy, to have an opportunity to do what I can do in helping Richard. How often we’ve said that!”
“Too much protest implies a doubt, dear child,” said Mrs. Berkley. “But I’ve no doubt of your happiness; in one way or another it is coming to you. Little Anne has ordered tea for you. Come and drink it. Let us try to postpone further thought of our troubles. Don’t you think solutions come clearer and quicker when we don’t strive too hard for them?”
While Anne was crying her heart out and making up her mind to say farewell to the happiness which she desired, Kit walked away from her on air. There had been a moment of complete dismay, a crushing sense of defeat, but it had been but a moment. Three and a half blocks it may have accompanied him on his way, but then he flung it off with a sudden reaction of mind, recalling to him his youth, his will, the utter impossibility that his dominating love for Anne should not conquer all obstacles in its way. To be sure there was Richard Latham and it was a pity! It was true that Richard was too valuable to the world to be further crippled, although it was somewhat wearisome to hear everybody insisting on this truth. It was also true, even truer, that as a man Latham deserved the best that the world could give him; Anne Dallas was decidedly the best thing in the world.
Kit repeated these facts to himself, but in this case it wasliterally true that he could not hear himself think. His heartbeats, the blood racing through his arteries, the tumult of joy that had set up its pæans in him drowned all comments that he made in his thoughts on Richard Latham’s claim. He was going to marry Anne! Anne loved him! He loved Anne and they both knew all about it! What a miraculous revelation it had been! How completely unaware of its coming they had been! What a proof it was that love was actually far greater, far stronger than the lover! It had broken down barriers and leaped forth, not so much in spite of them, as ignoring them. They had not foreseen its escape; they had not known of its presence, or had not admitted the knowledge to their consciousness. What splendour, what glory, what joy there was in being an instrument in such potent hands!
And Anne! Of course he had left her crying on little Anne’s shoulder. Kit laughed aloud, remembering how troubled little Anne had looked, how she had patted and purred over Anne and had bidden Kit run along, as if she had been his small grandmother.
It was hard to think of Anne as suffering. But that was but the first shock to her sensitive conscience. She would see, probably saw by this time, how supremely right it was to love him. It was such a compelling love that it swept from sight gnat-like scruples. He should see her in a few hours and then—she would not cry!
By the time he had reached his aunt’s house Kit had decided that Anne should be married in his mother’s wedding dress, kept sacredly by his aunt. Miss Carrington had loved her youthful sister-in-law, and had treasured her memory as she had taken care of the boy whose birth had cost his mother’s life.
Kit also decided that for the first year he and Anne would live in a hired house near New York. He congratulated himself that he had arranged to go into business with his college friendbefore he had known that he should so soon have a wife to support. He wondered what rentals were now. He had an idea that they were high and houses scarce, but he knew that he should find one within his limit, because all these details would arrange themselves. No question of that, when the supreme fact that they loved each other had so arranged itself!
Kit came into the house whistling, his face crimson, his hat on the back of his head, his eyes so queer that Helen, meeting him on the piazza, actually thought for a moment that he had been drinking.
“Hallo, Nell!” he cried, jovially, confirming her suspicion. “How nice you look! Isn’t it a corking day? Maybe it’s a bit too hot, but I like heat. Are you going out, or coming in? You look mighty nice to-day, Helen!”
Helen’s suspicion shifted; this was not wine. And as to the other, the second exciting influence of that trilogy, which not to love Luther is said to have warned, left a man a fool his life-long? Helen could not see how Kit could have fallen under that influence.
“Mr. Lanbury is coming, Kit,” she said.
“Is he? Who is he?” asked Kit. “Oh, is that the chap you told me about? Coming to get you, Helen? Lucky dog! I hope he’s all right? I don’t suppose I’ve ever had enough sympathy for happy or unhappy lovers. Are you going to make this Lonsberry happy, Nell?”
Helen’s eyes narrowed. She looked as though she might slap Kit, but she did not.
“Well, at least you’re not a dog in the manger, Kit!” she said, and Kit came to himself enough to realize that Helen was establishing the legend that Kit had wanted her, but could not have her. Well, if she felt better that way! It did not matter. Anne mattered, nothing else, and he was going to have her!
“Mr. Lanbury is not Lonsberry. Please get his name straight. He’ll arrive to-night. You’ll see a handsome man, Kit-boy, and a wealthy one, who uses his money in big ways. I wish I could get him to see Mr. Latham. He’s interested in the theatre. He may not have time to go there this visit. I suppose Latham is at home, if he could go?” inquired Helen.
“Yes,” said unwary Kit. “He has a famous manager lunching with him to-day. I suppose it has something to do with the play. The fourth act is well on toward completion.”
“What a detailed and up-to-the-minute bulletin!” laughed Helen. “Did you see the manager? Was it Belasco?”
“I didn’t ask; no, I didn’t see him; I wasn’t there,” said Kit. “I met—I went to the Berkleys’ with young Peter’s book, and An—Miss Dallas was there.”
“Oh-h! I see!” cried Helen, archly. “When the cat’s not precisely away, but watching another mouse hole, the mice will play,n’est ce pas? Kit, get that small perambulating catechism you’re so fond of to teach you the commandments! I’ve a vague recollection of one that forbids coveting your neighbour’s wife.”
By this time Kit was awake to his surroundings; Helen’s rapier voice had pricked his consciousness.
“So have I, and it’s one I particularly admire, because if you don’t get thinking things you’ll hardly start doing them. I assure you I have not a neighbour whose wife I envy him! There’s another nice commandment, Helen, about bearing false witness against your neighbour, isn’t there? You’re judging me uncharitably, Helen, the fair! What shall I give you when you marry this Mr. Longworthy?” Kit smiled guilelessly.
“Proof that I’m not worth the trouble to remember his name!” said Helen, furiously, tears of rage springing to her eyes. “I could hate you, Christopher Carrington, quite easily, and if ever I do it won’t be well for you!”
“You won’t hate me, Nell; you’re too good a sport,” said Kit. “Why should you? I’m the same old Kit you’ve known and liked a little bit for so long!”
“Heavens above us, Kit, don’t I know that?” cried Helen, and fairly ran away.