[Illustration: They leaned together over the yellow cat and kissed each other]
“But what an absurd minister's wife I shall be,” said Annie. “To think of your marrying a girl who has staid at home from church and played cards with her grandmother!”
“I am not at all sure,” said Von Rosen, “that you do not get more benefit, more spiritual benefit, than you would have done from my sermons.”
“I think,” said Annie, “that you are just about as funny a minister as I shall be a minister's wife.”
“I never thought I should be married at all.”
“Why not?”
“I did not care for women.”
“Then why do you now?”
“Because you are a woman.”
Then there was a sudden movement in front of them. The leaf-shadows flickered; the cat jumped down from Annie's lap and ran away, his great yellow plume of tail waving angrily, and Margaret Edes stood before them. She was faultlessly dressed as usual. A woman of her type cannot be changed utterly by force of circumstances in a short time. Her hat was loaded with wisteria. She wore a wisteria gown of soft wool. She held up her skirts daintily. A great amethyst gleamed at her throat, but her face, wearing a smile like a painted one, was dreadful. It was inconceivable, but Margaret Edes had actually in view the banality of confessing her sin to her minister. Of course, Annie was the one who divined her purpose. Von Rosen was simply bewildered. He rose, and stood with an air of polite attention.
“Margaret,” cried Annie, “Margaret!”
The man thought that his sweetheart was simply embarrassed, because of discovery. He did not understand why she bade him peremptorily to please go in the house and see if Aunt Harriet were awake, that she wished to speak to Mrs. Edes. He, however, went as bidden, already discovering that man is as a child to a woman when she is really in earnest.
When he was quite out of hearing, Annie turned upon her friend. “Margaret,” she said, “Margaret, you must not.”
Margaret turned her desperate eyes upon Annie. “I did not know it would be like this,” she said.
“You must not tell him.”
“I must.”
“You must not, and all the more now.”
“Why, now?”
“I am going to marry him.”
“Then he ought to know.”
“Then he ought not to know, for you have drawn me into your web of deceit also. He has talked to me about you and the book. I have not betrayed you. You cannot betray me.”
“It will kill me. I did not know it would be like this. I never blamed myself for anything before.”
“It will not kill you, and if it does, you must bear it. You must not do your husband and children such an awful harm.”
“Wilbur is nominated for Senator. He would have to give it up. He would go away from Fairbridge. He is very proud,” said Margaret in a breathless voice, “but I must tell.”
“You cannot tell.”
“The children talk of it all the time. They look at me so. They wonder because they think I have written that book. They tell all the other children. Annie, I must confess to somebody. I did not know it would be like this.”
“You cannot confess to anybody except God,” said Annie.
“I cannot tell my husband. I cannot tell poor Wilbur, but I thought Mr. von Rosen would tell him.”
“You can not tell Mr. von Rosen. You have done an awful wrong, and now you can not escape the fact that you have done it. You cannot get away from it.”
“You are so hard.”
“No, I am not hard,” said Annie. “I did not betray you there before them all, and neither did Alice.”
“Did Alice Mendon know?” asked Margaret in an awful voice.
“Yes, I had told Alice. She was so hurt for me that I think she might have told.”
“Then she may tell now. I will go to her.”
“She will not tell now. And I am not hard. It is you who are hard upon yourself and that nobody, least of all I, can help. You will have to know this dreadful thing of yourself all your life and you can never stop blaming yourself. There is no way out of it. You can not ruin your husband. You can not ruin your children's future and you cannot, after the wrong you have done me, put me in the wrong, as you would do if you told. By telling the truth, you would put me to the lie, when I kept silence for your sake and the sakes of your husband and children.”
“I did not know it would be like this,” said Margaret in her desperate voice. “I had done nothing worth doing all my life and the hunger to do something had tormented me. It seemed easy, I did not know how I could blame myself. I have always thought so well of myself; I did not know. Annie, for God's sake, let me tell. You can't know how keenly I suffer, Annie. Let me tell Mr. von Rosen. People always tell ministers. Even if he does not tell Wilbur, but perhaps he can tell him and soften it, it would be a relief. People always tell ministers, Annie.”
It seemed improbable that Margaret Edes in her wisteria costume could be speaking. Annie regarded her with almost horror. She pitied her, yet she could not understand. Margaret had done something of which she herself was absolutely incapable. She had the right to throw the stone. She looked at a sinner whose sin was beyond her comprehension. She pitied the evident signs of distress, but her pity, although devoid of anger, was, in spite of herself, coldly wondering. Moreover, Margaret had been guilty in the eyes of the girl of a much worse sin than the mere thievery of her book; she had murdered love. Annie had loved Margaret greatly. No, she loved her no longer, since the older woman had actually blasphemed against the goddess whom the girl had shrined. Had Margaret stolen from another, it would have made no difference. The mere act had destroyed herself as an image of love. Annie, especially now that she was so happy, cared nothing for the glory of which she had been deprived. She had, in truth, never had much hunger for fame, especially for herself. She did not care when she thought how pleased her lover would have been and her relatives, but already the plan for another book was in her brain, for the child was a creator, and no blow like this had any lasting power over her work. What she considered was Margaret's revelation of herself as something else than Margaret, and what she did resent bitterly was being forced into deception in order to shield her. She was in fact hard, although she did not know it. Her usually gentle nature had become like adamant before this. She felt unlike herself as she said bitterly:
“People do not always tell ministers, and you cannot tell Mr. von Rosen, Margaret. I forbid it. Go home and keep still.”
“I cannot bear it.”
“You must bear it.”
“They are going to give me a dinner, the Zenith Club,” said Margaret.
“You will have to accept it.”
“I cannot, Annie Eustace, of what do you think me capable? I am not as bad as you think. I cannot and will not accept that dinner and make the speech which they will expect and hear all the congratulations which they will offer. I cannot.”
“You must accept the dinner, but I don't see that you need make the speech,” said Annie, who was herself aghast over such extremity of torture.
“I will not,” said Margaret. She was very pale and her lips were a tight line. Her eyes were opaque and lustreless. She was in reality suffering what a less egotistical nature could not even imagine. All her life had Margaret Edes worshipped and loved Margaret Edes. Now she had done an awful thing. The falling from the pedestal of a friend is nothing to hurling oneself from one's height of self-esteem and that she had done. She stood, as it were, over the horrible body of her once beautiful and adored self. She was not actually remorseful and that made it all the worse. She simply could not evade the dreadful glare of light upon her own imperfections; she who had always thought of herself as perfect, but the glare of knowledge came mostly from her appreciation of the attitude of her friends and lovers toward what she had done. Suppose she went home and told Wilbur. Suppose she said, “I did not write that book. My friend, Annie Eustace, wrote it. I am a thief, and worse than a thief.” She knew just how he would look at her, his wife, his Margaret, who had never done wrong in his eyes. For the first time in her life she was afraid, and yet how could she live and bear such torture and not confess? Confession would be like a person ill unto death, giving up, and seeking the peace of a sick chamber and the rest of bed and the care of a physician. She had come to feel like that and yet, confession would be like a fiery torture. Margaret had in some almost insane fashion come to feel that she might confess to a minister, a man of God, and ease her soul, without more. And she had never been religious, and would have formerly smiled in serene scorn at her own state of mind. And here was the other woman whom she had wronged, forbidding her this one little possibility of comfort.
She said again humbly, “Let me tell him, Annie. He will only think the more of you because you shielded me.”
But Annie was full of scorn which Margaret could not understand since her nature was not so fine. “Do you think I wish him to?” she said, but in a whisper because she heard voices and footsteps. “You cannot tell him, Margaret.”
Then Von Rosen and Aunt Harriet, whose eyes were dim with recent sleep, came in sight, and Harriet Eustace, who had not seen Margaret since the club meeting, immediately seized upon her two hands and kissed her and congratulated her.
“You dear, wonderful creature,” she said, “we are all so proud of you. Fairbridge is so proud of you and as for us, we can only feel honoured that our little Annie has such a friend. We trust that she will profit by your friendship and we realise that it is such a privilege for her.”
“Thank you,” said Margaret. She turned her head aside. It was rather dreadful, and Annie realised it.
Von Rosen stood by smiling. “I am glad to join in the congratulations,” he said. “In these days of many books, it is a great achievement to have one singled out for special notice. I have not yet had the pleasure of reading the book, but shall certainly have it soon.”
“Thank you,” said Margaret again.
“She should give you an autograph copy,” said Harriet Eustace.
“Yes,” said Margaret. She drew aside Annie and whispered, “I shall tell my husband then. I shall.”
Then she bade them good afternoon in her usually graceful way; murmured something about a little business which she had with Annie and flitted down the pergola in a cloud of wisteria.
“It does seem wonderful,” said Harriet Eustace, “that she should have written that book.”
Von Rosen glanced at Annie with an inquiring expression. He wondered whether she wished him to announce their engagement to her aunt. The amazing suddenness of it all had begun to daunt him. He was in considerable doubt as to what Miss Harriet Eustace, who was a most conservative lady, who had always done exactly the things which a lady under similar circumstances might be expected to do, who always said the things to be expected, would say to this, which must, of course, savour very much of the unexpected. Von Rosen was entirely sure that Miss Harriet Eustace would be scarcely able to conceive of a marriage engagement of her niece especially with a clergyman without all the formal preliminaries of courtship, and he knew well that preliminaries had hardly existed, in the usual sense of the term. He felt absurdly shy, and he was very much relieved when finally Miss Harriet and Annie took their leave and he had said nothing about the engagement. Miss Harriet said a great deal about his most interesting and improving collection. She was a woman of a patronising turn of mind and she made Von Rosen feel like a little boy.
“I especially appreciate the favour for the sake of my niece,” she said. “It is so desirable for the minds of the young to be improved.” Von Rosen murmured a polite acquiescence. She had spoken of his tall, lovely girl as if she were in short skirts. Miss Harriet continued:
“When I consider what Mrs. Edes has done,” she said,—“written a book which has made her famous, I realise how exceedingly important it is for the minds of the young to be improved. It is good for Annie to know Mrs. Edes so intimately, I think.”
For the first time poor Annie was conscious of a distinct sense of wrath. Here she herself had written that book and her mind, in order to have written it, must be every whit as improved as Margaret Edes' and her Aunt Harriet was belittling her before her lover. It was a struggle to maintain silence, especially as her aunt went on talking in a still more exasperating manner.
“I always considered Mrs. Wilbur Edes as a very unusual woman,” said she, “but of course, this was unexpected. I am so thankful that Annie has the great honour of her friendship. Of course, Annie can never do what Mrs. Edes has done. She herself knows that she lacks talent and also concentration. Annie, you know you have never finished that daisy centre piece which you begun surely six months ago. I am quite sure that Mrs. Edes would have finished it in a week.”
Annie did lose patience at that. “Margaret just loathes fancy work, Aunt Harriet,” said she. “She would never even have begun that centre piece.”
“It is much better never to begin a piece of work than never to finish it,” replied Aunt Harriet, “and Mrs. Edes, my dear, has been engaged in much more important work. If you had written a book which had made you famous, no one could venture to complain of your lack of industry with regard to the daisy centre piece. But I am sure that Mrs. Edes, in order to have written that book of which everybody is talking, must have displayed much industry and concentration in all the minor matters of life. I think you must be mistaken, my dear. I am quite sure that Mrs. Edes has not neglected work.”
Annie made no rejoinder, but her aunt did not seem to notice it.
“I am so thankful, Mr. von Rosen,” said she, “that my niece has the honour of being counted among the friends of such a remarkable woman. May I inquire if Mrs. Edes has ever seen your really extraordinary collection, Mr. von Rosen.”
“No, she has not seen it,” replied Von Rosen, and he looked annoyed. Without in the least understanding the real trend of the matter, he did not like to hear his sweetheart addressed after such a fashion, even though he had no inkling of the real state of affairs. To his mind, this exquisite little Annie, grimy daisy centre piece and all, had accomplished much more in simply being herself, than had Margaret Edes with her much blazoned book.
“I trust that she will yet see it,” said Miss Harriet Eustace. Harriet Eustace was tall, dull skinned and wide mouthed, and she had a fashion, because she had been told from childhood that her mouth was wide, of constantly puckering it as if she were eating alum.
“I shall be of course pleased to show Mrs. Edes my collection at any time,” said Von Rosen politely.
“I hope she will see it,” said Harriet, puckering, “it is so improving, and if anything is improving to the ordinary mind, what must it be to the mind of genius?”
The two took leave then, Annie walking behind her aunt. The sidewalk which was encroached upon by grass was very narrow. Annie did not speak at all. She heard her aunt talking incessantly without realising the substance of what she said. Her own brain was overwhelmed with bewilderment and happiness. Here was she, Annie Eustace, engaged to be married and to the right man. The combination was astounding. Annie had been conscious ever since she had first seen him, that Karl von Rosen dwelt at the back of her thoughts, but she was rather a well disciplined girl. She had not allowed herself the luxury of any dreams concerning him and herself. She had not considered the possibility of his caring for her, not because she underestimated herself, but because she overestimated him. Now, she knew he cared, he cared, and he wanted to marry her, to make her his wife. After she had reached home, when they were seated at the tea table, she did not think of telling anybody. She ate and felt as if she were in a blissful crystal sphere of isolation. It did not occur to her to reveal her secret until she went into her grandmother's room rather late to bid her good night. Annie had been sitting by herself on the front piazza and allowing herself a perfect feast in future air-castles. She could see from where she sat, the lights from the windows of the Edes' house, and she heard Wilbur's voice, and now and then his laugh. Margaret's voice, she never heard at all. Annie went into the chamber, the best in the house, and there lay her grandmother, old Ann Maria Eustace, propped up in bed, reading a novel which was not allowed in the Fairbridge library. She had bidden Annie buy it for her, when she last went to New York.
“I wouldn't ask a girl to buy such a book,” the old lady had said, “but nobody will know you and I have read so many notices about its wickedness, I want to see it for myself.”
Now she looked up when Annie entered. “It is not wicked at all,” she said in rather a disappointed tone. “It is much too dull. In order to make a book wicked, it must be, at least, somewhat entertaining. The writer speaks of wicked things, but in such a very moral fashion that it is all like a sermon. I don't like the book at all. At the same time a girl like you had better not read it and you had better see that Harriet and Susan don't get a glimpse of it. They would be set into fits. It is a strange thing that both my daughters should be such old maids to the bone and marrow. You can read it though if you wish, Annie. I doubt if you understand the wickedness anyway, and I don't want you to grow up straight-laced like Harriet and Susan. It is really a misfortune. They lose a lot.”
Then Annie spoke. “I shall not be an old maid, I think,” said she. “I am going to be married.”
“Married! Who is going to marry you? I haven't seen a man in this house except the doctor and the minister for the last twenty years.”
“I am going to marry the minister, Mr. von Rosen.”
“Lord,” said Annie's grandmother, and stared at her. She was a queer looking old lady propped up on a flat pillow with her wicked book. She had removed the front-piece which she wore by day and her face showed large and rosy between the frills of her night cap. Her china blue eyes were exceedingly keen and bright. Her mouth as large as her daughter Harriet's, not puckered at all, but frankly open in an alarming slit, in her amazement.
“When for goodness sake has the man courted you?” she burst forth at last.
“I don't know.”
“Well, I don't know, if you don't. You haven't been meeting him outside the house. No, you have not. You are a lady, if you have been brought up by old maids, who tell lies about spades.”
“I did not know until this afternoon,” said Annie. “Mr. von Rosen and I went out to see his rose-garden, while Aunt Harriet—”
Then the old lady shook the bed with mirth.
“I see,” said she. “Harriet is scared to death of roses and she went to sleep in the house and you got your chance. Good for you. I am thankful the Eustace family won't quite sputter out in old maids.” The old lady continued to chuckle. Annie feared lest her aunts might hear. Beside the bed stood a table with the collection of things which was Ann Maria Eustace's nightly requirement. There were a good many things. First was a shaded reading lamp, then a candle and a matchbox; there was a plate of thin bread and butter carefully folded in a napkin. A glass of milk, covered with a glass dish; two bottles of medicine; two spoons; a saucer of sugared raspberries; exactly one square inch of American cheese on a tiny plate; a pitcher of water, carefully covered; a tumbler; a glass of port wine and a bottle of camphor. Old Ann Maria Eustace took most of her sustenance at night. Night was really her happy time. When that worn, soft old bulk of hers was ensconsed among her soft pillows and feather bed and she had her eatables and drinkables and literature at hand, she was in her happiest mood and she was none the less happy from the knowledge that her daughters considered that any well conducted old woman should have beside her bed, merely a stand with a fair linen cloth, a glass of water, a candle and the Good Book, and that if she could not go immediately to sleep, she should lie quietly and say over texts and hymns to herself. All Ann Maria's spice of life was got from a hidden antagonism to her daughters and quietly flying in the face of their prejudices, and she was the sort of old lady who could hardly have lived at all without spice.
“Your Aunt Harriet will be hopping,” said the perverse old lady with another chuckle.
“Why, grandmother?”
“Harriet has had an eye on him herself.”
Annie gasped. “Aunt Harriet must be at least twenty-five years older,” said she.
“Hm,” said the old lady, “that doesn't amount to anything. Harriet didn't put on her pearl breast-pin and crimp her hair unless she had something in her mind. Susan has given up, but Harriet hasn't given up.”
Annie still looked aghast.
“When are you going to get married?” asked the old lady.
“I don't know.”
“Haven't settled that yet? Well, when you do, there's the white satin embroidered with white roses that I was married in and my old lace veil. I think he's a nice young man. All I have against him is his calling. You will have to go to meeting whether you want to or not and listen to the same man's sermons. But he is good looking and they say he has money, and anyway, the Eustaces won't peter out in old maids. There's one thing I am sorry about. Sunday is going to be a pretty long day for me, after you are married, and I suppose before. If you are going to marry that man, I suppose you will have to begin going to meeting at once.”
Then Annie spoke decidedly. “I am always going to play pinocle with you Sunday forenoons as long as you live, grandmother,” said she.
“After you are married?”
“Yes, I am.”
“After you are married to a minister?”
“Yes, grandmother.”
The old lady sat up straight and eyed Annie with her delighted china blue gaze.
“Mr. von Rosen is a lucky man,” said she. “Enough sight luckier than he knows. You are just like me, Annie Eustace, and your grandfather set his eyes by me as long as he lived. A good woman who has sense enough not to follow all the rules and precepts and keep good, isn't found every day, and she can hold a man and holding a man is about as tough a job as the Almighty ever set a woman. I've got a pearl necklace and a ring in the bank. Harriet has always wanted them but what is the use of a born old maid decking herself out? I always knew Harriet and Susan would be old maids. Why, they would never let their doll-babies be seen without all their clothes on, seemed to think there was something indecent about cotton cloth legs stuffed with sawdust. When you see a little girl as silly as that you can always be sure she is cut out for an old maid. I don't care when you get married—just as soon as you want to—and you shall have a pretty wedding and you shall have your wedding cake made after my old recipe. You are a good girl, Annie. You look like me. You are enough sight better than you would be if you were better, and you can make what you can out of that. Now, you must go to bed. You haven't told Harriet and Susan yet, have you?”
“No, grandmother.”
“I'll tell them myself in the morning,” said the old lady with a chuckle which made her ancient face a mask of mirth and mischief. “Now, you run along and go to bed. This book is dull, but I want to see how wicked the writer tried to make it and the heroine is just making an awful effort to run away with a married man. She won't succeed, but I want to see how near she gets to it. Good-night, Annie. You can have the book to-morrow.”
Annie went to her own room but she made no preparation for bed. She had planned to work as she had worked lately until nearly morning. She was hurrying to complete another book which she had begun before Margaret Edes' announcement that she had writtenThe Poor Lady. The speedy completion of this book had been the condition of secrecy with her publishers. However, Annie, before she lit the lamp on her table could not resist the desire to sit for a minute beside her window and gaze out upon the lovely night and revel in her wonderful happiness. The night was lovely enough for anyone, and for a girl in the rapture of her first love, it was as beautiful as heaven. The broad village gleaming like silver in the moonlight satisfied her as well as a street of gold and the tree shadows waved softly over everything like wings of benediction. Sweet odours came in her face. She could see the soft pallor of a clump of lilies in the front yard. The shrilling of the night insects seemed like the calls of prophets of happiness. The lights had gone out of the windows of the Edes' house, but suddenly she heard a faint, very faint, but very terrible cry and a white figure rushed out of the Edes' gate. Annie did not wait a second. She was up, out of her room, sliding down the stair banisters after the habit of her childhood and after it.
Margaret Edes, light and slender and supple as she was, and moreover rendered swift with the terrible spur of hysteria, was no match for Annie Eustace who had the build of a racing human, being long-winded and limber. Annie caught up with her, just before they reached Alice Mendon's house, and had her held by one arm. Margaret gave a stifled shriek. Even in hysteria, she did not quite lose her head. She had unusual self-control.
“Let me go,” she gasped. Annie saw that Margaret carried a suit-case, which had probably somewhat hindered her movements. “Let me go, I shall miss the ten-thirty train,” Margaret said in her breathless voice.
“Where are you going?”
“I am going.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere,—away from it all.”
The two struggled together as far as Alice's gate, and to Annie's great relief, a tall figure appeared, Alice herself. She opened the gate and came on Margaret's other side.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
“I am going to take the ten-thirty train,” said Margaret.
“Where are you going?”
“To New York.”
“Where in New York?”
“I am going.”
“You are not going,” said Alice Mendon; “you will return quietly to your own home like a sensible woman. You are running away, and you know it.”
“Yes, I am,” said Margaret in her desperate voice. “You would run away if you were in my place, Alice Mendon.”
“I could never be in your place,” said Alice, “but if I were, I should stay and face the situation.” She spoke with quite undisguised scorn and yet with pity.
“You must think of your husband and children and not entirely of yourself,” she added.
“If,” said Margaret, stammering as she spoke, “I tell Wilbur, I think it will kill him. If I tell the children, they will never really have a mother again. They will never forget. But if I do not tell, I shall not have myself. It is a horrible thing not to have yourself, Alice Mendon.”
“It is the only way.”
“It is easy for you to talk, Alice Mendon. You have never been tempted.”
“No,” replied Alice, “that is quite true. I have never been tempted because—I cannot be tempted.”
“It is no credit to you. You were made so.”
“Yes, that is true also. I was made so. It is no credit to me.”
Margaret tried to wrench her arm free from Annie's grasp.
“Let me go, Annie Eustace,” she said. “I hate you.”
“I don't care if you do,” replied Annie. “I don't love you any more myself. I don't hate you, but I certainly don't love you.”
“I stole your laurels,” said Margaret, and she seemed to snap out the words.
“You could have had the laurels,” said Annie, “without stealing, if I could have given them to you. It is not the laurels that matter. It is you.”
“I will kill myself if it ever is known,” said Margaret in a low horrified whisper. She cowered.
“It will never be known unless you yourself tell it,” said Annie.
“I cannot tell,” said Margaret. “I have thought it all over. I cannot tell and yet, how can I live and not tell?”
“I suppose,” said Alice Mendon, “that always when people do wrong, they have to endure punishment. I suppose that is your punishment, Margaret. You have always loved yourself and now you will have to despise yourself. I don't see any way out of it.”
“I am not the only woman who does such things,” said Margaret, and there was defiance in her tone.
“No doubt, you have company,” said Alice. “That does not make it easier for you.” Alice, large and fair in her white draperies, towered over Margaret Edes like an embodied conscience. She was almost unendurable, like the ideal of which the other woman had fallen short. Her mere presence was maddening. Margaret actually grimaced at her.
“It is easy for you to preach,” said she, “very easy, Alice Mendon. You have not a nerve in your whole body. You have not an ungratified ambition. You neither love nor hate yourself, or other people. You want nothing on earth enough to make the lack of it disturb you.”
“How well you read me,” said Alice and she smiled a large calm smile as a statue might smile, could she relax her beautiful marble mouth.
“And as for Annie Eustace,” said Margaret, “she has what I stole, and she knows it, and that is enough for her. Oh, both of you look down upon me and I know it.”
“I look down upon you no more than I have always done,” said Alice; but Annie was silent because she could not say that truly.
“Yes, I know you have always looked down upon me, Alice Mendon,” said Margaret, “and you never had reason.”
“I had the reason,” said Alice, “that your own deeds have proved true.”
“You could not know that I would do such a thing. I did not know it myself. Why, I never knew that Annie Eustace could write a book.”
“I knew that a self-lover could do anything and everything to further her own ends,” said Alice in her inexorable voice, which yet contained an undertone of pity.
She pitied Margaret far more than Annie could pity her for she had not loved her so much. She felt the little arm tremble in her clasp and her hand tightened upon it as a mother's might have done.
“Now, we have had enough of this,” said she, “quite enough. Margaret, you must positively go home at once. I will take your suit-case, and return it to you to-morrow. I shall be out driving. You can get in without being seen, can't you?”
“I tell you both, I am going,” said Margaret; “I cannot face what is before me.”
“All creation has to face what is before. Running makes no difference,” said Alice. “You will meet it at the end of every mile. Margaret Edes, go home. Take care of your husband, and your children and keep your secret and let it tear you for your own good.”
“They are to nominate Wilbur for Senator,” said Margaret. “If they knew, if he knew, Wilbur would not run. He has always had ambition. I should kill it.”
“You will not kill it,” said Alice. “Here, give me that suit-case, I will set it inside the gate here. Now Annie and I will walk with you and you must steal in and not wake anybody and go to bed and to sleep.”
“To sleep,” repeated Margaret bitterly.
“Then not to sleep, but you must go.”
The three passed down the moon-silvered road. When they had reached Margaret's door, Alice suddenly put an arm around her and kissed her.
“Go in as softly as you can, and to bed,” she whispered.
“What made you do that, Alice?” asked Annie in a small voice when the door had closed behind Margaret.
“I think I am beginning to love her,” whispered Alice. “Now you know what we must do, Annie?”
“What?”
“We must both watch until dawn, until after that train to New York which stops here at three-thirty. You must stand here and I will go to the other door. Thank God, there are only two doors, and I don't think she will try the windows because she won't suspect our being here. But I don't trust her, poor thing. She is desperate. You stay here, Annie. Sit down close to the door and—you won't be afraid?”
“Oh, no!”
“Of course, there is nothing to be afraid of,” said Alice. “Now I will go to the other door.”
Annie sat there until the moon sank. She did not feel in the least sleepy. She sat there and counted up her joys of life and almost forgot poor Margaret who had trampled hers in the dust raised by her own feet of self-seeking. Then came the whistle and roar of a train and Alice stole around the house.
“It is safe enough for us to go now,” said she. “That was the last train. Do you think you can get in your house without waking anybody?”
“There is no danger unless I wake grandmother. She wakes very early of herself and she may not be asleep and her hearing is very quick.”
“What will she say?”
“I think I can manage her.”
“Well, we must hurry. It is lucky that my room is away from the others or I should not be sure of getting there unsuspected. Hurry, Annie.”
The two sped swiftly and noiselessly down the street, which was now very dark. The village houses seemed rather awful with their dark windows like sightless eyes. When they reached Annie's house Alice gave her a swift kiss. “Good-night,” she whispered.
“Alice.”
“Well, little Annie?”
“I am going to be married, to Mr. Von Rosen.”
Alice started ever so slightly. “You are a lucky girl,” she whispered, “and he is a lucky man.”
Alice flickered out of sight down the street like a white moonbeam and Annie stole into the house. She dared not lock the door behind her lest she arouse somebody. She tip-toed upstairs, but as she was passing her grandmother's door, it was opened, and the old woman stood there, her face lit by her flaring candle.
“You just march right in here,” said she so loud that Annie shuddered for fear she would arouse the whole house. She followed her grandmother into her room and the old woman turned and looked at her, and her face was white.
“Where have you been, Miss?” said she. “It is after three o'clock in the morning.”
“I had to go, grandmother, and there was no harm, but I can't tell you. Indeed, I can't,” replied Annie, trembling.
“Why can't you? I'd like to know.”
“I can't, indeed, I can't, grandmother.”
“Why not, I'd like to know. Pretty doings, I call it.”
“I can't tell you why not, grandmother.”
The old woman eyed the girl. “Out with a man—I don't care if you are engaged to him—till this time!” said she.
Annie started and crimsoned. “Oh, grandmother!” she cried.
“I don't care if he is a minister. I am going to see him to-morrow, no, to-day, right after breakfast and give him a piece of my mind. I don't care what he thinks of me.”
“Grandmother, there wasn't any man.”
“Are you telling me the truth?”
“I always tell the truth.”
“Yes, I think you always have since that time when you were a little girl and I spanked you for lying,” said the old woman. “I rather think you do tell the truth, but sometimes when a girl gets a man into her head, she goes round like a top. You haven't been alone, you needn't tell me that.”
“No, I haven't been alone.”
“But, he wasn't with you? There wasn't any man?”
“No, there was not any man, grandmother.”
“Then you had better get into your own room as fast as you can and move still or you will wake up Harriet and Susan.”
Annie went.
“I am thankful I am not curious,” said the old woman clambering back into bed. She lit her lamp and took up her novel again.
The next morning old Ann Maria Eustace announced her granddaughter's engagement at the breakfast table. She waited until the meal was in full swing, then she raised her voice.
“Well, girls,” she said, looking first at Harriet, then at Susan, “I have some good news for you. Our little Annie here is too modest, so I have to tell you for her.”
Harriet Eustace laughed unsuspiciously. “Don't tell us that Annie has been writing a great anonymous novel like Margaret Edes,” she said, and Susan laughed also. “Whatever news it may be, it is not that,” she said. “Nobody could suspect Annie of writing a book. I myself was not so much surprised at Margaret Edes.”
To Annie's consternation, her grandmother turned upon her a long, slow, reading look. She flushed under it and swallowed a spoonful of cereal hastily. Then her grandmother chuckled under her breath and her china blue eyes twinkled.
“Annie has done something a deal better than to write a book,” said she, looking away from the girl, and fixing unsparing eyes upon her daughters. “She has found a nice man to marry her.”
Harriet and Susan dropped their spoons and stared at their mother.
“Mother, what are you talking about?” said Harriet sharply. “She has had no attention.”
“Sometimes,” drawled the old lady in a way she affected when she wished to be exasperating, “sometimes, a little attention is so strong that it counts and sometimes attention is attention when nobody thinks it is.”
“Who is it?” asked Harriet in rather a hard voice. Susan regarded Annie with a bewildered, yet kindly smile. Poor Susan had never regarded the honey pots of life as intended for herself, and thus could feel a kindly interest in their acquisition by others.
“My granddaughter is engaged to be married to Mr. von Rosen,” said the old lady. Then she stirred her coffee assiduously.
Susan rose and kissed Annie. “I hope you will be happy, very happy,” she said in an awed voice. Harriet rose, to follow her sister's example but she looked viciously at her mother.
“He is a good ten years older than Annie,” she said.
“And a good twenty-five younger than you,” said the old lady, and sipped her coffee delicately. “He is just the right age for Annie.”
Harriet kissed Annie, but her lips were cold and Annie wondered. It never occurred to her then, nor later, to imagine that her Aunt Harriet might have had her own dreams which had never entirely ended in rainbow mists. She did not know how hardly dreams die. They are sometimes not entirely stamped out during a long lifetime.
That evening Von Rosen came to call on Annie and she received him alone in the best parlour. She felt embarrassed and shy, but very happy. Her lover brought her an engagement ring, a great pearl, which had been his mother's and put it on her finger, and Annie eyed her finger with a big round gaze like a bird's. Von Rosen laughed at the girl holding up her hand and staring at the beringed finger.
“Don't you like it, dear?” he said.
“It is the most beautiful ring I ever saw,” said Annie, “but I keep thinking it may not be true.”
“The truest things in the world are the things which do not seem so,” he said, and caught up the slender hand and kissed the ring and the finger.
Margaret on the verandah had seen Von Rosen enter the Eustace house and had guessed dully at the reason. She had always thought that Von Rosen would eventually marry Alice Mendon and she wondered a little, but not much. Her own affairs were entirely sufficient to occupy her mind. Her position had become more impossible to alter and more ghastly. That night Wilbur had brought home a present to celebrate her success. It was something which she had long wanted and which she knew he could ill afford:—a circlet of topazes for her hair. She kissed him and put it on to please him, but it was to her as if she were crowned because of her infamy and she longed to snatch the thing off and trample it. And yet always she was well aware that it was not remorse which she felt, but a miserable humiliation that she, Margaret Edes, should have cause for remorse. The whole day had been hideous. The letters and calls of congratulation had been incessant. There were brief notices in a few papers which had been marked and sent to her and Wilbur had brought them home also. Her post-office box had been crammed. There were requests for her autograph. There were requests for aid from charitable institutions. There were requests for advice and assistance from young authors. She had two packages of manuscripts sent her for inspection concerning their merits. One was a short story, and came through the mail; one was a book and came by express. She had requests for work from editors and publishers. Wilbur had brought a letter of congratulation from his partner. It was absolutely impossible for her to draw back except for that ignoble reason: the reinstatement of herself in her own esteem. She could not possibly receive all this undeserved adulation and retain her self esteem. It was all more than she had counted upon. She had opened Pandora's box with a vengeance and the stinging things swarmed over her. Wilbur sat on the verandah with her and scarcely took his eyes of adoring wonder from her face. She had sent the little girls to bed early. They had told all their playmates and talked incessantly with childish bragging. They seemed to mock her as with peacock eyes, symbolic of her own vanity.
“You sent the poor little things to bed very early,” Wilbur said. “They did so enjoy talking over their mother's triumph. It is the greatest day of their lives, you know, Margaret.”
“I am tired of it,” Margaret said sharply, but Wilbur's look of worship deepened.
“You are so modest, sweetheart,” he said and Margaret writhed. Poor Wilbur had been readingThe Poor Ladyinstead of his beloved newspapers and now and then he quoted a passage which he remembered, with astonishing accuracy.
“Say, darling, you are a marvel,” he would remark after every quotation. “Now, how in the world did you ever manage to think that up? I suppose just this minute, as you sit there looking so sweet in your white dress, just such things are floating through your brain, eh?”
“No, they are not,” replied Margaret. Oh, if she had only understood the horrible depth of a lie!
“Suppose Von Rosen is making up to little Annie?” said Wilbur presently.
“I don't know.”
“Well, she is a nice little thing, sweet tempered, and pretty, although of course her mental calibre is limited. She may make a good wife, though. A man doesn't expect his wife always to set the river on fire as you have done, sweetheart.”
Then Wilbur fished from his pockets a lot of samples. “Thought I must order a new suit, to live up to my wife,” he said. “See which you prefer, Margaret.”
“I should think your own political outlook would make the new suit necessary,” said Margaret tartly.
“Not a bit of it. Get more votes if you look a bit shabby from the sort who I expect may get me the office,” laughed Wilbur. “This new suit is simply to enable me to look worthy, as far as my clothes are concerned, of my famous wife.”
“I think you have already clothes enough,” said Margaret coldly.
Wilbur looked hurt. “Doesn't make much difference how the old man looks, does it, dear?” said he.
“Let me see the samples,” Margaret returned with an effort. There were depths beyond depths; there were bottomless quicksands in a lie. How could she have known?
That night Wilbur looked into his wife's bedroom at midnight. “Awake?” he asked in his monosyllabic fashion.
“Yes.”
“Say, old girl, Von Rosen has just this minute gone. Guess it's a match fast enough.”
“I always thought it would be Alice,” returned Margaret wearily. Love affairs did seem so trivial to her at this juncture.
“Alice Mendon has never cared a snap about getting married any way,” returned Wilbur. “Some women are built that way. She is.”
Margaret did not inquire how he knew. If Wilbur had told her that he had himself asked Alice in marriage, it would have been as if she had not heard. All such things seemed very unimportant to her in the awful depths of her lie. She said good-night in answer to Wilbur's and again fell to thinking. There was no way out, absolutely no way. She must live and die with this secret self-knowledge which abased her, gnawing at the heart. Wilbur had told her that he believed that her authorship ofThe Poor Ladymight be the turning point of his election. She was tongue-tied in a horrible spiritual sense. She was disfigured for the rest of her life and she could never once turn away her eyes from her disfigurement.
The light from Annie Eustace's window shone in her room for two hours after that. She wondered what she was doing and guessed Annie was writing a new novel to take the place of the one of which she had robbed her. An acute desire which was like a pain to be herself the injured instead of the injurer possessed her. Oh, what would it mean to be Annie sitting there, without leisure to brood over her new happiness, working, working, into the morning hours and have nothing to look upon except moral and physical beauty in her mental looking-glass. She envied the poor girl, who was really working beyond her strength, as she had never envied any human being. The envy stung her, and she could not sleep. The next morning she looked ill and then she had to endure Wilbur's solicitude.
“Poor girl, you overworked writing your splendid book,” he said. Then he suggested that she spend a month at an expensive seashore resort and another horror was upon Margaret. Wilbur, she well knew, could not afford to send her to such a place, but was innocently, albeit rather shamefacedly, assuming that she could defray her own expenses from the revenue of her book. He would never call her to account as to what she had done with the wealth which he supposed her to be reaping. She was well aware of that, but he would naturally wonder within himself. Any man would. She said that she was quite well, that she hated a big hotel, and much preferred home during the hot season, but she heard the roar of these new breakers. How could she have dreamed of the lifelong disturbance which a lie could cause?
Night after night she saw the light in Annie's windows and she knew what she was doing. She knew why she was not to be married until next winter. That book had to be written first. Poor Annie could not enjoy her romance to the full because of over-work. The girl lost flesh and Margaret knew why. Preparing one's trousseau, living in a love affair, and writing a book, are rather strenuous, when undertaken at the same time.
It was February when Annie and Von Rosen were married and the wedding was very quiet. Annie had over-worked, but her book was published, and was out-sellingThe Poor Lady. It also was published anonymously, but Margaret knew, she knew even from the reviews. Then she bought the book and read it and was convinced. The book was really an important work. The writer had gone far beyond her first flight, but there was something unmistakable about the style to such a jealous reader as Margaret. Annie had her success after all. She wore her laurels, although unseen of men, with her orange blossoms. Margaret saw in every paper, in great headlines, the notice of the great seller. The best novel for a twelve-month—The Firm Hand. Wilbur talked much about it. He had his election. He was a Senator, and was quietly proud of it, but nothing mattered to him as much as Margaret's book. That meant more than his own success.
“I have read that novel they are talking so much about and it cannot compare with yours,” he told her. “The publishers ought to push yours a little more. Do you think I ought to look in on them and have a little heart-to-heart talk?”
Margaret's face was ghastly. “Don't do anything of the sort,” she said.
“Well, I won't if you don't want me to, but—”
“I most certainly don't want you to.” Then Margaret never had a day of peace. She feared lest Wilbur, who seemed nightly more incensed at the flaming notices ofThe Firm Handmight, in spite of her remonstrances, go to see the publishers, and would they keep the secret if he did?
Margaret continued to live as she had done before. That was part of the horror. She dared not resign from the Zenith Club. However, she came in time to get a sort of comfort from it. Meeting all those members, presiding over the meetings, became a sort of secret flagellation, which served as a counter irritation, for her tormented soul. All those women thought well of her. They admired her. The acute torture which she derived from her knowledge of herself, as compared with their opinion of her, seemed at times to go a little way toward squaring her account with her better self. And the club also seemed to rouse within her a keener vitality of her better self. Especially when the New Year came and Mrs. Slade was elected president in her stead. Once, Margaret would have been incapable of accepting that situation so gracefully. She gave a reception to Mrs. Slade in honour of her election, and that night had a little return of her lost peace. Then during one of the meetings, a really good paper was read, which set her thinking. That evening she played dominoes with Maida and Adelaide, and always after that a game followed dinner. The mother became intimate with her children. She really loved them because of her loss of love for herself, and because the heart must hold love. She loved her husband too, but he realised no difference because he had loved her. That coldness had had no headway against such doting worship. But the children realised.
“Mamma is so much better since she wrote that book that I shall be glad when you are old enough to write a book too,” Adelaide said once to Maida.
But always Margaret suffered horribly, although she gave no sign. She took care of her beauty. She was more particular than ever about her dress. She entertained, she accepted every invitation, and they multiplied since Wilbur's flight in politics and her own reputed authorship. She was Spartan in her courage, but she suffered, because she saw herself as she was and she had so loved herself. It was not until Annie Eustace was married that she obtained the slightest relief. Then she ascertained that the friend whom she had robbed of her laurels had obtained a newer and greener crown of them. She went to the wedding and saw on a table, Annie's new book. She glanced at it and she knew and she wondered if Von Rosen knew. He did not.
Annie waited until after their return from their short wedding journey when they were settled in their home. Then one evening, seated with her husband before the fire in the study, with the yellow cat in her lap, and the bull terrier on the rug, his white skin rosy in the firelight, she said:
“Karl, I have something to tell you.”
Von Rosen looked lovingly at her. “Well, dear?”
“It is nothing, only you must not tell, for the publishers insist upon its being anonymous, I—wroteThe Firm Hand.”
Von Rosen made a startled exclamation and looked at Annie and she could not understand the look.
“Are you displeased?” she faltered. “Don't you like me to write? I will never neglect you or our home because of it. Indeed I will not.”
“Displeased,” said Von Rosen. He got up and deliberately knelt before her. “I am proud that you are my wife,” he said, “prouder than I am of anything else in the world.”
“Please get up, dear,” said Annie, “but I am so glad, although it is really I who am proud, because I have you for my husband. I feel all covered over with peacock's eyes.”
“I cannot imagine a human soul less like a peacock,” said Von Rosen. He put his arms around her as he knelt, and kissed her, and the yellow cat gave an indignant little snarl and jumped down. He was jealous.
“Sit down,” said Annie, laughing. “I thought the time had come to tell you and I hoped you would be pleased. It is lovely, isn't it? You know it is selling wonderfully.”
“It is lovely,” said Von Rosen. “It would have been lovely anyway, but your success is a mighty sweet morsel for me.”
“You had better go back to your chair and smoke and I will read to you,” said Annie.
“Just as if you had not written a successful novel,” said Von Rosen. But he obeyed, the more readily because he knew, and pride and reverence for his wife fairly dazed him. Von Rosen had been more acute than the critics and Annie had written at high pressure, and one can go over a book a thousand times and be blind to things which should be seen. She had repeated one little sentence which she had written inThe Poor Lady. Von Rosen knew, but he never told her that he knew. He bowed before her great, generous silence as he would have bowed before a shrine, but he knew that she had writtenThe Poor Lady, and had allowed Margaret Edes to claim unquestioned the honour of her work.
As they sat there, Annie's Aunt Susan came in and sat with them. She talked a good deal about the wedding presents. Wedding presents were very wonderful to her. They were still spread out, most of them on tables in the parlour because all Fairbridge was interested in viewing them. After a while Susan went into the parlour and gloated over the presents. When she came back, she wore a slightly disgusted expression.
“You have beautiful presents,” said she, “but I have been looking all around and the presents are not all on those tables, are they?”
“No,” said Annie.
Von Rosen laughed. He knew what was coming, or thought that he did.
“I see,” said Aunt Susan, “that you have forty-two copies of Margaret Edes' book,The Poor Lady, and I have always thought it was a very silly book, and you can't exchange them for every single one is autographed.”
It was quite true. Poor Margaret Edes had autographed the forty-two. She had not even dreamed of the incalculable depths of a lie.
THE END
[Transcriber's note:
The following spelling inconsistencies were present in the original and were not corrected in this etext:
wordlyensconsed/ensconced]