“Yours truly,“Arthur Leighton.”
“Yours truly,“Arthur Leighton.”
“Yours truly,“Arthur Leighton.”
“Yours truly,
“Arthur Leighton.”
The rector felt better after that letter was written. He had told his grievance to some one, and it seemed to have lightened half the load.
“Thorne is a good fellow,” he said, as he directed the letter. “A little fast, it’s true, but a splendid fellow after all. He will sympathize with me in his way, and I would rather give Anna to him than any other living man.”
Arthur was serious in what he said, for, wholly unlike as they were, there was between him and Thornton Hastings one of those strong friendships which sometimes exist between two men, but rarely between two women, of so widely different temperaments. They had roomed together four years in college, and countless were the difficulties from which the sober Arthur had extricated the luckless Thorne, while many a time the rather slender means of Arthur had been increased in a way so delicate that expostulation was next to impossible.
Arthur was better off now in worldly goods, for by the death of an uncle he had come in possession of a few thousand dollars, which had enabled him to travel in Europe for a year, and left a surplus, from which he fed the poor and needy with no sparing hand.
St. Mark’s was his first parish, and though he could have chosen one nearer to New York, where the society was more congenial to his taste, he had accepted of what God offered to him, and had been very happy there sinceAnna Ruthven came home from Troy and made such havoc with his heart. He did not believe he should ever be quite so happy again, but he would try to do his work, and take thankfully whatever of good might come to him.
This was his final decision, and when at last he laid down to rest, the wound, though deep and sore, and bleeding yet, was not quite as hard to bear as it had been earlier in the day, when it was fresh and raw, and faith and hope seemed swept away.
CHAPTER V.TUESDAY.
That open grassy spot in the dense shadow of the west woods was just the place for a picnic, and it looked very bright and pleasant that warm June afternoon, with the rustic table so fancifully arranged, the camp-stools scattered over the lawn, and the bouquets of flowers depending from the trees.
Fanny Hetherton had given it her whole care, aided and abetted by Mr. Bellamy, what time he could spare from Lucy, who, endued with a mortal fear of insects, seemed this day to gather scores of bugs and worms upon her dress and hair, screaming with every worm, and bringing Simon obediently to her aid.
“I’d stay at home, I think, if I was silly enough to be afraid of a harmless caterpillar like that,” Fanny had said, as with her own hands she took from Lucy’s curls and threw away a thousand-legged thing, the very sight of which made poor Lucy shiver, but did not send her to the house.
She was too much interested and too eagerly expectant of what the afternoon would bring, and so she perchedherself upon the fence where nothing but ants could molest her, and finished the bouquets which Fanny hung upon the trees until the lower limbs seemed one mass of blossoms and the air was filled with the sweet perfume.
Lucy was bewitchingly beautiful that afternoon in her dress of white, with her curls tied up with a blue ribbon, and her fair arms bare nearly to the shoulders. Fanny, whose arms were neither plump nor white, had expostulated with her cousin upon this style of dress, suggesting that one as delicate as she could not fail to take a heavy cold when the dews began to fall; but Lucy would not listen. Arthur Leighton had told her once that he liked her with bare arms, and bare they should be. She was bending every energy to please and captivate him, and a cold was of no consequence provided she succeeded. So like some little fairy, she danced and flitted about, making fearful havoc with Mr. Bellamy’s wits, and greatly vexing Fanny, who hailed with delight the arrival of Mrs. Meredith and Anna. The latter was very pretty and very becomingly attired in a light, airy dress of blue, finished at the throat and wrists with an edge of soft, fine lace. She, too, had thought of Arthur in the making of her toilet, and it was for him that the white rose-buds were placed in her heavy braids of hair, and fastened on her belt. She was very sorry that she had allowed herself to be vexed with Lucy Harcourt for her familiaritywith Mr. Leighton, very hopeful that he had not observed it, and very certain now of his preference for herself. She would be very gracious that afternoon, she thought, and not one bit jealous of Lucy, though she called him Arthur a hundred times.
Thus it was in the most amiable of moods that Anna appeared upon the lawn, where she was warmly welcomed by Lucy, who, seizing both her hands, led her away to see their arrangements, chatting gayly all the time, and casting rapid glances up the lane as if in quest of some one.
“I’m so glad you’ve come. I’ve thought of you so much. Do you know it seems to me there must be some bond of sympathy between us, or I should not like you so well at once. I drove by the rectory early this morning, the dearest little place, with such a lovely garden. Arthur was working in it, and I made him give me some roses. See, I have one in my curls. Then, when he brought them to the carriage, I kept him there while I asked numberless questions about you, and heard from him just how good you are, and how you help him in the Sunday-school and everywhere, visiting the poor, picking up ragged children, and doing things I never thought of doing; but I am not going to be so useless any longer, and the next time you visit some of the very miserablest, I want you to take me with you.
“Do you ever meet Arthur there? Oh, here hecomes,” and with a bound, Lucy darted away from Anna towards the spot where the rector stood receiving Mrs. and Miss Hetherton’s greeting.
As Lucy had said, she had driven by the rectory, with no earthly object but the hope of seeing the rector, and had hurt him cruelly with her questionings of Anna, and annoyed him a little with her anxious inquiries as to the cause of his pallid face and sunken eyes; but she was so bewitchingly pretty, and so thoroughly kind withal, that he could not be annoyed long, and he felt better for having seen her bright, coquettish face, and listened to her childish prattle. It was a great trial for him to attend the picnic that afternoon, but he met it bravely, and schooled himself to appear as if there were no such things in the world as aching hearts and cruel disappointments. His face was very pale, but his recent headache would account for that, and he acted his part successfully, shivering a little, it is true, when Anna expressed her sorrow that he should suffer so often from these attacks, and suggested that he take a short vacation and go with them to Saratoga.
“I should so much like to have you,” she said, and her clear honest eyes looked him straight in the face, as she asked why he could not.
“What does she mean?” the rector thought. “Is she trying to tantalize me? I expected her to benatural, as her aunt laid great stress on that, but she need not overdothe matter by showing me how little she cares for having hurt me so.”
Then, as a flash of pride came to his aid, he thought, “I will at least be even with her. She shall not have the satisfaction of guessing how much I suffer,” and as Lucy then called to him from the opposite side of the lawn, he asked Anna to accompany him thither, just as he would have done a week before. Once that afternoon he found himself alone with her in a quiet part of the woods, where the long branches of a great oak came nearly to the ground, and formed a little bower which looked so inviting that Anna sat down upon the gnarled roots of the tree, and tossing her hat upon the grass, exclaimed, “How nice and pleasant it is in here. Come sit down, too, while I tell you again about my class in Sunday-school, and that poor Mrs. Hobbs across the millstream. You won’t forget her, will you? I told her you would visit her the oftener when I was gone. Do you know she cried because I was going? It made me feel so badly that I doubted if it was right for me to go,” and pulling down a handful of the oak-leaves above her head, Anna began weaving a chaplet, while the rector stood watching her with a puzzled expression upon his face. She did not act as if she ever could have dictated that letter, but he had no suspicion of the truth, and answered rather coldly, “I did not suppose you cared how much we might miss you at home.”
Something in his tone made Anna look up into his face, and her eyes immediately filled with tears, for she knew that in some way she had displeased him.
“Then you mistake me,” she replied, the tears still glittering on her long eyelashes, and her fingers trembling among the oaken leaves. “I do care whether I am missed or not.”
“Missed by whom?” the rector asked, and Anna impetuously replied, “Missed by the parish poor, and by you, too, Mr. Leighton. You don’t know how often I shall think of you, or how sorry I am that—”
She did not finish the sentence, for the rector had leaped madly at a conclusion, and was down in the grass at her side with both her hands in his.
“Anna, O Anna,” he began so pleadingly, “have you repented of your decision? Tell me that you have and it will make me so happy. I have been so wretched ever since.”
She thought he meant her decision about going to Saratoga, and she replied, “I have not repented, Mr. Leighton. Aunt Meredith thinks it’s best, and so do I, though I am sorry for you, if you really do care so much.”
Anna was talking blindly, her thoughts upon one subject, while the rector’s were upon another, and matters were getting somewhat mixed when, “Arthur, Arthur, where are you?” came ringing through the woods, and Lucy Harcourt appeared, telling them that the refreshmentswere ready. “We are only waiting for you two, wondering where you had gone, but never dreaming that you had stolen away to make love,” she said playfully, adding more earnestly as she saw the traces of agitation visible in Anna’s face, “and I do believe you were. If so, I beg pardon for my intrusion.”
She spoke a little sharply, and glanced inquiringly at Mr. Leighton, who, feeling that he had virtually been repulsed a second time by Anna, answered her, “On the contrary, I am very glad you came, and so I am sure is Miss Anna. I am ready to join you at the table. Come, Anna, they are waiting,” and he offered his arm to the bewildered girl, who replied, “Not just now, please. Leave me for a moment. I won’t be long.”
Very curiously Lucy looked at Anna, and then at Mr. Leighton, who, fully appreciating the feelings of the latter, said, by way of explanation, “You see she has not quite finished that chaplet which I suspect is intended for you. I think we had better leave her,” and drawing Lucy’s arm under his own, he walked away, leaving Anna, more stunned and pained than she had ever been before. Surely iflovehad ever spoken in voice and manner, it had spoken when Mr. Leighton was kneeling on the grass, holding her hands in his. “Anna, O Anna;” how she had thrilled at the sound of those words and waited for what might follow next. Why had his manner changed so suddenly, and why had he been so glad to be interrupted.Had he really no intention of making love to her; and if so, why did he rouse her hopes so suddenly and then cruelly dash them to the ground? Was it that he loved Lucy best, and that the sight of her froze the words upon his lips?
“Let him take her, then. He is welcome for all of me,” she thought; and as a keen pang of shame and disappointment swept over her, she laid her head for a moment upon the grass and wept bitterly. “He must have seen what I expected, and I care most for that,” she sobbed, resolving henceforth to guard herself at every point, and do all that lay in her power to further Lucy’s interests. “He will thus see how little I really care,” she said, and lifting up her head she tore in fragments the wreath she had been making but which she could not now place on the head of her rival.
Mr. Leighton was flirting terribly with Lucy when she joined the party assembled around the table, and he never once looked at Anna, though he saw that her plate was well supplied with the best of everything, and when at one draught she drained her glass of ice-water, he quietly placed another within her reach, standing a little before her and trying evidently to shield her from too critical observation. There were two at least who were glad when the picnic was over, and various were the private opinions of the company with regard to the entertainment. Mr. Bellamy, who had been repeatedly foiled inhis attempts to be especially attentive to Lucy Harcourt, pronounced the whole thing “a bore,” Fanny, who had been highly displeased with his deportment, came to the conclusion that the enjoyment did not compensate for all the trouble; and while the rector thought he had never spent a more thoroughly wretched day, and Anna would have given worlds if she had stayed at home, Lucy declared that never in her life had she had so perfectly delightful a time, always excepting, of course, “that moon light sail in Venice.”
CHAPTER VI.WEDNESDAY.
There was a heavy shower the night succeeding the picnic, and the morning following was as balmy and bright as June mornings are wont to be after a fall of rain. They were always early risers at the farm-house, but this morning Anna, who had slept but little, arose earlier than usual, and leaning from the window to inhale the bracing air and gather a bunch of roses fresh with the glittering rain-drops, felt her spirits grow lighter, and wondered at her discomposure of the previous day. Particularly was she grieved that she should have harbored a feeling of bitterness towards Lucy Harcourt, who was not to blame for having won the love she had been foolish enough to covet.
“He knew her first,” she said, “and if he has since been pleased with me, the sight of her has won him back to his allegiance, and it is right. She is a pretty creature, but strangely unsuited, I fear, to be his wife,” and then, as she remembered Lucy’s wish to go with her when next she visited the poor, she said:
“I’ll take her to see the Widow Hobbs. That willgive her some idea of the duties which will devolve upon her as a rector’s wife. I can go directly there from Prospect Hill, where, I suppose, I must call with Aunt Meredith.”
Anna made herself believe that in doing this she was acting only from a magnanimous desire to fit Lucy for her work, if, indeed, she was to be Arthur’s wife,—that in taking the mantle from her own shoulders, and wrapping it around her rival, she was doing a most amiable deed, when down in her inmost heart, where the tempter had put it, there was an unrecognized wish to see how the little dainty girl would shrink from the miserable abode, and recoil from the touch of the dirty hands, which were sure to be laid upon her dress if the children were at home, and she waited impatiently to start on her errand of mercy.
It was four o’clock when, with her aunt, she arrived at Colonel Hetherton’s, and found the family assembled upon the broad piazza,—Mr. Bellamy dutifully holding the skein of worsted from which Miss Fanny was crocheting, and Lucy playing with a kitten, whose movements were scarcely more graceful than her own, as she sprang up and ran to welcome Anna.
“Oh yes; I shall be delighted to go with you. Pray let us start at once,” she exclaimed, when after a few moments’ conversation Anna told where she was going.
Lucy was very gayly dressed, and Anna smiled to herselfas she imagined the startling effect the white muslin and bright ribbons would have upon the inmates of the shanty where they were going. There was a remonstrance from Mrs. Hetherton against her niece walking so far, and Mrs. Meredith suggested that they should ride, but to this Lucy objected. She meant to take Anna’s place among the poor when she was gone, she said, and how was she ever to do it if she could not walk so little ways as that. Anna, too, was averse to the riding, and felt a kind of grim satisfaction when, after a time, the little figure, which at first had skipped along with all the airiness of a bird, began to lag, and even pant for breath, as the way grew steeper and the path more stony and rough. Anna’s evil spirit was in the ascendant that afternoon, steeling her heart against Lucy’s doleful exclamations, as one after another her delicate slippers were torn, and the sharp thistles, of which the path was full, penetrated to her soft flesh. Straight and unbending as a young Indian, Anna walked on, shutting her ears against the sighs of weariness which reached them from time to time. But when there came a half-sobbing cry of actual pain, she stopped suddenly and turned towards Lucy, whose breath came gaspingly, and whose cheeks were almost purple with the exertions she had made.
“I cannot go any farther until I rest,” she said, sinking down exhausted upon a large flat rock beneath a walnut-tree.
Touched with pity at the sight of the heated face, from which the sweat was dripping, Anna too sat down beside her, and laying the curly head in her lap, she hated herself cordially, as Lucy said:
“You’ve walked so fast I could not keep up. You do not know, perhaps, how weak I am, and how little it takes to tire me. They say my heart is diseased, and an unusual excitement might kill me.”
“No, oh no!” Anna answered with a shudder, as she thought of what might have been the result of her rashness, and then she smoothed the wet hair, which, dried by the warm sunbeams, coiled itself up in golden masses, which her fingers softly threaded.
“I did not know it until that time in Venice when Arthur talked to me so good, trying to make me feel that it was not hard to die, even if I was so young and the world so full of beauty,” Lucy went on, her voice sounding very low, and her bright shoulder-knots of ribbon trembling with the rapid beating of her heart. “When he was talking to me I could be almost willing to die, but the moment he was gone the doubts and fears came back, and death was terrible again. I was always better with Arthur. Everybody is, and I think your seeing so much of him is one reason why you are so good.”
“No, no, I am not good,” and Anna’s hands pressed hard upon the girlish head lying in her lap. “I am wicked beyond what you can guess. I led you thisrough way when I might have chosen a smooth though longer road, and walked so fast on purpose to worry you.”
“To worryme. Why should you wish to do that?” and lifting up her head, Lucy looked wonderingly at the conscience-stricken Anna, who could not confess to the jealousy, but who in all other respects answered truthfully: “I think an evil spirit possessed me for a time, and I wanted to show you that it was not so nice to visit the poor as you seemed to think, but I am sorry, oh so sorry, and you’ll forgive me, won’t you?”
A loving kiss was pressed upon her lips and a warm cheek was laid against her own, as Lucy said, “Of course I’ll forgive you, though I do not quite understand why you should wish to discourage me or tease me either, when I liked you so much from the first moment I heard your voice, and saw you in the choir. You don’t dislike me, do you?”
“No, oh no. I love you very dearly,” Anna replied, her tears falling like rain upon the slight form she hugged so passionately to her, and which she would willingly have borne in her arms the remainder of the way, as a kind of penance for her past misdeeds; but Lucy was much better, and so the two, between whom there was now a bond of love which nothing could sever, went on together to the low dismal house where the Widow Hobbs lived.
The gate was off the hinges, and Lucy’s muslin wastorn upon a nail as she passed through, while the long fringe of her fleecy shawl was caught in the tall tufts of thistle growing by the path. In a muddy pool of water, a few rods from the house, a flock of ducks were swimming, pelted occasionally by the group of dirty, ragged children playing on the grass, and who, at sight of the strangers and the basket Anna carried, sprang up like a flock of pigeons, and came trooping towards her. It was not the sweet, pastoral scene which Lucy had pictured to herself, with Arthur for the background, and her ardor was greatly dampened even before the threshold was crossed, and she stood in the low, close room where the sick woman lay, her eyes unnaturally bright, and turned wistfully upon them as she entered. There were ashes upon the hearth and ashes upon the floor, a hair-brush upon the table and an empty plate upon the chair, with swarms of flies sipping the few drops of molasses and feeding upon the crumbs of bread left there by the elfish-looking child now in the bed beside its mother. There was nothing but poverty,—squalid, disgusting poverty, visible everywhere, and Lucy grew sick and faint at the, to her, unusual sight.
“They have not lived here long. We only found them three weeks ago; they will look better by and by,” Anna whispered, feeling that some apology was necessary for the destitution and filth visible everywhere.
Daintily removing the plate to the table, and carefullytucking up her skirts, Lucy sat down upon the wooden chair and looked dubiously on while Anna made the sick woman more tidy in appearance, and then fed her from the basket of provisions which Grandma Humphreys had sent.
“I never could do that,” Lucy thought, as shoving off the little dirty hand fingering her shoulder-knots she watched Anna washing the poor woman’s face, and bending over her pillow as unhesitatingly as if it had been covered with ruffled linen like those at Prospect Hill, instead of the coarse soiled rag which hardly deserved the name of pillow-case. “No, I never could do that,” and the possible life with Arthur which the maiden had more than once imagined began to look very dreary, when suddenly a shadow darkened the door, and Lucy knew before she turned her head that the rector was standing at her back, and the blood tingled through her veins with a delicious feeling; as, laying both his hands upon her shoulders, and bending over her so that she felt his breath upon her brow, he said:
“What, my lady Lucy here? I hardly expected to find two ministering angels, though I was almost sure of one,” and his eye rested on Anna with a wistful look of tenderness, which neither she nor Lucy saw.
“Then you knew she was coming,” Lucy said, an uneasy thought flashing across her mind as she remembered the picnic, and the scene she had stumbled upon.
But Arthur’s reply, “I did not know she was coming; I only knew it was like her,” reassured her for a time, making her resolve to emulate the virtues which Arthur seemed to prize so highly. What a difference his presence made in that wretched room. She did not mind the poverty now, or care if her dress was stained with the molasses left in the chair, and the inquisitive child with tattered gown and bare, brown legs was welcome to examine and admire the bright plaid ribbons as much as she chose.
Lucy had no thought for anything but Arthur, and the subdued expression of his face, as kneeling by the sick woman’s bedside he said the prayers she had hungered for more than for the contents of Anna’s basket, which were now purloined by the children crouched upon the hearth and fighting over the last bit of gingerbread.
“Hush-sh, little one,” and Lucy’s hand rested on the head of the principal belligerent, who, awed by the beauty of her face and the authoritative tone of her voice, kept quiet till the prayer was over and Arthur had risen from his knees.
“Thank you, Lucy; I think I must constitute you my deaconess when Miss Ruthven is gone. Your very presence has a subduing effect upon the little savages. I never knew them so quiet before so long a time,” Arthur said to Lucy in a low tone, which, low as it was, reachedAnna’s ear, but brought no pang of jealousy or sharp regret for what she felt was lost forever.
She was giving Lucy to Arthur Leighton, resolving that by every means in her power she would further her rival’s cause, and the hot tears which dropped so fast upon Mrs. Hobbs’s pillow while Arthur said the prayer were but the baptism of that vow, and not, as Lucy thought, because she felt so sorry for the suffering woman who had brought so much comfort to her.
“God bless you wherever you go,” she said, “and if there is any great good which you desire, may He bring it to pass.”
“He never will,—no, never,” was the sad response in Anna’s heart, as she joined the clergyman and Lucy, who were standing outside the door, the former pointing to the ruined slippers, and asking her how she ever expected to walk home in such dilapidated things.
“I shall certainly have to carry you,” he said, “or your blistered feet will evermore be thrust forward as a reason why you cannot be my deaconess.”
He seemed to be in unusual spirits that afternoon, and the party went gayly on, Anna keeping a watchful care over Lucy, picking out the smoothest places, and passing her arm round her waist as they were going up a hill.
“I think it would be better if you both leaned on me,” the rector said, offering each an arm, and apologizing for not having thought to do so before.
“I do not need it, thank you, but Miss Harcourt does. I fear she is very tired,” said Anna, pointing to Lucy’s face, which was so white and ghastly and so like the face seen once before in Venice, that without another word, Arthur took the tired girl in his strong arms and carried her safely to the summit of the hill.
“Please put me down; I can walk now,” Lucy pleaded; but Arthur felt the rapid beatings of her heart, and kept her in his arms until they reached Prospect Hill, were Mrs. Meredith was anxiously awaiting their return, her brow clouding with distrust when she saw Mr. Leighton, for she was constantly fearing lest her guilty secret should be exposed.
“I’ll leave Hanover this very week, and remove her from danger,” she thought, as she rose to say good-night.
“Just wait a minute, please. There’s something I want to say to Miss Ruthven,” Lucy cried, and leading Anna to her own room, she knelt down by her side, and looking up in her face, began:
“There’s one question which I wish to ask, and you must answer me truly. It is rude and inquisitive, perhaps, but,—tell me,—has Arthur—ever—ever—”
Anna guessed what was coming, and with a sob, which Lucy thought was a long-drawn breath, she kissed the pretty, parted lips, and answered:
“No, darling, Arthur never did, and never will, butsome time he will ask you to be his wife. I can see it coming so plain.”
Poor Anna! her heart gave one great throb as she said this, and then lay like a dead weight in her bosom, while with sparkling eyes and blushing cheeks, Lucy exclaimed:
“I am so glad,—so glad. I have only known you since Sunday, but you seem like an old friend, and you won’t mind my telling you that ever since I first met Arthur among the Alps, I have lived in a kind of ideal world, of which he was the centre. I am an orphan, you know, and an heiress, too. There is half a million, they say; and Uncle Hetherton has charge of it. Now, will you believe me, when I say that I would give every dollar of this for Arthur’s love if I could not have it without?”
“I do believe you,” Anna replied, inexpressibly glad that the gathering darkness hid her white face from view as the childlike, unsuspecting girl went on: “The world, I know, would say that a poor clergyman was not a good match for me, but I do not care for that. Cousin Fanny favors it, I am sure, and Uncle Hetherton would not oppose me when he saw I was in earnest. Once the world, which is a very meddlesome thing, picked out Thornton Hastings, of New York, for me; but my! he was too proud and lofty even to talk to me much, and I would not speak to him after I heard of his saying that‘I was a pretty little plaything, but far too frivolous for a sensible man to make his wife.’ Oh, wasn’t I angry though, and don’t I hope that when he gets a wife she will be exactly such a frivolous thing as I am.”
Even through the darkness Anna could see the blue eyes flash, and the delicate nostrils dilate as Lucy gave vent to her wrath against the luckless Thornton Hastings.
“You will meet him at Saratoga. He is always there in the summer, but don’t you speak to him,the hateful. He’ll be calling you frivolous next.”
An amused smile flitted across Anna’s face as she asked, “But won’t you too be at Saratoga? I supposed you were all going there.”
“Cela depend,” Lucy replied. “I would so much rather stay here, the dressing, and dancing, and flirting tire me so, and then you know what Arthur said about taking me for his deaconess in your place.”
There was a call just then from the hall below. Mrs. Meredith was getting impatient of the delay, and with a good-by kiss, Anna went down the stairs, and stood out upon the piazza, where her aunt was waiting. Mr. Leighton had accepted Fanny’s invitation to stay to tea, and he handed the ladies to their carriage, lingering a moment while he said his parting words, for he was going out of town to-morrow, and when he returned Anna would be gone.
“You will think of us sometimes,” he said, still holding Anna’s hand. “St. Mark’s will be lonely without you. God bless you and bring you safely back.”
There was a pressure of the hand, a lifting of Arthur’s hat, and then the carriage moved away; but Anna, looking back, saw Arthur standing by Lucy’s side, fastening a rose-bud in her hair, and at that sight the gleam of hope which for an instant had crept into her heart passed away with a sigh.
CHAPTER VII.AT NEWPORT.
Moved by a strange impulse, Thornton Hastings took himself and his fast bays to Newport instead of Saratoga, and thither, the first week in August, came Mrs. Meredith, with eight large trunks, her niece, and her niece’s wardrobe, which had cost the pretty sum of eighteen hundred dollars.
Mrs. Meredith was not naturally lavish of her money, except where her own interests were concerned, as they were in Anna’s case. Conscious of having come between her niece and the man she loved, she determined that in the procuring of a substitute for this man, no advantages which dress could afford should be lacking. Besides, Thornton Hastings was a perfect connoisseur in everything pertaining to a lady’s toilet, and it was with him and his preference before her mind that Mrs. Meredith opened her purse so widely and bought so extensively. There were sun hats and round hats, and hatsà la cavalier,—there were bonnets and veils, and dresses, and shawls of every color and kind, with the lesser matters of sashes, and gloves, and slippers, and fans, the wholemaking an array such as Anna had never seen before, and from which she had at first shrank back appalled and dismayed. But she was not now quite so much of a novice as when she first reached New York, the Saturday following the picnic at Prospect Hill. She had passed successfully and safely through the hands of mantua-makers, milliners, and hair-dressers since then. She had laid aside every article brought from home. She wore her hair in puffs and waterfalls, and her dresses in the latest mode. She had seen the fashionable world as represented at Saratoga, and sickening at the sight, had gladly acquiesced in her aunt’s proposal to go on to Newport, where the air was purer, and the hotels not so densely packed. She had been called a beauty and a belle, but her heart was longing still for the leafy woods and fresh, green fields of Hanover; and Newport, she fancied, would be more like the country than sultry, crowded Saratoga, and never since leaving home had she looked so bright and pretty as the evening after her arrival at the Ocean House, when, invigorated by the bath she had taken in the morning, and gladdened by sight of the glorious sea and the soothing tones it murmured in her ear, she came down to the parlor, clad in simple white, with only a bunch of violets in her hair, and no other ornament than the handsome pearls her aunt had given to her. Standing at the open window, with the drapery of the lace curtain sweeping gracefully behindher, she did not look much like the Anna who led the choir in Hanover and visited the Widow Hobbs, nor yet much like the picture which Thornton Hastings had formed of the girl who he knew was there for his inspection. He had been absent the entire day, and had not seen Mrs. Meredith, when she arrived early in the morning, but he found her card in his room, and a smile curled his lip as he said:
“And so I have not escaped her.”
Thornton Hastings had proved a most treacherous knight, and overthrown his general’s plans entirely. Arthur’s letter had affected him strangely, for he readily guessed how deeply wounded his sensitive friend had been by Anna Ruthven’s refusal, while added to this was a fear lest Anna had been influenced by a thought of himself, and what might possibly result from an acquaintance. Thornton Hastings had been flattered and angled for until he had grown somewhat vain, and it did not strike him as at all improbable that the unsophisticated Anna should have designs upon him.
“But I won’t give her a chance,” he said, when he finished Arthur’s letter. “I thought once I might like her, but I shan’t, and I’ll be revenged on her for refusing the best man that ever breathed. I’ll go to Newport instead of Saratoga, and so be clear of the entire Meredith clique, the Hethertons, the little Harcourt, and all.”
This, then, was the secret of his being at the Ocean House. He was keeping away from Anna Ruthven, who never had heard of him but once, and that from Lucy Harcourt. After that scene in the Glen, where Anna had exclaimed against intriguing mothers and their bold, shame-faced daughters, Mrs. Meredith had been too wise a manœuvrer to mention Thornton Hastings, so that Anna was wholly ignorant of his presence at Newport, and looked up in unfeigned surprise at the tall, elegant man whom her aunt presented as Mr. Hastings. With all Thornton’s affected indifference, there was still a curiosity to see the girl who could say “no” to Arthur Leighton, and he did not wait long after receiving Mrs. Meredith’s card before going down to find her.
“That’s the girl, I’ll lay a wager,” he thought of a high-colored, showily dressed hoyden, who was whirling around the room with Ned Peters, from Boston, and whoso corn-colored dress swept against his boots as he entered the parlor.
How, then, was he disappointed in the apparition Mrs. Meredith presented as “my niece,” the modest, self possessed young girl, whose cheeks grew not a whit the redder, and whose pulse did not quicken at the sight of him, though a gleam of something like curiosity shone in the brown eyes which scanned him so quietly. She was thinking of Lucy, and her injunction “not to speak to thehatefulif she saw him;” but she did speak tohim, and Mrs. Meredith fanned herself complacently as she saw how fast they became acquainted.
“You don’t dance,” Mr. Hastings said, as she declined an invitation from Ned Peters, whom she had met at Saratoga. “I am glad, for you will perhaps walk with me outside upon the piazza. You won’t take cold, I think,” and he glanced thoughtfully at the white neck and shoulders gleaming beneath the gauzy muslin.
Mrs. Meredith was in rhapsodies, and sat a full hour with the tiresome dowagers around her, while up and down the broad piazza Thornton Hastings walked with Anna, talking to her as he seldom talked to women, and feeling greatly surprised to find that what he said was fully appreciated and understood. That he was pleased with her he could not deny to himself, as he sat alone in his room that night, feeling more and more how keenly Arthur Leighton must have felt her refusal.
“But why did she refuse him?” he wished he knew, and ere he slept he resolved to study Anna Ruthven closely, and ascertain, if possible, the motive which prompted her to discard a man like Arthur Leighton.
The next day brought the Hetherton party, all but Lucy Harcourt, who, Fanny laughingly said, was just now suffering from clergyman on the brain, and, as a certain cure for the disease, had turned my Lady Bountiful, and was playing the pretty patroness to all Mr. Leighton’s parishioners, especially a Widow Hobbs, whom shehad actually taken to ride in the carriage, and to whose ragged children she had sent a bundle of cast-off party dresses; and the tears ran down Fanny’s cheeks as she described the appearance of the elder Hobbs, who came to church with a soiled pink silk skirt, her black, tattered petticoat hanging down below, and one of Lucy’s opera hoods upon her head.
“And the clergyman on her brain? Does he appreciate his situation? I have an interest there. He is an old friend of mine,” Thornton Hastings asked.
He had been an amused listener to Fanny’s gay badinage, laughing merrily at the idea of Lucy’s taking an old woman out to air, and clothing her children in party dresses. His opinion of Lucy, as she had said, was that she was a pretty but frivolous plaything, and it showed upon his face as he asked the question he did, watching Anna furtively as Fanny replied:
“Oh yes, he is certainly smitten, and I must say I never saw Lucy so thoroughly in earnest. Why, she really seems to enjoy travelling all over Christendom to find the hovels and huts, though she is mortally afraid of the small-pox, and always carries with her a bit of chloride of lime as a disinfecting agent. I am sure she ought to win the parson. And so you know him, do you?”
“Yes; we were in college together, and I esteem himso highly that, had I a sister, there is no man living to whom I would so readily give her as to him.”
He was looking now at Anna, whose face was very pale, and who pressed a rose she held so tightly that the sharp thorns pierced her flesh, and a drop of blood stained the whiteness of her hand.
“See, you have hurt yourself,” Mr. Hastings said. “Come to the water-pitcher and wash the stain away.”
She went with him mechanically, and let him hold her hand in his while he wiped off the blood with his own handkerchief, treating her with a tenderness for which he could hardly account. He pitied her, and suspected she had repented of her rashness, and because he pitied her he asked her to ride with him that day after the fast bays, of which he had written to Arthur. Many admiring eyes were cast after them as they drove away, and Mrs. Hetherton whispered softly to Mrs. Meredith:
“A match in progress, I see. You have done well for your charming niece.”
And yet matrimony, as concerned himself, was very far from Thornton Hastings’ thoughts that afternoon, when, because he saw that it pleased Anna to have him do so, he talked to her of Arthur, hoping, in his unselfish heart, that what he said in his praise might influence her to reconsider her decision and give him a different answer. This was the second day of Thornton Hastings’ acquaintance with Anna Ruthven, but as timewent on, bringing the usual routine of life at Newport, the drives, the rides, the pleasant piazza talks, and the quiet moonlight rambles, when Anna was always his companion, Thornton Hastings came to feel an unwillingness to surrender even to Arthur Leighton the beautiful girl who pleased him better than any one he had known.
Mrs. Meredith’s plans were working well, and so, though the autumn days had come, and one after another the devotees of fashion were dropping off, she lingered on, and Thornton Hastings still rode and walked with Anna Ruthven, until there came a night when they wandered farther than usual from the hotel, and sat down together on a height of land which overlooked the placid waters, where the moonlight lay softly sleeping. It was a most lovely night, and for awhile they listened in silence to the music of the sea, and then talked of the breaking-up which would come in a few days, when the hotel was to be closed, and wondered if next year they would come again to the old haunts and find them unchanged.
There was witchery in the hour, and Thornton felt its spell, speaking out at last, and asking Anna if she would be his wife. He would shield her so tenderly, he said, protecting her from every care, and making her as happy as love and money could make her. Then he told her of his home in the far-off city, which needed only her presence to make it a paradise, and then he waited for her answer,watching anxiously the limp, white hands, which, when he first began to talk, had fallen helplessly upon her lap, and then had crept up to her face, which was turned away from him, so that he could not see its expression, or guess at the struggle going on in Anna’s mind. She was not wholly surprised, for she could not mistake the nature of the interest which, for the last two weeks, Thornton Hastings had manifested in her. But now that the moment had come, it seemed to her that she had never expected it, and she sat silent for a time, dreading so much to speak the words which she knew would inflict pain on one whom she respected so highly, but whom she could not marry.
“Don’t you like me, Anna?” Thornton asked at last, his voice very low and tender, as he bent over her and tried to take her hand.
“Yes, very much,” she answered; and emboldened by her reply, Thornton lifted up her head, and was about to kiss her forehead, when she started away from him, exclaiming:
“No, Mr. Hastings. You must not do that. I cannot be your wife. It hurts me to tell you so, for I believe you are sincere in your proposal; but it can never be. Forgive me, and let us both forget this wretched summer.”
“It has not been wretched to me. It has been a very happy summer, since I knew you at least,” Mr. Hastings said, and then he asked again that she should reconsiderher decision. He could not take it as her final one. He had loved her too much, had thought too much of making her his own, to give her up so easily, he said, urging so many reasons why she should think again, that Anna said to him, at last:
“If you would rather have it so, I will wait a month, but you must not hope that my answer will be different then from what it is to-night. I want your friendship, though, the same as if this had never happened. I like you, because you have been kind to me, and made my stay in Newport so much pleasanter than I thought it could be. You have not talked to me like other men. You have treated me as if I at least had common-sense. I thank you for that; and I like you because—”
She did not finish the sentence, for she could not say “Because you are Arthur’s friend.” That would have betrayed the miserable secret tugging at her heart, and prompting her to refuse Thornton Hastings, who had also thought of Arthur Leighton, wondering if it were thus that she rejected him, and if in the background there was another love standing between her and the two men to win whom many a woman would almost have given her right hand. To say that Thornton was not piqued at her refusal would be false. He had not expected it, accustomed as he was to adulation; but he tried to put that feeling down, and his manner was even more kind and considerate than ever as he walked back to the hotel, whereMrs. Meredith was waiting for them, her practised eye detecting at once that something was amiss. Thornton Hastings knew Mrs. Meredith thoroughly, and, wishing to shield Anna from her displeasure, he preferred stating the facts himself to having them wrung from the pale, agitated girl, who, bidding him good-night, went quickly to her room; so, when she was gone, and he stood for a moment alone with Mrs. Meredith, he said:
“I have proposed to your niece, but she cannot answer me now. She wishes for a month’s probation, which I have granted, and I ask that she shall not be persecuted about the matter. I must have an unbiassed answer.”
He bowed politely and walked away, while Mrs. Meredith almost trod on air as she climbed the stairs and sought her niece’s chamber. Over the interview which ensued that night we pass silently, and come to the next morning, when Anna sat alone on the piazza at the rear of the hotel, watching the playful gambols of some children on the grass, and wondering if she ever could conscientiously say yes to Thornton Hastings’ suit. He was coming towards her now, lifting his hat politely, and asking what she would give for news from home.
“I found this on my table,” he said, holding up a dainty little missive, on the corner of which was written “In haste,” as if its contents were of the utmost importance. “The boy must have made a mistake, or else he thought it well to begin at once bringing your lettersto me,” he continued with a smile, as he handed Anna the letter from Lucy Harcourt. “I have one, too, from Arthur, which I will read while you are devouring yours, and then, perhaps, you will take a little ride. The September air is very bracing this morning,” he said, walking away to the far end of the piazza while Anna broke the seal of the envelope, hesitating a moment ere taking the letter from it, and trembling as if she guessed what it contained.
There was a quivering of the eyelids, a paling of the lips as she glanced at the first few lines, then with the low moaning cry, “No, no, oh no, not that,” she fell upon her face.
To lift her in his arms and carry her to her room was the work of an instant, and then, leaving her to Mrs. Meredith’s care, Thornton Hastings went back to finish Arthur’s letter, which might or might not throw light upon the fainting-fit.
“Dear Thornton,” Arthur wrote, “you will be surprised, no doubt, to hear that your old college chum is at last engaged; but not to one of the fifty lambs about whom you once jocosely wrote. The shepherd has wandered from his flock, and is about to take into his bosom a little stray ewe-lamb,—Lucy Harcourt by name—”
“The deuce he is,” was Thornton’s ejaculation, and then he read on:
“She is an acquaintance of yours, I believe, so I neednot describe her, except to say that she is somewhat changed from the gay butterfly of fashion she used to be, and in time will make as demure a little Quakeress as one could wish to see. She visits constantly among my poor, who love her almost as well as they once loved Anna Ruthven.
“Don’t ask me, Thorne, in your blunt, straightforward manner if I have so soon forgotten Anna. That is a matter with which you’ve nothing to do. Let it suffice that I am engaged to another, and mean to make a kind and faithful husband to her. Lucy would have suited you better, perhaps, than she does me; that is, the world would think so, but the world does not always know, and if I am satisfied, surely it ought to be.