Woolson Constance Fenimore
Anne: A Novel

CHAPTER XXII

"A slave had long worn a chain upon his ankle. By the order of his master it was removed. 'Why dost thou spring aloft and sing, O slave? Surely the sun is as fierce and thy burden as heavy as before.' The slave replied: 'Ten times the sun and the burden would seem light, now that the chain is removed.'"

– From the Arabic.

Miss Lois's letter was a wail:

"My poor dear outraged Child, – What can I say to you? There is no use in trying to prepare you for it, since you would never conceive such double-dyed blackness of heart! Tita has run away. She slipped off clandestinely, and they think she has followed Rast, who left yesterday on his way back to St. Louis and the West. Père Michaux has followed her, saying that if he found them together he should, acting as Tita's guardian, insist upon a marriage before he returned! He feels himself responsible for Tita, he says, and paid no attention when I asked him if no one was to be responsible for you! My poor child, it seems that I have been blind all along; I never dreamed of what was going on. The little minx deceived me completely. I thought her so much improved, so studious, while all the time she was meeting Erastus, or planning to meet him, with a skill far beyond my comprehension. All last summer, they tell me, she was with him constantly; those daily journeys to Père Michaux's island were for that purpose, while I supposed they were for prayers. What Erastus thought or meant, no one seems to know; but they all combined in declaring that the child (child no longer!) was deeply in love with him, and that everybody saw it save me. My New England blood could not, I am proud to say, grasp it! You know, my poor darling, the opinion I have always had concerning Tita's mother, who slyly and artfully inveigled your honored father into a trap. Tita has therefore but followed in her mother's footsteps.

"That Erastus has ever cared, or cares now in the least, for her, save as a plaything, I will never believe. But Père Michaux is like a mule for stubbornness, as you know, and I fear he will marry them in any case. He did not seem to think of you at all, and when I said, 'Anne will die of grief!' he only smiled – yes, smiled– and Frenchly shrugged his shoulders! My poor child, I have but little hope, because if he appeals to Erastus's honor, what can the boy do? He is the soul of honor.

"I can hardly write, my brain has been so overturned. To think that Tita should have outwitted us all at her age, and gained her point over everything, over you and over Rast – poor, poor Rast, who will be so miserably sacrificed! I will write again to-morrow; but if Père Michaux carries out his strange Jesuitical design, you will hear from him probably before you can hear again from me. Bear up, my dearest Anne. I acknowledge that, so far, I have found it difficult to see the Divine purpose in this, unless indeed it be to inform us that we are all but cinders and ashes; which, however, I for one have long known."

Mrs. Bryden's letter:

"Dear Anne, – I feel drawn toward you more closely since the illness and death of our dear Dr. Gaston, who loved you so tenderly, and talked so much of you during his last days with us. It is but a short time since I wrote to you, giving some of the messages he left, and telling of his peaceful departure; but now I feel that I must write again upon a subject which is painful, yet one upon which you should have, I think, all the correct details immediately. Miss Hinsdale is no doubt writing to you also; but she does not know all. She has not perceived, as we have, the gradual approaches to this catastrophe – I can call it by no other name.

"When you went away, your half-sister was a child. With what has seemed lightning rapidity she has grown to womanhood, and for months it has been plainly evident that she was striving in every way to gain and hold the attention of Erastus Pronando. He lingered here almost all summer, as you will remember; Tita followed him everywhere. Miss Hinsdale, absorbed in the cares of housekeeping, knew nothing of it; but daily, on one pretext or another, they were together. Whether Erastus was interested I have no means of knowing; but that Tita is now extremely pretty in a certain style, and that she was absorbed in him, we could all see. It was not our affair; yet we might have felt called upon to make it ours if it had not been for Père Michaux. He was her constant guardian.

"Erastus went away yesterday in advance of the mail-train. He bade us all good-by, and I am positive that he had no plan, not even a suspicion of what was to follow. We have a new mail-carrier this winter, Denis being confined to his cabin with rheumatism. Tita must have slipped away unperceived, and joined this man at dusk on the ice a mile or two below the island; her track was found this morning. Erastus expected to join the mail-train to-day, and she knew it, of course; the probability is, therefore, that they are now together. It seems hardly credible that so young a head could have arranged its plans so deftly; yet it is certainly true that, even if Rast wished to bring her back, he could not do so immediately, not until the up-train passed them. Père Michaux started after them this morning, travelling in his own sledge. He thinks (it is better that you should know it, Anne) that Erastus is fond of Tita, and that only his engagement to you has held him back. Now that the step has been taken, he has no real doubt but that Rast himself will wish to marry her, and without delay.

"All this will seem very strange to you, my dear child; but I trust it will not be so hard a blow as Miss Hinsdale apprehends. Père Michaux told me this morning in so many words: 'Anne has never loved the boy with anything more than the affection of childhood. It will be for her a release.' He was convinced of this, and went off on his journey with what looked very much like gladness. I hope, with all my heart, that he is right." Then, with a few more words of kindly friendship, the letter ended.

The other envelope bore the rude pen-and-ink postmark of a Northwestern lumber settlement, where travellers coming down, from the North in the winter over the ice and snow met the pioneer railway, which had pushed its track to that point before the blockade of the cold began.

Tita's letter:

"Deerest Sister, – You will not I am sure blaime your little Tita for following the impulse of her hart. Since you were hear I have grown up and it is the truth that Rast has loved me for yeers of his own accord and because he could not help it – deerest sister who can. But he never ment to break his word to you and he tryed not to but was devowered by his love for me and you will forgive him deerest sister will you not since there is no more hope for you as we were married by Père Michaux an hour ago who approved of all and has hartily given us his bennydiction. Since my spiritual directeur has no reproche you will not have enny I am sure and remain your loving sister,

Angélique Pronando."

"P. S. We go to Chicago to-day. Enny money for close for me could be sent to the Illinois Hotel, where my deerest husband says we are to stay.

A. P."

Père Michaux's letter:

"Dear Anne, – It is not often that I speak so bluntly as I shall speak now. In marrying, this morning, your half-sister Angélique to Erastus Pronando I feel that I have done you a great service. You did not love him with the real love of a nature like yours – the love that will certainly come to you some day; perhaps has already come. I have always known this, and, in accordance with it, did all I could to prevent the engagement originally. I failed; but this day's work has made up for the failure.

"Angélique has grown into a woman. She is also very beautiful, after a peculiar fashion of her own. All the strength of her nature, such as it is, is concentrated upon the young man who is now her husband. From childhood she has loved him; she was bitterly jealous of you even before you went away. I have been aware of this, but until lately I was not sure of Rast. Her increasing beauty, however, added to her intense absorbed interest in him, has conquered. Seeing this, I have watched with satisfaction the events of the past summer, and have even assisted somewhat (and with a clear conscience) in their development.

"Erastus, even if you had loved him, Anne, could not have made you happy. And neither would you have made him happy; for he is quick-witted, and he would have inevitably, and in spite of all your tender humility, my child, discovered your intellectual superiority, and in time would have angrily resented it. For he is vain; his nature is light; he needs adulation in order to feel contented. On the other hand, he is kind-hearted and affectionate, and to Tita will be a demi-god always. The faults that would have been death to you, she will never see. She is therefore the fit wife for him.

"You will ask, Does he love her? I answer, Yes. When he came back to the island, and found her so different, the same elfish little creature, but now strangely pretty, openly fond of him, following him everywhere, with the words of a child but the eyes of a woman, he was at first surprised, then annoyed, then amused, interested, and finally fascinated. He struggled against it. I give him the due of justice – he did struggle. But Tita was always there. He went away hurriedly at the last, and if it had not been for Dr. Gaston's illness and his own recall to the island, it might not have gone farther. Tita understood this as well as I did; she made the most of her time. Still, I am quite sure that he had no suspicion she intended to follow him; the plan was all her own. She did follow him. And I followed her. I caught up with them that very day at sunset, and an hour ago I married them. If you have not already forgiven me, Anne, you will do so some day. I have no fear. I can wait. I shall go on with them as far as Chicago, and then, after a day or two, I shall return to the island. Do not be disturbed by anything Miss Lois may write. She has been blindly mistaken from the beginning. In truth, there is a vein of obstinate weakness on some subjects in that otherwise estimable woman, for which I have always been at a loss to account."

Ah, wise old priest, there are some things too deep for even you to know!

Rast's letter was short. It touched Anne more than any of the others:

"What must you think of me, Annet? Forgive me, and forget me. I did try. But would you have cared for a man who had to try? When I think of you I scorn myself. But she is the sweetest, dearest, most winning little creature the world ever saw; and my only excuse is that – I love her.

E. P."

These few lines, in which the young husband made out no case for himself, sought no shield in the little bride's own rashness, but simply avowed his love, and took all the responsibility upon himself, pleased the elder sister. It was manly. She was glad that Tita had a defender.

She had read these last letters standing in the centre of her room, Jeanne-Armande anxiously watching her from the open door. The Frenchwoman had poured out a glass of water, and had it in readiness: she thought that perhaps Anne was going to faint. With no distinct idea of what had happened, she had lived in a riot of conjecture for two days.

But instead of fainting, Anne, holding the letters in her hand, turned and looked at her.

"Well, dear, will you go to bed?" she said, solicitously.

"Why should I go to bed?"

"I thought perhaps you had heard – had heard bad news."

"On the contrary," replied Anne, slowly and gravely, "I am afraid, mademoiselle, that the news is good – even very good."

For her heart had flown out of its cage and upward as a freed bird darts up in the sky. The bond, on her side at least, was gone; she was free. Now she would live a life of self-abnegation and labor, but without inward thralldom. Women had lived such lives before she was born, women would live such lives after she was dead. She would be one of the sisterhood, and coveting nothing of the actual joy of love, she would cherish only the ideal, an altar-light within, burning forever. The cares of each day were as nothing now: she was free, free!

In her exaltation she did not recognize as wrong the opposite course she had intended to follow before the lightning fell, namely, uniting herself to one man while so deeply loving another. She was of so humble and unconscious a spirit regarding herself that it had not seemed to her that the inner feelings of her heart would be of consequence to Rast, so long as she was the obedient, devoted, faithful wife she was determined with all her soul to be. For she had not that imaginative egotism which so many women possess, which makes them spend their lives in illusion, weaving round their every thought and word an importance which no one else can discern. According to these women, there are a thousand innocent acts which "he" (lover or husband) "would not for an instant allow," although to the world at large "he" appears indifferent enough. They go through long turmoil, from which they emerge triumphantly, founded upon some hidden jealousy which "he" is supposed to feel, so well hidden generally, and so entirely supposed, that persons with less imagination never observe it. But after all, smile as we may, it is only those who are in most respects happy and fortunate wives who can so entertain themselves. For cold unkindness, or a harsh and brutal word, will rend this filmy fabric of imagination immediately, never to be rewoven again.

Anne wrote to Rast, repeating the contents of the old letter, which had been doomed never to reach him. She asked him to return the wanderer unopened when it was forwarded to him from the island; there was a depth of feeling in it which it was not necessary now that he should see. She told him that her own avowal should lift from him all the weight of wrong-doing; she had first gone astray. "We were always like brother and sister, Rast; I see it now. It is far better as it is."

A few days later Père Michaux wrote again, and inclosed a picture of Tita. The elder sister gazed at it curiously. This was not Tita; and yet those were her eyes, and that the old well-remembered mutinous expression still lurking about the little mouth. Puzzled, she took it to mademoiselle. "It is my little sister," she said. "Do you think it pretty?"

Jeanne-Armande put on her spectacles, and held it frowningly at different distances from her eyes.

"It is odd," she said at last. "Ye – es, it is pretty too. But, for a child's face, remarkable."

"She is not a child."

"Not a child?"

"No; she is married," replied Anne, smiling.

Mademoiselle pursed up her lips, and examined the picture with one eye closed. "After all," she said, "I can believe it. The eyes are mature."

The little bride was represented standing; she leaned against a pillar nonchalantly, and outlined on a light background, the extreme smallness of her figure was clearly shown. Her eyes were half veiled by their large drooping lids and long lashes; her little oval face looked small, like that of a child. Her dress was long, and swept over the floor with the richness of silk: evidently Père Michaux had not stinted the lavish little hands when they made their first purchase of a full-grown woman's attire. For the priest had taken upon himself this outlay; the "money for close," of which Tita had written, was provided from his purse. He wrote to Anne that as he was partly responsible for the wedding, he was also responsible for the trousseau; and he returned the money which with great difficulty the elder sister had sent.

"She must be very small," said mademoiselle, musingly, as they still studied the picture.

"She is; she has the most slender little face I ever saw."

Tita's head was thrown back as she leaned against the pillar; there was a half-smile on her delicate lips; her thick hair was still braided childishly in two long braids which hung over her shoulders and down on the silken skirt behind; in her small ears were odd long hoops of gold, which Père Michaux had given her, selecting them himself on account of their adaptation to her half-Oriental, half-elfin beauty. Her cheeks showed no color; there were brown shadows under her eyes. On her slender brown hand shone the wedding ring. The picture was well executed, and had been carefully tinted under Père Michaux's eye: the old priest knew that it was Rast's best excuse.

Now that Anne was freed, he felt no animosity toward the young husband; on the contrary, he wished to advance his interests in every way that he could. Tita was a selfish little creature, yet she adored her husband. She would have killed herself for him at any moment. But first she would have killed him.

He saw them start for the far West, and then he returned northward to his island home. Miss Lois, disheartened by all that had happened, busied herself in taking care of the boys dumbly, and often shook her head at the fire when sitting alone with her knitting. She never opened the old piano now, and she was less stringent with her Indian servants; she would even have given up quietly her perennial alphabet teaching if Père Michaux had not discovered the intention, and quizzically approved it, whereat, of course, she was obliged to go on. In truth, the old man did this purposely, having noticed the change in his old antagonist. He fell into the habit of coming to the church-house more frequently – to teach the boys, he said. He did teach the little rascals, and taught them well, but he also talked to Miss Lois. The original founders of the church-house would have been well astonished could they have risen from their graves and beheld the old priest and the New England woman sitting on opposite sides of the fire in the neat shining room, which still retained its Puritan air in spite of years, the boys, and Episcopal apostasy.

Regarding Rast's conduct, Miss Lois maintained a grim silence. The foundations of her faith in life had been shaken; but how could she, supposed to be a sternly practical person, confess it to the world – confess that she had dreamed like a girl over this broken betrothal?

"Do you not see how much happier, freer, she is?" the priest would say, after reading one of Anne's letters. "The very tone betrays it."

Miss Lois sighed deeply, and poked the fire.

"Pooh! pooh! Do you want her to be unhappy?" said the old man. "Suppose that it had been the other way? Why not rejoice as I do over her cheerfulness?"

"Why not indeed?" thought Miss Lois. But that stubborn old heart of hers would not let her.

The priest had sent to her also one of the pictures of Tita. One day, after his return, he asked for it. She answered that it was gone.

"Where?"

"Into the fire."

"She cannot forgive," he thought, glancing cautiously at the set face opposite.

But it was not Tita whom she could not forgive; it was the young mother, dead long years before.

The winter moved on. Anne had taken off her engagement ring, and now wore in its place a ring given by her school-girl adorers, who had requested permission in a formal note to present one to their goddess. As she had refused gems, they had selected the most costly plain gold circlet they could find in Weston, spending a long and happy Saturday in the quest. "But it is a wedding ring," said the jeweller.

But why should brides have all the heavy gold? the school-girls wished to know. Other persons could wear plain gold rings also if they pleased.

So they bought the circlet and presented it to Anne with beating hearts and cheeks flushed with pleasure, humbly requesting in return, for each a lock of her hair. Then ensued a second purchase of lockets for this hair: it was well that their extravagant little purses were well filled.

To the school-girls the ring meant one thing, to Anne another; she mentally made it a token of the life she intended to lead. Free herself, he was not free; Helen loved him. Probably, also, he had already forgotten his fancy for the lonely girl whom he had seen during those few weeks at Caryl's. She would live her life out as faithfully as she could, thankful above all things for her freedom. Surely strength would be given her to do this. The ring was like the marriage ring of a nun, the token of a vow of patience and humility. During all these long months she had known no more, heard no more, of her companions of that summer than as though they had never existed. The newspapers of Weston and the country at large were not concerned about the opinions and movements of the unimportant little circle left behind at Caryl's. Their columns had contained burning words; but they were words relating to the great questions which were agitating the land from the Penobscot to the Rio Grande. Once, in a stray number of the Home Journal, she found the following paragraph: "Miss Katharine Vanhorn is in Italy at present. It is understood that Miss Vanhorn contemplates an extended tour, and will not return to this country for several years. Her Hudson River residence and her house in the city are both closed." Anne no longer hoped for any softening of that hard nature; yet the chance lines hurt her, and gave her a forsaken feeling all day.