Anne: A Novel

"I hope I may become better acquainted with this rich voice," she said, coming back gracefully to the present. "May I introduce myself? I should like to try a duet with you, if you will allow me, Miss – "

"Douglas," said Belzini; "and this, mademoiselle, is Mrs. Lorrington."

Such was the beginning.

In addition to Helen's fancy for Anne's fair grave face, the young girl's voice proved a firmer support for her high soprano than it had ever obtained. Her own circle in society and the music classes had been searched in vain more than once. For she needed a soprano, not a contralto. And as soprani are particularly human, there had never been any lasting co-operation. Anne, however, cheerfully sang whatever Belzini put before her, remained admiringly silent while Helen executed the rapid runs and trills with which she always decorated her part, and then, when the mezzo was needed again, gave her full voice willingly, supporting the other as the notes of an organ meet and support a flute after its solo.

Belzini was in ecstasies; he sat up all night to copy music for them. He said, anxiously, to Helen: "And the young girl? You like her, do you not? Such a voice for you!"

"But I can not exactly buy young girls, can I?" said Mrs. Lorrington, smiling.

More and more, however, each day she liked "the young girl" for herself alone. She was an original, of course; almost an aboriginal; for she told the truth exactly upon all occasions, appropriate or inappropriate, and she had convictions. She was not aware, apparently, of the old-fashioned and cumbrous appearance of these last-named articles of mental furniture. But the real secret of Helen's liking lay in the fact that Anne admired her, and was at the same time neither envious nor jealous, and from her youth she had been troubled by the sure development of these two feelings, sooner or later, in all her girl companions. In truth, Helen's lot was enviable; and also, whether consciously or unconsciously, she had a skill in provoking jealousy. She was the spoiled child of fortune. It was no wonder, therefore, that those of her own sex and age seldom enjoyed being with her: the contrast was too great. Helen was, besides, the very queen of Whim.

The queen of Whim! By nature; which means that she had a highly developed imagination. By the life she had led, having never, save for the six short months of her husband's adoring rule, been under the control, or even advice, of any man. For whim can be thoroughly developed only in feminine households: it is essentially feminine. And Helen had been brought up by a maiden aunt, who lived alone. A man, however mild, demands in a home at least a pretense of fixed hours and regularity; only a household of women is capable of no regularity at all, of changing the serious dinner hour capriciously, and even giving up dinner altogether. Only a household of women has sudden inspirations as to journeys and departures within the hour; brings forth sudden ideas as to changes of route while actually on the way, and a going southward instead of westward, with a total indifference to supper. Helen's present whim was Anne.

"I want you to spend part of the holidays with me," she said, a few days before Christmas. "Come on Monday, and stay over New-Year's Day."

"Oh, I can not," said Anne, startled.

"Why not? Tante will consent if I ask her; she always does. Do you love this crowded house so much that you can not leave it?"

"It is not that. But – "

"But you are shy. But Miss Vanhorn might not like it. You do not know Aunt Margaretta. You have no silk gown. Now let me talk. I will write to Miss Vanhorn. Aunt Margaretta is as gentle as a dove. I am bold enough for two. And the silk dress shall come from me."

"I could not take that, Mrs. Lorrington."

"Because you are proud?"

"No; but because I would rather not. It would be too great an obligation."

"You repay me by your voice a thousandfold, Anne. I have never had the right voice for mine until now; and therefore the obligation is on my side. I do not speak of the pleasure your visit will give me, because I hope to make that mutual. But say no more. I intend to have my way."

And she had her way. "I have always detested Miss Vanhorn, with her caraway seeds, and her malice," she explained to Tante. "Much as I like Anne for herself alone, it will be delicious also to annoy the old dragon by bringing into notice this unknown niece whom she is hiding here so carefully. Now confess, Tante, that it will be delicious."

Tante shook her head reprovingly. But she herself was in her heart by no means fond of Miss Vanhorn; she had had more than one battle royal with that venerable Knickerbocker, which had tested even her celebrated suavity.

Helen's note was as follows:

"Dear Miss Vanhorn, – I very much wish to persuade your charming niece, Miss Douglas, to spend a portion of the holidays with me. Her voice is marvellously sweet, and Aunt Margaretta is most anxious to hear it; while I am desirous to have her in my own home, even if but for a few days, in order that I may learn more of her truly admirable qualities, which she inherits, no doubt, from your family.

"I trust you will add your consent to Tante's, already willingly bestowed, and make me thereby still more your obliged friend,

"Helen Roosbroeck Lorrington."

The obliged friend had the following answer:

"Miss Vanhorn presents her compliments to Mrs. Lorrington, with thanks for her note, which, however, was an unnecessary attention, Miss Vanhorn claiming no authority over the movements of Anne Douglas (whose relationship to her is remote), beyond a due respect for the rules of the institution where she has been placed. Miss Vanhorn is gratified to learn that Miss Douglas's voice is already of practical use to her, and has the honor of remaining Mrs. Lorrington's obliged and humble servant.

"Madison Square, Tuesday."

Tears sprang to Anne's eyes when Helen showed her this note.

"Why do you care? She was always a dragon; forget her. Now, Anne, remember that it is all understood, and the carriage will come for you on Monday." Then, seeing the face before her still irresolute, she added: "If you are to have pupils, some of them may be like me. You ought, therefore, to learn how to manage me, you know."

"You are right," said Anne, seriously. "It is strange how little confidence I feel."

Helen, looking at her as she stood there in her island gown, coarse shoes, and old-fashioned collar, did not think it strange at all, but wondered, as she had wondered a hundred times before, why it was that this girl did not think of herself and her own appearance. "And you must let me have my way, too, about something for you to wear," she added.

"It shall be as you wish, Helen. It can not be otherwise, I suppose, if I go to you. But – I hope the time will come when I can do something for you."

"Never fear; it will. I feel it instinctively. You will either save my life or take it – one or the other; but I am not sure which."

Monday came; and after her lonely Christmas, Anne was glad to step into Miss Teller's carriage, and be taken to the home on the Avenue. The cordial welcome she received there was delightful to her, the luxury novel. She enjoyed everything simply and sincerely, from the late breakfast in the small warm breakfast-room, from which the raw light of the winter morning was carefully excluded, to the chat with Helen over the dressing-room fire late at night, when all the house was still. Helen's aunt, Miss Teller, was a thin, light-eyed person of fifty-five years of age. Richly dressed, very tall, with a back as immovable and erect as though made of steel, and a tower of blonde lace on her head, she was a personage of imposing aspect, but in reality as mild as a sheep.

"Yes, my dear," she said, when Anne noticed the tinted light in the breakfast-room; "I take great care about light, which I consider an influence in our households too much neglected. The hideous white glare in most American breakfast-rooms on snowy winter mornings has often made me shudder when I have been visiting my friends; only the extremely vigorous can enjoy this sharp contact with the new day. Then the æsthetic effect: children are always homely when the teeth are changing and the shoulder-blades prominent; and who wishes to see, besides, each freckle and imperfection upon the countenances of those he loves? I have observed, too, that even morning prayer, as a family observance, fails to counter-act the influence of this painful light. For if as you kneel you cover your face with your hands, the glare will be doubly unbearable when you remove them; and if you do not cover your brow, you will inevitably blink. Those who do not close their eyes at all are the most comfortable, but I trust we would all prefer to suffer rather than be guilty of such irreverence."

"Now that is Aunt Gretta exactly," said Helen, as Miss Teller left the room. "When you are once accustomed to her height and blonde caps, you will find her soft as a down coverlet."

Here Miss Teller returned. "My dear," she said, anxiously, addressing Anne, "as to soap for the hands – what kind do you prefer?"

"Anne's hands are beautiful, and she will have the white soap in the second box on the first shelf of the store-room – the rose; not the heliotrope, which is mine," said Helen, taking one of the young girl's hands, and spreading out the firm taper fingers. "See her wrists! Now my wrists are small too, but then there is nothing but wrist all the way up."

"My dear, your arms have been much admired," said Miss Margaretta, with a shade of bewilderment in her voice.

"Yes, because I choose they shall be. But when I spoke of Anne's hands, I spoke artistically, aunt."

"Do you expect Mr. Blum to-day?" said Miss Teller.

"Oh no," said Helen, smiling. "Mr. Blum, Anne, is a poor artist whom Aunt Gretta is cruel enough to dislike."

"Not on account of his poverty," said Miss Margaretta, "but on account of my having half-brothers, with large families, all with weak lungs, taking cold, I may say, at a breath – a mere breath; and Mr. Blum insists upon coming here without overshoes when there has been a thaw, and sitting all the evening in wet boots, which naturally makes me think of my brothers' weak families, to say nothing of the danger to himself."

"Well, Mr. Blum is not coming. But Mr. Heathcote is."

"Ah."

"And Mr. Dexter may."

"I am always glad to see Mr. Dexter," said Aunt Margaretta.

Mr. Heathcote did not come; Mr. Dexter did. But Anne was driving with Miss Teller, and missed the visit.

"A remarkable man," said the elder lady, as they sat at the dinner table in the soft radiance of wax lights.

"You mean Mr. Blum?" said Helen. "This straw-colored jelly exactly matches me, Anne."

"I mean Mr. Dexter," said Miss Teller, nodding her head impressively. "Sent through college by the bounty of a relative (who died immediately afterward, in the most reprehensible way, leaving him absolutely nothing), Gregory Dexter, at thirty-eight, is to-day a man of modern and distinct importance. Handsome – you do not contradict me there, Helen?"

"No, aunt."

"Handsome," repeated Miss Teller, triumphantly, "successful, moral, kind-hearted, and rich – what would you have more? I ask you, Miss Douglas, what would you have more?"

"Nothing," said Helen. "Anne has confided to me – nothing. Long live Gregory Dexter! And I feel sure, too, that he will outlive us all. I shall go first. You will see. I always wanted to be first in everything – even the grave."

"My dear!" said Miss Margaretta.

"Well, aunt, now would you like to be last? Think how lonely you would be. Besides, all the best places would be taken," said Helen, in business-like tones, taking a spray of heliotrope from the vase before her.

New-Year's Day was, in the eyes of Margaretta Teller, a solemn festival; thought was given to it in June, preparation for it began in September. Many a call was made at the house on that day which neither Miss Margaretta, nor her niece, Mrs. Lorrington, attracted, but rather the old-time dishes and the old-time punch on their dining-room table. Old men with gouty feet, amateur antiquarians of mild but obstinate aspect, to whom Helen was "a slip of a girl," and Miss Margaretta still too youthful a person to be of much interest, called regularly on the old Dutch holiday, and tasted this New-Year's punch. They cherished the idea that they were thus maintaining the "solid old customs," and they spoke to each other in moist, husky under-tones when they met in the hall, as much as to say, "Ah, ah! you here? That's right – that's right. A barrier, sir – a barrier against modern innovation!"

Helen had several friends besides Anne to assist her in receiving, and the young island girl remained, therefore, more or less unnoticed, owing to her lack of the ready, graceful smiles and phrases which are the current coin of New-Year's Day. She passed rapidly through the different phases of timidity, bewilderment, and fatigue; and then, when more accustomed to the scene, she regained her composure, and even began to feel amused. She ceased hiding behind the others; she learned to repeat the same answers to the same questions without caring for their inanity; she gave up trying to distinguish names, and (like the others) massed all callers into a constantly arriving repetition of the same person, who was to be treated with a cordiality as impersonal as it was glittering. She tried to select Mr. Dexter, and at length decided that he was a certain person standing near Helen – a man with brown hair and eyes; but she was not sure, and Helen's manner betrayed nothing.

The fatiguing day was over at last, and then followed an hour or two of comparative quiet; the few familiar guests who remained were glad to sink down in easy-chairs, and enjoy connected sentences again. The faces of the ladies showed fine lines extending from the nostril to the chin; the muscles that had smiled so much were weary.

And now Anne discovered Gregory Dexter; and he was not the person she had selected. Mr. Dexter was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with an appearance of persistent vigor in his bearing, and a look of determination in his strong, squarely cut jaw and chin. His face was rather short, with good features and clear gray eyes, which met the gazer calmly; and there was about him that air of self-reliance which does not irritate in a large strong man, any more than imperiousness in a beautiful woman.

The person with brown eyes proved to be Mr. Heathcote. He seemed indolent, and contributed but few words to the general treasury of conversation.

Mr. Blum was present also; but on this occasion he wore the peculiarly new, shining, patent-leather boots dear to the hearts of his countrymen on festal occasions, and Miss Teller's anxieties were quiescent. Helen liked artists; she said that their ways were a "proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalued all the mere utilities of the world."

"Are bad boots rays of beauty?" inquired Miss Margaretta.

"Yes. That is, a man whose soul is uplifted by art may not always remember his boots; to himself, no doubt, his feet seem winged."

"Very far from winged are Blum's feet," responded Miss Margaretta, shaking her head gravely. "Very, very far."

Late in the evening, when almost all the guests had departed, Helen seemed seized with a sudden determination to bring Anne into prominence. Mr. Dexter still lingered, and the artist. Also Ward Heathcote.

"Anne, will you sing now? First with me, then alone?" she said, going to the piano.

A bright flush rose in Anne's face; the prominent blue eyes of the German artist were fixed upon her; Gregory Dexter had turned toward her with his usual prompt attention. Even the indolent Heathcote looked up as Helen spoke. But having once decided to do a thing, Anne knew no way save to do it; having accepted Helen's generous kindness, she must now do what Helen asked in return. She rose in silence, and crossed the brightly lighted room on her way to the piano. Few women walk well; by well, is meant naturally. Helen was graceful; she had the lithe shape and long step which give a peculiar swaying grace, like that of elm branches. Yet Helen's walk belonged to the drawing-room, or at best the city pavement; one could not imagine her on a country road. Anne's gait was different. As she crossed the room alone, it drew upon her for the first time the full attention of the three gentlemen who were present. Blum stared gravely. Dexter's eyes moved up to her face, as if he saw it now with new interest. Heathcote leaned back on the sofa with an amused expression, glancing from Anne to Helen, as if saying, "I understand."

Anne wore one of Helen's gifts, a soft silk of pale gray, in deference to her mourning garb; the dress was high over the shoulders, but cut down squarely in front and behind, according to a fashion of the day. The sleeves came to the elbow only; the long skirt was severely plain. They had taken off their gloves, and the girl's beautiful arms were conspicuous, as well as her round, full, white throat.

The American Venus is thin.

American girls are slight; they have visible collar-bones and elbows. When they pass into the fullness of womanhood (if they pass at all), it is suddenly, leaving no time for the beautiful pure virginal outlines which made Anne Douglas an exception to her kind. Anne's walk was entirely natural, her poise natural; yet so perfect were her proportions that even Tante, artificial and French as she was, refrained from the suggestions and directions as to step and bearing which encircled the other pupils like an atmosphere.

The young girl's hair had been arranged by Helen's maid, under Helen's own direction, in a plain Greek knot, leaving the shape of the head, and the small ear, exposed; and as she stood by the piano, waiting, she looked (as Helen had intended her to look) like some young creature from an earlier world, startled and shy, yet too proud to run away.

They sang together; and in singing Anne recovered her self-possession. Then Helen asked her to sing without accompaniment a little island ballad which was one of her favorites, and leading her to the centre of the room, left her there alone. Poor Anne! But, moved by the one desire of pleasing Helen, she clasped her hands in simple child-like fashion, and began to sing, her eyes raised slightly so as to look above the faces of her audience. It was an old-fashioned ballad or chanson, in the patois of the voyageurs, with a refrain in a minor key, and it told of the vanishing of a certain petite Marie, and the sorrowing of her mother – a common-place theme long drawn out, the constantly recurring refrain, at first monotonous, becoming after a while sweet to the ear, like the wash of small waves on a smooth beach. But it was the ending upon which Helen relied for her effect. Suddenly the lament of the long-winded mother ended, the time changed, and a verse followed picturing the rapture of the lovers as they fled away in their sharp-bowed boat, wing and wing, over the blue lake. Anne sang this as though inspired; she forgot her audience, and sang as she had always sung it on the island for Rast and the children. Her voice floated through the house, she shaded her eyes with her hand, and leaned forward, gazing, as though she saw the boat across the water, and then she smiled, as, with a long soft note, the song ended.

But the instant it was over, her timidity came back with double force, and she hastily sought refuge beside Helen, her voice gone, in her eyes a dangerous nearness to tears.

There was now an outburst of compliments from Blum; but Helen kindly met and parried them. Mr. Dexter began a few well-chosen sentences of praise; but in the midst of his fluent adjectives, Anne glanced up so beseechingly that he caught the mist in her eyes, and instantly ceased. Nor was this all; he opened a discussion with Miss Teller, dragging in Heathcote also (against the latter's will), and thus secured for Anne the time to recover herself. She felt this quick kindness, and was grateful. She decided that she liked him; and she wondered whether Helen liked him also.

The next morning the fairy-time was over; she went back to school.

CHAPTER X

"There are three sorts of egoists: those who live themselves and let others live; those who live themselves and don't let others live; and those who neither live themselves nor let others live."

"With thoughts and feelings very simple but very strong."

– Tourguénieff.

The winter passed. The new pupil studied with diligence, and insisted upon learning the beginnings of piano-playing so thoroughly that the resigned little German master with ear-rings woke up and began to ask her whether she could not go through a course of ten years or so, and become "a real blayer, not like American blayers, who vant all to learn de same biece, and blay him mit de loud pedal down." Sometimes Helen bore her away to spend a Sunday; but there were no more New-Year's Days, or occasions for the gray silk. When together at Miss Teller's, the two sat over the dressing-room fire at night, talking with that delightful mixture of confidence and sudden little bits of hypocrisy in which women delight, and which undress seems to beget. The bits of hypocrisy, however, were all Helen's.

She had long ago gathered from Anne her whole simple history; she was familiar with the Agency, the fort, Miss Lois, Père Michaux, Dr. Gaston, Rast, Tita, and the boys, even old Antoine and his dogs, René and Lebeau. Anne, glad to have a listener, had poured out a flood of details from her lonely homesick heart, going back as far as her own lost mother, and her young step-mother Angélique. But it was not until one of these later midnight talks that the girl had spoken of her own betrothal. Helen was much surprised – the only surprise she had shown. "I should never have dreamed it, Crystal!" she exclaimed. "Never!" (Crystal was her name for Anne.)

"Why not?"

"Because you are so – young."

"But it often happens at my age. The fort ladies were married at eighteen and nineteen, and my own dear mother was only twenty."

"You adore this Rast, I suppose?"

"Yes, I like him."

"Nonsense! You mean that you adore him."

"Perhaps I do," said Anne, smiling. "I have noticed that our use of words is different."

"And how long have you adored him?"

"All my life."

The little sentence came forth gravely and sincerely. Helen surveyed the speaker with a quizzical expression in her narrow brown eyes. "No one 'adores' all one's life," she answered. Then, as Anne did not take up the challenge, she paused, and, after surveying her companion in silence for a moment, added, "There is no time fixed as yet for this marriage?"

"No; Rast has his position to make first. And I myself should be better pleased to have four or five years to give to the children before we are married. I am anxious to educate the boys."

"Bon!" said Helen. "All will yet end well, Virginie. My compliments to Paul. It is a pretty island pastoral, this little romance of yours; you have my good wishes."

The island pastoral was simple indeed compared with the net-work of fancies and manœuvres disclosed by Helen. Her life seemed to be a drama. Her personages were masked under fictitious names; the Poet, the Haunted Man, the Knight-errant, the Chanting Tenor, and the Bishop, all figured in her recitals, to which Anne listened with intense interest. Helen was a brilliant story-teller. She could give the salient points of a conversation, and these only. She colored everything, of course, according to her own fancy; but one could forgive her that for her skillful avoidance of dull details, whose stupid repetition, simply because they are true, is a habit with which many good people are afflicted.

The narrations, of course, were of love and lovers: it is always so in the midnight talks of women over the dying fire. Even the most secluded country girl will on such occasions unroll a list as long as Leporello's. The listener may know it is fictitious, and the narrator may know that she knows it. But there seems to be a fascination in the telling and the hearing all the same.

Helen amused herself greatly over the deep interest Anne took in her stories; to do her justice, they were generally true, the conversations only being more dramatic than the reality had been. This was not Helen's fault; she performed her own part brilliantly, and even went over, on occasion, and helped on the other side. But the American man is not distinguished for conversational skill. This comes, not from dullness or lack of appreciation, but rather from overappreciation. Without the rock-like slow self-confidence of the Englishman, the Frenchman's never-failing wish to please, or the idealizing powers of the German, the American, with a quicker apprehension, does not appear so well in conversation as any one of these compeers. He takes in an idea so quickly that elaborate comment seems to him hardly worth while; and thus he only has a word or two where an Englishman has several well-intentioned sentences, a Frenchman an epigram, and a German a whole cloud of philosophical quotations and comments. But it is, more than all else, the enormous strength which ridicule as an influence possesses in America that makes him what he is; he shrinks from the slightest appearance of "fine talking," lest the ever-present harpies of mirth should swoop down and feed upon his vitals.