Anne: A Novel

Helen's friends, therefore, might not always have recognized themselves in her sparkling narratives, as far as their words were concerned; but it is only justice to them to add that she was never obliged to embellish their actions. She related to Anne apart, during their music lessons, the latest events in a whisper, while Belzini gave two minutes to cream candy and rest; the stories became the fairy tales of the school-girl's quiet life. Through all, she found her interest more and more attracted by "the Bishop," who seemed, however, to be anything but an ecclesiastical personage.

Miss Vanhorn had been filled with profound astonishment and annoyance by Helen's note. She knew Helen, and she knew Miss Teller: what could they want of Anne? After due delay, she came in her carriage to find out.

Tante, comprehending her motive, sent Anne up stairs to attire herself in the second dress given by Helen – a plain black costume, simply but becomingly made, and employed the delay in talking to her visitor mellifluously on every conceivable subject save the desired one. She treated her to a dissertation on intaglii, to an argument or two on architecture, and was fervently asking her opinion of certain recently exhibited relics said to be by Benvenuto Cellini, when the door opened and Anne appeared.

The young girl greeted her grandaunt with the same mixture of timidity and hope which she had shown at their first interview. But Miss Vanhorn's face stiffened into rigidity as she surveyed her.

"She is impressed at last," thought the old Frenchwoman, folding her hands contentedly and leaning back in her chair, at rest (temporarily) from her labors.

But if impressed, Miss Vanhorn had no intention of betraying her impression for the amusement of her ancient enemy; she told Anne curtly to put on her bonnet, that she had come to take her for a drive. Once safely in the carriage, she extracted from her niece, who willingly answered, every detail of her acquaintance with Helen, and the holiday visit, bestowing with her own eyes, meanwhile, a close scrutiny upon the black dress, with whose texture and simplicity even her angry annoyance could find no fault.

"She wants to get something out of you, of course," she said, abruptly, when the story was told; "Helen Lorrington is a thoroughly selfish woman. I know her well. She introduced you, I suppose, as Miss Vanhorn's niece?"

"Oh no, grandaunt. She has no such thought."

"What do you know of her thoughts! You continue to go there?"

"Sometimes, on Sundays – when she asks me."

"Very well. But you are not to go again when company is expected; I positively forbid it. You were not brought down from your island to attend evening parties. You hear me?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps you are planning for a situation here at Moreau's next winter?" said the old woman, after a pause, peering at Anne suspiciously.

"I could not fill it, grandaunt; I could only teach in a country school."

"At Newport, or some such place, then?"

"I could not get a position of that kind."

"Mrs. Lorrington could help you."

"I have not asked her to help me."

"I thought perhaps she had some such idea of her own," continued Miss Vanhorn. "You can probably prop up that fife-like voice of hers in a way she likes; and besides, you are a good foil for her, with your big shoulders and bread-and-milk face. You little simpleton, don't you know that to even the most skillful flirt a woman friend of some kind or other is necessary as background and support?"

"No, I did not know it," said Anne, in a disheartened voice.

"What a friend for Helen Lorrington! No wonder she has pounced upon you! You would never see one of her manœuvres, although done within an inch of you. With your believing eyes, and your sincerity, you are worth your weight in silver to that straw-faced mermaid. But, after all, I do not interfere. Let her only obtain a good situation for you next year, and pay you back in more useful coin than fine dresses, and I make no objection."

She settled herself anew in the corner of the carriage, and began the process of extracting a seed, while Anne, silent and dejected, gazed into the snow-covered street, asking herself whether Helen and all this world were really as selfish and hypocritical as her grandaunt represented. But these thoughts soon gave way to the predominant one, the one that always came to her when with Miss Vanhorn – the thought of her mother.

"During the summer, do you still live in the old country house on the Hudson, grandaunt?"

Miss Vanhorn, who had just secured a seed, dropped it. "I am not aware that my old country house is anything to you," she answered, tartly, fitting on her flapping glove-fingers, and beginning a second search.

A sob rose in Anne's throat; but she quelled it. Her mother had spent all her life, up to the time of her marriage, at that old river homestead.

Soon after this, Madame Moreau sent out cards of invitation for one of her musical evenings. Miss Vanhorn's card was accompanied by a little note in Tante's own handwriting.

"The invitation is merely a compliment which I give myself the pleasure of paying to a distinguished patron of my school" (wrote the old French lady). "There will be nothing worthy of her ear – a simple school-girls' concert, in which Miss Douglas (who will have the kind assistance of Mrs. Lorrington) will take part. I can not urge, for so unimportant an affair, the personal presence of Miss Vanhorn; but I beg her to accept the inclosed card as a respectful remembrance from

"Hortense-Pauline Moreau."

"That will bring her," thought Tante, sealing the missive, in her old-fashioned way, with wax.

She was right; Miss Vanhorn came.

Anne sang first alone. Then with Helen.

"Isn't that Mrs. Lorrington?" said a voice behind Miss Vanhorn.

"Yes. My Louise tells me that she has taken up this Miss Douglas enthusiastically – comes here to sing with her almost every day."

"Who is the girl?"

Miss Vanhorn prepared an especially rigid expression of countenance for the item of relationship which she supposed would follow. But nothing came; Helen was evidently waiting for a more dramatic occasion. She felt herself respited; yet doubly angry and apprehensive.

When the song was ended, there was much applause of the subdued drawing-room kind – applause, however, plainly intended for Helen alone. Singularly enough, Miss Vanhorn resented this. "If I should take Anne, dress her properly, and introduce her as my niece, the Lorrington would be nowhere," she thought, angrily. It was the first germ of the idea.

It was not allowed to disappear. It grew and gathered strength slowly, as Tante and Helen intended it should; the two friendly conspirators never relaxed for a day their efforts concerning it. Anne remained unconscious of these manœuvres; but the old grandaunt was annoyed, and urged, and flattered, and menaced forward with so much skill that it ended in her proposing to Anne, one day in the early spring, that she should come and spend the summer with her, the children on the island to be provided for meanwhile by an allowance, and Anne herself to have a second winter at the Moreau school, if she wished it, so that she might be fitted for a higher position than otherwise she could have hoped to attain.

"Oh, grandaunt!" cried the girl, taking the old loosely gloved hand in hers.

"There is no occasion for shaking hands and grandaunting in that way," said Miss Vanhorn. "If you wish to do what I propose, do it; I am not actuated by any new affection for you. You will take four days to consider; at the end of that period, you may send me your answer. But, with your acceptance, I shall require the strictest obedience. And – no allusion whatever to your mother."

"What are to be my duties?" asked Anne, in a low voice.

"Whatever I require," answered the old woman, grimly.

At first Anne thought of consulting Tante. But she had a strong under-current of loyalty in her nature, and the tie of blood bound her to her grandaunt, after all: she decided to consult no one but herself. The third day was Sunday. In the twilight she sat alone on her narrow bed, by the window of the dormitory, thinking. It was a boisterous March evening; the wildest month of the twelve was on his mad errands as usual. Her thoughts were on the island with the children; would it not be best for them that she should accept the offered allowance, and go with this strange grandaunt of hers, enduring as best she might her cold severity? Miss Lois's income was small; the allowance would make the little household comfortable. A second winter in New York would enable her to take a higher place as teacher, and also give the self-confidence she lacked. Yes; it was best.

But a great and overwhelming loneliness rose in her heart at the thought of another long year's delay before she could be with those she loved. Rast's last letter was in her pocket; she took it out, and held it in her hand for comfort. In it he had written of the sure success of his future; and Anne believed it as fully as he did. Her hand grew warmer as she held the sheet, and as she recalled his sanguine words. She began to feel courageous again. Then another thought came to her: must she tell Miss Vanhorn of her engagement? In their new conditions, would it not be dishonest to keep the truth back? "I do not see that it can be of any interest to her," she said to herself. "Still, I prefer to tell her." And then, having made her decision, she went to Tante.

Tante was charmed with the news (and with the success of her plan). She discoursed upon family affection in very beautiful language. "You will find a true well-spring of love in the heart of your venerable relative," she remarked, raising her delicate handkerchief, like the suggestion of a happiness that reached even to tears. "Long, long have I held your cherished grandaunt in a warm corner of my memory and heart."

This was true as regarded the time and warmth; only the latter was of a somewhat peppery nature.

The next morning Helen was told the news. She threw back her head in comic despair. "The old dragon has taken the game out of my hands at last," she said, "and ended all the sport. Excuse the title, Anne. But I am morally certain she has all sorts of vinegarish names for me. And now – am I to congratulate you upon your new home?"

"It is more a matter of duty, I think, than congratulation," said Anne, thoughtfully. "And next, I must tell her of my engagement."

"I wouldn't, if I were you, Crystal."

"Why?"

"She would rather have you free."

"I shall be free, as far as she is concerned."

"Do not be too sure of that. And take my advice – do not tell her."

Anne, however, paid no heed to this admonition; some things she did simply because she could not help doing them. She had intended to make her little confession immediately; but Miss Vanhorn gave her no opportunity. "That is enough talking," she said. "I have neuralgia in my eyebrow."

"But, grandaunt, I feel that I ought to tell you."

"Tell me nothing. Don't you know how to be silent? Set about learning, then. When I have neuralgia in my eyebrow, you are to speak only from necessity; when I have it in the eye itself, you are not to speak at all. Find me a caraway, and don't bungle."

She handed her velvet bag to Anne, and refitted the fingers of her yellow glove: evidently the young girl's duties were beginning.

Several days passed, but the neuralgia always prevented the story. At last the eyebrow was released, and then Anne spoke. "I wish to tell you, grandaunt, before I come to you, that I am engaged – engaged to be married."

"Who cares?" said Miss Vanhorn. "To the man in the moon, I suppose; most school-girls are."

"No, to – "

"Draw up my shawl," interrupted the old woman. "I do not care who it is. Why do you keep on telling me?"

"Because I did not wish to deceive you."

"Wait till I ask you not to deceive me. Who is the boy?"

"His name is Erastus Pronando," began Anne; "and – "

"Pronando?" cried Katharine Vanhorn, in a loud, bewildered voice – "Pronando? And his father's name?"

"John, I believe," said Anne, startled by the change in the old face. "But he has been dead many years."

Old Katharine rose; her hands trembled, her eyes flashed. "You will give up this boy at once and forever," she said, violently, "or my compact with you is at an end."

"How can I, grandaunt? I have promised – "

"I believe I am mistress of my own actions; and in this affair I will have no sort of hesitation," continued the old woman, taking the words from Anne, and tapping a chair back angrily with her hand. "Decide now – this moment. Break this engagement, and my agreement remains. Refuse to break it, and it falls. That is all."

"You are unjust and cruel," said the girl, roused by these arbitrary words.

Miss Vanhorn waved her hand for silence.

"If you will let me tell you, aunt – "

The old woman bounded forward suddenly, as if on springs, seized her niece by both shoulders, and shook her with all her strength. "There!" she said, breathless. "Will you stop talking! All I want is your answer – yes, or no."

The drawing-room of Madame Moreau had certainly never witnessed such a sight as this. One of its young ladies shaken – yes, absolutely shaken like a refractory child! The very chairs and tables seemed to tremble, and visibly hope that there was no one in the salon des élèves, behind.

Anne was more startled than hurt by her grandaunt's violence. "I am sorry to displease you," she said, slowly and very gravely; "but I can not break my engagement."

Without a word, Miss Vanhorn drew her shawl round her shoulders, pinned it, crossed the room, opened the door, and was gone. A moment later her carriage rolled away, and Anne, alone in the drawing-room, listened to the sound of the wheels growing fainter and fainter, with a chilly mixture of blank surprise, disappointment, and grief filling her heart. "But it was right that I should tell her," she said to herself as she went up stairs – "it was right."

Right and wrong always presented themselves to her as black and white. She knew no shading. She was wrong; there are grays. But, so far in her life, she had not been taught by sad experience to see them. "It was right," she repeated to Helen, a little miserably, but still steadfastly.

"I am not so sure of that," replied Mrs. Lorrington. "You have lost a year's fixed income for those children, and a second winter here for yourself; and for what? For the sake of telling the dragon something which does not concern her, and which she did not wish to know."

"But it was true."

"Are we to go out with trumpets and tell everything we know, just because it is true? Is there not such a thing as egotistical truthfulness?"

"It makes no difference," said Anne, despairingly. "I had to tell her."

"You are stubborn, Crystal, and you see but one side of a question. But never fear; we will circumvent the dragon yet. I wonder, though, why she was so wrought up by the name Pronando? Perhaps Aunt Gretta will know."

Miss Teller did not know; but one of the husky-voiced old gentlemen who kept up the "barrier, sir, against modern innovation," remembered the particulars (musty and dusty now) of Kate Vanhorn's engagement to one of the Pronandos – the wild one who ran away. He was younger than she was, a handsome fellow (yes, yes, he remembered it all now), and "she was terribly cut up about it, and went abroad immediately." Abroad – great panacea for American woes! To what continent can those who live "abroad" depart when trouble seizes them in its pitiless claws?

Time is not so all-erasing as we think. Old Katharine Vanhorn, at seventy, heard from the young lips of her grandniece the name which had not been mentioned in her presence for nearly half a century – the name which still had power to rouse in her heart the old bitter feeling. For John Pronando had turned from her to an uneducated common girl – a market-gardener's daughter. The proud Kate Vanhorn resented the defection instantly; she broke the bond of her betrothal, and sailed for England before Pronando realized that she was offended. This idyl of the gardener's daughter was but one of his passing amusements; and so he wrote to his black-browed goddess. But she replied that if he sought amusement of that kind during the short period of betrothal, he would seek it doubly after marriage, and then it would not be so easy to sail for Europe. She considered that she had had an escape. Pronando, handsome, light-hearted, and careless, gave up his offended Juno without much heartache, and the episode of Phyllis being by this time finished, he strayed back to his Philadelphia home, to embroil himself as usual with his family, and, later, to follow out the course ordained for him by fate. Kate Vanhorn had other suitors; but the old wound never healed.

"Come and spend the summer with me," said Helen. "I trust I am as agreeable as the dragon."

"No; I must stay here. Even as it is, she is doing a great deal for me; I have no real claim upon her," replied Anne, trying not to give way to the loneliness that oppressed her.

"Only that of being her nearest living relative, and natural heir."

"I have not considered the question of inheritance," replied the island girl, proudly.

"I know you have not; yet it is there. Old ladies, however, instead of natural heirs, are apt to prefer unnatural ones – cold-blooded Societies, Organizations, and the endless Heathen. But I am in earnest about the summer, Crystal: spend it with me."

"You are always generous to me," said Anne, gratefully.

"No; I never was generous in my life. I do not know how to be generous. But this is the way it is: I am rich; I want a companion; and I like you. Your voice supports mine perfectly, and is not in the least too loud – a thing I detest. Besides, we look well together. You are an excellent background for me; you make me look poetic; whereas most women make me look like a caricature of myself – of what I really am. As though a straw-bug should go out walking with a very attenuated grasshopper. Now if the straw-bug went out always with a plump young toad or wood-turtle, people might be found to admire even his hair-like fineness of limb and yellow transparency, by force, you know, of contrast."

Anne laughed; but there was also a slight change of expression in her face.

"I can read you, Crystal," said Helen, laughing in her turn. "Old Katharine has already told you all those things – sweet old lady! She understands me so well! Come; call it selfishness or generosity, as you please; but accept."

"It is generosity, Helen; which, however, I must decline."

"It must be very inconvenient to be so conscientious," said Mrs. Lorrington. "But mind, I do not give it up. What! lose so good a listener as you are? To whom, then, can I confide the latest particulars respecting the Poet, the Bishop, the Knight-errant, and the Haunted Man?"

"I like the Bishop," said Anne, smiling back at her friend. She had acquired the idea, without words, that Helen liked him also.

The story of Miss Vanhorn's change was, of course, related to Tante: Anne had great confidence both in the old Frenchwoman's kindness of heart and excellent judgment.

Tante listened, asked a question or two, and then said: "Yes, yes, I see. For the present, nothing more can be done. She will allow you to finish your year here, and as the time is of value to you, you shall continue your studies through the vacation. But not at my New Jersey farm, as she supposes; at a better place than that. You shall go to Pitre."

"A place, Tante?"

"No; a friend of mine, and a woman."

Mademoiselle Jeanne-Armande Pitre was not so old as Tante (Tante had friends of all ages); she was about fifty, but conveyed the impression of never having been young. "She is an excellent teacher," continued the other Frenchwoman, "and so closely avaricious that she will be glad to take you even for the small sum you will pay. She is employed in a Western seminary somewhere, but always returns to this little house of hers for the summer vacation. Your opportunity for study with her will be excellent; she has a rage for study. Write and tell your grandaunt, ma fille, what I have decided."

"Ma fille" wrote; but Miss Vanhorn made no reply.

Early in June, accompanied by "monsieur," Anne started on her little journey. The German music master said farewell with hearty regret. He was leaving also; he should not be with Madame Moreau another winter, he said. The Italian atmosphere stifled him, and the very sight of Belzini made him "dremble vit a er-righteous er-rage." He gave Anne his address, and begged that she would send to him when she wanted new music; "music vort someding." Monsieur Laurent, Anne's escort, was a nephew of Tante's, a fine-looking middle-aged Frenchman, who taught the verbs with a military air. But it was not so much his air as his dining-room which gave him importance in the eyes of the school. The "salle à manger de monsieur" was a small half-dark apartment, where he took his meals by himself. It was a mysterious place; monsieur was never seen there; it was not known even at what hour he dined. But there were stories in whispered circulation of soups, sauces, salads, and wines served there in secret, which made the listeners hungry even in the mere recital. They peered into the dim little room as they passed, but never saw anything save a brown linen table-cloth, an old caster, and one chair. It was stated, however, that this caster was not a common caster, but that it held, instead of the ordinary pepper and mustard, various liquids and spices of mysterious nature, delightfully and wickedly French.

In less than an hour the travellers reached Lancaster. Here monsieur placed Anne in a red wagon which was in waiting, said good-by hastily (being, perhaps, in a hurry to return to his dining-room), and caught the down train back to the city. He had lived in America so long that he could hurry like a native.

The old horse attached to the red wagon walked slowly over a level winding road, switching his tail to and fro, and stopping now and then to cough, with the profundity which only a horse's cough possesses. At last, turning into a field, he stopped before what appeared to be a fragment of a house.

"Is this the place?" said Anne, surprised.

"It's Miss Peter's," replied the boy driver.

The appearance of Mademoiselle Pitre in person at the door now removed all doubt as to her abode. "I am glad to see you," she said, extending a long yellow hand. "Enter."

The house, which had never been finished, was old; the sides and back were of brick, and the front of wood, temporarily boarded across. The kitchen and one room made all the depth; above, there were three small chambers. After a while, apparently, windows and a front door had been set in the temporary boarding, and a flight of steps added. Mademoiselle had bought the house in its unfinished condition, and had gradually become an object of great unpopularity in the neighborhood because, as season after season rolled by, she did nothing more to her purchase. What did she mean, then? Simple comment swelled into suspicion; the penny-saving old maid was now considered a dark and mysterious person at Lancaster. Opinions varied as to whether she had committed a crime in her youth, or intended to commit one in her age. At any rate, she was not like other people – in the country a heinous crime.

The interior of this half-house was not uncomfortable, although arranged with the strictest economy. The chief room had been painted a brilliant blue by the skillful hands of mademoiselle herself; there was no carpet, but in summer one can spare a carpet; and Anne thought the bright color, the growing plants and flowers, the gayly colored crockery, the four white cats, the sunshine, and the cool open space unfilled by furniture, quaintly foreign and attractive.

The mistress of the house was tall and yellow. She was attired in a black velvet bodice, and a muslin skirt whereon a waving design, like an endless procession of spindling beet roots, or fat leeches going round and round, was depicted in dark crimson. This muslin was secretly admired in the neighborhood; but as mademoiselle never went to church, and, what was worse, made no change in her dress on the Sabbath-day, it was considered a step toward rationalism to express the liking.