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
farmhouse, 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 raindrops,
she 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 toward 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 will take her to see the Widow Hobbs. That will give 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 little,
dirty hands which were sure to be laid upon her dress if the children
were at home, and she waited a little 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, the
doctor 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 am delighted to go with you. Pray let us start at once,"
she exclaimed, when, after a few moments of conversation, Anna told
where she was going.
Lucy was very gayly dressed, enough so for a party, Anna thought,
smiling to herself as she imagined the startling effect the white
muslin and bright plaid ribbons would have upon the inmates of the
shanty where they were going. There was a remonstrance from Mrs.
Hetherton against her niece's 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 such a little way as
that? Anna, too, was averse to riding and she felt a kind of grim
satisfaction when, after a time, the little figure, which at first had
skipped along ahead 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 exertion 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 her
curly head in her lap, smoothed the golden hair, hating 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 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 almost be 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 this rough way when I might have chosen a smooth, though
longer, road, and walked so fast on purpose to worry you."
"To worry me. 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
their way, as a kind of penance for her past misdeeds; but Lucy was
much better, she said, 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 was torn 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 large 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 carefully tucking 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, 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,
the blood tingling through her veins with a delicious feeling; as,
laying both 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 fine eyes rested on
Anna with a strange, 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, now being purloined by the children crouched upon the
hearth and fighting over the last bit of gingerbread.
"Hush-sh, little one," and Lucy's white, jeweled 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 for a long time,"
Arthur said to Lucy in a low tone, which, low as it was, reached
Anna's ear, but brought no pang of jealousy, or a 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' pillow while Arthur said the
prayer was but the baptism of that vow, and not, as Lucy thought,
because she felt so sorry for the suffering woman to whom she had
brought so much comfort.
"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 outside the door, the former
pointing to the ruined slippers and asking 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 ever more 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
gaily on, Anna keeping a watchful care over Lucy, picking out the
smoothest places and passing her arm around her slender 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; 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, where 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 so remove her from danger,"
she thought as she arose 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 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 at what was coming, and, with a gasping sob which Lucy
thought a long-drawn breath, she kissed the pretty parted lips, and
answered:
"No, darling, Arthur never did, and never will, but some 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 so, you won't mind me 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 center. 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 child-like,
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 dépend_," 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 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 warm 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 rosebud 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.