The next afternoon while Anne packed her trunk, her mother kept
wandering to the door and gazing in the puzzled excitement of a child
who encounters something pleasant, but so extraordinary and unexpected
that its delight is lost in bewilderment--like being confronted with a
Christmas tree on the Fourth of July. Without turning from her task,
Anne felt her come, stare, decide to say something and go, unable to
express her thought.
At last the trunk was packed, locked and corded. Anne rose and smiled
at her mother, again in the doorway.
"By the look on your face, one would think you had never expected me to
marry."
Hilda came in and sat on the bed-edge. "Of course, I did, Annie. I
wouldn't like either of you girls to be old maids. Women have a lot
to put up with either way, married or single. But you have certainly
rushed right along. First you quit a good job, dash off to a place
where there isn't a man for miles and come home engaged; don't
tell a soul for weeks and then marry in the lunch hour. I feel all
upside-down."
Anne patted her knee. "Well, you'll get right side up again before I
come back and then we'll have some good times, momsy."
Hilda's pleasure at the prospect vanished almost instantly.
"What papa will say, I'm sure I don't know."
"Shall I write him a note? I will, if it will make things easier. I
don't want to upset him needlessly, for your sake. But he wouldn't be
any better if he had a month to think about it."
"I know. But then, you must make allowances, Anne. At our ages we can't
shift round so quick as you young folks, and papa thinks----"
"I know what papa thinks. Let's not go into that. But I don't, and,
as I am the one marrying, papa's opinion doesn't matter. Besides,
you know, I can get a job any day. I don't have to sit at home and be
supported."
"Now see here, Anne, you may be a lot smarter than I ever was, but I'm
older than you, and one thing I've learnt, if nothing else, it doesn't
pay for a woman to work after she's married. A man may pretend he
doesn't want her to and all that, but he gets used to it mighty soon
and takes it for granted. And no woman can do it--keep a home and work
and have babies. Just wait till some morning when you feel sick and
have to go out as usual. Why, when Belle was coming, I couldn't lift up
my head till ten o'clock. I----"
Anne turned quickly and began putting some things in a handbag. In a
few moments Hilda wandered back again from her own first confinement to
Anne's marriage.
"And to think you were married yesterday and came home here as cool as
you please. Now when I was young, if a girl had done a thing like that
it would have been thought wicked, although I don't know but what it
is a good thing for the man. It's just as well to keep them waiting as
long as you can. Besides, an hotel room, just an ordinary room where
the man's been living right along, seems kind of--coarse."
Anne's flaming face bent lower over the grip. There was a short
silence. Then Hilda whispered:
"Annie--is there--anything--you would like to know?"
Anne did not even shake her head. She had felt like this once,
strengthless in disgust, when Belle had persisted in showing her the
colored illustration of a disease in its worst stage. At last she
succeeded in turning to her mother.
"I'm going to phone for the taxi, now, mamma, and we'll have a cup of
tea before it comes."
"I'll put the kettle right on." Hilda bustled away, relieved. For she
had always found it a little difficult to enlighten Anne and had a
vague idea that it would have been easier if Anne had been a brunette.
Certain simple truths had a way of splattering all over Anne's
fairness, and making Hilda uncomfortable.
"Oh, well, I dare say she knows more than I did at her age;
everything's different than it used to be, anyhow."
With this large, comforting deduction, Hilda began to make the tea.
They drank it in a constrained effort on Anne's part to keep the
conversation general, and finished just as the taxi driver rang the
bell. The little trunk went bobbing down the stairs; Hilda took Anne in
her arms and they clung together, not crying, but very quiet.
"There, dear, I must run, and you can say I eloped and phoned you
afterwards, or anything that comes handiest."
"Oh, I'm not going to lie about it. It's done now. Besides, papa's
bark's a lot worse than his bite. He'll be decent when you get back."
Anne kissed her mother and ran quickly down the stairs, waved from the
door and shut it behind her. As the taxi drove off, she looked back,
but Hilda was not at the window. Anne's eyes clouded.
"Dear old moms. She does annoy me sometimes, but she has had a hard
time. I'm going to see that it's better in the future."
And then Anne forgot all about her old home, and sat nervous and very
timid on the edge of the taxi seat.
* * * * *
At dawn, Roger and Anne went down to the lake edge. In the east, the
cold, night gray was melting in green and silver pools. Not a sound.
Not a ripple on the surface of the lake. Beyond the lower hills,
granite mountains rose, peak upon peak, to the snow-covered barrier
beyond which the world lay. They stood silent, hand in hand, part of
the eternal youth of the dew-drenched earth.
Behind the towering mountains were cities and hurrying men. Anne knew
it because they had passed through them the night before, but it was
hard to remember and impossible to visualize. This was the core of the
world, calm, absolute in its perfect understanding, untouched by hurry
or man's confusion.
Anne pressed closer to Roger and he put his arm about her.
The green and silver pools brightened with the coming light; a faint,
crimson glow, herald of the day, spread its warmth for the advance of
the sun, and then, suddenly, a great jolly sun looked over the rim of
the world and laughed at them. They laughed back.
"The old fool thinks he's surprised us. As if we didn't know he was
there and going to do exactly that."
Anne made a face at the sun, just as the breakfast bell at the ranch
rang for the milkers' breakfast.
Hand in hand, they turned from the lake. The sun was already well over
the mountain top. The herald had rolled his crimson carpet and gone.
Day had come.
"I suppose a dewdrop should be meal enough, but I hope it's at least
bacon and eggs and pancakes."
"With cereal and cream first," Anne laughed.
Roger squeezed her hand. "I'm awfully glad, Mrs. Barton, that you
suggested marrying me."
"Always take my suggestions. You'll find they will always be right,
even if I do say so," Anne teased.
"Not a doubt of it." Roger stopped and took Anne in his arms.
Tenderness beyond passion was in his hold. "Princess--it's--so good to
be alive and love you."
Day after day, deeper and deeper in their understanding, Anne and Roger
wandered in the hills. Icy streams tumbled roaring through granite
gorges, suddenly emerged to wide sunny meadows, and spread in flat
stillness. The fat, black earth of the lower mountains thinned to sheer
granite slopes, where sparse trees grew miraculously in tiny crevices,
their roots hanging like ropes from the cliffs.
They sat by the lake, which, beginning a hundred yards from the ranch,
stretched to the blue distance of the hills. The lake fascinated Anne.
No fish swam in it, no birds alighted upon it, the wind seemed scarcely
to ruffle its terrible stillness. No one drank of its water. No one
swam in it. No craft sailed it. In its own brackish depths, it hid
the reason of its existence. No one knew how many centuries it had
lain there, acrid, wide, as indifferent to man's need as man to its
uselessness. "The lake," the rancher and his wife spoke as if it were
a person who had committed some unmentionable crime and been banished
from human intercourse because of it. There were legends that, ages
ago, the Indians had worshipped a god living far out in its bitter
depth. But now, they were afraid of it. The Christian God had stolen
their god and given them fear. But the lake was as indifferent to this
Christ as it had been to their pagan deity. It needed neither god nor
man.
They talked and were still. They were very near.
At the end of the second week, the first sheep-man came. Early in
the morning, Anne and Roger were waked by the baaing of the lambs, a
piercing wail of terror, as of children pursued by a malignant force.
They went quickly to the window. Hundreds of gray, dusty sheep were
coming up the road. Every now and then they stopped to nibble the
thick, sweet grass. But the dogs, at a call from the shepherd, ran
among them and with uncanny knowledge, drove them on. Bleating, they
obeyed. The rancher hurried out and opened the gate. The dogs began to
maneuver them through. Behind the band, the shepherd came, carrying a
lamb in his arms.
"A hierarchy of authority," Roger said. "The shepherd directs the dogs,
the dogs drive the sheep."
At last they were all safely through and the gate closed. In a few
moments, the bleating was over. The sheep were contentedly munching the
lush grass.
"They are like people. A moment ago and they seemed really to have some
definite point of view. They wanted to do something. And now, they've
forgotten what it was. They'll eat the meadow flat and then the dogs
and the shepherd will drive them on, and they'll rebel and yield and
eat another meadow flat--and go on--and on."
Anne patted his hand, resting on her breast. Roger was always seeing
things so, analogies between animals and mountains and trees and
people. Nothing was just itself to Roger, but always a picture of
something else. It made Anne very tender and filled her with the same
sense of deep protectiveness that a child's belief in fairies does; a
gladness, touched faintly with wistful envy and regret that faith must
go.
As they sat down to breakfast they realized a new feeling of bustle and
industry in the air. The sheep had come. Soon tourists would follow.
Automobiles would pass, meals would be called for at all hours. The
rancher and his wife talked of rooms to be opened, supplies brought up
from cellars, bedding aired. Roger and Anne sat silent, as silent as
the dark Indian girl who served them.
The rancher ate quickly and went. In a moment his wife followed. They
crossed the rear yard and disappeared in a storehouse. Roger looked at
Anne and sighed.
"I suppose it's the end. The place will be all cluttered up with people
soon."
"I suppose it will. It's been perfect, hasn't it?"