THE WAYS OF DESOLATION.
"Oh! colder than the wind that freezes
Founts, that but now in sunshine play'd,
Is that congealing pang which seizes
The trusting bosom when betray'd."--_Moore_.
Four months had elapsed since the honeymoon at the White Rose Tavern,
and Anna was living at Waltham with her mother who grew more fretful
and complaining every day. The marriage was still the secret of Anna
and Sanderson. The honeymoon at the White Rose had been prolonged to a
week, but no suspicion had entered the minds of Mrs. Moore or Mrs.
Standish Tremont, thanks to Sanderson's skill in sending fictitious
telegrams, aided by so skilled an accomplice as the "Rev." John Langdon.
Week after week, Anna had yielded to Sanderson's entreaties and kept
her marriage a secret from her mother. At first he had sent her
remittances of money with frequent regularity, but, lately, they had
begun to fall off, his letters were less frequent, shorter and more
reserved in tone, and the burden of it all was crushing the youth out
of the girl and breaking her spirit. She had grown to look like some
great sorrowful-eyed Madonna, and her beauty had in it more of the
spiritual quality of an angel than of a woman. As the spring came on,
and the days grew longer she looked like one on whom the hand of death
had been laid.
Her friends noticed this, but not her mother, who was so engrossed with
her own privations, that she had no time or inclination for anything
else.
"Anna, Anna, to think of our coming to this!" she would wail a dozen
times a day--or, "Anna, I can't stand it another minute," and she would
burst into paroxysms of grief, from which nothing could arouse her, and
utterly exhausted by her own emotions, which were chiefly regret and
self-pity, she would sink off to sleep. Anna had no difficulty in
accounting to her mother for the extra comforts with which Lennox
Sanderson's money supplied them. Mrs. Standish Tremont sometimes sent
checks and Mrs. Moore never bothered about the source, so long as the
luxuries were forthcoming.
"Is there no more Kumyss, Anna?" she asked one day.
"No, mother."
"Then why did you neglect to order it?"
The girl's face grew red. "There was no money to pay for it, mother.
I am so sorry."
"And does Frances Tremont neglect us in this way? When we were both
girls, it was quite the other way. My father practically adopted
Frances Tremont. She was married from our house. But you see, Anna,
she made a better marriage than I. Oh, why was your father so
reckless? I warned him not to speculate in the rash way he was
accustomed to doing, but he would never take my advice. If he had, we
would not be as we are now." And again the poor lady was overcome with
her own sorrows.
It was not Mrs. Tremont's check that had bought the last Kumyss. In
fact, Mrs. Tremont, after the manner of rich relations, troubled her
head but little about her poor ones. Sanderson had sent no money for
nearly a month, and Anna would have died sooner than have asked for it.
He had been to Waltham twice to see Anna, and once she had gone to meet
him at the White Rose Tavern. Mrs. Moore, wrapped in gloom at the loss
of her own luxury, had no interest in the young man who came down from
Boston to call on her daughter.
"You met him at Cousin Frances's, did you say? I don't see how you can
ask him here to this abominable little house. A girl should have good
surroundings, Anna. Nothing detracts from a girl's beauty so much as
cheap surroundings. Oh, my dear, if you had only been settled in life
before all this happened, I would not complain." And, as usual, there
were more tears.
But the wailings of her mother, over departed luxuries, and the poverty
of her surroundings were the lightest of Anna's griefs. At their last
meeting--she had gone to him in response to his request--Sanderson's
manner had struck dumb terror into the heart of the girl who had
sacrificed so much at his bidding. She had been very pale. The strain
of facing the terrible position in which she found herself, coupled
with her own failing health, had robbed her of the beautiful color he
had always so frankly admired. Her eyes were big and hollow looking,
and the deep black circles about them only added to her unearthly
appearance. There were drawn lines of pain about the mouth, that
robbed the Cupid's bow of half its beauty.
"My God, Anna!" he had said to her impatiently. "A man might as well
try to love a corpse as a woman who looks like that." He led her over
to a mirror, that she might see her wasted charms. There was no need
for her to look. She knew well enough, what was reflected there.
"You have no right to let yourself get like this. The only thing a
woman has is her looks, and it is a crime if she throws them away
worrying and fretting."
"But Lennox," she answered, desperately, "I have told you how matters
stand with me, and mother knows nothing--suspects nothing." And the
girl broke down and wept as if her heart would break.
"Anna, for Heaven's sake, do stop crying. I hate a scene worse than
anything in the world. When a woman cries, it means but one thing, and
that is that the man must give in--and in this particular instance I
can't give in. It would ruin me with the governor to acknowledge our
marriage."
The girl's tears froze at his brutal words. She looked about dazed and
hopeless.
Sanderson was standing by the window, drumming a tattoo on the pane.
He wheeled about, and said slowly, as if he were feeling his way:
"Anna, suppose I give you a sum of money and you go away till all this
business is over. You can tell your mother or not; just as you see
fit. As far as I am concerned, it would be impossible for me to
acknowledge our marriage as I have said before. If the governor found
it out, he would cut me off without a cent."
"But, Lennox, I cannot leave my mother. Her health grows worse daily,
and it would kill her."
"Then take her with you. She's got to know, sooner or later, I
suppose. Now, don't be a stupid little girl, and everything will turn
out well for us." He patted her cheek, but it was done perfunctorily,
and Anna knew there was no use in making a further appeal to him.
"Well, my dear," he said, "I have got to take that 4.30 train back to
Cambridge. Here is something for you, and let me know just as soon as
you make up your mind, when you intend to go and where. There is no
use in your staying in Waltham till those old cats begin to talk."
He put a roll of bills in her hand, kissed her and was gone, and Anna
turned her tottering steps homeward, sick at heart. She must tell her
mother, and the shock of it might kill her. She pressed her hands over
her burning eyes to blot out the hideous picture. Could cruel fate
offer bitterer dregs to young lips?
She stopped at the postoffice for mail. There was nothing but the
daily paper. She took it mechanically and turned into the little side
street on which they lived.
The old family servant, who still lived with them, met her at the door,
and told her that her mother had been sleeping quietly for more than an
hour.
"Good gracious, Miss Anna, but you do look ill. Just step into the
parlor and sit down for a minute, and I'll make you a cup of tea."
Anna suffered herself to be led into the little room, smiling
gratefully at the old servant as she assisted her to remove her hat and
jacket. She took up the paper mechanically and glanced through its
contents. Her eyes fell on the following item, which she followed with
hypnotic interest: "Harvard Student in Disgrace!" was the headline.
"John Langdon, a Harvard student, was arrested on the complaint of
Bertha Harris, a young woman, well known in Boston's gas-light circles,
yesterday evening. They had been dining together at a well-known chop
house, when the woman, who appeared to be slightly under the influence
of liquor, suddenly arose and declared that Langdon was trying to rob
her.
"Both were arrested on the charge of creating a disturbance. At the
State Street Police Station the woman said that Langdon had performed a
mock marriage for a fellow student some four months ago. She had acted
as a witness, for which service she was to receive $50. The money had
never been paid. She stated further that the young man, whom Langdon
is alleged to have married, is the son of a wealthy Boston banker, and
the young woman who was thus deceived is a young relative of one of
Boston's social leaders.
"Later Bertha Harris withdrew her charges, saying she was intoxicated
when she made them. The affair has created a profound sensation."
"Mock marriage!" The words whirled before the girl's eyes in letters
of fire. Bertha Harris! Yes, that was the name. It had struck her at
the time when Sanderson dropped the ring. Langdon had said "Bertha
Harris has found it."
The light of her reason seemed to be going out. From the blackness
that engulfed her, the words "mock marriage" rang in her ear like the
cry of the drowning.
"God, oh God!" she called and the pent up agony of her wrecked life was
in the cry.
They found her senseless a moment later, staring up at the ceiling with
glassy eyes, the crumpled paper crushed in her hand.
"She is dead," wailed her mother. The old servant wasted no time in
words. She lifted up the fragile form and laid it tenderly on the bed.
Then she raised the window and called to the first passerby to run for
the nearest doctor.