Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from scanned images of public domain material
from the Google Print project and The Internet Archive.)
[Illustration: "I PUT MY ARMS AROUND HER." _See Page 470._]
ANNE
A Novel
BY
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
_ILLUSTRATED BY C. S. REINHART_
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
_All rights reserved._
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
"I PUT MY ARMS ROUND HER" _Frontispiece._
"THE GIRL PAUSED AND REFLECTED A MOMENT" _To face Page_ 18
"AS SHE BENT OVER THE OLD VOLUME" " 42
LOIS HINSDALE " 62
"AND IT ENDED IN THEIR RACING DOWN TOGETHER" " 84
"ALARMED, HE BENT OVER HER" " 104
"SHE SAT THERE HIGH IN THE AIR WHILE THE STEAMER
BACKED OUT FROM THE PIERS" " 120
"YOU KNOW I TOO MUST GO FAR AWAY" " 132
TITA LISTENING " 136
"DEAR ME! WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH SUCH
A YOUNG SAVAGE?" " 152
IN THE WOODS " 186
"HE TOOK HIS BEST COAT FROM HIS LEAN VALISE" " 208
"HE WAS MERELY NOTING THE EFFECT" " 226
"SHE BATHED HER FLUSHED CHEEKS" " 234
"SHE STARTED SLIGHTLY" " 254
"SHE BURIED HER FACE TREMBLINGLY IN HER
HANDS" " 262
"ANNE DREW A CHAIR TO THE BEDSIDE, AND SAT
DOWN WITH HER BACK TO THE MOONLIGHT" " 284
"WHILE HER MAID WAS COILING HER FAIR HAIR" " 308
"IT IS, OR SHOULD BE, OVER THERE" " 328
"MISS LOIS SIGHED DEEPLY" " 350
"JULY WALKED IN FRONT, WITH HIS GUN OVER
HIS SHOULDER" " 374
"SHE TRIED TO RISE, BUT HE HELD HER ARM WITH
BOTH HANDS" " 386
"WEAK, HOLDING ON BY THE TREES" " 392
"SAW HER SLOWLY ASCEND THE HOUSE STEPS" " 408
"ANNE, STILL AS A STATUE" " 432
"HE ROSE, AND TOOK HER COLD HANDS IN HIS" " 460
"HE OBEYED WITHOUT COMMENT" " 498
"THE SECOND BOAT, WHICH WAS FARTHER UP THE
LAKE, CONTAINED A MAN" " 514
"HE REACHED THE WINDOWS, AND PEEPED THROUGH
A CRACK IN THE OLD BLIND" " 530
ANNE.
CHAPTER I.
"Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy;
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy.
The youth who daily farther from the East
Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day."
--WORDSWORTH.
"It is but little we can do for each other. We accompany the youth
with sympathy and manifold old sayings of the wise to the gate of
the arena, but it is certain that not by strength of ours, or by
the old sayings, but only on strength of his own, unknown to us or
to any, he must stand or fall."--EMERSON.
"Does it look well, father?"
"What, child?"
"Does this look well?"
William Douglas stopped playing for a moment, and turned his head toward
the speaker, who, standing on a ladder, bent herself to one side, in
order that he might see the wreath of evergreen, studded with cones,
which she had hung on the wall over one of the small arched windows.
"It is too compact, Anne, too heavy. There should be sprays falling from
it here and there, like a real vine. The greenery, dear, should be
either growing naturally upward or twining; large branches standing in
the corners like trees, or climbing vines. Stars, stiff circles, and set
shapes should be avoided. That wreath looks as though it had been planed
by a carpenter."
"Miss Lois made it."
"Ah," said William Douglas, something which made you think of a smile,
although no smile was there, passing over his face, "it looks like her
work; it will last a long time. And there will be no need to remove it
for Ash-Wednesday, Anne; there is nothing joyous about it."
"I did not notice that it was ugly," said the girl, trying in her bent
posture to look at the wreath, and bringing one eye and a portion of
anxious forehead to bear upon it.
"That is because Miss Lois made it," replied William Douglas, returning
to his music.
Anne, standing straight again, surveyed the garland in silence. Then she
changed its position once or twice, studying the effect. Her figure,
poised on the round of the ladder, high in the air, was, although
unsupported, firm. With her arms raised above her head in a position
which few women could have endured for more than a moment, she appeared
as unconcerned, and strong, and sure of her footing, as though she had
been standing on the floor. There was vigor about her and elasticity,
combined unexpectedly with the soft curves and dimples of a child.
Viewed from the floor, this was a young Diana, or a Greek maiden, as we
imagine Greek maidens to have been. The rounded arms, visible through
the close sleeves of the dark woollen dress, the finely moulded wrists
below the heavy wreath, the lithe, natural waist, all belonged to a
young goddess. But when Anne Douglas came down from her height, and
turned toward you, the idea vanished. Here was no goddess, no Greek;
only an American girl, with a skin like a peach. Anne Douglas's eyes
were violet-blue, wide open, and frank. She had not yet learned that
there was any reason why she should not look at everything with the calm
directness of childhood. Equally like a child was the unconsciousness of
her mouth, but the full lips were exquisitely curved. Her brown hair was
braided in a heavy knot at the back of her head; but little rings and
roughened curly ends stood up round her forehead and on her temples, as
though defying restraint. This unwritten face, with its direct gaze, so
far neutralized the effect of the Diana-like form that the girl missed
beauty on both sides. The usual ideal of pretty, slender, unformed
maidenhood was not realized, and yet Anne Douglas's face was more like
what is called a baby face than that of any other girl on the island.
The adjective generally applied to her was "big." This big, soft-cheeked
girl now stood irresolutely looking at the condemned wreath.
The sun was setting, and poured a flood of clear yellow light through
the little west windows; the man at the organ was playing a sober,
steadfast German choral, without exultation, yet full of a resolute
purpose which defied even death and the grave. Out through the eastern
windows stretched the frozen straits, the snow-covered islands, and
below rang out the bugle. "It will be dark in a few moments," said Anne
to herself; "I will do it."
She moved the ladder across to the chancel, mounted to its top again,
and placed the wreath directly over the altar, connecting it deftly with
the numerous long lines of delicate wreathing woven in thread-like green
lace-work which hung there, waiting for their key-stone--a place of
honor which the condemned wreath was to fill. It now crowned the whole.
The little house of God was but an upper chamber, roughly finished and
barren; its only treasure was a small organ, a gift from a father whose
daughter, a stranger from the South, had died upon the island,
requesting that her memorial might be music rather than a cold stone.
William Douglas had superintended the unpacking and placing of this
gift, and loved it almost as though it had been his own child. Indeed,
it was a child, a musical child--one who comprehended his varying moods
when no one else did, not even Anne.
"It makes no difference now," said Anne, aloud, carrying the ladder
toward the door; "it is done and ended. Here is the ladder, Jones, and
please keep up the fires all night, unless you wish to see us frozen
stiff to-morrow."
A man in common soldier's uniform touched his cap and took the ladder.
Anne went back. "Now for one final look, father," she said, "and then
we must go home; the children will be waiting."
William Douglas played a few more soft strains, and turned round. "Well,
child," he said, stroking his thin gray beard with an irresolute motion
habitual with him, and looking at the small perspective of the chapel
with critical gaze, "so you have put Miss Lois's wreath up there?"
"Yes; it is the only thing she had time to make, and she took so much
pains with it I could not bear to have her disappointed. It will not be
much noticed."
"Yes, it will."
"I am sorry, then; but it can not be moved. And to tell the truth,
father, although I suppose you will laugh at me, _I_ think it looks
well."
"It looks better than anything else in the room, and crowns the whole,"
said Douglas, rising and standing by his daughter's side. "It was a
stroke of genius to place it there, Anne."
"Was it?" said the girl, her face flushing with pleasure. "But I was
thinking only of Miss Lois."
"I am afraid you were," said Douglas, with his shadowy smile.
The rough walls and beams of the chapel were decorated with fine
spray-like lines of evergreen, all pointing toward the chancel; there
was not a solid spot upon which the eye could rest, no upright branches
in the corners, no massed bunches over the windows, no stars of
Bethlehem, anchors, or nondescript Greek letters; the whole chapel was
simply outlined in light feathery lines of green, which reached the
chancel, entered it, played about its walls, and finally came together
under the one massive wreath whose even circle and thick foliage held
them all firmly in place, and ended their wanderings in a restful quiet
strength. While the two stood gazing, the lemon-colored light faded, and
almost immediately it was night; the red glow shining out under the
doors of the large stoves alone illuminated the room, which grew into a
shadowy place, the aromatic fragrance of the evergreens filling the warm
air pungently, more perceptible, as fragrance always is, in the
darkness. William Douglas turned to the organ again, and began playing
the music of an old vigil.
"The bugle sounded long ago, father," said Anne. "It is quite dark now,
and very cold; I know by the crackling noise the men's feet make across
the parade-ground."
But the father played on. "Come here, daughter," he said; "listen to
this waiting, watching, praying music. Do you not see the old monks in
the cloisters telling the hours through the long night, waiting for the
dawn, the dawn of Christmas? Look round you; see this dim chapel, the
air filled with fragrance like incense. These far-off chords, now; might
they not be the angels, singing over the parapet of heaven?"
Anne stood by her father's side, and listened. "Yes," she said, "I can
imagine it. And yet I could imagine it a great deal better if I did not
know where every bench was, and every darn in the chancel carpet, and
every mended pane in the windows. I am sorry I am so dull, father."
"Not dull, but unawakened."
"And when shall I waken?" pursued the girl, accustomed to carrying on
long conversations with this dreaming father, whom she loved devotedly.
"God knows! May He be with you at your wakening!"
"I would rather have you, father; that is, if it is not wicked to say
so. But I am very often wicked, I think," she added, remorsefully.
William Douglas smiled, closed the organ, and, throwing his arm round
his tall young daughter, walked with her down the aisle toward the door.
"But you have forgotten your cloak," said Anne, running back to get it.
She clasped it carefully round his throat, drew the peaked hood over his
head, and fastened it with straps of deer's hide. Her own fur cloak and
cap were already on, and thus enveloped, the two descended the dark
stairs, crossed the inner parade-ground, passed under the iron arch, and
made their way down the long sloping path, cut in the cliff-side, which
led from the little fort on the height to the village below. The
thermometer outside the commandant's door showed a temperature several
degrees below zero; the dry old snow that covered the ground was
hardened into ice on the top, so that boys walked on its crust above the
fences. Overhead the stars glittered keenly, like the sharp edges of
Damascus blades, and the white expanse of the ice-fields below gave out
a strange pallid light which was neither like that of sun nor of moon,
of dawn nor of twilight. The little village showed but few signs of life
as they turned into its main street; the piers were sheets of ice.
Nothing wintered there; the summer fleets were laid up in the rivers
farther south, where the large towns stood on the lower lakes. The
shutters of the few shops had been tightly closed at sunset, when all
the inhabited houses were tightly closed also; inside there were
curtains, sometimes a double set, woollen cloth, blankets, or skins,
according to the wealth of the occupants. Thus housed, with great fires
burning in their dark stoves, and one small lamp, the store-keepers
waited for custom until nine o'clock, after which time hardly any one
stirred abroad, unless it was some warm-blooded youth, who defied the
elements with the only power which can make us forget them.
At times, early in the evening, the door of one of these shops opened,
and a figure entered through a narrow crack; for no islander opened a
door widely--it was giving too much advantage to the foe of his life,
the weather. This figure, enveloped in furs or a blanket, came toward
the stove and warmed its hands with deliberation, the merchant meanwhile
remaining calmly seated; then, after some moments, it threw back its
hood, and disclosed the face of perhaps an Indian, perhaps a French
fisherman, perhaps an Irish soldier from the barracks. The customer now
mentioned his errand, and the merchant, rising in his turn, stretched
himself like a shaggy dog loath to leave the fire, took his little lamp,
and prepared to go in quest of the article desired, which lay, perhaps,
beyond the circle of heat, somewhere in the outer darkness of the dim
interior. It was an understood rule that no one should ask for nails or
any kind of ironware in the evening: it was labor enough for the
merchant to find and handle his lighter goods when the cold was so
intense. There was not much bargaining in the winter; people kept their
breath in their mouths. The merchants could have made money if they had
had more customers or more energy; as it was, however, the small
population and the cold kept them lethargically honest.
Anne and her father turned northward. The southern half of the little
village had two streets, one behind the other, and both were clogged and
overshadowed by the irregular old buildings of the once-powerful fur
company. These ancient frames, empty and desolate, rose above the low
cottages of the islanders, sometimes three and four stories in height,
with the old pulleys and hoisting apparatus still in place under their
peaked roofs, like gallows ready for the old traders to hang themselves
upon, if they came back and saw the degeneracy of the furless times. No
one used these warehouses now, no one propped them up, no one pulled
them down; there they stood, closed and empty, their owners being but so
many discouraged bones under the sod; for the Company had dissolved to
the four winds of heaven, leaving only far-off doubtful and quarrelling
heirs. The little island could not have the buildings; neither could it
pull them down. They were dogs in the manger, therefore, if the people
had looked upon them with progressive American eyes; but they did not.
They were not progressive; they were hardly American. If they had any
glory, it was of that very past, the days when those buildings were full
of life. There was scarcely a family on the island that did not cherish
its tradition of the merry fur-trading times, when "grandfather" was a
factor, a superintendent, a clerk, a hunter; even a voyageur had his
importance, now that there were no more voyageurs. Those were gay days,
they said; they should never look upon their like again: unless, indeed,
the past should come back--a possibility which did not seem so unlikely
on the island as it does elsewhere, since the people were plainly
retrograding, and who knows but that they might some time even catch up
with the past?
North of the piers there was only one street, which ran along the
water's edge. On the land side first came the fort garden, where
successive companies of soldiers had vainly fought the climate in an
agricultural way, redcoats of England and blue-coats of the United
States, with much the same results of partially ripened vegetables,
nipped fruits, and pallid flowers; for the island summer was beautiful,
but too short for lusciousness. Hardy plants grew well, but there was
always a persistent preference for those that were not hardy--like
delicate beauties who are loved and cherished tenderly, while the strong
brown maids go by unnoticed. The officers' wives made catsup of the
green tomatoes, and loved their weakling flowers for far-away home's
sake; and as the Indians brought in canoe-loads of fine full-jacketed
potatoes from their little farms on the mainland, the officers could
afford to let the soldiers do fancy-work in the government fields if it
pleased the exiled ladies. Beyond the army garden was the old Agency
house. The Agency itself had long been removed farther westward,
following the retreating, dwindling tribes of the red men farther toward
the Rocky Mountains; but the old house remained. On its door a brass
plate was still fixed, bearing the words, "United States Agency." But it
was now the home of a plain, unimportant citizen, William Douglas.
Anne ran up the path toward the front door, thinking of the children and
the supper. She climbed the uneven snow-covered steps, turned the latch,
and entered the dark hall. There was a line of light under the left-hand
door, and taking off her fur-lined overshoes, she went in. The room was
large; its three windows were protected by shutters, and thick curtains
of red hue, faded but cheery; a great fire of logs was burning on the
hearth, lighting up every corner with its flame and glow, and making the
poor furniture splendid. In its radiance the curtains were damask, the
old carpet a Persian-hued luxury, and the preparations for cooking an
_Arabian Nights'_ display. Three little boys ran forward to meet their
sister; a girl who was basking in the glow of the flame looked up
languidly. They were odd children, with black eyes, coal-black hair,
dark skins, and bold eagle outlines. The eldest, the girl, was small--a
strange little creature, with braids of black hair hanging down behind
almost to her ankles, half-closed black eyes, little hands and feet, a
low soft voice, and the grace of a young panther. The boys were larger,
handsome little fellows of wild aspect. In fact, all four were of mixed
blood, their mother having been a beautiful French quarter-breed, and
their father--William Douglas.
"Annet, Annet, can't we have fried potatoes for supper, and bacon?"
"Annet, Annet, can't we have coffee?"
"It is a biting night, isn't it?" said Tita, coming to her sister's side
and stroking her cold hands gently. "I really think, Annet, that you
ought to have something substantielle. You see, _I_ think of you;
whereas those howling piggish bears think only of themselves."
All this she delivered in a soft, even voice, while Anne removed the
remainder of her wrappings.
"I have thought of something better still," said William Douglas's
eldest daughter, kissing her little sister fondly, and then stepping out
of the last covering, and lifting the heap from the floor--"batter
cakes!"
The boys gave a shout of delight, and danced up and down on the hearth;
Tita went back to her corner and sat down, clasping her little brown
hands round her ankles, like the embalmed monkeys of the Nile. Her
corner was made by an old secretary and the side of the great chimney;
this space she had lined and carpeted with furs, and here she sat curled
up with her book or her bead-work all through the long winter, refusing
to leave the house unless absolutely ordered out by Anne, who filled the
place of mother to these motherless little ones. Tita was well satisfied
with the prospect of batter cakes; she would probably eat two if Anne
browned them well, and they were light and tender. But as for those
boys, those wolf-dogs, those beasts, they would probably swallow dozens.
"If you come any nearer, Louis, I shall lay open the side of your
head," she announced, gently, as the boys danced too near her hermitage;
they, accustomed alike to her decisions and her words, danced farther
away without any discussion of the subject. Tita was an excellent
playmate sometimes; her little moccasined feet, and long braids
streaming behind, formed the most exciting feature of their summer
races; her blue cloth skirt up in the tops of the tallest trees, the
provocative element in their summer climbing. She was a pallid little
creature, while they were brown; small, while they were large; but she
domineered over them like a king, and wreaked a whole vocabulary of
roughest fisherman's terms upon them when they displeased her. One awful
vengeance she reserved as a last resort: when they had been unbearably
troublesome she stole into their room at night in her little white
night-gown, with all her long thick black hair loose, combed over her
face, and hanging down round her nearly to her feet. This was a ghostly
visitation which the boys could not endure, for she left a lamp in the
hall outside, so that they could dimly see her, and then she stood and
swayed toward them slowly, backward and forward, without a sound, all
the time coming nearer and nearer, until they shrieked aloud in terror,
and Anne, hurrying to the rescue, found only three frightened little
fellows cowering together in their broad bed, and the hairy ghost gone.
"How can you do such things, Tita?" she said.
"It is the only way by which I can keep the little devils in order,"
replied Tita.
"Do not use such words, dear."
"Mother did," said the younger sister, in her soft calm voice.
This was true, and Tita knew that Anne never impugned the memory of that
mother.
"Who volunteers to help?" said Anne, lighting a candle in an iron
candlestick, and opening a door.
"I," said Louis.
"I," said Gabriel.
"Me too," said little André.
They followed her, hopping along together, with arms interlinked, while
her candle shed a light on the bare walls and floors of the rooms
through which they passed, a series of little apartments, empty and
desolate, at the end of which was the kitchen, inhabited in the daytime
by an Irishwoman, a soldier's wife, who came in the morning before
breakfast, and went home at dusk, the only servant William Douglas's
fast-thinning purse could afford. Anne might have had her kitchen nearer
what Miss Lois called the "keeping-room"; any one of the five in the
series would have answered the purpose as well as the one she had
chosen. But she had a dream of furnishing them all some day according to
a plan of her own, and it would have troubled her greatly to have used
her proposed china closet, pantry, store-room, preserve closet, or
fruit-room for culinary purposes. How often had she gone over the whole
in her mind, settling the position of every shelf, and deliberating over
the pattern of the cups! The Irishwoman had left some gleams of fire on
the hearth, and the boys immediately set themselves to work burying
potatoes in the ashes, with the hot hearth-stone beneath. "For of course
you are going to cook in the sitting-room, Annet," they said. "We made
all ready for you there; and, besides, this fire is out."
"You could easily have kept it up," said the sister, smiling. "However,
as it is Christmas-eve, I will let you have your way."
The boys alertly loaded themselves with the articles she gave them, and
went hopping back into the sitting-room. They scorned to walk on
Christmas-eve; the thing was to hop, and yet carry every dish steadily.
They arranged the table, still in a sort of dancing step, and sang
together in their shrill childish voices a tune of their own, without
any words but "Ho! ho! ho!" Tita, in her corner, kept watch over the
proceedings, and inhaled the aroma of the coffee with indolent
anticipation. The tin pot stood on the hearth near her, surrounded by
coals; it was a battered old coffee-pot, grimy as a camp-kettle, but
dear to all the household, and their principal comforter when the
weather was bitter, provisions scarce, or the boys especially
troublesome. For the boys said they did not enjoy being especially
troublesome; they could not help it any more than they could help having
the measles or the whooping-cough. They needed coffee, therefore, for
the conflict, when they felt it coming on, as much as any of the
household.
Poor Anne's cooking utensils were few and old; it was hard to make
batter cakes over an open fire without the proper hanging griddle. But
she attempted it, nevertheless, and at length, with scarlet cheeks,
placed a plateful of them, brown, light, and smoking, upon the table.
"Now, Louis, run out for the potatoes; and, Tita, call father."
This one thing Tita would do; she aspired to be her father's favorite.
She went out with her noiseless step, and presently returned leading in
the tall, bent, gray-haired father, her small brown hand holding his
tightly, her dark eyes fixed upon him with a persistent steadiness, as
if determined to isolate all his attention upon herself. William Douglas
was never thoroughly at ease with his youngest daughter; she had this
habit of watching him silently, which made him uncomfortable. The boys
he understood, and made allowances for their wildness; but this girl,
with her soft still ways, perplexed and troubled him. She seemed to
embody, as it were, his own mistakes, and he never looked at her little
pale face and diminutive figure without a vague feeling that she was a
spirit dwelling on earth in elfish form, with a half-developed
contradictory nature, to remind him of his past weakness. Standing at
the head of the table, tall and straight, with her nobly poised head and
clear Saxon eyes, his other daughter awaited him, and met his gaze with
a bright smile; he always came back to her with a sense of comfort. But
Tita jealously brought his attention to herself again by pulling his
hand, and leading him to his chair, taking her own place close beside
him. He was a tall man, and her head did not reach his elbow, but she
ruled him. The father now asked a blessing; he always hesitated on his
way through it, once or twice, as though he had forgotten what to say,
but took up the thread again after an instant's pause, and went on.
When he came to the end, and said "Amen," he always sat down with a
relieved air. If you had asked him what he had said, he could not have
told you unless you started him at the beginning, when the old formula
would have rolled off his lips in the same vague, mechanical way. The
meal proceeded in comparative quiet; the boys no longer hummed and
shuffled their feet; they were engaged with the cakes. Tita refrained
from remarks save once, when Gabriel having dropped buttered crumbs upon
her dress, she succinctly threatened him with dismemberment. Douglas
gazed at her helplessly, and sighed.
"She will be a woman soon," he said to his elder daughter, when, an hour
or two later, she joined him in his own apartment, and drew from its
hiding-place her large sewing-basket, filled with Christmas presents.
"Oh no, father, she is but a child," answered Anne, cheerfully. "As she
grows older these little faults will vanish."
"How old is she?" said Douglas.
"Just thirteen."
The father played a bar of Mendelssohn noiselessly on the arm of his
chair with his long thin fingers; he was thinking that he had married
Tita's mother when she was hardly three years older. Anne was absorbed
in her presents.
"See, father, will not this be nice for André? And this for Gabriel? And
I have made such a pretty doll for Tita."
"Will she care for it, dear?"
"Of course she will. Did I not play with my own dear doll until I was
fourteen years old--yes, almost fifteen?" said the girl, with a little
laugh and blush.
"And you are now--"
"I am over sixteen."
"A great age," said Douglas, smoothing her thick brown hair fondly, as
she sat near him, bending over her sewing.
The younger children were asleep up stairs in two old bedrooms with
rattling dormer windows, and the father and elder daughter were in a
small room opposite the sitting-room, called the study, although nothing
was ever studied there, save the dreams of his own life, by the vague,
irresolute, imaginative soul that dwelt therein, in a thin body of its
own, much the worse for wear. William Douglas was a New England man of
the brooding type, sent by force of circumstances into the ranks of
United States army surgeons. He had married Anne's mother, who had
passionately loved him, against the wishes of her family, and had
brought the disinherited young bride out to this far Western island,
where she had died, happy to the last--one of those rare natures to whom
love is all in all, and the whole world well lost for its dear and holy
sake. Grief over her death brought out all at once the latent doubts,
hesitations, and strange perplexities of William Douglas's peculiar
mind--perplexities which might have lain dormant in a happier life. He
resigned his position as army surgeon, and refused even practice in the
village. Medical science was not exact, he said; there was much pretense
and presumption in it; he would no longer countenance deception, or play
a part. He was then made postmaster, and dealt out letters through some
seasons, until at last his mistakes roused the attention of the new
officers at the fort; for the villagers, good, easy-tempered people,
would never have complained of such trifles as a forgotten mail-bag or
two under the counter. Superseded, he then attended nominally to the
highways; but as the military authorities had for years done all that
was to be done on the smooth roads, three in number, including the steep
fort hill, the position was a sinecure, and the superintendent took long
walks across the island, studying the flora of the Northern woods,
watching the birds, noticing the clouds and the winds, staying out late
to experiment with the flash of the two light-houses from their
different distances, and then coming home to his lonely house, where the
baby Anne was tenderly cared for by Miss Lois Hinsdale, who
superintended the nurse all day, watched her charge to bed, and then
came over early in the morning before she woke. Miss Lois adored the
baby; and she watched the lonely father from a distance, imagining all
his sadness. It was the poetry of her life. Who, therefore, can picture
her feelings when, at the end of three years, it was suddenly brought to
her knowledge that Douglas was soon to marry again, and that his choice
was Angélique Lafontaine, a French quarter-breed girl!
Angélique was amiable, and good in her way; she was also very beautiful.
But Miss Lois could have borne it better if she had been homely. The New
England woman wept bitter, bitter tears that night. A god had come down
and showed himself flesh; an ideal was shattered. How long had she dwelt
upon the beautiful love of Dr. Douglas and his young wife, taking it as
a perfect example of rare, sweet happiness which she herself had missed,
of which she herself was not worthy! How many times had she gone up to
the little burial-ground on the height, and laid flowers from her garden
on the mound, whose stone bore only the inscription, "Alida, wife of
William Douglas, aged twenty-two years." Miss Lois had wished to have a
text engraved under this brief line, and a date, but Dr. Douglas gently
refused a text, and regarding a date he said: "Time is nothing. Those
who love her will remember the date, and strangers need not know. But I
should like the chance visitor to note that she was only twenty-two,
and, as he stands there, think of her with kindly regret, as we all
think of the early dead, though why, Miss Lois, why, I can not tell,
since in going hence early surely the dead lose nothing, for God would
not allow any injustice, I think--yes, I have about decided in my own
mind that He does not allow it."
Miss Lois, startled, looked at him questioningly. He was then a man of
thirty-four, tall, slight, still noticeable for the peculiar refined
delicacy of face and manner which had first won the interest of sweet,
impulsive Alida Clanssen.
"I trust, doctor, that you accept the doctrines of Holy Scripture on all
such subjects," said Miss Lois. Then she felt immediately that she
should have said "of the Church"; for she was a comparatively new
Episcopalian, having been trained a New England Presbyterian of the
severest hue.
Dr. Douglas came back to practical life again in the troubled gaze of
the New England woman's eyes. "Miss Lois," he said, turning the subject,
"Alida loved and trusted you; will you sometimes think of her little
daughter?"
And then Miss Lois, the quick tears coming, forgot all about orthodoxy,
gladly promised to watch over the baby, and kept her word. But now her
life was shaken, and all her romantic beliefs disturbed and shattered,
by this overwhelming intelligence. She was wildly, furiously jealous,
wildly, furiously angry--jealous for Alida's sake, for the baby's, for
her own. It is easy to be humble when a greater is preferred; but when
an inferior is lifted high above our heads, how can we bear it? And Miss
Lois was most jealous of all for Douglas himself--that such a man should
so stoop. She hardly knew herself that night as she harshly pulled down
the curtains, pushed a stool half across the room, slammed the door, and
purposely knocked over the fire-irons. Lois Hinsdale had never since her
birth given way to rage before (nor known the solace of it), and she was
now forty-one years old. All her life afterward she remembered that
night as something akin to a witch's revel on the Brocken, a horrible
wild reign of passion which she trembled to recall, and for which she
did penance many times in tears. "It shows the devil there is in us
all," she said to herself, and she never passed the fire-irons for a
long time afterward without an unpleasant consciousness.
The limited circle of island society suggested that Miss Lois had been
hunting the loon with a hand-net--a Northern way of phrasing the wearing
of the willow; but if the New England woman loved William Douglas, she
was not conscious of it, but merged the feeling in her love for his
child, and for the memory of Alida. True, she was seven years older than
he was: women of forty-one can answer whether that makes any difference.
On a brilliant, sparkling, clear June morning William Douglas went down
to the little Roman Catholic church and married the French girl. As he
had resigned his position in the army some time before, and as there was
a new set of officers at the fort, his marriage made little impression
there save on the mind of the chaplain, who had loved him well when he
was surgeon of the post, and had played many a game of chess with him.
The whole French population of the island, however, came to the
marriage. That was expected. But what was not expected was the presence
there of Miss Lois Hinsdale, sitting severely rigid in the first pew,
accompanied by the doctor's child--a healthy, blue-eyed little girl, who
kissed her new mamma obediently, and thought her very sweet and
pretty--a belief which remained with her always, the careless, indolent,
easy-tempered, beautiful young second wife having died when her
step-daughter was eleven years old, leaving four little ones, who,
according to a common freak of nature, were more Indian than their
mother. The Douglas family grew poorer every year; but as every one was
poor there, poverty was respectable; and as all poverty is comparative,
they always esteemed themselves comfortable. For they had the old Agency
for a home, and it was in some respects the most dignified residence on
the island; and they had the remains of the furniture which the young
surgeon had brought with him from the East when his Alida was a bride,
and that was better than most of the furniture in use in the village.
The little stone fort on the height was, of course, the castle of the
town, and its commandant by courtesy the leader of society; but the
infantry officers who succeeded each other at this distant Northern post
brought little with them, camping out, as it were, in their
low-ceilinged quarters, knowing that another season might see them far
away. The Agency, therefore, preserved an air of dignity still, although
its roof leaked, its shutters rattled, although its plastering was gone
here and there, and its floors were uneven and decayed. Two of its
massive outside chimneys, clamped to the sides of the house, were half
down, looking like broken columns, monuments of the past; but there were
a number left. The Agency originally had bristled with chimneys, which
gave, on a small scale, a castellated air to its rambling outline.
Dr. Douglas's study was old, crowded, and comfortable; that is,
comfortable to those who have consciousness in their finger-ends, and no
uncertainty as to their feet; the great army of blunderers and
stumblers, the handle-everything, knock-over-everything people, who cut
a broad swath through the smaller furniture of a room whenever they
move, would have been troubled and troublesome there. The boys were
never admitted; but Tita, who stepped like a little cat, and Anne, who
had a deft direct aim in all her motions, were often present. The
comfort of the place was due to Anne; she shook out and arranged the
curtains, darned the old carpet, re-covered the lounge, polished the
andirons, and did all without disturbing the birds' wings, the shells,
the arrow-heads, the skins, dried plants, wampum, nets, bits of rock,
half-finished drawings, maps, books, and papers, which were scattered
about, or suspended from the walls. William Douglas, knowing something
of everything, was exact in nothing: now he stuffed birds, now he read
Greek, now he botanized, now he played on the flute, now he went about
in all weathers chipping the rocks with ardent zeal, now he smoked in
his room all day without a word or a look for anybody. He sketched well,
but seldom finished a picture; he went out hunting when the larder was
empty, and forgot what he went for; he had a delicate mechanical skill,
and made some curious bits of intricate work, but he never mended the
hinges of the shutters, or repaired a single article which was in daily
use in his household.
[Illustration: "THE GIRL PAUSED AND REFLECTED A MOMENT."]
By the careful attention of Anne he was present in the fort chapel every
Sunday morning, and, once there, he played the organ with delight, and
brought exquisite harmonies from its little pipes; but Anne stood there
beside him all the time, found the places, and kept him down to the
work, borrowing his watch beforehand in order to touch him when the
voluntary was too long, or the chords between the hymn verses too
beautiful and intricate. Those were the days when the old buckram-backed
rhymed versions of the psalms were steadfastly given out at every
service, and Anne's rich voice sang, with earnest fervor, words like
these:
"His liberal favors he extends,
To some he gives, to others lends;
Yet when his charity impairs,
He saves by prudence in affairs,"
while her father followed them with harmony fit for angels. Douglas
taught his daughter music in the best sense of the phrase; she read
notes accurately, and knew nothing of inferior composers, the only
change from the higher courts of melody being some of the old French
chansons of the voyageurs, which still lingered on the island, echoes of
the past. She could not touch the ivory keys with any skill, her hands
were too much busied with other work; but she practiced her singing
lessons as she went about the house--music which would have seemed to
the world of New York as old-fashioned as Chaucer.
The fire of logs blazed on the hearth, the father sat looking at his
daughter, who was sewing swiftly, her thoughts fixed upon her work. The
clock struck eleven.
"It is late, Anne."
"Yes, father, but I must finish. I have so little time during the day."
"My good child," said Douglas, slowly and fondly.
Anne looked up; his eyes were dim with tears.
"I have done nothing for you, dear," he said, as she dropped her work
and knelt by his side. "I have kept you selfishly with me here, and made
you a slave to those children."
"My own brothers and my own little sister, father."
"Do you feel so, Anne? Then may God bless you for it! But I should not
have kept you here."
"This is our home, papa."
"A poor one."
"Is it? It never seemed so to me."
"That is because you have known nothing better."
"But I like it, papa, just as it is. I have always been happy here."
"Really happy, Anne?"
The girl paused, and reflected a moment. "Yes," she said, looking into
the depths of the fire, with a smile, "I am happy all the time. I am
never anything but happy."
William Douglas looked at her. The fire-light shone on her face; she
turned her clear eyes toward him.
"Then you do not mind the children? They are not a burdensome weight
upon you?"
"Never, papa; how can you suppose it? I love them dearly, next to you."
"And will you stand by them, Anne? Note my words: I do not urge it, I
simply ask."
"Of course I will stand by them, papa. I give a promise of my own
accord. I will never forsake them as long as I can do anything for them,
as long as I live. But why do you speak of it? Have I ever neglected
them or been unkind to them?" said the girl, troubled, and very near
tears.
"No, dear; you love them better than they or I deserve. I was thinking
of the future, and of a time when,"--he had intended to say, "when I am
no longer with you," but the depth of love and trust in her eyes made
him hesitate, and finish his sentence differently--"a time when they may
give you trouble," he said.
"They are good boys--that is, they mean no harm, papa. When they are
older they will study more."
"Will they?"
"Certainly," said Anne, with confidence. "I did. And as for Tita, you
yourself must see, papa, what a remarkable child she is."
Douglas shaded his face with his hand. The uneasy sense of trouble which
always stirred within him when he thought of his second daughter was
rising to the surface now like a veiled, formless shape. "The sins of
the fathers," he thought, and sighed heavily.
Anne threw her arms round his neck, and begged him to look at her.
"Papa, speak to me, please. What is it that troubles you so?"
"Stand by little Tita, child, no matter what she does. Do not expect too
much of her, but remember always her--her Indian blood," said the
troubled father, in a low voice.
A flush crossed Anne's face. The cross of mixed blood in the younger
children was never alluded to in the family circle or among their
outside friends. In truth, there had been many such mixtures on the
island in the old times, although comparatively few in the modern days
to which William Douglas's second marriage belonged.
"Tita is French," said Anne, speaking rapidly, almost angrily.
"She is more French than Indian. Still--one never knows." Then, after a
pause: "I have been a slothful father, Anne, and feel myself cowardly
also in thus shifting upon your shoulders my own responsibilities.
Still, what can I do? I can not re-live my life; and even if I could,
perhaps I might do the same again. I do not know--I do not know. We are
as we are, and tendencies dating generations back come out in us, and
confuse our actions."
He spoke dreamily. His eyes were assuming that vague look with which his
children were familiar, and which betokened that his mind was far away.
"You could not do anything which was not right, father," said Anne.
She was standing by his side now, and in her young strength might have
been his champion against the whole world. The fire-light shining out
showed a prematurely old man, whose thin form, bent drooping shoulders,
and purposeless face were but Time's emphasis upon the slender, refined,
dreamy youth, who, entering the domain of doubt with honest negations
and a definite desire, still wandered there, lost to the world, having
forgotten his first object, and loving the soft haze now for itself
alone.
Anne received no answer: her father's mind had passed away from her.
After waiting a few moments in silence she saw that he was lost in one
of his reveries, and sitting down again she took up her work and went on
sewing with rapid stitches. Poor Anne and her poor presents! How coarse
the little white shirts for Louis and André! how rough the jacket for
Gabriel! How forlorn the doll! How awkwardly fashioned the small cloth
slippers for Tita! The elder sister was obliged to make her Christmas
gifts with her own hands; she had no money to spend for such
superfluities. The poor doll had a cloth face, with features painted on
a flat surface, and a painful want of profile. A little before twelve
the last stitch was taken with happy content.
"Papa, it is nearly midnight; do not sit up very late," said the
daughter, bending to kiss the father's bent, brooding brow. William
Douglas's mind came back for an instant, and looked out through his
clouded eyes upon his favorite child. He kissed her, gave her his usual
blessing, "May God help the soul He has created!" and then, almost
before she had closed the door, he was far away again on one of those
long journeyings which he took silently, only his following guardian
angel knew whither. Anne went across the hall and entered the
sitting-room; the fire was low, but she stirred the embers, and by their
light filled the four stockings hanging near the chimney-piece. First
she put in little round cakes wrapped in papers; then home-made candies,
not thoroughly successful in outline, but well-flavored and sweet; next
gingerbread elephants and camels, and an attempt at a fairy; lastly the
contents of her work-basket, which gave her much satisfaction as she
inspected them for the last time. Throwing a great knot, which would
burn slowly all night, upon the bed of dying coals, she lighted a candle
and went up to her own room.
As soon as she had disappeared, a door opened softly above, and a small
figure stole out into the dark hall. After listening a moment, this
little figure went silently down the stairs, paused at the line of light
underneath the closed study door, listened again, and then, convinced
that all was safe, went into the sitting-room, took down the stockings
one by one, and deliberately inspected all their contents, sitting on a
low stool before the fire. First came the stockings of the boys; each
parcel was unrolled, down to the last gingerbread camel, and as deftly
enwrapped again by the skillful little fingers. During this examination
there was not so much an expression of interest as of jealous scrutiny.
But when the turn of her own stocking came, the small face showed the
most profound, almost weazened, solicitude. Package after package was
swiftly opened, and its contents spread upon the mat beside her. The
doll was cast aside with contempt, the slippers examined and tried on
with critical care, and then when the candy and cake appeared and
nothing else, the eyes snapped with anger.
The little brown hand felt down to the toe of the stocking: no, there
was nothing more. "It is my opinion," said Tita, in her French island
_patois_, half aloud, "that Annet is one stupid beast."
She then replaced everything, hung the stockings on their nails, and
stole back to her own room; here, by the light of a secreted candle-end,
she manufactured the following epistle, with heavy labor of brains and
hand: "Cher papa,--I hav dreemed that Sant Klos has hare-ribbans in his
pak. Will you ask him for sum for your little Tita?" This not seeming
sufficiently expressive, she inserted "trez affecsionay" before "Tita,"
and then, folding the epistle, she went softly down the stairs again,
and stealing round in the darkness through several unused rooms, she
entered her father's bedroom, which communicated with the study, and by
sense of feeling pinned the paper carefully round his large pipe, which
lay in its usual place on the table. For William Douglas always began
smoking as soon as he rose, in this way nullifying, as it were, the
fresh, vivifying effect of the morning, which smote painfully upon his
eyes and mind alike; in the afternoon and evening he did not smoke so
steadily, the falling shadows supplying of themselves the atmosphere he
loved. Having accomplished her little manœuvre, Tita went back up stairs
to her own room like a small white ghost, and fell asleep with the
satisfaction of a successful diplomatist.
In the mean time Anne was brushing her brown hair, and thoughtfully
going over in her own mind the morrow's dinner. Her room was a bare and
comfortless place; there was but a small fire on the hearth, and no
curtains over the windows; it took so much care and wood to keep the
children's rooms warm that she neglected her own, and as for the
furniture, she had removed it piece by piece, exchanging it for
broken-backed worn-out articles from all parts of the house. One leg of
the bedstead was gone, and its place supplied by a box which the
old-fashioned valance only half concealed; the looking-glass was
cracked, and distorted her image; the chairs were in hospital and out of
service, the young mistress respecting their injuries, and using as her
own seat an old wooden stool which stood near the hearth. Upon this she
was now seated, the rippling waves of her thick hair flowing over her
shoulders. Having at last faithfully rehearsed the Christmas dinner in
all its points, she drew a long breath of relief, rose, extinguished her
light, and going over to the window, stood there for a moment looking
out. The moonlight came gleaming in and touched her with silver, her
pure youthful face and girlish form draped in white. "May God bless my
dear father," she prayed, silently, looking up to the thick studded
stars; "and my dear mother too, wherever she is to-night, in one of
those far bright worlds, perhaps." It will be seen from this prayer that
the boundaries of Anne Douglas's faith were wide enough to include even
the unknown.