"So on the tip of his subduing tongue
All kinds of arguments and questions deep."
--SHAKSPEARE.
"What is the use of so much talking? Is not this wild rose sweet
without a comment?"--HAZLITT.
Early the next morning Miss Vanhorn, accompanied by her niece, drove off
on an all-day botanizing expedition. Miss Vanhorn understood the worth
of being missed. At sunset she returned; and the girl she brought back
with her was on the verge of despair. For the old woman had spent the
hours in making her doubt herself in every possible way, besides
covering her with ridicule concerning the occurrences of the day before.
It was late when they entered the old ball-room, Anne looking newly
youthful and painfully shy; as they crossed the floor she did not raise
her eyes. Dexter was dancing with Rachel, whose soft arms were visible
under her black gauze, encircled with bands of old gold. Anne was
dressed in a thick white linen fabric (Miss Vanhorn having herself
selected the dress and ordered her to wear it), and appeared more like a
school-girl than ever. Miss Vanhorn, raising her eye-glass, had selected
her position on entering, like a general on the field: Anne was placed
next to Isabel on the wooden bench that ran round the room. And
immediately Miss Varce seemed to have grown suddenly old. In addition,
her blonde beauty was now seen to be heightened by art. Isabel herself
did not dream of this. Hardly any woman, whose toilet is a study, can
comprehend beauty in unattractive unfashionable attire. So she kept her
seat unconsciously, sure of her Paris draperies, while the superb youth
of Anne, heightened by the simplicity of the garb she wore, reduced the
other woman, at least in the eyes of all the men present, to the
temporary rank of a faded wax doll.
Dexter soon came up and asked Anne to dance. She replied, in a low voice
and without looking up, that she would rather not; her arm was still
painful.
"Go," said Miss Vanhorn, overhearing, "and do not be absurd about your
arm. I dare say Miss Morle's aches quite as badly." She was almost
always severe with her niece in Dexter's presence: could it have been
that she wished to excite his sympathy?
Anne rose in silence; they did not dance, but, after walking up and down
the room once or twice, went out on the piazza. The windows were open:
it was the custom to sit here and look through at the dancers within.
They sat down near a window.
"I have not had an opportunity until now, Miss Douglas, to tell you how
deeply I have admired your wonderful courage," began Dexter.
"Oh, pray do not speak of it," said Anne, with intense embarrassment.
For Miss Vanhorn had harried her niece so successfully during the long
day, that the girl really believed that she had overstepped not only the
edge of the cliff, but the limits of modesty as well.
"But I must," said Dexter. "In the life I have lived, Miss Douglas, I
have seen women of all classes, and several times have been with women
in moments of peril--on the plains during an Indian attack, at the mines
after an explosion, and once on a sinking steamer. Only one showed
anything like your quick courage of yesterday, and she was a mother who
showed it for her child. You did your brave deed for a stranger; and you
seem, to my eyes at least, hardly more than a child yourself. It is but
another proof of the innate nobility of our human nature, and I, an
enthusiast in such matters, beg you to let me personally thank you for
the privilege of seeing your noble act." He put out his hand, took hers,
and pressed it cordially.
It was a set speech, perhaps--Dexter made set speeches; but it was
cordial and sincere. Anne, much comforted by this view of her impulsive
action, looked at him with thankfulness. This was different from Miss
Vanhorn's idea of it; different and better.
"I once helped one of my little brothers, who had fallen over a cliff,
in much the same way," she said, with a little sigh of relief. "I am
glad you think it was excusable."
"Excusable? It was superb," said Dexter. "And permit me to add, too,
that I am a better judge of heroism than the people here, who belong,
most of them, to a small, prejudiced, and I might say ignorant, class.
They have no more idea of heroism, of anything broad and liberal, or of
the country at large, than so many canary-birds born and bred in a cage.
They ridicule the mere idea of being in earnest about anything in this
ridiculous world. Yet the world is not so ridiculous as they think, and
earnestness carries with it a tremendous weight sometimes. All the great
deeds of which we have record have been done by earnest beliefs and
earnest enthusiasms, even though mistaken ones. It is easy enough, by
carefully abstaining from doing anything one's self, to maintain the
position of ridiculing the attempts of others; but it is more than
probable--in fact it is almost certain--that those very persons who
ridicule and criticise could not themselves do the very least of those
deeds, attain the very lowest of those successes, which afford them so
much entertainment in others."
So spoke Dexter; and not without a tinge of bitterness, which he
disguised as scorn. A little of the indifference to outside opinion
which characterized the very class of whom he spoke would have made him
a contented, as he already was a successful, man. But there was a
surface of personal vanity over his better qualities which led him to
desire a tribute of universal liking; and this is the tribute the class
referred to always refuses--to the person who appears to seek it.
"But, in spite of ridicule, self-sacrifice is still heroic, faith in our
humanity still beautiful, and courage still dear, to all hearts that
have true nobility," he continued. Then it struck him that he was
generalizing too much, feminine minds always preferring a personal
application. "I would rather have a girl who was brave and truthful for
my wife than the most beautiful woman on earth," he said, with the
quick, sudden utterance he used when he wished to appear impulsive.
"But beautiful women can be truthful too," said Anne, viewing the
subject impartially, with no realization of any application to herself.
"Can, but rarely are. I have, however, known--that is, I think I now
know--_one_," he added, with quiet emphasis, coming round on another
tack.
"I hope you do," said Anne; "and more than one. Else your acquaintance
must be limited." As she spoke, the music sounded forth within, and
forgetting the subject altogether, she turned with girlish interest to
watch the dancers.
Dexter almost laughed aloud to himself in his shadowed corner, she was
so unconscious. He had not thought her beautiful, save for the
perfection of her youthful bloom; but now he suddenly began to discover
the purity of her profile, and the graceful shape of her head, outlined
against the lighted window. His taste, however, was not for youthful
simplicity; he preferred beauty more ripened, and heightened by art.
Having lived among the Indians in reality, the true children of nature,
he had none of those dreams of ideal perfection in a brown skin and in
the wilderness which haunt the eyes of dwellers in cities, and mislead
even the artist. To him Rachel in her black floating laces, and Helen
Lorrington in her shimmering silks, were far more beautiful than an
Indian girl in her calico skirt could possibly be. But--Anne was
certainly very fair and sweet.
"Of what were you thinking, Miss Douglas, during the minutes you hung
suspended over that abyss?" he asked, moving so that he could rest his
head on his hand, and thus look at her more steadily.
Anne turned. For she always looked directly at the person who spoke to
her, having none of those side glances, tableaux of sweeping eyelashes,
and willful little motions which belong to most pretty girls. She
turned. And now Dexter was surprised to see how she was blushing, so
deeply and slowly that it must have been physically painful.
"She is beginning to be conscious of my manner at last," he said to
himself, with self-gratulation. Then he added, in a lower voice, "_I_
was thinking only of you; and what a brutal sacrifice it would be if
your life should be given for that other!"
"Valeria is a good girl, I think," said Anne, recovering herself, and
answering as impersonally as though he had neither lowered his voice nor
thrown any intensity into his eyes. "However, none of the ladies here
approach Helen--Mrs. Lorrington; and I am sure _you_ agree with me in
thinking so, Mr. Dexter."
"You are loyal to your friend."
"No one has been so kind to me; I both love her and warmly admire her.
How I hope she may come soon! And when she does, as I can not help
loving to be with her, I suppose I shall see a great deal more of
_you_," said the girl, smiling, and in her own mind addressing the
long-devoted Knight-errant.
"Shall you?" thought Dexter, not a little piqued by her readiness to
yield him even to her friend. "I will see that you do not long continue
quite so indifferent," he added to himself, with determination. Then, in
pursuance of this, he decided to go in and dance with some one else;
that should be a first step.
"I believe I am engaged to Mrs. Bannert for the next dance," he said,
regretfully. "Shall I take you in?"
"No; please let me stay here a while. My arm really aches dully all the
time, and the fresh air is pleasant."
"And if Miss Vanhorn should ask?"
"Tell her where I am."
"I will," answered Dexter. And he fully intended to do it in any case.
He liked, when she was not with him, to have Anne safely under her
grandaunt's watchful vigilance, not exactly with the spirit of the dog
in the manger, but something like it. He was conscious, also, that he
possessed the chaperon's especial favor, and he did not intend to
forfeit it; he wished to use it for his own purposes.
But Rachel marred his intention by crossing it with one of her own.
Dexter admired Mrs. Bannert. He could not help it. When she took his
arm, he was for the time being hers. She knew this, and being piqued by
some neglect of Heathcote's, she met the other man at the door, and made
him think, without saying it, that she wished to be with him awhile on
the moon-lit piazza; for Heathcote was there. Dexter obeyed. And thus it
happened that Miss Vanhorn was not told at all; but supposing that her
niece was still with the escort she had herself selected, the
fine-looking owner of mines and mills, the future Senator, the "type of
American success," she rested mistakenly content, and spent the time
agreeably in making old Mrs. Bannert's life a temporary fever by
relating to her in detail some old buried scandals respecting the
departed Bannert, pretending to have forgotten entirely the chief
actor's name.
In the mean while Heathcote, sauntering along the piazza in his turn,
came upon Anne sitting alone by the window, and dropped into the vacant
place beside her. He said a few words, playing with the fringe of
Rachel's sash, which he still wore, "her colors," some one remarked, but
made no allusion to the occurrences of the previous day. What he said
was unimportant, but he looked at her rather steadily, and she was
conscious of his glance. In truth, he was merely noting the effect of
her head and throat against the lighted window, as Dexter had done, the
outline being very distinct and lovely, a profile framed in light; but
she thought it was something different. A painful timidity again seized
her; instead of blushing, she turned pale, and with difficulty answered
clearly. "_He_ does not praise me," she thought. "_He_ does not say that
what I did yesterday was greater than anything among Indians and mines
and on sinking steamers. _He_ is laughing at me. Grandaunt was right,
and no doubt he thinks me a bold, forward girl who tried to make a
sensation."
[Illustration: "HE WAS MERELY NOTING THE EFFECT."]
Heathcote made another unimportant remark, but Anne, being now nervously
sensitive, took it as having a second meaning. She turned her head away
to hide the burning tears that were rising; but although unshed,
Heathcote saw them. His observation was instantaneous where women were
concerned; not so much active as intuitive. He had no idea what was the
matter with her: this was the second inexplicable appearance of tears.
But it would take more than such little damp occasions to disconcert
him; and rather at random, but with sympathy and even tenderness in his
voice, he said, soothingly, "Do not mind it," "it" of course
representing whatever she pleased. Then, as the drops fell, "Why, you
poor child, you are really in trouble," he said, taking her hand and
holding it in his. Then, after a moment: "I do not know, of course, what
it is that distresses you, but I too, although ignorant, am distressed
by it also. For since yesterday, Anne, you have occupied a place in my
memory which will never give you up. You will be an image there
forever."
It was not much, after all; most improbable was it that any of those who
saw her risk her life that day would soon forget her. Yet there was
something in the glance of his eye and in the clasp of his hand that
soothed Anne inexpressibly. She never again cared what people thought of
her "boyish freak" (so Miss Vanhorn termed it), but laid the whole
memory away, embalmed shyly in sweet odors forever.
Other persons now came in sight. "Shall we walk?" said Heathcote. They
rose; she took his arm. He did not lead her out to the shadowed path
below the piazza; they remained all the time among the lights and
passing strollers. Their conversation was inconclusive and unmomentous,
without a tinge of novel interest or brilliancy; not one sentence would
have been worth repeating. Yet such as it was, with its few words and
many silences which the man of the world did not exert himself to break,
it seemed to establish a closer acquaintance between them than eloquence
could have done. At least it was so with Anne, although she did not
define it. Heathcote had no need to define; it was an old story with
him.
As the second dance ended, he took her round, as though by chance, to
the other side of the piazza, where he knew Rachel was sitting with Mr.
Dexter. Here he skillfully changed companions, simply by one or two of
his glances. For Rachel understood from them that he was bored,
repentant, and lonely; and once convinced of this, she immediately
executed the manœuvre herself, with the woman's usual means of natural
little phrases and changes of position, Heathcote meanwhile standing
passive until it was all done. Heathcote generally stood passive. But
Dexter often had the appearance of exerting himself and arranging
things.
Thus it happened that Miss Vanhorn saw Anne re-enter with the same
escort who had taken her forth.
Another week passed, and another. Various scenes in the little dramas
played by the different persons present followed each other with more or
less notice, more or less success. One side of Dexter's nature was
completely fascinated with Rachel Bannert--with her beauty, which a
saint-worshipper would have denied, although why saintliness should be a
matter of blonde hair remains undiscovered; with her dress and grace of
manner; with her undoubted position in that narrow circle which he
wished to enter even while condemning--perhaps merely to conquer it and
turn away again. His rival with Rachel was Heathcote; he had discovered
that. He was conscious that he detested Heathcote. While thus secretly
interested in Rachel, he yet found time, however, to give a portion of
each day to Anne; he did this partly from policy and partly from jealous
annoyance. For here too he found the other man. Heathcote, in truth,
seemed to be amusing himself in much the same way. If Dexter waltzed
with Rachel, Heathcote offered his arm to Anne and took her out on the
piazza; if Dexter walked with Anne there, Heathcote took Rachel into the
rose-scented dusky garden. But Dexter had Miss Vanhorn's favor, if that
was anything. She went to drive with him and took Anne; she allowed him
to accompany them on their botanizing expeditions; she talked to him,
and even listened to his descriptions of his life and adventures. In
reality she cared no more for him than for a Choctaw; no more for his
life than for that of Robinson Crusoe. But he was a rich man, and he
would do for Anne, who was not a Vanhorn, but merely a Douglas. He had
showed some liking for the girl; the affair should be encouraged and
clinched. She, Katharine Vanhorn, would clinch it. He must be a very
different man from the diagnosis she had made up of him if he did not
yield to her clinching.
During these weeks, therefore, there had been many long conversations
between Anne and Mr. Dexter; they had talked on many subjects
appropriate to the occasion--Dexter was always appropriate. He had
quoted pages of poetry, and he quoted well. He had, like Othello,
related his adventures, and they were thrilling and true. Then, when
more sure of her, he had turned the conversation upon herself. It is a
fascinating subject--one's self! Anne touched it timidly here and there,
but, never having had the habit or even the knowledge of self-analysis,
she was more uncomfortable than pleased, after all, and inclined
mentally to run away. She did not know herself whether she had more
imagination than timidity, whether conscientiousness was more developed
in her than ideality, or whether, if obliged to choose between saving
the life of a brother or a husband, she would choose the former or the
latter. Dexter had to drag her opinions of her own character from her
almost by main strength. But he persisted. He had never known an
imaginative young girl at the age when all things are problems to her
who was not secretly, often openly, fascinated by a sympathetic research
into her own timid little characteristics, opening like buds within her
one by one. Dexter's theory was correct, his rule a good one probably in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred; only--Anne was the hundredth. She
began to be afraid of him as he came toward her, kind, smiling, with his
invisible air of success about him, ready for one of their long
conversations. Yet certainly he was as pleasant a companion as a
somewhat lonely young girl, isolated at a place like Caryl's, could
wish for; at least that is what every one would have said.
During these weeks there had been no long talks with Heathcote. Miss
Vanhorn did not ask him to accompany them to the woods; she did not
utter to him the initiative word in passing which gives the opportunity.
Still, there had been chance meetings and chance words, of
course--five-minute strolls on the piazza, five-minute looks at the
sunset or at the stars, in the pauses between the dances. But where
Heathcote took a minute, Dexter had, if he chose, an hour.
Although in one way now so idle, Anne seemed to herself never to have
been so busy before. Miss Vanhorn kept her at work upon plants through a
large portion of each day, and required her to be promptly ready upon
all other occasions. She barely found time to write to Miss Lois, who
was spending the summer in a state betwixt anger and joy, veering one
way by reason, the other by wrath, yet unable to refrain entirely from
satisfaction over the new clothes for the children which Miss Vanhorn's
money had enabled her to buy. The allowance was paid in advance; and it
made Anne light-hearted whenever she thought, as she did daily, of the
comforts it gave to those she loved. To Rast, Anne wrote in the early
morning, her only free time. Rast was now on the island, but he was to
go in a few days. This statement, continually repeated, like lawyers'
notices of sales postponed from date to date, had lasted all summer, and
still lasted. He had written to Anne as usual, until Miss Vanhorn,
although without naming him, had tartly forbidden "so many letters."
Then Anne asked him to write less frequently, and he obeyed. She,
however, continued to write herself as before, describing her life at
Caryl's, while he answered (as often as he was allowed), telling of his
plans, and complaining that they were to be separated so long. But he
was going to the far West, and there he should soon win a home for her.
He counted the days till that happy time.
And then Anne would sit and dream of the island: she saw the old house,
Rast, and the children, Miss Lois's thin, energetic face, the blue
Straits, the white fort, and the little inclosure on the heights where
were the two graves. She closed her eyes and heard their voices; she
told them all she hoped. Only this one more winter, and then she could
see them again, send them help, and perhaps have one of the children
with her. And then, the year after-- But here Miss Vanhorn's voice
calling her name broke the vision, and with a sigh she returned to
Caryl's again.
Helen's letters had ceased; but Anne jotted down a faithful record of
the events of the days for her inspection when she came. Rumors varied
at Caryl's respecting Mrs. Lorrington. Now her grandfather had died, and
left her everything; and now he had miraculously recovered, and deeded
his fortune to charitable institutions. Now he had existed without
nourishment for weeks, and now he had the appetite of ten, and exhibited
the capabilities of a second Methuselah. But in the mean time Helen was
still absent. Under these circumstances, Anne, if she had been older,
and desirous, might have collected voluminous expressions of opinion as
to the qualities, beauty, and history, past and present, of the absent
one from her dearest friends on earth. But the dearest friends on earth
had not the habit of talking to this young girl as a companion and
equal; to them she was simply that "sweet child," that "dear fresh-faced
school-girl," to whom they confided only amiable platitudes. So Anne
continued to hold fast undisturbed her belief in her beautiful
Helen--that strong, grateful, reverent feeling which a young girl often
cherishes for an older woman who is kind to her.
One still, hazy morning Miss Vanhorn announced her programme for the
day. She intended to drive over to the county town, and Anne was to go
with her six miles of the distance, and be left at a certain glen, where
there was a country saw-mill. They had been there together several
times, and had made acquaintance with the saw-miller, his wife, and his
brood of white-headed children. The object of the present visit was a
certain fern--the Camptosorus, or walking-leaf--which Miss Vanhorn had
recently learned grew there, or at least had grown there within the
memory of living botanists. That was enough. Anne was to search for the
plant unflinchingly (the presence of the mill family being a sufficient
protection) throughout the entire day, and be in waiting at the
main-road crossing at sunset, when her grandaunt's carriage would stop
on its return home. In order that there might be no mistake as to the
time, she was allowed to wear one of Miss Vanhorn's watches. There were
fourteen of them, all heirlooms, all either wildly too fast in their
motions or hopelessly too slow, so that the gift was an embarrassing
one. Anne knew that if she relied upon the one intrusted to her care,
she would be obliged to spend about three hours at the crossing to allow
for the variations in one direction or the other which might erratically
attack it during the day. But her hope lay in the saw-miller's
bright-faced little Yankee clock. At their early breakfast she prepared
a lunch for herself in a small basket, and before Caryl's had fairly
awakened, the old coupé rolled away from the door, bearing aunt and
niece into the green country. When they reached the wooded hills at the
end of the six miles, Anne descended with her basket, her digging
trowel, and her tin plant case. She was to go over every inch of the
saw-miller's ravine, and find that fern, living or dead. Miss Vanhorn
said this, and she meant the plant; but it sounded as if she meant Anne.
With renewed warnings as to care and diligence, she drove on, and Anne
was left alone. It was ten o'clock, and a breathless August day. She
hastened up the little path toward the saw-mill, glad to enter the wood
and escape the heat of the sun. She now walked more slowly, and looked
right and left for the fern; it was not there, probably, so near the
light, but she had conscientiously determined to lose no inch of the
allotted ground. Owing to this slow search, half an hour had passed when
she reached the mill. She had perceived for some time that it was not in
motion; there was no hum of the saw, no harsh cry of the rent boards:
she said to herself that the miller was getting a great log in place on
the little cart to be drawn up the tramway. But when she reached the
spot, the miller was not there; the mill was closed, and only the
peculiar fresh odor of the logs recently sawn asunder told that but a
short time before the saw had been in motion. She went on to the door of
the little house, and knocked; no one answered. Standing on tiptoe, she
peeped in through the low window, and saw that the rooms were empty, and
in that shining order that betokens the housewife's absence. Returning
to the mill, she walked up the tramway; a bit of paper, for the
information of chance customers, was pinned to the latch: "All hands
gone to the sirkus. Home at sunset." She sat down, took off her straw
hat, and considered what to do.
Three hundred and sixty-four days of that year Saw-miller Pike, his
wife, his four children, and his hired man, one or all of them, were on
that spot; their one absence chance decreed should be on this particular
August Thursday when Anne Douglas came there to spend the day. She was
not afraid; it was a quiet rural neighborhood without beggars or tramps.
Her grandaunt would not return until sunset. She decided to look for the
fern, and if she found it within an hour or two, to walk home, and send
a boy back on horseback to wait for Miss Vanhorn. If she did not find it
before afternoon, she would wait for the carriage, according to
agreement. Hanging her basket and shawl on a tree branch near the mill,
she entered the ravine, and was soon hidden in its green recesses. Up
and down, up and down the steep rocky sides she climbed, her tin case
swinging from her shoulder, her trowel in her belt; she neglected no
spot, and her track, if it had been visible, would have shown itself
almost as regular as the web of the geometric spider. Up and down, up
and down, from the head of the ravine to its foot on one side: nothing.
It seemed to her that she had seen the fronds and curled crosiers of a
thousand ferns. Her eyes were tired, and she threw herself down on a
mossy bank not far from the mill to rest a moment. There was no use in
looking at the watch; still, she did it, and decided that it was either
half past eleven or half past three. The remaining side of the ravine
gazed at her steadily; she knew that she must clamber over every inch
of those rocks also. She sighed, bathed her flushed cheeks in the brook,
took down her hair, and braided it in two long school-girl braids, which
hung down below her waist; then she tied her straw hat to a branch,
pinned her neck-tie on the brim, took off her linen cuffs, and laid them
within together with her gloves, and leaving the tin plant case and the
trowel on the bank, started on her search. Up and down, up and down,
peering into every cranny, standing on next to nothing, swinging herself
from rock to rock; making acquaintance with several very unpleasant rock
spiders, and hastily constructing bridges for them of small twigs, so
that they could cross from her skirt to their home ledge in safety;
finding a trickling spring, and drinking from it; now half way down the
ravine, now three-quarters; and still no walking-leaf. She sat down on a
jutting crag to take breath an instant, and watched a bird on a tree
branch near by. He was one of those little brown songsters that sing as
follows:
[Illustration: Musical notation]
Seeing her watching him, he now chanted his little anthem in his best
style.
"Very well," said Anne, aloud.
"Oh no; only so-so," said a voice below. She looked down, startled, It
was Ward Heathcote.
[Illustration: "SHE BATHED HER FLUSHED CHEEK."]