"How heavy do I journey on the way
When what I seek, my weary travel's end,
Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,
'Thus far the miles are measured from my friend.'"
--_Shakspeare's Sonnets._
In the mean time Ward Heathcote was in the supper-room. After selecting
the best that the little country station afforded, and feeing a servant
to take it across to the train, he sat down to eat a nondescript meal
with some hunger.
The intelligent mulatto boy who carried the waiter consumed as many
minutes as possible in his search for "the two ladies in that car, on
the right-hand side opposite the fourth window," who, plainly, were not
there. He had the fee in his pocket, there would not be another, and the
two "suppers" were paid for. It was decidedly a case for delay. He
waited, therefore, until the warning bell rang, and he was then
encountered in hot haste hurrying to meet his patron, the waiter still
balanced on his shoulder.
"No ladies there, sah. Looked everywhere fur 'em, sah."
There was no time for further parley. Heathcote hurried forward, and the
train started. They must be there, of course; probably the cars had been
changed or moved forward while the train was waiting. But although he
went from end to end of the long file of carriages, he found no one.
They were under full headway now; the great engine did not need gradual
beginnings. He could not bring himself to ask questions of the
passengers whose faces he remembered in the same car; they would open
upon him a battery of curiosity in return. He went to the rear door,
opened it, and looked out; the two grime-encircled eyes of a brakeman
met his gravely. He stepped outside, closed the door, and entered into
conversation with the eyes.
Yes, he seed two ladies get off; they come out this here end door, and
climbed down on the wrong side. Seemed to be in a hurry. Didn't know
where they went. Called after 'em that that warn't the way to the
dining-room, and the young one said, "Thanks," but didn't say no more.
Was they left behind? No, train didn't stop this side of Valley City;
but the gentleman could telegraph back, and they could come on safe and
sound in the morning express. 'Twarn't likely they'd gone north by the
little branch road, was it? Branch connects at Stringhampton for the
Northern Line.
But this suggestion made no impression upon Heathcote. Mademoiselle
lived in Valley City; he had seen her tickets for Valley City. No, it
was some unlooked-for mistake or accident. He gave the brakeman a
dollar, and went back into the car. But everything was gone--bags,
shawls, basket, cloak, bundle, and umbrella, all the miscellaneous
possessions with which mademoiselle was accustomed to travel; there had
been, then, deliberation enough to collect them all. He sat down
perplexed, and gradually the certainty stole coldly over him that Anne
had fled. It must be this.
For it was no freak of the Frenchwoman's; she had been too much pleased
with his escort to forego it willingly. He was deeply hurt. And deeply
surprised. Had he not followed her to ask her to be his wife? (This was
not true, but for the moment he thought it was.) Was this a proper
response?
Never before had he received such a rebuff, and after brooding over it
an hour in the dismal car, it grew into an insult. His deeper feelings
were aroused. Under his indolence he had a dominant pride, even
arrogance of nature, which would have astonished many who thought they
knew him. Whether his words had or had not been the result of impulse,
now that they were spoken, they were worthy of at least respect. He grew
more angry as the minutes passed, for he was so deeply hurt that he took
refuge in anger. To be so thwarted and played upon--he, a man of the
world--by a young girl; a young girl regarding whom, too, there had
sprung up in his heart almost the only real faith of his life! He had
believed in that face, had trusted those violet eyes, he did not know
how unquestioningly until now. And then, feeling something very like
moisture coming into his own eyes, he rose, angry over his weakness,
went forward to the smoking car, lit a cigar, and savagely tried to
think of other things. A pretty fool he was to be on a night train in
the heart of Pennsylvania, going no one knew whither.
But, in spite of himself, his mind stole back to Anne. She was so
different from the society women with whom he had always associated; she
had so plainly loved him. Poor, remorseful, conscientious, struggling,
faithful heart! Why had she fled from him? It did not occur to him that
she was fleeing from herself.
He arrived at Valley City at eleven o'clock, and had the very room with
gaudy carpet he had pictured to himself. The next morning, disgusted
with everything and out of temper as he was, he yet so far postponed his
return journey as to make inquiries concerning schools for girls--one in
particular, in which a certain Mademoiselle Pitre had been teaching
French and music for several years. The clerk thought it must be the
"Young Ladies' Seminary." Heathcote took down the address of this
establishment, ordered a carriage, and drove thither, inquiring at the
door if Mademoiselle Pitre had arrived.
There was no such person there, the maid answered. No; he knew that she
had not yet arrived. But when was she expected?
The maid (who admired the stranger) did not take it upon herself to deny
his statement, but went away, and returned with the principal, Professor
Adolphus Bittinger. Professor Bittinger was not acquainted with
Mademoiselle Pitre. Their instructress in the French language was named
Blanchard, and was already there. Heathcote then asked if there were any
other young ladies' seminaries in Valley City, and was told (loftily)
that there were not. No schools where French was taught? There might
be, the professor thought, one or two small establishments for day
scholars. The visitor wrote down the new addresses, and drove away to
visit four day schools in succession, sending a ripple of curiosity down
the benches, and exciting a flutter in the breasts of four French
teachers, who came in person to answer the inquiries of monsieur. One of
them, a veteran in the profession, who had spent her life in asking
about the loaf made by the distant one-eyed relative of the baker,
answered decidedly that there was no such person in Valley City.
"Monsieur" was beginning to think so himself; but having now the fancy
to exhaust all the possibilities, he visited the infant schools, and a
private class, and at two o'clock returned to the hotel, having seen
altogether about five hundred young Americans in frocks, from five years
old to seventeen.
According to the statement of the little shop-keeper at Lancaster,
mademoiselle had been teaching in Valley City for a number of years:
there remained, then, the chance that she was in a private family as
governess. Heathcote lingered in Valley City three days longer on this
governess chance. He ate three more dinners in the comfortless
dining-room, slept three more nights in the gaudy bedroom, and was at
the railway station five times each day, to wit, at the hours when the
trains arrived from the east. If they had waited at Stringhampton until
he had had time to return to New York, they would be coming on now. But
no one came. The fourth day opened with dull gray rain; the smoke of the
manufactories hung over the valley like a pall. In the dining-room there
was a sour odor of fresh paint, and from the window he could see only a
line of hacks, the horses standing in the rain with drooping heads,
while the drivers, in a row against an opposite wall, looked, in their
long oil-skin coats, as though they were drawn up there in their black
shrouds to be shot. In a fit of utter disgust he rang for his bill,
ordered a carriage, and drove to the station: he would take the morning
train for New York.
Yet when the carriage was dismissed, he let the express roll away
without him, while he walked to and fro, waiting for an incoming train.
The train was behind time; when it did come, there was no one among its
passengers whom he had ever seen before. With an anathema upon his own
folly, he took the day accommodation eastward. He would return to New
York without any more senseless delays. And then at Stringhampton
Junction he was the only person who alighted. His idea was to make
inquiries there. He spent two hours of that afternoon in the rain, under
a borrowed umbrella, and three alone in the waiting-room. No such
persons as he described had been seen at Stringhampton, and as the
settlement was small, and possessed of active curiosity, there remained
no room for doubt. There was the chance that they had followed him to
Valley City an hour later on a freight train with car attached, in which
case he had missed them. And there was the other chance that they had
gone northward by the branch road. But why should they go northward?
They lived in Valley City, or near there; their tickets were marked
"Valley City." The branch led to the Northern Line, by which one could
reach Chicago, St. Louis, Omaha, the wilderness, but not Valley City.
The gentleman might go up as far as the Northern Line, and inquire of
the station agent there, suggested the Stringhampton ticket-seller, who
balanced a wooden tooth-pick in his mouth lightly, like a cigarette. But
the gentleman, who had already been looking up the narrow line of wet
rails under his umbrella for an hour, regarded the speaker menacingly,
and turned away with the ironical comment in his own mind that the
Northern Line and its station agent might be--what amounted to
Calvinized--before _he_ sought them.
The night express came thundering along at midnight. It bore away the
visitor. Stringhampton saw him no more.
In the mean time Anne and her companion had ridden on during the night,
and the younger woman had explained to the elder as well as she could
the cause of her sudden action. "It was not right that I should hear or
that he should speak such words."
"He had but little time in which to speak them," said Jeanne-Armande,
stiffly. "He spent most of the day with me. But, in any case, why run
away? Why could you not have repelled him quietly, and with the proper
dignity of a lady, and yet remained where you were, comfortably, and
allowed me to remain as well?"
"I _could_ not," said Anne. Then, after a moment, "Dear mademoiselle,"
she added, "do not ask me any more questions. I have done wrong, and I
have been very, very unhappy. It is over now, and with your help I hope
to have a long winter of quiet and patient labor. I am grateful to you;
you do not know how grateful. Save those far away on the island, you
seem to me now the only friend I have on earth." Her voice broke.
Jeanne-Armande's better feelings were touched. "My poor child!" she
said, pityingly.
And then Anne laid her head down upon the Frenchwoman's shoulder, and
sobbed as if her heart would break.
They reached Weston the next day. The journey was ended.
Mademoiselle selected new lodgings, in a quarter which overlooked the
lake. She never occupied the same rooms two seasons in succession, lest
she should be regarded as "an old friend," and expected to make
concessions accordingly. On the second day she called ceremoniously upon
the principal of the school, sending in her old-fashioned glazed card,
with her name engraved upon it, together with a minute "Paris" in one
corner. To this important personage she formally presented her
candidate, endowing her with so large a variety of brilliant qualities
and accomplishments that the candidate was filled with astonishment, and
came near denying them, had she not been prevented by the silent meaning
pressure of a gaiter that divined her intention, and forbade the
revelation. Fortunately an under-teacher was needed, and half an hour
later Anne went away, definitely, although at a very small salary,
engaged.
She went directly home, locked her door, took paper and pen, and began
to write. "Dear Rast," she wrote. Then, with a flood of remorseful
affection, "Dear, dear Rast." Her letter was a long one, without break
or hesitation. She told him all save names, and asked him to forgive
her. If he still loved her and wished her to be his wife, she was ready;
in truth, she seemed almost to urge the marriage, that is, if he still
loved her. When the letter was completed she went out and placed it in a
letter-box with her own hands, coming home with a conscience more free.
She had done what she could. The letter was sent to the island, where
Rast still was when she had heard from him the last time before leaving
Caryl's; for only seven days had passed since then. They seemed seven
years.
A day later she wrote to Miss Lois, telling of Miss Vanhorn's action,
her new home and change of position. She said nothing of her letter to
Rast or the story it told; she left that to him to relate or not as he
pleased. In all things he should be now her master.
When this second letter was sent, she asked herself whether she could
write to Helen. But instantly the feeling came surging over her that she
could not. In addition there was the necessity of keeping her new abode
hidden. No one knew were mademoiselle was, and the younger woman had now
the benefit of that carefully woven mystery. She was safe. She must not
disturb that safety.
To one other person she felt that she must write, namely, Miss Vanhorn.
Harsh as had been the treatment she had received, it came from her
mother's aunt. She wrote, therefore, briefly, stating that she had
obtained a teacher's place, but without saying where it was. This
letter, inclosed in another envelope, was sent to a friend of
Jeanne-Armande in Boston, and mailed from that city. Anne had written
that a letter sent to the Boston address, which she inclosed, would be
immediately forwarded to her. But no reply came. Old Katharine never
forgave.
The school opened; the young teacher had a class of new scholars. To her
also were given the little brothers who were allowed to mingle with the
flock until they reached the age of eleven, when they were banished to
rougher trials elsewhere; to these little boys she taught Latin grammar,
and the various pursuits in the imperfect tense of those two well-known
grammar worthies, Caius and Balbus. Jeanne-Armande had not failed to
proclaim far and wide her candidate's qualifications as to vocal music.
"A pupil of Belzini," she remarked, with a stately air, "was not often
to be obtained so far inland." The principal, a clear-headed Western
woman, with a keen sense of humor, perceived at once (although smiling
at it) the value of the phrase. It was soon in circulation. And it was
understood that at Christmas-time the pupil of Belzini, who was not
often to be obtained so far inland, would assume charge of the music
class, and lift it to a plane of Italian perfection hitherto unattained.
The autumn opened. Anne, walking on the lake shore at sunset, saw the
vessels steal out from port one by one, and opening white sails, glide
away in the breeze of evening silently as spirits. Then came the colored
leaves. The town, even in its meanest streets, was now so beautiful that
the wonder was that the people did not leave their houses, and live
out-of-doors altogether, merely to gaze; every leaf was a flower, and
brighter than the brightest blossom. Then came a wild storm, tearing the
splendor from the branches in a single night; in the morning, November
rain was falling, and all was desolate and bare. But after this, the
last respite, came Indian summer.
If there is a time when the American of to-day recalls the red-skinned
men who preceded him in this land he now calls his own, it is during
these few days of stillness and beauty which bear the name of the
vanished race. Work is over in the fields, they are ready for their
winter rest; the leaves are gone, the trees are ready too. The last red
apple is gathered; men and the squirrels together have gleaned the last
nut. There is nothing more to be done; and he who with a delicate
imagination walks abroad, or drives slowly along country roads, finds
himself thinking, in the stillness, of those who roved over this same
ground not many years ago, and tardily gathering in at this season their
small crops of corn beside the rivers, gave to the beautiful
golden-purple-hued days the name they bear. Through the naked woods he
sees them stealing, bow in hand; on the stream he sees their birch-bark
canoes; the smoke in the atmosphere must surely rise from their hidden
camp fires. They have come back to their old haunts from the happy
hunting grounds for these few golden days. Is it not the Indian summer?
The winter came early, with whirling snow followed by bitter cold. Ice
formed; navigation was over until spring. Anne had heard from Dr. Gaston
and Miss Lois, but not from Rast. For Rast had gone; he had started on
his preliminary journey through the western country, where he proposed
to engage in business enterprises, although their nature remained as yet
vague. The chaplain wrote that a letter addressed to Erastus in her
handwriting had been brought to him the day after the youth's departure,
and that he had sent it to the frontier town which was to be his first
stopping-place. Erastus had written to her the day before his departure,
but the letter had of course gone to Caryl's. Miss Vanhorn, without
doubt, would forward it to her niece. The old man wrote with an effort
to appear cheerful, but he confessed that he missed his two children
sadly. The boys were well, and Angélique was growing pretty. In another
year it would be better that she should be with her sister; it was
somewhat doubtful whether Miss Lois understood the child.
Miss Lois's letter was emphatic, beginning and ending with her opinion
of Miss Vanhorn in the threefold character of grandaunt, Christian, and
woman. She was able to let out her feelings at last, unhindered by the
now-withdrawn allowance. The old bitter resentment against the woman who
had slighted William Douglas found vent, and the characterization was
withering and picturesque. When she had finished the arraignment, trial,
and execution, at least in words, she turned at last to the children;
and here it was evident that her pen paused and went more slowly. The
boys, she hoped (rather as a last resort), were "good-hearted." She had
but little trouble, comparatively, with Tita now; the child was very
attentive to her lessons, and had been over to Père Michaux at his
hermitage almost every other day. The boys went sometimes; and Erastus
had been kind enough to accompany the children, to see that they were
not drowned. And then, dropping the irksome theme, Miss Lois dipped her
pen in romance, and filled the remainder of her letter with praise of
golden-haired Rast, not so much because she herself loved him, as
because Anne did. For the old maid believed with her whole heart in this
young affection which had sprung into being under her fostering care,
and looked forward to the day when the two should kneel together before
Dr. Gaston in the little fort chapel, to receive the solemn benediction
of the marriage service, as the happiest remaining in her life on earth.
Anne read the fervid words with troubled heart. If Rast felt all that
Miss Lois said he felt, if he had borne as impatiently as Miss Lois
described their present partial separation, even when he was sure of her
love, how would he suffer when he read her letter! She looked forward
feverishly to the arrival of his answer; but none came. The delay was
hard to bear.
Dr. Gaston wrote a second time. Rast had remained but a day at the first
town, and not liking it, had gone forward. Not having heard from Anne,
he sent, inclosed to the chaplain's care, a letter for her. With nervous
haste she opened it; but it contained nothing save an account of his
journey, with a description of the frontier village--"shanties, drinking
saloons, tin cans, and a grave-yard already. This will never do for a
home for us. I shall push on farther." The tone of the letter was
affectionate, as sure as ever of her love. Rast had always been sure of
that. She read the pages sadly; it seemed as if she was willfully
deceiving him. Where was her letter, the letter that told all? She wrote
to the postmaster of the first town, requesting him to return it. After
some delay, she received answer that it had been sent westward to
another town, which the person addressed, namely, Erastus Pronando, had
said should be his next stopping-place. But a second letter from Rast,
sent also to the chaplain's care, had mentioned passing through that
very town without stopping--"it was such an infernal den"; and again
Anne wrote, addressing the second postmaster, and asking for the letter.
This postmaster replied, after some tardiness, owing to his conflicting
engagements as politician, hunter, and occasionally miner, that the
letter described had been forwarded to the Dead-letter Office. This
correspondence occupied October and November; and during this time Rast
was still roaming through the West, writing frequently, but sending no
permanent address. Now rumors of a silver mine attracted him; now it was
a scheme for cattle-raising; now speculation in lands along the line of
the coming railway It was impossible to follow him--and in truth he did
not wish to be followed. He was tasting his first liberty. He meant to
look around the world awhile before choosing his home: not long, only
awhile. Still, awhile.
The chaplain added a few lines of his own when he sent these letters to
Anne. Winter had seized them; they were now fast fettered; the mail came
over the ice. Miss Lois was kind, and sometimes came up to regulate his
housekeeping; but nothing went as formerly. His coffee was seldom good;
and he found himself growing peevish--at least his present domestic, a
worthy widow named McGlathery, had remarked upon it. But Anne must not
think the domestic was in fault; he had reason to believe that she meant
well even when she addressed him on the subject of his own
short-comings. And here the chaplain's old humor peeped through, as he
added, quaintly, that poor Mistress McGlathery's health was far from
strong, she being subject to "inward tremblings," which tremblings she
had several times described to him with tears in her eyes, while he had
as often recommended peppermint and ginger, but without success; on the
contrary, she always went away with a motion of the skirts and a manner
as to closing the door which, the chaplain thought, betokened offense.
Anne smiled over these letters, and then sighed. If she could only be
with him again--with them all! She dreamed at night of the old man in
his arm-chair, of Miss Lois, of the boys, of Tita curled in her furry
corner, which she had transferred, in spite of Miss Lois's
remonstrances, to the sitting-room of the church-house. Neither Tita nor
Père Michaux had written; she wondered over their new silence.
Anne's pupils had, of course, exhaustively weighed and sifted the new
teacher, and had decided to like her. Some of them decided to adore her,
and expressed their adoration in bouquets, autograph albums, and various
articles in card-board supposed to be of an ornamental nature. They
watched her guardedly, and were jealous of every one to whom she spoke;
she little knew what a net-work of plots, observation, mines and
countermines, surrounded her as patiently she toiled through each long
monotonous day. These adorations of school-girls, although but
unconscious rehearsals of the future, are yet real while they last;
Anne's adorers went sleepless if by chance she gave especial attention
to any other pupil. The adored one meanwhile did not notice these little
intensities; her mind was absorbed by other thoughts.
Four days before Christmas two letters came; one was her own to Rast,
returned at last from the Dead-letter Office; the other was from Miss
Lois, telling of the serious illness of Dr. Gaston. The old chaplain had
had a stroke of paralysis, and Rast had been summoned; fortunately his
last letter had been from St. Louis, to which place he had unexpectedly
returned, and therefore they had been able to reach him by message to
Chicago and a telegraphic dispatch. Dr. Gaston wished to see him; the
youth had been his ward as well as almost child, and there were business
matters to be arranged between them. Anne's tears fell as she read of
her dear old teacher's danger, and the impulse came to her to go to him
at once. Was she not his child as well as Rast? But the impulse was
checked by the remainder of the letter. Miss Lois wrote, sadly, that she
had tried to keep it from Anne, but had not succeeded: since August her
small income had been much reduced, owing to the failure of a New
Hampshire bank, and she now found that with all her effort they could
not quite live on what was left. "Very nearly, dear child. I think, with
_thirty_ dollars, I can manage until spring. Then everything will be
_cheaper_. I should not have kept it from you if it had not happened at
the _very time_ of your trouble with that _wicked old woman_, and I did
not wish to add to your care. But the boys have what is called _fine_
appetites (I wish they were not quite so 'fine'), and of course _this_
winter, and never before, my provisions were spoiled in my own cellar."
Anne had intended to send to Miss Lois all her small savings on
Christmas-day. She now went to the principal of the school, asked that
the payment of her salary might be advanced, and forwarded all she was
able to send to the poverty-stricken little household in the
church-house. That night she wept bitter tears; the old chaplain was
dying, and she could not go to him; the children were perhaps suffering.
For the first time in a life of poverty she felt its iron hand crushing
her down. Her letter to Rast lay before her; she could not send it now
and disturb the last hours on earth of their dear old friend. She laid
it aside and waited--waited through those long hours of dreary suspense
which those must bear who are distant from the dying beds of their loved
ones.
In the mean time Rast had arrived. Miss Lois wrote of the chaplain's joy
at seeing him. The next letter contained the tidings that death had
come; early in the morning, peacefully, with scarcely a sigh, the old
man's soul had passed from earth. Colonel Bryden, coming in soon
afterward, and looking upon the calm face, had said, gently,
"Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;
Say not good-night, but, in some brighter clime,
Bid me good-morning."
When Anne knew that the funeral was over, that another grave had been
made under the snow in the little military cemetery, and that, with the
strange swiftness which is so hard for mourning hearts to realize, daily
life was moving on again in the small island circle where the kind old
face would be seen no more, she sent her letter, the same old letter,
unaltered and travel-worn. Then she waited. She could not receive her
answer before the eighth or ninth day. But on the fifth came two
letters; on the seventh, three. The first were from Miss Lois and Mrs.
Bryden; the others from Tita, Père Michaux, and--Rast. And the
extraordinary tidings they brought were these: Rast had married Tita.
The little sister was now his wife.