Big Bell’s voice was actually soft as she bade Anna return to her
mistress, and the girl stole fearfully in. However, nothing dire had
happened. Except that she was strangely subdued, Mrs. Langley was her
usual self. But Anna’s heart ached sadly.
She chattered lightly about the snow-fall and the interrupted skating.
Mrs. Langley, who hadn’t listened, presently broke in.
“Anna, what can I do to make--so that the baby won’t be afraid of me?”
she asked at once meekly and fiercely so that Anna shuddered. There was
no answer to that riddle, but she plucked up a bit of spirit.
“It was partly the dark--the half dark, I mean. Junior’s used to one
thing or t’other. There’s no twilight in our house any more than there
was where he came from,” she said, rather talking against time than
making a suggestion. But the other took it as such.
“It would hurt my eyes, but I could have the blinds raised. Would he be
all right then?”
Anna couldn’t say that he would. She looked at Mrs. Langley pleadingly.
“You think he would still be afraid of me?”
“Why, he might be afraid of--the memory of you,” the girl said
reluctantly. “If you looked like--the lady he saw in the dark room
that made him cry, he might, I suppose----”
But the girl stopped short. No, he mightn’t. Not for all the world
would she subject that baby to the danger of a second fright.
“You think I ought to wear something light and pretty?” Mrs. Langley
asked almost humbly.
“It would be nice if you should,” Anna returned in noncommittal
fashion. “But if you did, you would have to fix your hair in some other
way. Having it drawn back so tight wouldn’t go with a nifty dress.
Perhaps you could have it a bit looser about your face?”
Anna didn’t know what possessed her. She had almost said _phiz_. And
something within her added that _mug_ wouldn’t be bad. As she thought
of a dainty, light gown and soft hair about that ugly yellow face, she
had an hysterical impulse to laugh or to burst into tears.
“Perhaps he’d like it frizzed?” suggested Mrs. Langley. And then Anna
laughed out naturally.
“O Mrs. Langley, one would think Joe, Junior, was royalty!” she
exclaimed. And then she wanted to cry. _Frizzes_ about that face!
“You’re not well enough anyhow to bother about curl papers. Soft and
loose would be just as well,” she murmured with a deepening sense of
guilt. She had grown so used to Mrs. Langley that she had forgotten her
ugliness until Saturday had impressed it forcibly upon her. She said
to herself it was wicked to talk against time as she was. Could that
harsh-looking hair ever look smooth? And anyhow, she knew she would
never venture to bring the baby hither again.
Mrs. Langley was staring at her. “I suppose he likes your hair, Anna?”
she asked with something like craving in her voice.
“Rather. He’s stuck on anything yellow. He clutches at the sunshine and
he reached for Mr. Langley’s watch.”
“If I will have Bell put the blinds up as far as they will go, will you
bring him again on Saturday afternoon, Anna?” Mrs. Langley asked almost
eagerly, and added, “You’ll have to come early to catch the sunshine,
for there isn’t any after the middle of the afternoon.”
“O but Mrs. Langley, you could never stand the strong sunlight all at
once. Your poor eyes! You must let it in little by little!” protested
the girl.
Mrs. Langley looked hard at her. “Anna Miller! You have made up your
mind you won’t bring him,” she declared.
“I don’t want him to cry again. Neither do you; so it’s partly for your
sake,” Anna declared.
“But you said he wouldn’t cry if I did all that?”
Anna remained silent.
“You did say so?”
“Not exactly that. I’m awfully sorry, but I’m afraid that even after
all that it wouldn’t go.”
“What do you mean?”
“I really can’t tell. I’m not sure that I know. But I will come myself
just the same.”
Mrs. Langley sat almost erect. When it had happened, Anna did not know,
but she noticed now for the first time that the hump was gone. “I don’t
want you without him,” she cried, “and I want to know the truth. Why
should he be afraid of me after I had done all that?”
“Because--O, if everything else was all right, he would be afraid
of--your teeth!” the girl cried desperately. “They’re so--far
apart--there’s a gap on each side. He hasn’t many, himself, but they’re
close up and anyhow he doesn’t know what he looks like. When I hold him
up to the mirror, what do you think he does. He looks right at me!” And
the girl laughed nervously.
It was all she could do to restrain her tears. It seemed to her as if
she could not endure it for another minute. But when Mrs. Langley spoke
she forgot herself in the great wave of pity that flooded her heart.
“Well, I suppose if it’s that, there’s no help for it, and I may as
well give up,” the woman said in an old, weary voice. “You feel quite
sure, Anna?”
“You could have some put in?” Anna suggested colourlessly. Then as she
went on, her voice showed the confidence she gained. “You’d be a lot
more comfortable, too. The dentist would come over from Wenham, you
know. He came way over to the Hollow to draw a tooth for Miss Penny.”
For a few moments there was silence. The room was dark now. Anna moved,
and Mrs. Langley spoke fretfully.
“And you would have me go through all that for a baby, Anna Miller?”
“Never. Never in the world. Only--you might do it for other reasons.
Mr. Langley might like it,” Anna suggested timidly.
His wife was apparently surprised, perhaps startled. As she hadn’t
thought of Mr. Langley’s being handsome until Anna recalled it to her
mind, so it would not have occurred to her that her personal appearance
could be of moment to him.
“Why don’t you surprise him?” the girl suggested eagerly. “Pretend you
want a tooth pulled or--why need he know about it at all until it’s
done? He’s out so much it would be dead easy.”
“The excitement would kill me,” remarked Mrs. Langley.
“Then I shouldn’t think about it,” said Anna quite as decidedly. “After
all, lots of women look older than their husbands. Ma doesn’t, but Mrs.
Mudge does and Mrs. Graham--Mabel’s mother--and--no end of others.”
Mrs. Langley had nothing to say but her silence seemed eloquent--
fiercely eloquent to Anna, and she took leave hastily, promising to
drop in again on Saturday. As she hurried home, she said to herself it
was just as if she had sat in a dentist’s chair all afternoon and ached
all over now.
That night as she lay in bed, she said to herself that that was the
end of everything. And she feared that she was more relieved than
disappointed. It would be cruelly hard to part with the baby and her
heart leaped at the thought of keeping him always. And she owned to her
innermost heart that she should be glad of a rest from going to the
parsonage. She would have more time for Joe, Junior, and for Alice.
She and Alice could enjoy him together, and--dear me, she had quite
forgotten those absurd rumours about Alice! She must do something at
once.
She was sincerely sorry so far as Mr. Langley was concerned. But she
had done her level best. She would have given him the baby though it
had half killed her, but she had failed to ‘put it over’. She must
always be sorry for that part of it, for most likely he would grow old
with a vengeance now and she would be obliged to sit by and watch him
going headlong down hill. Well, and she was sorry for Mrs. Langley,
too. Somehow, she seemed to have a certain affection for her--a queer,
maternal sort of affection as if a downy yellow chick wanted to mother
and brood an ugly old hen. If only someone had taken her earlier!
The next day was a day of profound discomfort. But on Wednesday, a note
was brought to the Hollow from the parsonage asking Anna to come to see
Mrs. Langley on Saturday week at two o’clock and bring the baby with
her. Consternation seized upon her, and settled into despair. But she
felt constrained, and before night sent back word that they would come.
At first she was thankful for the ten days respite. Then she felt the
suspense would kill her. But very shortly she had no time to worry over
that or anything else except after she got into bed at night and then
she was too tired. For suddenly Alice Lorraine began to seek and claim
her companionship as she had never done before, and the girls became
practically inseparable.
Anna always enjoyed Alice, and with Alice and Joe together would have
been blissfully happy but for the lurking apprehension with regard
to the Saturday facing her. And when she forgot that, it was because
she recollected the mystery connected with Alice, who had ceased her
wandering and seemed to her mother and Miss Penny to be herself again.
But Anna knew better: she wasn’t at all the same girl she had been
before the day Anna had found her at the dark cottage in the lane. She
had moments of high spirits, but they did not last. She clung to Anna,
but she was still nervous and absent-minded. Anna was forced to guess
that the reason she no longer went back and forth between the Hollow
and the lane was because the person she met there or the occasion of
her going was no longer thereabout. But although Alice was not happy
nor at her ease, neither was she really unhappy as she must have been
had it--whatever it had been--been over and the parting final.
If the strange man she had walked with were her father, then Anna had
no fear. If he had escaped from prison and his daughter had helped him,
Anna was only too glad. She would have been glad to help him herself.
But if it weren’t--and how could it be? Why should Alice have exhibited
that uncanny interest in Reuben’s past if the man was her father? If he
wasn’t her father, if he were some younger man--Anna wouldn’t admit it
even to herself, but something kept trying to tell her that Alice acted
now just as a girl would who was planning to run away--to elope. Still,
that did not explain her interest in Reuben. Alice didn’t question
any more, it is true, but she was all eagerness whenever Reuben was
mentioned. But nothing could be more absurd, if one knew Reuben, than
to connect him in any way with the man with whom Alice had been seen or
with the occasion of her solitary rambles.
In the midst of this, happily for Anna, a counter-excitement arose. A
change came over Joe, Junior, which, slight as it might have seemed to
another, thrilled the heart of his foster-mother. On a sudden he began
to take an interest in the world about him and the passing scene. A
faint flicker of colour appeared upon his little old man’s face which
looked less mournful and forlorn. He held everything that was put
into his hands, examining it gravely from every angle, and evinced a
real interest in the animals in his gay picture book, viewing them as
seriously and intently as if he were making weighty deductions in
natural history or even biology, though his silence remained unbroken.
* * * * *
The December day fixed for the visit at the parsonage dawned clear
and fine and remained unclouded up to sundown. Anna set out promptly
in order to catch the mid-day beams upon those western windows that
had shut out the sun for so many annual revolutions. The snow had
disappeared, save in patches facing the north, and the air was genial.
Joe, Junior, was almost rosy, looked calmly content and less serious
than his wont. Anna wore her Sunday suit of hunter’s green with the
coquettish little cocked hat perched on her short locks and looked like
a handsome young prince. Strange to say, however, she was quite unaware
of her appearance. She hadn’t glanced at a mirror except to put in her
brooch, and her face was very grave. None knew how the girl dreaded
the ordeal, but Mrs. Lorraine, who drove her over with the fat pony,
guessed something.
She exclaimed over the baby’s improvement, praised the green suit and
thought the little hat was even more becoming with bobbed hair. Anna
smiled absently but sighed almost immediately.
“Anna, you don’t feel like going this afternoon? Let me take you back
home and then go over to the parsonage and make your excuses?” Mrs.
Lorraine begged.
“O no, Mrs. Lorraine. I’m really wild to go--in a way,” Anna declared.
“I’m sure everything’s going to be all right to-day, only--I seem
to be pulled all ways at once. You see--well,--Freddy came to me
this morning in tears and said he heard ma advising pa not to buy a
piano-forte--not to put his money into it. She said with an extra mouth
to feed he’d better hold on to it.”
“Well, perhaps there isn’t any special hurry about the piano,” Mrs.
Lorraine returned, not venturing to express at this time the sympathy
she felt. And she endeavoured to distract Anna’s attention by speaking
of the butter she and Miss Penny had made that week, the market price
and the new mould. And Anna forgot her own perplexities and was quite
herself when they reached the parsonage.
It was Bell Adams who met her at the door to-day. The expression on
her face was such as to puzzle Anna and rather to frighten her. She
spoke in hoarse whispers and made strange grimaces, and suddenly
Anna’s heart failed her. But she had promised. Slipping off the baby’s
wraps hastily, she took him and hurried to the door of Mrs. Langley’s
room without stopping to remove her own jacket. She opened the door
desperately. Just within, she paused. She expected a change, but--what
had happened?