Anne: A Novel

CHAPTER XXVI

"My only wickedness is that I love you; my only goodness, the same."

"A Durwaish in his prayer said: 'O God, show kindness toward the wicked; for on the good Thou hast already bestowed kindness enough by having created them virtuous.'"

Anne passed the next day in the same state of vivid happiness. The mere joy of the present was enough for her; she thought not as yet of the future, of next month, next week, or even to-morrow. It sufficed that they were there together, and free without wrong to love each other. During the morning there came no second chance for their being alone, and Heathcote grew irritated as the slow hours passed. Farmer Redd esteemed it his duty, now that he was at home again, to entertain his guest whenever, from his open eyes, he judged him ready for conversation; and Mrs. Redd, July, and Diana seemed to have grown into six persons at least, from their continuous appearances at the door. At last, about five o'clock, Anne was left alone in the room, and his impatient eyes immediately summoned her. Smiling at his irritation, she sat down by the bedside and took up the fan.

"You need not do that," he said; "or rather, yes, do. It will keep you here, at any rate. Where have you been all day?"

They could talk in low tones unheard; but through the open door Mrs. Redd and Diana were visible, taking down clothes from the line. Heathcote watched them for a moment, and then looked at his nurse with silent wistfulness.

"But it is a great happiness merely to be together," said Anne, answering the look in words.

"Yes, I know it; but yet – Tell me, Anne, do you love me?"

"You know I do; in truth, you have told me you knew it more times than was generous," she answered, almost gayly. She was fairly light-hearted now with happiness.

"That is not what I want. Look at me and tell me; do, dear." He spoke urgently, almost feverishly; a sombre restless light burned in his eyes.

And then she bent forward and looked at him with so much love that his inmost heart was stirred. "I love you with all my heart, all my being," she murmured, even the fair young beauty of her face eclipsed by the light from the soul within. He saw then what he had seen before – how deep was her love for him. But this time there was in it no fear; only perfect trust.

He turned his head away as if struggling with some hidden emotion. But Anne, recovering herself, fell back into her former content, and began to talk with the child-like ease of happiness. She told him of her life, all that had happened since their parting. Once or twice, when her story approached their past, and she made some chance inquiry, he stopped her. "Do not ask questions," he said; "let us rest content with what we have;" and she, willing to follow his fancy, smiled and refrained. He lay silently watching her as she talked. Her faith in him was absolute; it was part of her nature, and he knew her nature. It was because she was what she was that he had loved her, when all the habits and purposes of his life were directly opposed to it.

"Anne," he said, "when will you marry me?"

"Whenever you wish," she answered, with what was to him the sweetest expression of obedience that a girl's pure eyes ever held.

"Will you go with me, as soon as I am able, and let some clergyman in the nearest village marry us?"

"I would rather have Miss Lois come, and little André; still, Ward, it shall be as you wish."

He took her hand, and laid his hot cheek upon it; a moisture gathered in his eyes. "You trust me entirely. You would put your hand in mine to-night and go out into the world with me unquestioning?"

"Yes."

"Kiss me once, love – just once more." His face was altering; its faint color had faded, and a brown pallor was taking its place.

"You are tired," said Anne, regretfully; "I have talked to you too long." What he had said made no especial impression upon her; of course she trusted him.

"Kiss me," he said again; "only once more, love." There was a strange dulled look in his eyes; she missed the expression which had lain there since the avowal of the day before. She turned; there was no one in sight – the women had gone to the end of the garden. She bent over and kissed him with timid tenderness, and as her lips touched his cheek, tears stole from his eyes under the closed lashes. Then, as steps were approaching, he turned his face toward the wall, and covered his eyes with his hand. She thought that he was tired, that he had been overtaxed by all that had happened, and going out softly she cautioned the others. "Do not go in at present; I think he is falling asleep."

"Well, then, I'll jest take this time to run across to Miss Pendleton's and git some of that yere fine meal; I reckon the captain will like a cake of it for supper," said Mrs. Redd. "And, Di, you go down to Dawson's and git a young chicken for briling. No one need say as how the captain don't have enough to eat yere."

July was left in charge. Anne took her straw hat, passed through the garden, and into the wood-lot behind, where she strolled to and fro, looking at the hues of the sunset through the trees, although not in reality conscious of the colors at all, save as part of the great boundless joy of the day.

She had been there some time, when a sound roused her; she lifted her eyes. Was it a ghost approaching?

Weak, holding on by the trees, a shadow of his former self, it was Ward Heathcote who was coming toward her as well as he could, swerving a little now and then, and moving unsteadily, yet walking. July had deserted his post, and the patient, left alone, had risen, dressed himself unaided, and was coming to find her.

With a cry she went to meet him, and drew him down upon a fallen tree trunk. "What can you mean?" she said, kneeling down to support him.

"Do not," he answered (and the voice was unlike Heathcote's). "I will move along so that I can lean against this tree. Come where I can see you, Anne; I have something to say."

"Let us first go back to the house. Then you can say it."

But he only made a motion of refusal, and, startled by his manner, she came and stood before him as he desired. He began to speak at once, and rapidly.

"Anne, I have deceived you. Helen is married; but I– am her husband."

She gazed at him. Not a muscle or feature had stirred, yet her whole face was altered.

"I did not mean to deceive you; there was no plan. It was a wild temptation that swept over me suddenly when I found that you were free – not married as I had thought; that you still loved me, and that you – did not know. I said to myself, let me have the sweetness of her love for one short day, one short day only, and then I will tell her all. Yet I might have let it go on for a while longer, Anne, if it had not been for your own words this afternoon: you would go with me anywhere, at any time, trusting me utterly, loving me as you only can love. Your faith has humiliated me; your unquestioning trust has made me ashamed. And so I have come to tell you the deception, and to tell you also that I love you so that I will no longer trust myself. I do not say that I can not, but that I will not. And I feel the strongest self-reproach of my life that I took advantage of your innocent faith to draw out, even for that short time, the proof which I did not need; for ever since that morning in the garden, Anne, I have known that you loved me. It was that which hurt me in your marriage. But you are so sweet, so dangerously sweet to me, and I – have not been accustomed to deny myself. This is no excuse; I do not offer it as such. But remember what kind of a man I have been; remember that I love you, and – forgive me."

For the first time he now looked at her. Still and white as a snow statue, she met his gaze mutely.

"I can say no more, Anne, unless you tell me you forgive me."

She did not answer. He moved as if to rise and come to her, but she stretched out her hand to keep him back.

"You are too weak," she murmured, hurriedly. "Yes, yes, I forgive you."

"You will wish to know how it all happened," he began again, and his voice showed his increasing exhaustion.

"No; I do not care to hear."

"I will write it, then."

There was a momentary pause; he closed his eyes. The girl, noting, amid her own suffering, the deathly look upon his face, came to his side. "You must go back to the house," she said. "Will my arm be enough? Or shall I call July?"

He looked at her; a light came back into his eyes. "Anne," he whispered, "would not the whole world be well lost to us if we could have but love and each other?"

She returned his gaze. "Yes," she said, "it would – if happiness were all."

"Then you would be happy with me, darling?"

"Yes."

"Alone with me, and – in banishment?"

"In banishment, in disgrace, in poverty, pain, and death," she answered, steadily.

"Then you will go with me, trusting to me only?" He was holding her hands now, and she did not withdraw them.

"No," she answered; "never. If happiness were all, I said. But it is not all. There is something nearer, higher than happiness." She paused. Then rapidly and passionately these words broke from her: "Ward, Ward, you are far more than my life to me. Do not kill me, kill my love for you, my faith in you, by trying to tempt me more. You could not succeed; I tell you plainly you could never succeed; but it is not on that account I speak. It is because it would kill me to lose my belief in you, my love, my only, only love!"

"But I am not so good as you think," murmured Heathcote, leaning his head against her. His hands, still holding hers, were growing cold.

"But you are brave. And you shall be true. Go back to Helen, and try to do what is right, as I also shall try."

"But you – that is different. You do not care."

"Not care!" she repeated, and her voice quivered and broke. "You know that is false."

"It is. Forgive me."

"Promise me that you will go back; promise for my sake, Ward. Light words are often spoken about a broken heart; but I think, if you fail me now, my heart will break indeed."

"What must I do?"

"Go back to Helen – to your life, whatever it is."

"And shall I see you again?"

"No."

"It is too hard, too hard," he whispered, putting his arms round her.

But she unclasped them. "I have your promise?" she said.

"No."

"Then I take it." And lightly touching his forehead with her lips, she turned and was gone.

When July and Diana came to bring back their foolhardy patient, they found him lying on the earth so still and cold that it seemed as if he were dead. That night the fever appeared again. But there was only Diana to nurse him now; Anne was gone.

Farmer Redd acted as guide and escort back to Peterson's Mill; but the pale young nurse would not stop, begging Dr. Flower to send her onward immediately to Number Two. She was so worn and changed that the surgeon feared that fever had already attacked her, and he sent a private note to the surgeon of Number Two, recommending that Miss Douglas should at once be returned to Number One, and, if possible, sent northward to her home. But when Anne arrived at Number One, and saw again the sweet face of Mrs. Barstow, when she felt herself safely surrounded by the old work, she said that she would stay for a few days longer. While her hands were busy, she could think; as she could not sleep, she would watch. She felt that she had now to learn life entirely anew; not only herself, but the very sky, sunshine, and air. The world was altered.

On the seventh morning a letter came; it was from Heathcote, and had been forwarded from Peterson's Mill. She kept it until she had a half-hour to herself, and then, going to the bank of the river, she sat down under the trees and opened it. Slowly; for it might be for good, or it might be for evil; but, in any case, it was her last. She would not allow herself to receive or read another.

It was a long letter, written with pencil upon coarse blue-lined paper. After saying that the fever had disappeared, and that before long he should try to rejoin his regiment, the words went on as follows:

"I said that I would write and tell you all. When you ran away from me last year, I was deeply hurt; I searched for you, but could find no clew. Then I went back eastward, joined the camping party, and after a day or two returned with them to Caryl's. No one suspected where I had been. From Caryl's we all went down to the city together, and the winter began.

"I was, in a certain way, engaged to Helen; yet I was not bound. Nor was she. I liked her: she had known how to adapt herself to me always. But I had never been in any haste; and I wondered sometimes why she held to me, when there were other men, worth more in every way than Ward Heathcote, who admired her as much as I did. But I did not then know that she loved me. I know it now.

"After our return to the city, I never spoke of you; but now and then she mentioned your name of her own accord, and I – listened. She was much surprised that you did not write to her; she knew no more where you were than I did, and hoped every day for a letter; so did I. But you did not write.

"All this time – I do not like to say it, yet it is part of the story – she made herself my slave. There was nothing I could say or do, no matter how arbitrary, to which she did not yield, in which she did not acquiesce. No word concerning marriage was spoken, even our former vague lovers' talk had ceased; for, after you hurt me so deeply, Anne, I had not the heart for it. My temper was anything but pleasant. The winter moved on; I had no plan; I let things take their course. But I always expected to find you in some way, to see you again, until – that marriage notice appeared. I took it to Helen. 'It is Anne, I suppose?' I said. She read it, and answered, 'Yes.' She was deceived, just as I was."

Here Anne put down the letter, and looked off over the river. Helen knew that Tita's name was Angélique, and that the sister's was plain Anne. It was a lie direct. But Heathcote did not know it. "He shall never know through me," she thought, with stern sadness.

The letter went on: "I think she had not suspected me before, Anne – I mean in connection with you: she was always thinking of Rachel. But she did then, and I saw it. I was so cut up about it that I concealed nothing. About a week after that she was thrown from her carriage. They thought she was dying, and sent for me. Miss Teller was in the hall waiting; she took me into the library, and said that the doctors thought Helen might live if they could only rouse her, but that she seemed to be sinking into a stupor. With tears rolling down her cheeks, she said, 'Ward, I know you love her, and she has long loved you. But you have said nothing, and it has worn upon her. Go to her and save her life. You can.'