Anne Part 22

"Oh no, grandaunt. She has no such thought."

"What do you know of her thoughts! You continue to go there?"

"Sometimes, on Sundays--when she asks me."

"Very well. But you are not to go again when company is expected; I positively forbid it. You were not brought down from your island to attend evening parties. You hear me?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps you are planning for a situation here at Moreau's next winter?"

said the old woman, after a pause, peering at Anne suspiciously.

"I could not fill it, grandaunt; I could only teach in a country school."

"At Newport, or some such place, then?"

"I could not get a position of that kind."

"Mrs. Lorrington could help you."

"I have not asked her to help me."

"I thought perhaps she had some such idea of her own," continued Miss Vanhorn. "You can probably prop up that fife-like voice of hers in a way she likes; and besides, you are a good foil for her, with your big shoulders and bread-and-milk face. You little simpleton, don't you know that to even the most skillful flirt a woman friend of some kind or other is necessary as background and support?"

"No, I did not know it," said Anne, in a disheartened voice.

"What a friend for Helen Lorrington! No wonder she has pounced upon you!

You would never see one of her manuvres, although done within an inch of you. With your believing eyes, and your sincerity, you are worth your weight in silver to that straw-faced mermaid. But, after all, I do not interfere. Let her only obtain a good situation for you next year, and pay you back in more useful coin than fine dresses, and I make no objection."

She settled herself anew in the corner of the carriage, and began the process of extracting a seed, while Anne, silent and dejected, gazed into the snow-covered street, asking herself whether Helen and all this world were really as selfish and hypocritical as her grandaunt represented. But these thoughts soon gave way to the predominant one, the one that always came to her when with Miss Vanhorn--the thought of her mother.

"During the summer, do you still live in the old country house on the Hudson, grandaunt?"

Miss Vanhorn, who had just secured a seed, dropped it. "I am not aware that my old country house is anything to you," she answered, tartly, fitting on her flapping glove-fingers, and beginning a second search.

A sob rose in Anne's throat; but she quelled it. Her mother had spent all her life, up to the time of her marriage, at that old river homestead.

Soon after this, Madame Moreau sent out cards of invitation for one of her musical evenings. Miss Vanhorn's card was accompanied by a little note in Tante's own handwriting.

"The invitation is merely a compliment which I give myself the pleasure of paying to a distinguished patron of my school" (wrote the old French lady). "There will be nothing worthy of her ear--a simple school-girls'

concert, in which Miss Douglas (who will have the kind a.s.sistance of Mrs. Lorrington) will take part. I can not urge, for so unimportant an affair, the personal presence of Miss Vanhorn; but I beg her to accept the inclosed card as a respectful remembrance from

"HORTENSE-PAULINE MOREAU."

"That will bring her," thought Tante, sealing the missive, in her old-fas.h.i.+oned way, with wax.

She was right; Miss Vanhorn came.

Anne sang first alone. Then with Helen.

"Isn't that Mrs. Lorrington?" said a voice behind Miss Vanhorn.

"Yes. My Louise tells me that she has taken up this Miss Douglas enthusiastically--comes here to sing with her almost every day."

"Who is the girl?"

Miss Vanhorn prepared an especially rigid expression of countenance for the item of relations.h.i.+p which she supposed would follow. But nothing came; Helen was evidently waiting for a more dramatic occasion. She felt herself respited; yet doubly angry and apprehensive.

When the song was ended, there was much applause of the subdued drawing-room kind--applause, however, plainly intended for Helen alone.

Singularly enough, Miss Vanhorn resented this. "If I should take Anne, dress her properly, and introduce her as my niece, the Lorrington would be nowhere," she thought, angrily. It was the first germ of the idea.

It was not allowed to disappear. It grew and gathered strength slowly, as Tante and Helen intended it should; the two friendly conspirators never relaxed for a day their efforts concerning it. Anne remained unconscious of these manuvres; but the old grandaunt was annoyed, and urged, and flattered, and menaced forward with so much skill that it ended in her proposing to Anne, one day in the early spring, that she should come and spend the summer with her, the children on the island to be provided for meanwhile by an allowance, and Anne herself to have a second winter at the Moreau school, if she wished it, so that she might be fitted for a higher position than otherwise she could have hoped to attain.

"Oh, grandaunt!" cried the girl, taking the old loosely gloved hand in hers.

"There is no occasion for shaking hands and grandaunting in that way,"

said Miss Vanhorn. "If you wish to do what I propose, do it; I am not actuated by any new affection for you. You will take four days to consider; at the end of that period, you may send me your answer. But, with your acceptance, I shall require the strictest obedience. And--no allusion whatever to your mother."

"What are to be my duties?" asked Anne, in a low voice.

"Whatever I require," answered the old woman, grimly.

At first Anne thought of consulting Tante. But she had a strong under-current of loyalty in her nature, and the tie of blood bound her to her grandaunt, after all: she decided to consult no one but herself.

The third day was Sunday. In the twilight she sat alone on her narrow bed, by the window of the dormitory, thinking. It was a boisterous March evening; the wildest month of the twelve was on his mad errands as usual. Her thoughts were on the island with the children; would it not be best for them that she should accept the offered allowance, and go with this strange grandaunt of hers, enduring as best she might her cold severity? Miss Lois's income was small; the allowance would make the little household comfortable. A second winter in New York would enable her to take a higher place as teacher, and also give the self-confidence she lacked. Yes; it was best.

But a great and overwhelming loneliness rose in her heart at the thought of another long year's delay before she could be with those she loved.

Rast's last letter was in her pocket; she took it out, and held it in her hand for comfort. In it he had written of the sure success of his future; and Anne believed it as fully as he did. Her hand grew warmer as she held the sheet, and as she recalled his sanguine words. She began to feel courageous again. Then another thought came to her: must she tell Miss Vanhorn of her engagement? In their new conditions, would it not be dishonest to keep the truth back? "I do not see that it can be of any interest to her," she said to herself. "Still, I prefer to tell her."

And then, having made her decision, she went to Tante.

Tante was charmed with the news (and with the success of her plan). She discoursed upon family affection in very beautiful language. "You will find a true well-spring of love in the heart of your venerable relative," she remarked, raising her delicate handkerchief, like the suggestion of a happiness that reached even to tears. "Long, long have I held your cherished grandaunt in a warm corner of my memory and heart."

This was true as regarded the time and warmth; only the latter was of a somewhat peppery nature.

The next morning Helen was told the news. She threw back her head in comic despair. "The old dragon has taken the game out of my hands at last," she said, "and ended all the sport. Excuse the t.i.tle, Anne. But I am morally certain she has all sorts of vinegarish names for me. And now--am I to congratulate you upon your new home?"

"It is more a matter of duty, I think, than congratulation," said Anne, thoughtfully. "And next, I must tell her of my engagement."

"I wouldn't, if I were you, Crystal."

"Why?"

"She would rather have you free."

"I shall be free, as far as she is concerned."