Anne Part 71

Miss Teller studied these suggestions with respect; but they seemed large and indistinct. In spite of herself her mind reverted to certain articles of furniture which she had looked at the day before, furniture which was to make his narrow room more comfortable. But she caught herself in these wanderings, brought back her straying thoughts promptly, and fastened them to the main subject with a question--like a pin.

"But how could I go to Timloesville at present, when I have so much planned out to do here? Oh, Anne, I could not leave him here, shut up in that dreary place."

"It seems to me safer that you should not go," replied the girl; "it might be noticed, especially as it is known that you took this house for the summer. But I could go. And there is Miss Lois. She is free now, and the church-house must be very lonely." The tears sprang again as she thought of Andre, the last of the little black-eyed children who had been so dear.

They talked over the plan. No man being there to weigh it with a cooler masculine judgment, it seemed to them a richly promising one. Anne was imaginative, and Miss Teller reflected Anne. They both felt, however, that its accomplishment depended upon Miss Lois. But Anne's confidence in Miss Lois was great.

"I know of no one for whom I have a deeper respect than for that remarkable woman," said Miss Teller, reverentially. "It will be a great gratification to see her."

"But it would be best, I think, that she should not come here," replied Anne. "I should bid you good-by, and go away; every one would see me go.

Then in New York I could meet Miss Lois, and we could go together to Timloesville by another route. At Timloesville n.o.body would know Miss Lois, and I should keep myself in a measure concealed; there were only a few persons from Timloesville at the trial, and I think I could evade them."

"I should have liked much to meet Miss Hinsdale," said Miss Margaretta, in a tone of regret. "But you know best."

"Oh, no, no," said Anne, letting her arms fall in sudden despondency. "I sometimes think that I know nothing, and worse than nothing! Moments come when I would give years of my life for one hour, only one, of trusting reliance upon some one wiser, stronger, than I--who would tell me what I ought to do."

But this cry of the young heart (brave, but yet so young) distressed Miss Margaretta. If the pilot should lose courage, what would become of the pa.s.sengers? She felt herself looking into chaos.

Anne saw this. And controlled herself again.

"When should you start?" said the elder lady, relieved, and bringing forward a date. Miss Margaretta always found great support in dates.

"I can not tell yet. We must first hear from Miss Lois."

"I will write to her myself," said Miss Margaretta, putting on her spectacles and setting to work at once. It was a relief to be engaged upon something tangible.

And write she did. The pages she sent to Miss Lois, and the pages with which Miss Lois replied were many, eloquent, and underlined. Before the correspondence was ended they had scientifically discovered, convicted, and hanged the murderer, and religiously buried him.

Miss Lois was the most devoted partisan the accused man had gained. She was pleader, audience, public opinion, detective, judge, and final clergyman, in one. She had never seen Heathcote. That made no difference. She was sure he was a concentration of virtue, and the victim not of circ.u.mstances (that was far too mild), but of a "plot"

(she wanted to say "popish," but was restrained by her regard for Pere Michaux).

Miss Teller saw Heathcote daily. So far, she had not felt it necessary that Anne should accompany her. But shortly before the time fixed for the young girl's departure she was seized with the idea that it was Anne's duty to see him once. For perhaps he could tell her something which would be of use at Timloesville.

"I would rather not; it is not necessary," replied Anne. "You can tell me."

"You should not think of yourself; in such cases ourselves are nothing,"

said Miss Teller. "The sheriff and the persons in charge under him are possessed of excellent dispositions, as I have had occasion to prove; no one need know of your visit, and I should of course accompany you."

Anne heard her in silence. She was asking herself whether this gentle lady had lost all memory of her own youth, and whether that youth had held no feelings which would make her comprehend the depth of that which she was asking now.

But Miss Teller was not thinking of her youth, or of herself, or of Anne. She had but one thought, one motive--Helen's husband, and how to save him; all the rest seemed to her unimportant. She had in fact forgotten it. "I do not see how you can hesitate," she said, the tears suffusing her light eyes, "when it is for our dear Helen's sake."

"Yes," replied Anne; "but Helen is dead. How can we know--how can we be sure--what she would wish?" She seemed to be speaking to herself. She rose, walked to the window, and stood there looking out.

"She would wish to have him saved, would she not?" answered Miss Teller.

"I consider it quite necessary that you should see him before you go.

For you could not depend upon my report of what he says. It has, I am sorry to say, been represented to me more than once that I have a tendency to forget what has been variously mentioned as the k.n.o.b, the point, the gist of a thing."

Anne did not turn.

Miss Teller noted this obstinacy with surprise.

"It is mysterious to me that after the great ordeal of that trial, Anne, you should demur over such a simple thing as this," she said, gently.

But to Anne the sea of faces in the court-room seemed now less difficult than that quiet cell with its one occupant. Then she asked herself whether this were not an unworthy feeling, a weak one? One to be put down at once, and with a strong hand. She yielded. The visit was appointed for the next day.

The county jail with its stone hall; a locked door. They were entering; the jailer retired.

The prisoner rose to receive them; he knew that they were coming, and was prepared. Miss Teller kissed him; he brought forward his two chairs.

Then turning to Anne, he said, "It is kind of you to come;" and for a moment they looked at each other.

It was as if they had met in another world, in a far gray land beyond all human error and human dread. Anne felt this suddenly; if not like a chill, it was like the touch of an all-enveloping sadness, which would not pa.s.s away. Her fear left her; it seemed to her then that it would never come back.

As she looked at him she saw that he was greatly changed; her one glance in the court-room had not told her how greatly. Part of it was due doubtless to the effects of his wound, to the unaccustomed confinement in the heats of a lowland summer; his face, though still bronzed, was thin, his clothes hung loosely from his broad shoulders. But the marked alteration was in his expression. This was so widely different from that of the brown-eyed lounger of Caryl's, that it seemed another man who was standing there, and not the same. Heathcote's eyes were still brown; but their look was so changed that Gregory Dexter would never have occasion to find fault with it again. His half-indolent carelessness had given place to a stern reticence; his indifference, to a measured self-control. And Anne knew, as though a prophetic vision were pa.s.sing, that he would carry that changed face always, to his life's end.

Miss Teller had related to him their plan, their womans' plan. He was strongly, unyieldingly, opposed to it. Miss Teller came home every day, won over to his view, and then as regularly changed her mind, in talking with Anne, and went back--to be converted over again. But he knew that Anne had persisted. He knew that he was now expected to search his memory, and see if he could not find there something new. Miss Teller, with a touching eagerness to be of use and business-like, arranged pen, paper, and ink upon the table, and sat down to take notes. She was still a majestic personage, in spite of her grief and anxiety; her height, profile, and flowing draperies were as imposing as ever. But in other ways she had grown suddenly old; her light complexion was now over-spread with a net-work of fine small wrinkles, the last faint blonde of her hair was silvered, and in her cheeks and about her mouth there was a pathetic alteration, the final predominance of old age, and its ineffective helplessness over her own mild personality.

But while they waited, he found that he could not speak. When he saw them sitting there in their mourning garb for Helen, when he felt that Anne too was within the circle of this grief and danger and pain, Anne, in all her pure fair youth and trust and courage, something rose in his throat and stopped utterance. All the past and his own part in it unrolled itself before him like a judgment; all the present, and her brave effort for him; the future, near and dark. For Heathcote, like Dexter, believed that the chances were adverse; and even should he escape conviction, he believed that the cloud upon him would never be cleared away entirely, but that it would rest like a pall over the remainder of his life. At that moment, in his suffering, he felt that uncleared acquittal, conviction, the worst that could come to him, he could bear without a murmur were it only possible to separate Anne--Anne both in the past and present--from his own dark lot. He rose suddenly from the bench where he had seated himself, turned his back to them, went to his little grated window, and stood there looking out.

Miss Teller followed him, and laid her hand on his shoulder. "Dear Ward," she said, "I do not wonder that you are overcome." And she took out her handkerchief.

He mastered himself and came back to the table. Miss Teller, who, having once begun, was unable to stop so quickly, remained where she was. Anne, to break the painful pause, began to ask her written questions from the slip of paper she had brought.

"Can you recall anything concerning the man who came by and spoke to you while you were bathing?" she said, looking at him gravely.

"No. I could not see him; it was very dark."

"What did he say?"

"He asked if the water was cold."

"How did he say it?"

"Simply, 'Is the water cold?'"

"Was there any foreign accent or tone, any peculiarity of p.r.o.nunciation or trace of dialect, no matter how slight, in his voice or utterance?"

"I do not recall any. Stay, he may have given something of the sound of g to the word--said 'gold,' instead of 'cold.' But the variation was scarcely noticeable. Country people talk in all sorts of ways."

Miss Teller hurriedly returned to her chair, after wiping her eyes, wrote down "gold" and "cold" in large letters on her sheet of paper, and surveyed them critically.

"Is there nothing else you can think of?" pursued Anne.

"No. Why do you dwell upon him?"

"Because he is the man."

"Oh, Anne, is he?--is he?" cried Miss Teller, with as much excitement as though Anne had proved it.