Читать книгу The Annes - Marion Ames Taggart - Страница 6

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MINERVA came cat-footed up the stairs and knocked at Miss Carrington’s sitting-room door.

Miss Carrington lowered her book, frowning impatiently.

“It’s maddening never to hear you coming, Minerva,” she said. “Luckily my nerves are equable. Now what do you want?”

“Merton sent his boy around with a message from Master Kit—Mr. Carrington. You are not to wait lunch for him; he is lunching out,” said Minerva.

“I wonder where?” murmured Miss Carrington, but she resumed her book as if the wonder were not keen.

“With Mr. Richard Latham, the poet.” Minerva had waited for the question and her eyes snapped with enjoyment at her answer.

“What!” cried Miss Carrington, erect in an instant. “Kit doesn’t know him.”

“It would seem that he must, now,” suggested Minerva. “He’s lunching there. There’s no mistake in the message, because Tommy didn’t merely say ‛Mr. Latham,’ nor ‛the poet,’ but ‛Mr. Richard Latham, the poet.’ That’s too much to get wrong.”

“It’s too much, whatever Merton’s boy said. How in the world did it happen?” Miss Carrington speculated. “I suppose the secretary asked him there for some reason——”

“The reason wouldn’t be hard to guess, Miss Carrington,” said Minerva, who knew how to ingratiate when she wished to. “Mr. Latham’s housekeeper, as you well know, is a friend of mine. She goes to Allen’s, the grocer’s, at this hour every day. To be sure he’s not our grocer, but the same brand of cocoa is the same brand wherever you buy it, provided the tin isn’t unsealed, and we haven’t enough cocoa for more’n two makings.”

“Well, Minerva, I don’t want to run short of cocoa,” said Miss Carrington, gravely. “You’ll find my change purse in the small right-hand drawer of my bureau. Don’t charge anything at Allen’s; I don’t like the place. I hope you won’t be long.”

“No longer than is necessary, Miss Carrington. Mrs. Lumley has to be given her head in talking around Robin Hood’s barn—provided I meet her. You can’t talk to her till she’s talked off to you whatever’s on her mind,” Minerva answered.

The sage Minerva had found Miss Carrington’s small worn tray purse, and now she took herself soundlessly away, with complete understanding between herself and her mistress as to what was expected of her.

Miss Carrington admitted her maid to intimacy though not to friendship; a lone woman must of necessity do so. No one else in her life had ever been so deeply within it as Minerva had grown to be during twenty years of service as Miss Carrington’s personal attendant, day and night, in sickness and in health.

Minerva held Miss Carrington at an estimate unlike her friends’ estimate of her; in some ways it was less, in some ways more, accurate.

She realized that Miss Carrington was clever, but she could not gauge her learning as her friends did. She had no way of knowing how witty, how accomplished her mistress was. On the other hand, no one else appreciated so fully her acumen, her efficiency.

With this appreciation, Minerva held her mistress stupid not to have achieved more. What was a maiden lady at nearly seventy, after all? Minerva’s dull sister had done better for herself; she had a husband, the rank of matron. Minerva discounted Miss Carrington’s fierce pride in being Miss Anne Carrington, of the original Cleavedge Carringtons—perhaps because it was too fierce?

Minerva knew her mistress’s faults even better than her friends did, but not the same faults. To her friends Miss Carrington was generous, unselfish, nobly, though faultily, scornful of these virtues in herself, too detached to practise them as virtues, just as she was too much engrossed in her pursuits to be lonely.

Minerva knew that she was not generous, though she lavished money; that she was bound on all sides by herself, for which self and through which self she saw all things, beyond which she never aspired. Minerva knew that she was so far from detachment that all her thoughts were chained to Anne Carrington, except when they reached out to Kit, who was but another form of her self-seeking.

Minerva knew that Miss Carrington’s temper was difficult, not less so that the restrictions which she put upon its vent made it fairly good-mannered. And, finally, Minerva knew that her mistress was neither indifferent to her reputation nor so happy in the use of her clever brain that she was not lonely. She knew that Miss Carrington was cruelly lonely; that her loneliness was growing inward, feeding, battening upon her; that her daily fight was against her fear of the dark, the dark that was within.

Minerva loved her mistress and detested her. Nothing could have induced her to leave her, nor to forego her daily anathemas of her. Miss Carrington depended upon Minerva and detested her; leaned upon the keenness of the judgments of her class; called her by word and act a fool; berated her sarcastically; walked on tip-toe for fear of her; told herself that she would not keep Minerva beyond the season then passing; would have deprived herself of all else to retain her.

It was a curious relation, a strange attitude, equally contradictory on both sides, but it was one common between two women who are rivetted together, whether as mistress and maid, friends or sisters, or even, not infrequently, mother and daughter.

Miss Carrington had ordered lunch hurried, and had finished it when Minerva returned. It had seemed to her an unreasonably long time that she was kept waiting; she greeted Minerva with the remark that she had been forever when she came in.

“It took as long as it took,” remarked Minerva, laying upon the table a small packet tied around its middle with a cotton string. “Cocoa is two cents more at Allen’s than it is at Boothby’s, but that’s only a postage stamp, and often and often there’s little news in a letter though it overweighs.” Minerva dearly loved sybilline utterances.

“Did you meet Mrs. Lumley and was she satisfactory?” Miss Carrington asked.

“As to satisfactory, she is a lump!” declared Minerva with scornful emphasis. “But she did speak of Mr. Kit’s being there, and I know all about it. It seems that little Anne Berkley brought him there with her. As though you didn’t know Mr. Latham! That little witch is a prime favourite of Mr. Latham’s and visits him a great deal; she’s everybody’s favourite, and she would amuse a blind man. And the child is very fond of Miss Dallas, the secretary. So Master Kit gets little Anne to take him there. And he is asked to lunch. And after lunch the party is going driving, with horses, mind you, like their own grandfathers.” Minerva was intensely scornful of this reversion. “Master Kit, the secretary, and the child, Mr. Latham, of course. And Stetson, who was going in case of being needed, is left, and Mr. Kit will be beside Mr. Latham, who likes to drive, but has to be watched and told which way, and all that. And they had a pleasant lunch party, laughing and talking. Mrs. Lumley heard little Anne’s voice a good deal, and they were laughing at her. So that’s as far as any one could tell you who wasn’t one of them. And I’m going to have my luncheon now, Miss Carrington, for chilled cream sauce, which I saw passing through, with cold potatoes, is not desirable. But cold they are, and often will be for me, I suppose, while I do for you.”

“After all, it tells me nothing, except that apparently Kit went there on his own initiative,” said Miss Carrington, rubbing her nose with manifest annoyance. “If the girl had invited him he would not have needed little Anne Berkley’s good offices. If I knew which way they had gone—it’s a good day for a drive.”

“Ah, to be sure; I asked that,” said the thorough Minerva, turning back. “I forgot to tell you. Mrs. Lumley said that little Anne went out to see her after lunch. She is very partial to the child, and Anne never forgets to visit her. She asked Anne where they were driving, and Anne laughed and said: ‛Out to the willow-ware china park.’ Now I ask you if that isn’t exactly like little Anne Berkley? She’s just so nonsensical. Mrs. Lumley says she’s no mortal idea where it can be, but that Mr. Latham and little Anne have all sorts of names for things and people, which they make great secrets. You could easily overtake them in the car, and they poking with horses, if you knew where a ‛willow-ware china park’ might be.”

Miss Carrington smiled.

“No wonder that little Anne and Mr. Latham enjoy each other if they make life as interesting as that!” she mused. “Let me think where it can be. Willow ware—a small bridge—why, of course, Minerva! It’s the park on the west side where they’ve bridged that tiny stream and put up a summer pagoda! Tell Noble to have the car around in ten minutes. I’ll not change my dress. You’ve been out and know what the weather is; get out the coat I need, and bring up that new veil; I left it in the library. Help me dress; first call Noble.”

Miss Carrington hastened upstairs and Minerva went out of the swinging door at the rear, outraged, but muttering:

“It’s as cold now as it can be; I suppose another half-hour won’t matter.”

Within fifteen minutes Miss Carrington was sitting back against the cushions of her car, seeing neither the lovely spring day nor Daniel Noble’s respectable mulberry-coloured back, so occupied was she with her plan.

There were several ways to reach the new park, and on the way thither Miss Carrington did not overtake the carriage for which she was watching. But as her car slowly wound around the pretty though unconvincing mazes of the carefully planned little park, she saw the carriage standing empty, except of a youth, evidently garnered on the spot, who was holding the horses. Three adult figures and a child were standing on the small bridge over the toy stream. It was so ludicrously like the old willow-ware pattern that Miss Carrington smiled at the resemblance, though she was sharply intent upon getting a first impression of the young woman of the group. She saw that the girl was not above medium height, that she was graceful, well-dressed, refined in bearing and gesture. As she raised her bent head and looked straight at the car, Miss Carrington saw a face so sweet, so full of charm that her heart sank.

“Mercy upon us, she’s one of those creatures whose really great prettiness is not equal to their intense femininity; her eyes are beautiful. She’s a permeating creature, and looks as affectionate as good—but not one bit stupid! Oh, poor Kit. That’s a rare type, hard to supplant. I’ve got to see to it that she doesn’t get as far as that,” thought this wise woman.

In the meantime, Miss Carrington was saluting Kit, who recognized her with anything but delight on his tell-tale face, she bade Noble drive on, but slowly. She kept in sight of the movements of the group on the bridge, and timed her return to it by another spur of the road just as the Latham party left it.

“My dear Mr. Latham!” Miss Carrington said, leaning over the side of her car to take the poet’s hand. “I am truly glad to meet you here. I’ve been wishing that I might ask you to come to me, but one fears to be intrusive. I know that the world is pursuing you, as you are retreating from it. I have a find in the book way that I should like to show you.”

“Thank you, Miss Carrington,” said Richard. “You are kind. And you are not to be reckoned one of the world which you imagine is hunting me down; you are my neighbour. I shall be grateful to be allowed to come to see the book, and you.”

He spoke with lovable deference, pitying her as a lonely old woman. Miss Carrington could not hide from his blind eyes and keen intuition that this was what she was.

“Kit, my dear, I am glad to find that you have met Mr. Latham; it was but the other day we were saying that you should know him, if he wouldn’t mind too much being bothered with a lad like you. Little namesake Anne, how do you do, my dear?” Miss Carrington graciously extended her greetings.

“I am quite well, thank you, Miss Carrington. You have two namesakes here now,” said little Anne.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Carrington! May I present to you Miss Dallas? As little Anne says, she is another namesake of yours, an Anne,” said Richard Latham.

“Delighted to meet you, my dear,” said Miss Carrington, graciously, so graciously that Kit’s experience gave him forebodings. “You must be the happy girl of whom I’ve heard, who helps Mr. Latham to enrich us all? And I read your clever explanation of his poem, ‛The Mole.’”

“I am glad that you see me as a happy girl, Miss Carrington. I am completely happy to be doing what I’m doing here,” said Anne Dallas.

“What a lovely voice!” Miss Carrington groaned inwardly. “There is no more dangerous gift!”

“Would it be rank selfishness, Mr. Latham, if I begged this modest girl, who ignores her usefulness to you, and so to us all, to take pity on my friendlessness to-day and go back in the car with me? I am alone. Would you be angry? And will you humour me, Miss Dallas? I drive alone so much that one would expect me to get used to it, but I never do.”

“I’d like to go with you, Miss Carrington,” said Anne Dallas, truthfully. “Solitude in a car is more solitary than a carriage with only one in it. I suppose because the horses are friendly. Mr. Latham doesn’t want me, do you?”

“I don’t need you, Miss Dallas,” Richard Latham smilingly corrected her. “Here is little Anne who will play Casabianca, won’t you, Anne?”

“Do you mean stick? That’s the boy ‛when all but him had fled,’ isn’t it?” asked little Anne. “’Course I will! That’s how I started, and I’d rather stick, if you please.”

“Come, then, Miss Dallas,” said Miss Carrington, and Kit sprang to open the car door, his silence unbroken. “You are also ‛little Anne,’ in comparison with me.”

Anne Dallas jumped into the car and curled down beside Kit’s aunt, surprised, but happy in the friendliness which she was too simple to mistrust. It was with a gloomy face that Kit watched them away, knowing how inadequate to gauge his aunt’s mind Anne Dallas’s honesty was, and fearing mischief from the old lady’s cordiality. He knew perfectly well that in some way his aunt had learned his whereabouts and had come to investigate.

“Now, my dear, tell me how you happen to be in Cleavedge,” said Miss Carrington, turning toward the supple young figure luxuriously nestling beside her. “You are not the sort of girl we are accustomed to here.”

“Don’t condemn me unheard!” laughed Anne, refusing to hear the delicate emphasis that implied a compliment in Miss Carrington’s words; Miss Carrington was sorry to find her able to fence.

“I wanted to do something, and Mr. Latham was kind enough to let me work for him. My home is near New York.”

“Are you alone in the world, such a pretty child as you?” Miss Carrington’s tone expressed sympathy.

“I have a few cousins; no one else,” said Anne. She looked up confidingly into the keen eyes above her. “The war was hard on me. No, not a personal grief; I lost no one, there was no one in it that I dearly loved,” she anticipated Miss Carrington’s question. “But it made me feel that everything I knew wasn’t so, and the bleakness——” She checked herself with a shudder. “But after that I saw that everything that I had known was a thousand times truer than I had thought it was. I suppose everyone went through that experience, but to each of us it was like being born, wasn’t it?”

“Ah!” murmured Miss Carrington, emphatically but discreetly. She had not known this melding with impersonal agony.

“Oh, yes, of course it was what we all felt,” Anne hastily disclaimed difference between herself and the rest of the world. “Then I wanted to do something in this burdened world, even though peace, of a sort, had come.”

“So you help a blind poet? How wonderfully beautiful,” said Miss Carrington, gently. “You are not half known; we all took you for his paid secretary.”

“Oh, so I am, I am!” cried Anne, distressed. “Did I convey anything else? Mr. Latham is not an object of charity. I am in his employ. But—well—I want to do my best for his work, and”—she laughed shyly, but with pretty mischief, that did not hide her pity for Richard—“I am only his eyeglasses, but I don’t want the glasses to pinch, you see?”

“I see,” assented Miss Carrington. “You mean, since someone must serve him in lieu of his lost eyes, you want to see to it that it is someone devoted to him. I still think it is wonderful. How did you hear of him, or he of you?”

“There was an artist here last summer who is Mr. Latham’s closest friend. He is a very good artist——”

“Edwin Wilberforce?” interrupted Miss Carrington. “Decidedly he is. I would not speak so temperately of him; he is a famous and great painter. Did he find you for his friend?”

“He—— Yes,” said Anne. Apparently she was going to say more, but thought better of it. “He told Mr. Latham of me, after he had written me about Mr. Latham, so it was arranged through him that I was to come, and here I am.”

“A most fortunate arrangement,” said Miss Carrington. “I never saw Richard Latham look so alive, so happy, so—— My dear, he is a charming man! I am a selfish woman; people who reach my age through years of solitude are likely to be, but to be so young, with your mind, your heart to devote to a life so highly endowed, yet so denied, is a lot that guardian angels might envy! Richard Latham can never again be pitied, having you.”

Anne straightened herself, her eyes widened with a startled look. She opened her lips to speak, but closed them mutely. Miss Carrington implied everything that she longed to deny, yet left her no opening for denial.

“You are far too kind, Miss Carrington,” Anne said after a moment. “Mr. Latham should not be pitied; he is indeed highly endowed. But as to my help, it is only eyes and hands at his service and these are common possessions.”

“Not stupid, makes no mistakes,” thought Miss Carrington, appraisingly, as she glanced at Anne. “Decidedly I must get Kit away.” Aloud she said: “I was surprised and pleased to find my boy with Mr. Latham. I offered to take Kit to see our poet only the other day. It was satisfactory to find him already with him, even on friendly terms. He is a nice boy; it is not my partiality that says it.”

“He is an uncommonly nice boy,” assented Anne so readily that her frankness left Miss Carrington uncertain whether it were indifference, or the most effectual disguise. “He did not introduce himself to Mr. Latham; little Anne Berkley brought him. Isn’t she a marvellous sprite? I never knew a child like her.”

“She is the other Cleavedge celebrity,” smiled Miss Carrington. “I hope we shall not spoil her. Kit is not a brilliant boy, but he has a good mind, and a still better heart.”

“Which is a better thing to have,” said Anne. “I don’t know him well enough to pronounce, but I should think they were equal in him. Mr. Carrington seems to me one of the rare people who are sane, normal, clever, and kind. He was really beautiful toward Mr. Latham to-day—showed him exactly the right deference combined with frank friendliness. He is just what Mr. Latham likes and needs.”

“Enthusiastic praise, my dear, but Kit deserves it, if you can trust the judgment of one who is to all intents and purposes his mother. I not only dote on him, but I mean to make him a man who will be felt in the world. I expect him to marry a brilliant girl whom he has known for years, who will push his fortunes. I think one of these fine days we shall all be proud of Christopher Carrington.”

Anne looked at her steadily, surprise in her brown eyes. She wondered why this should be told her. She had not known Kit long, but when she saw him the air around her was charged with a feeling that she had avoided analyzing, not admitting to herself that it was there. But now the sense of something that surrounded Kit arose in her memory and insisted on its association with Miss Carrington’s confidence.

“Proud of him by and by?” Anne said. Her colour had deepened, but her eyes were as frank as girls’ eyes can be while they think what must be hidden. “Aren’t you proud of your nephew now, Miss Carrington? I’m sure you are, and that you should be.”

Miss Carrington set Anne Dallas down at Richard Latham’s door. The others had not returned yet. “And Kit will be asked in for tea! Why didn’t I arrange for them to come to me for tea, where I could both watch and ward?” she thought.

She bade Anne an affectionate good-night, begging her to pity an old woman, and come to cheer her loneliness with her pretty ways and face. But when she got home she told Minerva as she removed her coat, that “decidedly she should send at once for Helen Abercrombie to visit her.”

“Well, if you ask me,” said Minerva with asperity, “I would say that when you’ve exposed a film time and again, and not got any impression on it, you may as well put in a fresh roll.”