Читать книгу The Annes - Marion Ames Taggart - Страница 7

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MISS CARRINGTON was much struck by Minerva’s figure of speech. She pondered it in her room, feeling that it embodied wisdom.

She was so much struck with it that—to carry it further—she turned over in her mind other films, but none of them fitted her camera, or promised her the picture which she wished to take. She knew many pretty girls, several wealthy ones, a few intellectual and well-bred ones, but she knew no other one who united all these qualities, plus her father’s increasing influence to get for Kit a successful career, as did Helen Abercrombie.

She dismissed each candidate as she reviewed her, and sat down to urge upon Miss Abercrombie a speedy repetition of her visit to Cleavedge, with such eloquence that on the fourth day after the note was dispatched Miss Carrington was able to announce to Kit that Helen would be with them within ten days.

Kit received the news with dismay. He knew that all his ingenuity, and he had his full share of skill in getting out of things, would not enable him to escape the curtailment of his freedom entailed by the presence of Helen Abercrombie as a guest in his home.

“The shackles of civilization” is not an empty phrase. Kit foresaw the difficulty with which he should escape the entanglements of courtesy to his aunt and her guest. He knew that he should have all sorts of cobweb footfalls set for him, binding him fast when he would go to catch a glimpse of Anne Dallas. He recognized in himself a desire to see the girl that made it to all intents and purposes a necessity.

“It will be pleasant, Kit, my dear, to have Helen here in the spring,” remarked his aunt. “You will feel that inspiration of the season which Tennyson has embodied for us in lines no less true for being hackneyed. Remember, my boy, that I’ve made my plans for you clear, and that I expect them to be carried out. Helen is a magnificent specimen of the best type of woman that our race has produced; even were she less fortunate in material ways, she would still be a wife upon whom to build a family. There is no reason why you should not be enchanted with the hope of looking at her all your days, and that’s no trifle! It’s a great thing, let me tell you, to know that the person you marry will always be an agreeable object before you at breakfast, as well as at high, hot noon. It is inconceivable that Helen could ever be a careless creature whose hair straggled or whose collars sagged. A boy doesn’t consider these matters which later set a man’s nerves on edge; they do more toward making marriage a failure than the affinity of which novelists talk—though I’m ready to concede that the affinity is likely to attend upon these subtle causes of estrangement. It is as easy to love the right woman as the wrong one, once you set your mind to it, Kit. So set your mind to loving Helen; she is preëminently the right woman for you.”

Kit did not reply. He took his hat and went out of the house in a melancholy mood. He distinctly did not want to marry Helen, and the more his aunt urged the marriage upon him, with the disenchanting hint of her power to punish him for thwarting her, the less he wanted to marry Helen.

“I’m going down to the Berkleys’,” he thought. “They are the happiest, least worldly people I know.”

He found Joan at her mother’s spending the day there with her baby, little Barbara, named for her young grandmother and promising to have Mrs. Berkley’s sunny temperament and unobtrusive philosophy which made her take most things as a point in the game. Mrs. Berkley played her game straight, a generous winner, a good loser.

Kit was so cast down that he was glad to hear Joan’s laugh and her baby’s shout of glee as he entered; they were intensely happy and complete. It was not precisely with regret that he found Anne Dallas with Joan, holding the incense jar while the young mother swung the censer before the leaping, crowing object of their worship. Such wholesome, natural happiness permeated the room that as Kit came into it his spirits rose with a swift reaction from their depression. He said to himself: “I’ll be damned if I will!” with such force that for an instant he feared that he had spoken aloud.

Anne Dallas greeted him pleasantly, without any sign of especial interest in his coming. Joan was more cordial; she liked Kit a great deal, and was so happy that when the baby was on her knee she absent-mindedly caressed all the world, identifying it with Barbara, who was so large a part of it.

Little Anne fell on Kit with vehement welcome. She gave him her hand with such desire in her eyes to give him more that Kit took it, kissing her cheek.

“I’m just as glad as I can be that you came!” declared little Anne. “I’d like to have you come just purp’sly to see me. You didn’t, did you?”

“I came because I was rather down at the heels, in my mind, little Anne, and this is headquarters for getting reshod,” said Kit, smiling on the child, but glancing toward Anne Dallas, “and you’re no small part of the Berkley cheer. I counted on you to brace me up. Some day, if you’ll let me, I’ll come to see you, just you, ask for you, and get shown in to see you. How’s that?”

“Beautiful!” sighed little Anne. “No one ever came to see me like that—not yet.”

“Why should you be cast down, Kit?” asked Joan with her motherly young smile. “I always think of you as the Fortunate Youth, like Harry Warrington.”

“Say, Joan, that’s a better hit than you aimed to make!” cried Kit. “Harry Warrington wasn’t all around fortunate, and when he’d ceased to be a youth he must have been conscious of what he’d missed.”

Joan had a glimmer of a suspicion of the true cause of Kit’s depression; she glanced at Anne Dallas with the light of her suspicion in her eyes, but Anne said unconsciously:

“What nice old fogies you are to be so familiar with your Thackeray! I shouldn’t catch your allusion but that I read ‛The Virginians’ to Mr. Latham quite lately. And I found Thackeray greater, even in that book, than any one else.”

“You’ll be all right, Kit; you need not worry. As long as you see straight it will be all right with you. Harry Warrington was a stupid youth,” said Joan, hedging for safety, being uncertain of her ground.

“I suspect all youths are stupid,” said Kit. “My aunt considers me so. I’ve just had a lecture on The Whole Duty of Man, and it depressed me. The great A stands for autocrat, as well as Anne.”

Little Anne clapped her hands and jumped up and down, crying:

“Great A—your aunt! Little A—me! Bouncing B—that’s Babs; look how she jounces herself up and down! There’s no cat in the cupboard who can’t see, though!”

“There’s a Kit in the cupboard, shut up with the mice!” Kit shouted the words on his explosive laugh. “And the great A certainly thinks he’s blind! Say, little Anne, Mother Goose with Anne sauce isn’t half bad!”

“It’s fine!” little Anne approved him. “Though I don’t exactly understand the joke. We’ve so many Annes in Cleavedge that it’s—do you know what? An Anthology. That’s what Peter-two said. Cleavedge is an Anthology. Peter made that joke; it’s a pun; Peter-two likes puns.”

“You don’t know what that means,” said Kit.

“I do! I do, too!” little Anne flatly contradicted him, taking a running leap that landed her sharp little knees on Kit’s legs and made him wince. “An Anthology’s a book with lots of things collected into it, like poetry, or fairy stories, or—oh, things that you can put together in one book. I do know!”

“You certainly do!” Kit admitted, handsomely. “Anne, sometimes I’m afraid you’re too learned; it’s fearful to be erudite.”

“I don’t know what that is,” said little Anne. “Anthology’s not such a dreadfully long word—multiplication is one count longer and all children say it’s easy! Mother says it’s all what you hear and learn. She says it’s the same about thinking; it’s just’s easy to think about big things as little ones, and good things as bad ones; that’s what she says. She says it’s all what you’re used to. And my mother tells me about big things quite often.”

“She does, I know; you frequently allude to them,” said Kit, abstractedly.

He was looking at the lovely group across the room: the leaping, gurgling baby; the two fair, flushed young women with the same look on their faces, a look that Kit found natural in Joan, but awesome and mysterious in Anne Dallas, a prophecy that quickened his breath.

“I’ve an Anthology,” said little Anne, taking Kit’s face between her palms with no intention of allowing his thoughts to wander from her. “It’s the one Joyce Kilmer made. There’s a poem in it about Michael the Archangel. You can hear it rush, and it shines. We say a prayer after Mass. It begins: ‛St. Michael, the archangel, defend us in battle.’ I love it. When we say it I can just see him on account of that poem. A lady wrote it. Her name is Katharine Tynan, but she’s called Mrs. Hinkson now because she married him. Now listen! I’m going to say two verses for you, the two which make me breathe so hard, and you see if you don’t love, love ’em!

‛His wings he hath put away in steel,

He goes mail-clad from head to heel;

Never moon-silver hath outshone

His breastplate and his morion.

His brows are like a battlement,

Beautiful, brave, and innocent;

His eyes with fires of battle burn—

On his strong mouth the smile is stern.’

“Isn’t that great, great!” Little Anne caught her breath in a sob. “Isn’t he beautiful, and awful? I’m not afraid of him; I’d like to go with him, anywhere.”

“You wouldn’t be afraid of any one who fought for the right, little Anne,” said Kit, somewhat embarrassed by this child’s demands upon him. “And that poem is in Joyce Kilmer’s Anthology? Well, he himself fought for the right.”

“Oh, yes!” Little Anne clasped and unclasped her hands. “He went scouting to find where the dang’rous enemy was hiding, and they found him lying, just as if he was looking over the edge. He was looking for Germans. They were devilish, weren’t they?”

“We thought so, little Anne,” said Kit.

“Well, what do you suppose it felt like?” Anne went on. “I’ve wondered and wondered. It makes me shake. He was looking for Germans, and they shot, and there was God Almighty!”

“Anne!” gasped Kit, honestly shocked.

Little Anne misinterpreted his exclamation. She raised to him her dark eyes burning in her white face; deep hollows were suddenly graven below them.

“Isn’t it?” she whispered. “Just like that! He was looking for devils and there was God! And I think He just said, ‛You nice, brave boy!’ And Joyce Kilmer got right up and ran over to Him. But he left his body looking down over the edge, because they found it there. It makes me cold!”

Anne’s hands were icy as she caught Kit around the neck and hid her face on his shoulder; her body was shaking.

“There, there, little Anne, don’t! I wouldn’t think such things; they aren’t good for you. It’s all over,” Kit said.

He looked appealingly across to Joan and Anne Dallas, who did not heed him; the baby at that moment had captured her mother’s scissors.

Little Anne straightened herself and stared at Kit in amazement.

“Why, of course it’s good for me! It’s very good for my soul to think of it, and I love to feel so cold, and to shake the way that makes me shake! It’s noble shaking; not common scared. If ever I’m a nun I’ll meditate and meditate! You get up in the middle of the night to when you’re a Carmelite, and I think I’ll be Carmelites, they’re the strictest——”

“Anne! Anne Berkley!” Peter’s indignant voice interrupted Anne from upstairs, calling over the banisters.

“Yes, Peter-two,” said little Anne, getting down from Kit’s lap and going serenely toward the door.

“Who let out all the hens? I’ll bet I know!” growled Peter.

“Oh, yes; so do I,” said little Anne. “It was me, Petey, but they didn’t go away. They stayed around; I watched ’em—a while.”

“Yes, a while!” Peter scorned her. “How long? Didn’t father say I had no business to keep hens in town, and I’d have to give ’em up if they annoyed the neighbours? They’re annoying them all right, all right! Over at Davis’s next door scratching up the last lettuce leaf this minute, and all their peas done for! Now dad’ll make me sell ’em, after I’ve bought feed at the price it was all winter, and now it’s spring and the hens were going to pay back some of it! And I was going to set ’em!”

“And have dear little fluffy chicks? I know, Peter dear; you told me,” cried Anne with feeling. “Oh, you don’t think father’ll be so cruel as to stop us?”

“Us! Well, I like your nerve!” Peter’s contempt was beyond his power of expression. “Sure he’ll make me sell ’em. What in the dev—what made you let ’em out? Of all the contemptible tricks! And of all troublesome, meddlesome children! They spoil you, Anne Berkley. You’re a spoiled kid, and I hate to think what’ll become of you.”

“You shouldn’t swear, Peter,” said Anne with the calm dignity of an archbishop. “Of course I’m not spoiled. Do you think my father and mother could? They wouldn’t be seen spoiling me! And the reason I let those hens out, if you want to know, is because one got her head through the wire, and we thought she’d choke to death. Monica was with me. Her eyes just goggled out and her neck got as long! It was fearful! It made us sick to shove her back, but we did. Then we knew if one got choked they all might, so we let ’em out, and I meant to tell you, but I forgot. We watched ’em for goodness knows how long, and they just kept around as harmless! Don’t you worry about father, Peter-two! I’ll tell him how it happened, and he’ll understand. He’ll buy the Davises some more lettuce and peas and things. I’ll get him to let you keep the hens, Peter-two; don’t you worry!”

“And you’re not spoiled! Oh, no. Not a-tall!” growled Peter, returning to his room to prepare for the merry sport of driving his hens out of a neighbour’s garden. The worst of it to Peter’s mind was that he knew that Anne would be able to do precisely as she promised, that her explanation would mollify, if not amuse, his father, and that Peter would keep his hens through her intercession. The thought infuriated him. He turned back to the stairway and called down:

“You get a move on you and come help me head those hens, or they’ll go down to the city hall and dig out the statue of old Carrington on the mall!”

“Oh, Peter-two, take care! That’s Kit’s great-grandfather, or somebody, and he’s here!” remonstrated Anne in a shocked voice, as one always right.

Anne Dallas and Joan managed to have their faces hidden in the baby’s preparations for departure when little Anne came back, but Kit was caught in throes of laughter. He was waiting to walk home with Anne Dallas.

“I hope you don’t mind, Kit?” little Anne said, anxiously. “Peter-two wasn’t hitting at your great-grandfather’s statue, or whoever he is; he meant me and the hens. I’m sorry mother wasn’t home, but I did enjoy your call, Mr. Carrington.” She gave Kit her hand with the air of a fine lady.

Anne Dallas and Kit turned down the street in the May sunshine, with constraint between them that both found difficult to break up.

They discussed little Anne till there was no more to say, even on this fruitful subject, and they talked of Mr. Latham, a theme to which Anne rose with animation.

“My aunt was telling me something that you said to her which I could not understand,” said Kit. “You told her the war had hit you hard, and you seemed to connect that with your work for Latham. I was curious as to where the connection could be. Do you mind my asking? Is it a secret?”

“No, it’s harder to explain than secrets are,” smiled Anne. “It’s not connected, except as I make it so. You see, Mr. Carrington, I have a wee income, but I could make it suffice for my living—that is if I lived so that it would suffice! I doubt you’d think I could. I suppose I’d have gone on living on it, for I’m not an ambitious person; I’m naturally inclined to ignoble content with little ways and little days! But when the war came I—well, as you put it, I was hard hit! It wasn’t as if I were grief-stricken. I had no one in it. But it was as if I had everyone out of it! I mean it took the heart of the things which were most important. I was too young to keep my balance. I got it back, or a new one that I hope, I know, will stand a strain when it comes. When my confusion of mind was set straight, then I knew that I must not sit down in sloth all my life, calling it pretty, misleading names, like ‛contentment,’ ‛humility,’ anything lulling. I made up my mind to use any slight ability that I had and try to——” She hesitated.

“Help,” Kit said, softly.

“Well, at least not grow inward,” Anne admitted. “That’s all. I couldn’t explain all this to Miss Carrington. It does sound silly, but that’s only because I’m not able to do important work. It wouldn’t sound foolish if I were going to—what was it that little Anne was saying to you? Be a Carmelite? Something like that, you know.”

She looked up at Kit with her brown eyes shy and abashed, but he did not seem to consider her silly.

“To be eyes to the blind, to help a poet write what Mr. Latham writes—or I hear that he does; I don’t honestly know much about it yet—seems to me pretty fine,” he said. “Aunt Anne told me that the painter, Wilberforce, got you to undertake Latham.”

“Yes,” Anne assented. “Now, Mr. Carrington, why were you so blue when you came this afternoon? Do you want to ‛trade,’ as children say? I told you my secret.”

“Oh, how can I?” Kit blushed to his hair. “All that I could tell you would sound like a spoiled, selfish kid! Aunt Anne has a guest coming, a young lady, and I’ve got to see it through, and I hate it! That’s about all.” Kit checked the violence with which he had brought out the word “hate,” and ended with a modification of the truth.

“Ah?” Anne raised her eyebrows. She thought that she saw more than Kit said, remembering what Miss Carrington had hinted of Kit’s prospects for marriage.

“But that ought not to be tragic!” Anne continued with a laugh. “It does sound like a boy who had had too much his own way! The only thing for you to do is to make the guest’s way your way. When you are both young that surely is easy to do! Is she pretty?”

“No, she isn’t! She’s a beauty,” grumbled Kit with such an effect of this being the unpardonable sin that Anne laughed outright. “And her way can’t be my way. That’s what Aunt Anne wants me to do: make our way parallel. I won’t! Don’t you give me the same advice!”

“I should not dream of giving you advice, Mr. Carrington,” said Anne with a funny, mischievous little look that further infuriated Kit. “Why should I? Nor shall I let you imply complaint of that doting old lady who is plainly wrapped up in her one affection—you! I’ve no doubt that she knows what’s good for you. Good-bye. And pray don’t gloom at your guest as you’re frowning on me now, for she won’t be out of doors where she can run if she gets too frightened. Fancy being shut up in the house with such an ogre as you look this minute!”

Anne put out her hand with a friendly smile, and Kit abandoned his intention to resent her making game of him.

He smiled at her instead, and joined in her laughter.

“Good-bye,” he said. “I’m coming around to talk to Mr. Latham. I need literature.”