Chapter 10 No.10

I meant to have frankly confessed my talk with Annie to Miss Darry. No orthodox saint could have been more penitentially conscious of having fallen from grace. But she gave me no time. She was either so animated, so thoroughly agreeable and entertaining, that I felt only pride at the part I held in her, or else she gave premonitory symptoms of a return to the drill, which always suggested to me the absolute need of physical exercise, and ended in a walk or horseback ride,-in her company, of course.

At last I really was so far restored, that my plea of being so much stronger, more at rest, near her, (which was true, for her oral teaching was not unmingled with subtile fascination,) failed to call forth the genial, loving smile. She began to pine for more honors, greater development, more earnest life. Strange! I, the former blacksmith, was a very flower, lulled in the dolce far niente of summer air and sunshine, beside her more vigorous intellectual nature. Sensation and emotion were scarcely expressed by me before they were taken up into the arctic regions of her brain, and looked coldly on their former selves.

I resolved one day, by a grand effort, to leave the next. As I had not seen Annie since the walk with her to Hillside, and had declined Mrs. Lang's offer to invite her to the house that I might see more of her, on the ground of fatigue and occupation in the evening with Miss Darry, it became incumbent upon me to go to the cottage for a farewell.

It looked very quiet, as I approached. The blinds were closed, as in summer, and there was no one in the kitchen.

Hearing footsteps in the sitting-room, however, I entered, and met Miss Dinsmore with her finger on her lips and an agitated expression on her face.

"For mercy's sake, don't come here now, Sandy Allen! You might have done some good by coming before; but now, poor, sweet lamb, she's very sick, and Miss Bray's most distracted. You're the very last person she'd care to see. You'd better go out just the very same quiet way you come in."

"Annie sick? How? where? when?" I asked, breathlessly.

Miss Dinsmore seized me by the shoulder, and pushing me, not too gently, into the kitchen, closed the door, and stood beside me.

"She's got brain-fever. I guess she caught cold the other day, when she went up to Hillside. She a'n't been out since, and she's been wanderin',-somethin' about not wantin' to go into a meader."

"I shall go up and see her," I answered, turning again to the door.

"Indeed you won't, Sandy Allen! You'll set her wilder than ever again."

"I shall go up and see her," I repeated, firmly; and, pushing by Miss Dinsmore, I went up the front stairs to Annie's little room.

There she lay,-her bright, golden hair on the pillow, her eyes closed,-a pale, panting phantom of herself, apparently in a troubled sleep,-her mother, the bustling, gaudily attired woman, as quiet as a little child beside her. She turned her head when she heard me, changed color, and the tears filled her eyes; but it was probably owing to the self-control of this woman, whom I had so looked down upon, that I did not snap the thread of Annie Bray's life that day. With her child on the brink of a precipice, she would make no moan to startle her off. The doctor said her sleep must be unbroken. He, too, sat there; and, obeying Mrs. Bray's quiet motion, I seated myself behind the others. The hours wore on; the October sun went down. None of us moved, but gazed in mute apprehension at the figure of her who, it seemed, could awake only in heaven. This earthly love, so strong, so fierce, in the effort to retain her,-would it prevail? This was the question which chained us there; and when, at eight o'clock, she awoke, I waited until the doctor pronounced his favorable opinion, then, without Annie's having seen me, stole out by the other door and away.

At Hillside, when I entered, pale with suppressed excitement, and told where I had been, Mrs. Lang rose at once.

"I wondered why she missed her lessons, until her brother brought word she was not well. I will send some flowers and white grapes to her at once"; and she would have rung the bell, but Miss Darry prevented her.

"Dear Alice," she said, "white grapes are only water sweetened by a little sunshine, and flowers she is too ill to enjoy. Let me make up a basket. Come down with me, Sandy, to the pantry."

Mechanically I followed her down, watched her moving busily about, and heard her talk, yet could not find a word to utter in reply.

"White grapes are excellent for people who sit down to a luxurious dinner every day, but pale, feeble bodies like little Annie Bray's must recuperate on richer fare,-a bottle of wine, some rich, juicy beef; and the sight of this old working world from the window is worth all the flowers in creation."

She filled her basket, called a servant, and sent him off. Still pale and silent, I neither moved nor spoke.

"What is the matter with you, Sandy?" Miss Darry asked, a half-smothered fear in her voice. "You are not strong enough for such excitement. Come to the drawing-room, and I will play you to sleep with some of those grand old German airs. You shall have Mendelssohn or Von Weber, if you are not in the mood for Beethoven or Chopin," she added, compromising to my nervous weakness.

She led the way, I followed, to the parlor,-only, however, once there, and finding it unoccupied, I led, and she listened.

"No music this evening, Frank, for heaven's sake!" I cried, my voice thick with emotion, as she seated herself at the piano. "I must be truthful with you. I have been a weak fool; and to you, whom I respect and admire so thoroughly, I will confess it. Bear with me awhile longer, then you shall speak," I added, as she rose and came toward me.

"In the first place, since I am a genius," I continued, bitterly, "I ought to have had a clearer vision. I ought to have seen, that, because you were the most fascinating, brilliant woman I had ever dreamed of, the most highly cultured, and planned on the noblest scale,-because you disinterestedly devoted yourself to my improvement, kindled a spark of what you were pleased to call genius, and then gave your own life to fan it into a flame,-I ought to have seen that all this did not necessarily imply that subtile bond and affinity between us which alone should end in marriage. But I did not see. I was touched to the heart by your kindness. I thrilled with pride, when you turned from men of refinement and intellect, to smile cordially, tenderly, upon me. I longed to be a suitable companion for one so superior; and I have worked-honestly, faithfully, have I worked-to become so. But what you grew upon made me languid. I was satiated with study, weary even of my brush. Metaphysics and mystical speculation bewilder a mind too weak to trust itself in their mazes, without the old established guides, the helps to a childlike faith. I was worn out and sick. Then your presence revived me; all the doubts which have since become certainties were thrust aside. I came here; I met Annie Bray; I said some foolish words one day, when we were walking up here, about being worn out and staying where we were forever. They were dishonorable words, for they were due first of all to you; and they have haunted me since like a nightmare. It was Annie herself who reproved and repelled them. To-day I went there with the thought of saying good-bye. I was sure that my feeling for you was firm as a rock; it is only periodically and indefinably, Frank, that it has seemed otherwise; and now I would lay down my life to restrain these words, to be worthy of the love I renounce. Some other and better man must win what I have been too weak to keep. This afternoon has proved to me that I do not belong exclusively to you."

Was I base and unfeeling, or only weak, as I had said? Frank Darry turned away, and walked to the long French window, looking out in the moonlight upon the very spot, perhaps, where I had so passionately declared my love. I could see her tremble with emotion. Yet I dared not speak or go to her. Perhaps five minutes passed,-it might have been an hour,-when, pale, but composed, she came to the sofa, upon which I had thrown myself.

"You love Annie Bray, then, Sandy?" she asked, calmly.

"No," I answered, "I do not love her; but I feel that I have done violence to what might have grown into love between us. I do not intend to see her. I do not wish to ask for what would assuredly not be granted. I desire only to go away, to be alone and quiet."

"You are, indeed, forever rushing to extremes, Sandy," she said, slowly. "We have both done wrong: I, in tempting you, without, of course, a thought of self," she added, proudly, "to set aside this first and strongest interest; and you, in your acceptance of fascination as love. We have done wrong; but you are now right, for you are true. Let me be so also. I consider it no disgrace to my womanhood to admit the pain your avowal gives me, yet I thank you for making it. Remember, Sandy, if a true affection spring up within you, do not crush it from a morbid remembrance of this: it would be a poor revenge for me to desire."

She spoke sadly. I could not reply to her. Such generosity was, indeed, like coals of fire on my head. Say as I might to myself that her strong will had held me spellbound,-reason as I might that it was only because she had developed, made me, as it were, that this motherly, yearning, protecting love had been lavished upon me,-there was still the fact, that this rich, strong nature had given of its best treasure in answer to my passionate pleading, had wasted it on me.

"Frank Darry," I said, "why I do not entirely love what I completely reverence and admire I cannot tell. To live without you seems like drifting through life without aim or guide. I would gladly think that one who suffered through my joy, one far better than I, should yet win what he longed for."

Then only did her paleness vary.

"Sandy, spare me, at least just now, such complete renunciation. Remember, I have not confessed what you have."

She took my hand: it was, I know, burning, while hers was cold as marble. She stooped and kissed my forehead.

"Good night, and good bye, Sandy. The time may come, when, as teacher and pupil, we shall think of each other tenderly."

Where was the passionate avowal I would once have made? Had I learned a lesson? Yes, the most bitter of my life. When I heard her firm foot-step die away in the hall, I crossed to the library, and in a few brief words explained to Mr. and Mrs. Lang that I must leave their house at once, and that our engagement was broken because I alone had proved unworthy. The color mounted to Mr. Lang's brow.

"You are weak, Sandy," he ejaculated, bitterly; "it is what I always feared."

Mrs. Lang, in her gentle, kindly way, tried to soften his anger; but it must have been a hard task with one who, while he pitied sin, scorned weakness; and I did not await the result, but, hurrying to my room, packed my portmanteau and left for the station.

A fortnight later I received from Miss Dinsmore, in reply to my inquiries, a letter giving a most favorable account of Annie Bray's health. This was all I desired. I wrote a few lines of friendly farewell, and, hinting at no period of return, merely explained that I was about to leave for Europe. I restrained my desire to give her some advice as to her pursuits in my absence. Such mentorship, at present, seemed like creating another barrier between us. I assumed no superiority myself, I had no disposition to seek it in others.