But now a third something happened which brought with it hope, for it
suggested a way of deliverance. Impelled by the same power that causes a
murderer to haunt the scene of his violence, she left the house, and was
unaware whither she was directing her steps until she found herself
again passing the door of the banker's house; there, in that same
kitchen-window, on a level with the pavement, she espied, in large
pen-drawn print, the production apparently of the cook or another of the
servants, the announcement that a parlor-maid was wanted immediately.
Again without waiting to think, and only afterwards waking up to the
fact and meaning of what she had done, she turned, went back to the
entry-door, and knocked. It was almost suddenly opened by the cook, and
at once the storm of her misery was assuaged in a rising moon of hope,
and the night became light about her. Ah, through what miseries are not
even frail hopes our best and safest, our only _true_ guides
indeed, into other and yet fairer hopes!
"Did you want to see the mistress?" asked the jolly-faced cook, where
she stood on the other side of the threshold; and, without waiting an
answer, she turned and led the way to the parlor. Annie followed, as if
across the foundation of the fallen wall of Jericho; and found, to her
surprise, that Mrs. Macintosh, knowing her by sight, received her with
condescension, and Annie, grateful for the good-humor which she took for
kindness, told her simply that she had come to see whether she would
accept her services as parlor-maid.
Mrs. Macintosh seemed surprised at the proposal, and asked her the
natural question whether she had ever occupied a similar situation.
Annie answered she had not, but that at home, while her father was
alive, she had done so much of the same sort that she believed she could
speedily learn all that was necessary.
"I thought someone told me," said the lady, who was one of the greatest
gossips in the town, "that you were one of the teachers in the High
School?"
"That is true," answered Annie; "I was doing so upon probation; but I
had not yet begun to receive any salary for it. I was only a sort of
apprentice to the work, and under no engagement."
Mrs. Macintosh, after regarding Annie for some time, and taking silent
observation of her modesty and good-breeding, said at last:
"I like the look of you, Miss--, Miss----"
"My name is Annie Melville."
"Well, Annie, I confess I do not indeed _see_ anything particularly
unsuitable in you, but at the same time I cannot help fearing you may
be--or, I should say rather, may imagine yourself--superior to what may
be required of you."
"Oh, no, ma'am!" answered Annie; "I assure you I am too poor to think of
any such thing! Indeed, I am so anxious to make money at once that, if
you would consent to give me a trial, I should be ready to come to you
this very evening."
"You will have no wages before the end of your six months."
"I understand, ma'am."
"It is a risk to take you without a character."
"I am very sorry, ma'am; but I have no one that can vouch for
me--except, indeed, Mrs. Slater, of the High School, would say a word in
my favor."
"Well, well!" answered Mrs. Macintosh, "I am so far pleased with you
that I do not think I can be making a _great_ mistake if I merely
give you a trial. You may come to-night, if you like--that is, with your
mother's permission."
Annie ran home greatly relieved, and told her mother what a piece of
good-fortune she had had. Mrs. Melville did not at all take to the idea
at first, for she cherished undefined expections for Annie, and knew
that her father had done so also, for the girl was always reading, and
had been for years in the habit of reading aloud to him, making now and
then a remark that showed she understood well what she read. So the
mother took comfort in her disappointment that her child had, solely for
her sake, she supposed, betaken herself to such service as would at once
secure her livelihood and bring her in a little money, for, with the
shadow of coming want growing black above them, even her first
half-year's wages was a point of hope and expectation.
"Well, Annie," she answered, after a few moments' consideration, "it is
but for a time; and you will be able to give up the place as soon as you
please, and the easier that she only takes you on trial; that will hold
for you as well as for her."
But nothing was farther from Annie's intention than finding the place
would not suit her: no change could she dream of before at least she had
a pound-note in her hand, when at once she would make it clear to her
mother what a terrible scare had driven her to the sudden step she had
taken. Until then she must go about with her whole head sick and her
whole heart faint; neither could she for many weeks rid herself of the
haunting notion that the banker, who was chiefly affected by her
crime,--for as such she fully believed and regarded her deed,--was fully
aware of her guilt. It seemed to her, when at any moment he happened
to look at her, that now at last he must be on the point of letting her
know that he had read the truth in her guilty looks, and she constantly
fancied him saying to himself, "That is the girl who stole my money;
she feels my eyes upon her." Every time she came home from an errand
she would imagine her master looking from the window of his private
room on the first floor, in readiness to cast aside forbearance and
denounce her: he was only waiting to make himself one shade surer!
Ah, how long was the time she had to await her cleansing, the moment
when she could go to him and say, "I have wronged, I have robbed you;
here is all I can do to show my repentance. All this time I have been
but waiting for my wages, to repay what I had taken from you." And,
oddly enough, she was always mixing herself up with the man in the
parable, who had received from his master a pound to trade with and make
more; from her dreams she would wake in terror at the sound of that
master's voice, ordering the pound to be taken from her and given to the
school-fellow whom, at the cost of her own honesty, she had befriended.
Oh, joyous day when the doom should be lifted from her, and she set
free, to dream no more! For surely, when at length her master knew all,
with the depth of her sorrow and repentance, he could not refuse his
forgiveness! Would he not even, she dared to hope, remit the interest
due on his money?--of which she entertained, in her ignorance, a
usurious and preposterous idea.
The days went on, and the hour of her deliverance drew nigh. But, long
before it came, two other processes had been slowly arriving at
maturity. She had been gaining the confidence of her mistress, so that,
ere three months were over, the arrangement of all minor matters of
housekeeping was entirely in her hands. It may be that Mrs. Macintosh
was not a little lazy, nor sorry to leave aside whatever did not
positively demand her personal attention; one thing I am sure of, that
Annie never made the smallest attempt to gain this favor, if such it
was. Her mistress would, for instance, keep losing the keys of the
cellaret, until in despair she at last yielded them entirely to the care
of Annie, who thereafter carried them in her pocket, where they were
always at hand when wanted.
The other result was equally natural, but of greater importance; Hector,
the only child of the house, was gradually and, for a long time,
unconsciously falling in love with Annie. Those friends of the family
who liked Annie, and felt the charm of her manners and simplicity, said
only that his mother had herself to blame, for what else could she
expect? Others of them, regarding her from the same point of view as her
mistress, repudiated the notion as absurd, saying Hector was not the man
to degrade himself! He was incapable of such a misalliance.
But, as I have said already, Hector, although he had never yet been in
love, was yet more than usually ready to fall in love, as belongs to the
poetic temperament, when the fit person should appear. As to what sort
she might prove depended on two facts in Hector--one, that he was
fastidious in the best meaning of the word, and the other that he was
dominated by sound good sense; a fact which even his father allowed,
although with a grudge, seeing he had hitherto manifested no devotion to
business, but spent his free time in literary pursuits. Of the special
nature of those pursuits his father knew, or cared to know, nothing; and
as to his mother, she had not even a favorite hymn.
I may say, then, that the love of womankind, which in solution, so to
speak, pervaded every atomic interstice of the nature of Hector, had
gradually, indeed, but yet rapidly, concentrated and crystallized around
the idea of Annie--the more homogeneously and absorbingly that she was
the first who had so moved him. It was, indeed, in the case of each a
first love, although in the case of neither love at first sight.
Almost from the hour when first Annie entered the family, Hector had
looked on her with eyes of interest; but, for a time, she had gone about
the house with a sense almost of being there upon false pretenses, for
she knew that she was doing what she did from no regard to any of its
members, but only to gain the money whose payment would relieve her from
an ever-present consciousness of guilt; and for this cause, if for no
other, she was not in danger of falling in love with Hector. She was,
indeed, too full of veneration for her master and mistress, and for
their son so immeasurably above her, to let her thoughts rest upon him
in any but a distantly worshipful fashion.
But it was part of her duty, which was not over well-defined in the
house, to see that her young master's room was kept tidy and properly
dusted; and in attending to this it was unavoidable that she should come
upon indications of the way in which he spent his leisure hours. Never
dreaming, indeed, that a servant might recognize at a glance what his
father and mother did not care to know, Hector was never at any pains to
conceal, or even to lay aside the lines yet wet from his pen when he
left the room; and Annie could not help seeing them, or knowing what
they were. Like many another Scotch lassie, she was fonder of reading
than of anything else; and in her father's house she had had the free
use of what books were in it; nor is it, then, to be wondered at that
she was far more familiar with certain great books than was ever many an
Oxford man. Some never read what they have no desire to assimilate; and
some read what no expenditure of reading could ever make them able to
appropriate; but Annie read, understood, and re-read the "Paradise
Lost"; knew intimately "Comus" as well; delighted in "Lycidas," and had
some of Milton's sonnets by heart; while for the Hymn on the Nativity,
she knew every line, had studied every turn and phrase in it. It is
sometimes a great advantage not to have many books, and so never outgrow
the sense of mystery that hovers about even an open book-case; it was
with awe and reverence that Annie, looking around Hector's room, saw in
it, not daring to touch them, books she had heard of, but never
seen--among others a Shakspere in one thick volume lay open on his
table; nor is it, then, surprising that, when putting his papers
straight, she could not help seeing from the different lengths of the
lines upon them that they were verse. She trembled and glowed at the
very sight of them, for she had in herself the instinct of sacred
numbers, and in her soul felt a vague hunger after what might be
contained in those loose papers--into which she did not even peep,
instinctively knowing it dishonorable. She trembled yet more at
recognizing the beautiful youth in the same house with her, to whom she
did service, as himself one of those gifted creatures whom most she
revered--a poet, perhaps another such as Milton! Neither are all ladies,
nor all servants of ladies, honorable like Annie, or fit as she to be
left alone with a man's papers.
Hector knew very well how his mother would regard such an alliance as
had now begun to absorb every desire and thought of his heart, and was
the more careful to watch and repress every sign of the same, foreseeing
that, at the least suspicion of the fact, she would lay all the blame
upon Annie, at once dismiss her from the house, and remain forever
convinced that she had entered it with the design in her heart to make
him fall in love with her. He therefore avoided ever addressing her,
except with a distant civility, the easier to him that his mind was
known only to himself, while all the time the consciousness of her
presence in it enveloped the house in a rosy cloud. For a long time he
did not even dream of attempting a word with her alone, fondly imagining
that thus he gave his mother time to know and love Annie before
discovering anything between them to which she might object. But he did
not yet know how incapable that mother was of any simple affection,
being, indeed, one of the commonest-minded of women. He believed also
that the least attempt to attract Annie's attention would but scare her,
and make her incapable of listening to what he might try to say.
In the meantime, Annie, under the influence of more and better food, and
that freedom from care which came of the consciousness that she was doing
her best both for her mother and for her own moral emancipation, looked
sweeter and grew happier every day; no cloudy sense, no doubt of
approaching danger had yet begun to heave an ugly shoulder above her
horizon, neither had Hector begun to fret against the feeling that he
must not speak to her; in such a silence and in such a presence he felt
he could live happy for ages; he moved in a lovely dream of still
content.
And it was natural also that he should begin to burgeon spiritually and
mentally, to grow and flourish beyond any experience in the past. Within
a few such days of hidden happiness, the power of verse, and of thoughts
worthy of verse, came upon him with as sure an inspiration of the
Almighty as can ever descend upon a man, accompanied by a deeper sense
of the being and the presence of God, and a stronger desire to do the
will of the Father, which is surely the best thing God himself can
kindle in the heart of any man. For what good is there in creation but
the possibility of being yet further created? And what else is growth
but more of the will of God?
Something fresh began to stir in his mind; even as in the spring, away
in far depths of beginning, the sap gives its first upward throb in the
tree, and the first bud, as yet invisible, begins to jerk itself forward
to break from the cerements of ante-natal quiescence, and become a
growing leaf, so a something in Hector that was his very life and soul
began to yield to unseen creative impulse, and throb with a dim, divine
consciousness. The second evening after thus recognizing its presence he
hurried up the stair from the office to his own room, and there, sitting
down, began to write--not a sonnet to his charmer, neither any dream
about her, not even some sweet song of the waking spring which he felt
moving within him, but the first speech of a dramatic poem. It was a
bold beginning, but all beginners are daring, if not presumptuous.
Hector's aim was to embody an ideal of check, of rousing, of revival, of
new energy and fresh start. All that evening he wrote with running pen,
forgot the dinner-bell after its first summons, and went on until Annie
knocked at his door, dispatched to summon him to the meal. There was in
Hector, indeed, as a small part of the world came by-and-by to know, the
making of a real poet, for such there are in the world at all
times--yea, even now--although they may not be recognized, or even
intended to ripen in the course of one human season. I think Annie
herself was one of such--so full was she of receptive and responsive
faculty in the same kind, and I remain in doubt whether the genuine
enjoyment of verse be not a fuller sign of the presence of what is most
valuable in it than even some power of producing it. For Hector, I
imagine, it gave strong proof of his being a poet indeed that, when he
opened the door to her knock, the appearance of Annie herself, instead
of giving him a thrill of pleasure, occasioned him a little annoyance by
the evanishment of a just culminating train of thought into the vast
and seething void, into which he gazed after it in vain. And Annie
herself, although all the time in Hector's thought, revealed herself
only, after the custom of celestials, at the very moment of her
disappearance; her message delivered, she went back to her duties at the
table; and then first Hector woke to the knowledge that she had been at
his door, and was there no more. During the last few days he had been
gradually approaching the resolve to keep silence no longer, but be bold
and tell Annie how full his heart was of her. One moment he might have
done so; one moment more, and he could not!
He followed close upon her steps, but not a word with her was possible,
and it seemed to Hector that she sped from him like a very wraith to
avoid his addressing her. Had she, then, he asked himself, some dim
suspicion of his feelings toward her, or was she but making haste from a
sense of propriety?
Now that very morning Mrs. Macintosh had been talking kindly to
Annie--as kindly, that is, as her abominable condescension would
permit--and, what to Annie was of far greater consequence, had paid her
her wages, rather more than she had expected, so that nothing now lay
between her and the fall of her burden from her heavy-laden conscience,
except, indeed, her preliminary confession. Dinner, therefore, being
over, her mistress gone to the drawing room to prepare the coffee, and
her master to his room to write a letter suddenly remembered, Hector was
left alone with Annie. Whereupon followed an amusing succession of
disconnected attempt and frustration. For no sooner had Mr. Macintosh
left the room than Annie darted from it after him, and Hector darted
after Annie, determined at length to speak to her. When Annie, however,
reached the foot of the stair, her master was already up the first
flight, and Annie's courage failing her, she, turning sharply round,
almost ran against Hector, who was close behind her. The look of
disappointment on her face, to the meaning of which he had no clew,
quenching his courage next, he returned in silence to the dining room,
where Annie was now hovering aimlessly about the table, until, upon his
re-entrance, she settled herself behind Hector's chair. He turned
half-round, and would have said something to her, but, seeing her pale
and troubled, he lapsed into a fit of brooding, and no longer dared
speak to her. Besides, his mother might come to the dining room at any
moment!
Then Annie, thinking she heard her master's re-descending step, hurried
again from the room; but only at once to return afresh, which set Hector
wondering yet more. Why on earth should she be lying in ambush for his
father? He did not know that she was equally anxious to avoid the eyes
of her mistress. And while Annie was anxious to keep her secret from the
tongue of Mrs. Macintosh, Hector was as anxious to keep his from the
eyes of his mother until a fit moment should arrive for its disclosure.
But he imagined, I believe, that Annie saw he wanted to speak to her,
and thought she was doing what she could to balk his intention.
But the necessity for disclosure was strongest in Annie, and drove her
to encounter what risk might be involved. So when at last she heard a
certain step of the stair creak, she darted to the door, and left the
room even while the hand of her mistress, coming to say the coffee was
ready, was on that which communicated with the drawing room.
"I thought I heard Annie at the sideboard: is she gone?" she said.
"She left the room this moment, I believe," answered Hector.
"What is she gone for?"
