"I cannot say, mother," replied Hector indifferently, in the act himself
of leaving the room also, determined on yet another attempt to speak to
Annie. In the meantime, however, Annie had found her opportunity. She
had met Mr. Macintosh halfway down the last flight of stairs, and had
lifted to him such a face of entreaty that he listened at once to her
prayer for a private interview, and, turning, led the way up again to
the room he had just left. There he shut the door, and said to her
pleasantly:
"Well, Annie, what is it?"
I am afraid his man-imagination had led him to anticipate some complaint
against Hector: he certainly was nowise prepared for what the poor
self-accusing girl had to say.
For one moment she stood unable to begin; the next she had recovered her
resolution: her face filled with a sudden glow; and ere her master had
time to feel shocked, she was on her knees at his feet, holding up to
him a new pound-note, one of those her mistress had just given her.
Familiar, however, as her master was with the mean-looking things in
which lay almost all his dealings, he did not at first recognize the
object she offered him; while what connection with his wife's
parlor-maid it could represent was naturally inconceivable to him. He
stood for a moment staring at the note, and then dropped a pair of dull,
questioning eyes on the face of the kneeling girl. He was not a man of
quick apprehension, and the situation was appallingly void of helpful
suggestion. To make things yet more perplexing, Annie sobbed as if her
heart would break, and was unable to utter a word. "What must a stranger
imagine," the poor man thought, "to come upon such a tableau?" Her
irrepressible emotion lasted so long that he lost his patience and
turned upon her, saying:
"I must call your mistress; she will know what to do with you!"
Instantly she sprang to her feet, and broke into passionate entreaty.
"Oh, please, _please_, sir, have a minute's patience with me," she
cried; "you never saw me behave so badly before!"
"Certainly not, Annie; I never did. And I hope you will never do so
again," answered her master, with reviving good-nature, and was back in
his first notion, that Hector had said something to her which she
thought rude and did not like to repeat. He had never had a daughter,
and perhaps all the more felt pitiful over the troubled woman-child at
his feet.
But, having once spoken out and conquered the spell upon her, Annie was
able to go on. She became suddenly quiet, and, interrupted only by an
occasional sob, poured out her whole story, if not quite unbrokenly, at
least without actual intermission, while her master stood and listened
without a break in his fixed attention. By-and-by, however, a slow smile
began to dawn on his countenance, which spread and spread until at
length he burst into a laugh, none the less merry that it was low and
evidently restrained lest it should be overheard. Like one suddenly made
ashamed, Annie rose to her feet, but still held out the note to her
master.
How was it possible that her evil deed should provoke her master to a
fit of laughter? It might be easy for him in his goodness to pardon her,
but how could he treat her offense as a thing of no consequence? Was it
not a sin, which, like every other sin, could nowise at all be cleansed?
For even God himself could not blot out the fact that she had done the
deed! And yet, there stood her master laughing! And, what was more
dreadful still, despite the resentment of her conscience, her master's
merriment so far affected herself that she could not repress a
responsive smile! It was no less than indecent, and yet, even in that
answering smile, her misery of six months' duration passed totally away,
melted from her like a mist of the morning, so that she could not even
recall the feeling of her lost unhappiness. But, might not her
conscience be going to sleep? Was it not possible she might be growing
indifferent to right and wrong? Was she not aware in herself that there
were powers of evil about her, seeking to lead her astray, and putting
strange and horrid things in her mind?
But, although he laughed, her master uttered no articulate sound until
she had ended her statement, by which time his amusement had changed to
admiration. Another minute still passed, however, before he knew what
answer to make.
"But, my good girl," he began, "I do not see that you have anything to
blame yourself for--at least, not anything _worth_ blaming yourself
about. After so long a time, the money found was certainly your own, and
you could do what you pleased with it."
"But, sir, I did not wait at all to see how it had happened, or whether
it might not be claimed. I believe, indeed, that I hurried away at once,
lest anyone should know I had it. I ran to spend it at once, so for
whatever happened afterward I was to blame. Then, when it was too late,
I learned that the money was yours!"
"What did you do with it, if I may ask?" said the master.
"I gave it to a school-fellow of mine who had married a helpless sort of
husband and was in want of food."
"I am afraid you did not help them much by that," murmured the banker.
"Please, sir, I knew no other way to help them; and the money seemed to
have been given me for them. I soon came to know better, and have been
sorry ever since. I knew that I had no right to give it away as soon as
I knew whose it was."
She ceased, but still held out the note to him.
Mr. Macintosh stood again silent, and made no movement toward taking it.
"Please, sir, take the money, and forgive me," pleaded Annie. "And
please, sir, _please_ do not say anything about it to anybody. Even
my mother does not know."
"Now there you did wrong. You ought to have told your mother."
"I see that now, sir; but I was so glad to be able to help the poor
creatures that I did not think of it till afterwards."
"I dare say your mother would have been glad of the money herself; I
understand she was not left very well off."
"At that time I did not know she was so poor. But now that my mistress
has paid me such good wages, I am going to take her every penny of them
this very afternoon."
"And then you will tell her, will you not?"
"I shall not mind telling her when you have taken it back. I was afraid
to tell her before! It was to pay you back that I asked Mrs. Macintosh
to take me for parlor-maid."
"Then you were not in service before?"
"No, sir. You see, my mother thought I could earn my bread in a way we
should both like better."
"So now you will give up service and go back to her?"
"I am not sure, sir. It would be long, I fear, before the school would
pay me as well. You see, I have my food here too. And everything tells.
Please, sir, take the pound."
"My dear girl," said her master, "I could not think of depriving you of
what you have so well earned. It is more than enough to me that you want
to repay it. I positively cannot take it."
"Indeed, I do want to repay it, sir," rejoined Annie. "It's anything but
willing I shall be _not_ to repay it. Indeed, there is no other way
to get my soul free."
Here it seems time I should mention that Hector, weary of waiting
Annie's return, had left the dining room to look for her; and running up
the stair, not without the dread of hearing his mother's foot behind
him, had slid softly into his father's room, to find Annie on her knees
before him, and hear enough to understand her story before either his
father or she was aware of his presence.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but indeed you must take it," urged Annie.
"Surely you would not be so cruel to a poor girl who prays you to take
the guilt off her back. Don't you see, sir, I never can look my father
in the face till I have paid the money back!"
Here his father caught sight of Hector, and, perceiving that Annie had
not yet seen him, and possibly glad of a witness, put up his hand to him
to keep still. "Where is your father, then?" he asked Annie.
"In heaven somewhere," she answered, "waiting for my mother and me. Oh,
father!" she broke out, "if only you had been alive you would soon have
got me out of my shame and misery! But, thank God! it will soon be over
now; my master cannot refuse to set me free."
"Certainly I will set you free," said Mr. Macintosh, a good deal
touched. "With all my heart I forgive you the--the--the debt, and I
thank you for bringing me to know the honestest girl--I mean, the most
honorable girl I have ever yet had the pleasure to meet."
Hector had been listening, hardly able to contain his delight, and at
these last words of his father, like the blundering idiot he was, he
rushed forward, and, clasping Annie to his heart, cried out:
"Thank God, Annie, my father at least knows what you are!"
He met with a rough and astounding check. Far too startled to see who it
was that thus embraced her, and unprepared to receive such a salutation,
least of all from one she had hitherto regarded as the very prince of
gentleness and courtesy, she met it with a sound, ringing box on the
ear, which literally staggered Hector, and sent his father into a second
peal of laughter, this time as loud as it was merry, and the next moment
swelled in volume by that of Hector himself.
"Thank you, Annie!" he cried. "I never should have thought you could hit
so hard. But, indeed, I beg your pardon. I forgot myself and you too
when I behaved so badly. But I'm not sorry, father, after all, for that
box on the ear has got me over a difficult task, and compelled me to
speak out at once what has been long in my mind, but which I had not the
courage to say. Annie," he went on, turning to her, and standing humbly
before her, "I have long loved you; if you will do me the honor to marry
me, I am yours the moment you say so."
But Annie's surprise and the hasty act she had committed in the first
impulse of defense had so reacted upon her in a white dismay that she
stood before him speechless and almost ready to drop. Awakening from
what was fast growing a mere dream of offense to the assured
consciousness of another offense almost as flagrant, she stared as if
she had suddenly opened her eyes on a whole Walpurgisnacht of demons and
witches, while Hector, recovering from his astonishment to the lively
delight of having something to pretend at least to forgive Annie, and
yielding to sudden Celtic impulse, knelt at her feet, seized her hand,
which she had no power to withdraw from him, covered it with eager
kisses and placed it on his head. Little more would have made him cast
himself prone before her, lift her foot, and place it on his neck.
But his father brought a little of his common sense to the rescue.
"Tut, Hector!" he said; "give the lass time to come to her senses. Would
you woo her like a raving maniac? I don't, indeed, wonder, after what
you heard her tell me, that you should have taken such a sudden fancy to
her; but--"
"Father," interrupted Hector, "it is no fancy--least of all a sudden
one! I fell in love with Annie the very first time I saw her waiting at
table. It is true I did not understand what had befallen me for some
time; but I do, and I did from the first, and now forever I shall both
love and worship Annie!"
"Mr. Hector," said Annie, "it was too bad of you to listen. I did not
know anyone was there but your father. You were never intended to hear;
and I did not think you would have done such a dishonorable thing. It
was not like you, Mr. Hector!"
How was I to know you had secrets with my father, Annie? Dishonorable
or not, the thing is done, and I am glad of it--especially to have heard
what you had no intention of telling me."
"I could not have believed it of you, Mr. Hector!" persisted Annie.
"But, now that I think of it," suggested Mr. Macintosh, "may not your
mother think she has something to say in the matter between you?"
This was a thought already dawning upon her that terrified Annie; she
knew, indeed, perfectly how his mother would regard Hector's proposal,
and she dared not refer the matter to her decision.
"I must be out of the house first, Mr. Hector," she said--and I think
she meant--"before I confess my love."
The impression Annie had made upon her master may be judged from the
fact that he rose and went, leaving his son and the parlor-maid
together.
What then passed between them I cannot narrate precisely. Overwhelmed by
Hector's avowal, and quite unprepared as she had been for it, it was yet
no unwelcome news to Annie. Indeed, the moment he addressed her, she
knew in her heart that she had been loving him for a long time, though
never acknowledging to herself the fact. Such must often be the case
between two whom God has made for each other. And although he were a
bold man who said that marriages were made in heaven, he were a bolder
who denied that love at first sight was never there decreed. For where
God has fitted persons for each other, what can they do but fall
mutually in love? Who will then dare to say he did not decree that
result? As to what may follow after from their own behavior, I would be
as far from saying that was _not_ decreed as from saying the
conduct itself _was_ decreed. Surely there shall be room left, even
in the counsels of God, for as much liberty as belongs to our being made
in his image--free like him to choose the good and refuse the evil! He
who _has_ chosen the good remains in the law of liberty, free to
choose right again. He who always chooses the right, will at length be
free to choose like God himself, for then shall his will itself be free.
Freedom to choose and freedom of the will are two different conditions.
Before the lovers, which it wanted no moment to make them, left the
room, they had agreed that Annie must at once leave the house. Hector
took her to her mother's door, and when he returned he found that his
father and mother had retired. But it may be well that I should tell a
little more of what had passed between the lovers before they parted.
Annie's first thought when they were left together was, "Alas! what will
my mistress say? She must think the worst possible of me!"
"Oh, Hector!" she broke out, "whatever will your mother think of me?"
"No good, I'm afraid," answered Hector honestly. "But that is hardly
what we have to think of at this precise moment."
"Take back what you said!" cried Annie; "I will promise you never to
think of it again--at least, I will _try_ never once to do so. It
must have been all my fault--though I do not know how, and never dreamed
it was coming. Perhaps I shall find out, when I think over it, where I
was to blame."
"I have no doubt you are capable of inventing a hundred reasons--after
hearing your awful guilty confession to my father, you little innocent!"
answered Hector.
And the ice thus broken, things went on a good deal better, and they
came to talk freely.
"Of course," said Hector, "I am not so silly or so wicked as to try to
persuade you that my mother will open her arms to you. She knows neither
you nor herself."
"Will she be terribly angry?" said Annie, with a foreboding quaver in
her voice.
"Rather, I am afraid," allowed Hector.
"Then don't you think we had better give it up at once?"
"Never forever!" cried Hector. "That is not what I fell in love with you
for! I will not give you up even for Death himself! He is not the ruler
of our world. No lover is worthy of the name who does not defy Death and
all his works!"
"I am not afraid of him, Hector. I, too, am ready to defy him. But is it
right to defy your mother?"
"It is, when she wants one to be false and dishonorable. For herself, I
will try to honor her as much as she leaves possible to me. But my
mother is not my parents."
"Oh, please, Hector, don't quibble. You would make me doubt you!"
"Well, we won't argue about it. Let us wait to hear what _your_
mother will say to it to-morrow, when I come to see you."
"You really will come? How pleased my mother will be!"
"Why, what else should I do? I thought you were just talking of the
honor we owe to our parents! Your mother is mine too."
"I was thinking of yours then."
"Well, I dare say I shall have a talk with _my_ mother first, but
what _your_ mother will think is of far more consequence to me. I
know only too well what my mother will say; but you must not take that
too much to heart. She has always had some girl or other in her mind for
me; but if a man has any rights, surely the strongest of all is the
right to choose for himself the girl to marry--if she will let him."
"Perhaps his mother would choose better."
"Perhaps you do not know, Annie, that I am five-and-twenty years of age:
if I have no right yet to judge for myself, pray when do you suppose I
shall?"
"It's not the right I'm thinking of, but the experience."
"Ah, I see! You want me to fall in love with a score of women first, so
that I may have a chance of choosing. Really, Annie, I had not thought
you would count that a great advantage. For my part, I have never once
been in love but with you, and I confess to a fancy that that might
almost prove a recommendation to you. But I suppose you will at least
allow it desirable that a man should love the girl he marries? If my
preference for you be a mere boyish fancy, as probably my mother is at
this moment trying to persuade my father, at what age do you suppose it
will please God to give me the heart of a man? My mother is sure to
prefer somebody not fit to stand in your dingiest cotton frock. Anybody
but you for my wife is a thing unthinkable. God would never degrade me
to any choice of my mother's! He knows you for the very best woman I
shall ever have the chance of marrying. Shall I tell you the sort of
woman my mother would like me to marry? Oh, I know the sort! First, she
must be tall and handsome, with red, fashionable hair, and cool, offhand
manners. She must never look shy or put out, or as if she did not know
what to say. On the contrary, she must know who's who, and what's what,
and never wear a dowdy bonnet, but always a stunning hat. And she must
have a father who can give her something handsome when she is married.
That's my mother's girl for me. I can't bear to look such a girl in the
face! She makes me ashamed of myself and of her. The sort I want is one
that grows prettier and prettier the more you love and trust her, and
always looks best when she is busiest doing something for somebody. Yes,
she has black hair, black as the night; and you see the whiteness of her
face in the darkest night. And her eyes, they are blue, oh, as blue as
bits of the very sky at midnight! and they shine and flash so--just like
yours, and nobody else's, my darling."
But here they heard footsteps on the stair--those of Mrs. Macintosh,
hurrying up to surprise them. They guessed that her husband had just
left her, and that she was in a wild fury; simultaneously they rose and
fled. Hector would have led the way quietly out by the front door; but
Annie turning the other way to pass through the kitchen, Hector at once
turned and followed her. But he had hardly got up with her before she
was safe in her mother's house, and the door shut behind them. There
Hector bade her goodnight, and, hastening home, found all the lights
out, and heard his father and mother talking in their own room; but what
they said he never knew.
The next morning Annie had hardly done dressing when she heard a knock
at the street-door.
"That'll be Hector, mother," she said. "I'm thinking he'll be come to
have a word with you."
"Annie!" exclaimed her mother, in rebuke of the liberty she took. "But
if you mean young Mr. Macintosh, what on earth can he want with me?"
"Bide a minute, mother," answered Annie, "and he'll tell you himself."
So Mrs. Melville went to the door and opened it to the young man, who
stood there shy and expectant.
"Mrs. Melville," he said, "I have come to tell you that I love your
Annie, and want to make her _my_ Annie as well. I am more sorry
than I can tell you to confess that I am not able to marry at once, but
please wait a little while for me. I shall do my best to take you both
home with me as soon as possible."
She looked for a moment silently in his face, then, throwing her arms
round his neck, answered:
"And I wonder who wouldn't be glad to wait for your sweet face to the
very Day of Judgment, sir, when all must have their own at last."
Therewith she burst into tears, and, turning, led the way to the parlor.
"Here's your Hector, Annie," she said as she opened the door. "Take him,
and make much of him, for I'm sure he deserves it."
Then she drew him hastily into the room, and closed the door.
"You see," Hector went on, "I must let you both know that my mother is
dead against my having Annie. She thinks, of course, that I might do
better; but I know she is only far too good for me, and that I shall be
a fortunate as well as happy man the day we come together. She has
already proved herself as true a woman as ever God made."
"She is that, sir, as I know and can testify, who have known her longer
than anybody else. But sit you down and love each other, and never mind
me; I'll not be a burden to you as long as I can lift a hand to earn my
own bread. And when I'm old and past work, I'll not be too proud to take
whatever you can spare me, and eat it with thankfulness."
So they sat down, and were soon making merry together.
