A Puritan Bohemia/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
Howard Stanton stood by his window in the early morning, looking for the first flakes of the first snow-storm. Outside the dull air waited and listened. A postman passed down the street, the blue of his uniform breaking the dingy red of the houses opposite. He walked swiftly. Few letters came to Wiggin Avenue.
As Howard gazed he was conscious for the first time of how many mornings he had stood there, waiting, like a girl, for a letter. This quickening of the pulses at the sight of the postman was not new. It was as old as that familiar, vague expectation of help somewhere from outside. There was nothing in the world that he wanted except that impossible letter from Anne, telling him that she had relented.
"I must be a hopeless idiot," he said, thrusting his hands into his pockets. He walked up and down the room, whistling dismally.
Two months in this little den, with its dirty walls, its rough, splintering woodwork, and the abominable folding-bed with its green canton-flannel curtain; a lecture a week to workingmen; long hours of toil over his frescoes; and those indescribable dinners that drove him night after night to dine at a down-town hotel in order not to lose his identity,—
"And what in the mischief does it all amount to," demanded the young giant of himself fiercely. Then he ran into the corner of the great red plush chair that faced the great purple plush chair. It was the corner that he usually ran into.
"The way of reformers is hard," he said, sitting down in the purple chair with a groan.
Mrs. Orr came in to make up the folding-bed. She was a dishevelled little woman in a limp, ash-coloured wrapper. As she worked, she talked rapidly of the wrongs she suffered at the hands of her customers.
"I suppose," thought Howard, watching her as she folded up the coverlet, "that in order to be consistent I ought to do that. What right have I to ask people to do things for me that I wouldn't do myself?"
But he conversed cheerfully, even while Mrs. Orr rearranged his canvases, placing one picture where its corner poked into another. Presently she went away, sending Annabel in to dust.
Annabel paused by the cheap little book-case.
"I like to read," she said suggestively, trailing her dust-cloth into some water that had overflowed from a vase, and dragging it over a new copy of La Farge's lectures on art. "I'm awful fond of books."
"Are you?" said the young man, coming out of a fit of abstraction. "Oh see here, Annabel, don't do that. Books oughtn't to be mopped, you know. What do you like to read?"
"Everything." Annabel's eyes began to shine, and she seated herself for a conversation.
"I like Shakespere best," she said.
"What do you like best in Shakespere?"
The child wriggled in her seat, looking slightly nonplussed.
"I've been in Shakespere's house," she said evasively.
"Where is it?" demanded the inquisitor.
"I've forgotten the name," said Annabel, yawning.
"Tell me what parts of Shakespere you like best."
"The poems, all of 'em," said Annabel boldly.
"Oh!" exclaimed Mr. Stanton.
"And," continued Annabel after a moment's consideration, "I like Lady Clara Vere de Vere best of all."
The child was hurt by the laugh that followed.
"Did you ever read 'The Children of the Abbey'?" she asked reprovingly.
"No."
"That's lovely," said Annabel with the air of a hardened littérateur. "Wouldn't you like to have me read you some after I've washed my dishes?"
"Certainly," said the artist.
Annabel went away. Mr. Stanton took out his notebook to examine his last sketches. There was something the matter with Wisdom, the figure for which Annabel had posed in a long red table-cloth. She had stood upon the kitchen table for it, and had tumbled, hurting her arm. He touched the drawing with a pencil, then threw the notebook away. He could not work this morning.
Standing again at the window he looked out at the fast-falling flakes of snow. The old restlessness was strong upon him. Something denied had kept him from ever feeling at home in the world.
Just now he did not care whether the poor were helped or not. He did not care about his work. One thing he wanted, and one only. That was to touch the soft, brown hair parted over Anne's forehead.
How many times, in how many places, he had lived this mood over! In the old Paris days he had sought relief in walking,—through the Bois de Boulogne, in the Versailles Gardens, down the Avenues des Champs Élysées toward the setting sun, anywhere, everywhere. He had walked by river and wood, but Anne had not been there.
Then the passion had relented. New interests softened the old grievance. Would this be true again?
Annabel came back with her book. It was a tattered copy of the old novel. She proudly accepted Mr. Stanton's invitation to sit down in the red chair. Her apron was very clean; her face bore traces of recent scrubbing.
"Did you ever see a Unitarian, Mr. Stanton?" she asked, thinking that some general remarks would be appropriate.
"Yes."
"I never did," said Annabel in a lowered voice. "They're awful, ain't they? They don't believe into a God, or a heaven, or a hell, or angels, or devils, or nothin'. But they worship idols, they do!"
Then she opened her book. Carefully picking her way among the big words, she read bits of her favourite scenes:
"‘The pale and varied blush which mantled the cheek of Amanda at once announced itself to be an involuntary suffusion, and her dress was only remarkable for its simplicity; she wore a plain robe of dimity, and an abbey cap of thin muslin that shaded, without concealing, her face, and gave to it the soft expression of a Madonna; her beautiful hair fell in long ringlets down her back, and curled upon her forehead.
"‘"Good heaven!" cried Mortimer, "how has your idea dwelt upon my mind since last night: if in the morning I was charmed, in the evening I was enraptured."
Annabel paused. An idea had struck her.
"I think Amanda looked like Miss Wistar, don't you?"
"I guess so," said the artist moodily.
"I like Miss Wistar best, don't you?
I mean, except you. I like you best of all."
The child fingered over the leaves, and began again:
"‘Lord Mortimer received the lovely trembler in his arms. He softly called her his Amanda, the beloved of his soul, and she began to revive.’"
"Isn't that a queer book for a little girl?" asked the listener.
"My mamma said it was a little girls' book. It's 'The Children,' you know, 'of the Abbey.'
"‘Lord Mortimer trembled universally, and was obliged to have recourse to his handkerchief.’"
A sleepy laugh came from Mr. Stanton's chair. Sad thoughts and the falling snow and Annabel's droning voice were soothing him to rest. Annabel turned back to the first part of the book:
"‘Lord Mortimer was now in the glowing prime of life: his person was strikingly elegant, and his manners insinuatingly pleasing; seducing sweetness dwelt in his smile, and, as he pleased, his expressive eyes could sparkle with intelligence, or beam with sensibility; and to the eloquence of his language the harmony of his voice imparted a charm that seldom failed of being irresistible.’"
Annabel looked over at the crumpled hair, flushed cheeks, and slightly opened mouth of the artist.
"That's like him!" said Annabel. "Ain't it nice?"
For to Annabel had come that joy of the born artist when life plays for him the first time the drama he has cared most for in books.