Anne Read online

  Mrs. Palmer turned her revolving chair away. It was a trifling disappointment, but it hurt her. She was in that strained, feverish mood when trifles hurt sharply. These were mere hucksters of art and humanity. They did not belong to the high pure level on which stood great interpreters of the truth--such, for instance, as George Forbes. The little quake which always passed through her at this man's name was increased by a shiver from the damp wind blowing upon her. She sneezed twice.

  Mrs. Ames stared at her insolently, and turned her back, fearing that she might be asked to put down the window.

  Mr. Corvill was talking about the decoration of the car. "Not bad at all," he said. "There is a great tenderness in the color of that ceiling, and just look at the lines of the chairs! They are full of feeling."

  Mrs. Palmer listened, bewildered. But now they were looking at the landscape. If he found feeling in the legs of a chair, what new meanings would he not discover in that vast stretch of lonely marsh with the narrow black lagoons creeping across it?

  "Nice effect," said Mr. Corvill--"the gamboge on that barn against the green. I find little worth using in the fall this year, however. Too much umber in the coloring."

  Could it be, she thought, that these peo- ple had made a trade of art and humanity until they had lost the perception of their highest meanings? But it could not be so with authors.

  "I should think," continued Corvill, turning to the other man, "you could find materiel for some verses in these flats. Ulalume, or The Land of Dolor. Something in that line. Eh, Forbes?"

  Forbes! Her breath stopped. That fat hunched man with the greasy black whiskers and gaudy chain! Yes, that was his voice; but had it always that tone of vulgar swagger?

  "I've stopped verse-writing," he said. "Poetry's a drug in the market. My infernal publishers shut down on it five years ago."

  He turned, and she then saw his face--the thin hard lips, the calculating eye.

  Was this man "George"? Or had that George ever lived except in her fancy?

  "Mr. Forbes." She rose. The very life in her seemed to stop; her knees shook. But habit is strong. She bowed as she named him, and stood there, smiling, the courteous, thorough-bred old lady whose charm young Tyrrell had recognized. Some power in the pathetic gray eyes brought Forbes to his feet.

  "I think I knew you long ago," she said. "If it is you--?"

  "Forbes is my name, ma'am. Lord bless me! you can't be-- Something familiar in your eyes. You remind me of Judge Sinclair's daughter Fanny."

  "Anne was my name."

  "Anne. To be sure. I knew it was Nanny or Fanny. I ought to remember, for I was spoons on you myself for a week or two. You know you were reckoned the best catch in the county, eh? Sit down, ma'am, sit down; people of our weight aren't built for standing."

  "Is--your wife with you?"

  "You refer to the first Mrs. Forbes--Theresa Stone? I have been married twice since her decease. I am now a widower." He had put his hand to his mouth and coughed, glancing at the crape on his hat. His breath crossed her face. It reeked of heavy feeding and night orgies; for Forbes, though avaricious, had gross appetites.

  Suddenly Job Palmer stood before her, with his fine clear-cut face and reasonable eyes. He knew little outside of his farm perhaps; but how clean was his soul! How he had loved her!

  The car swayed violently from side to side; the lamps went out. "Hello!" shouted Forbes. "Something wrong! I'll get out of this!" rushing to the door. She braced herself against her chair.

  In the outside darkness the rushing of steam was heard, and shrieks of women in mortal agony. A huge weight fell on the car, crushing in the roof. Mrs. Palmer was jammed between two beams, but unhurt. A heavy rain was falling.

  "I shall not be burned to death, at any rate," she thought, and then fortunately became insensible.

  In half an hour she was cut out and laid on the bank, wet and half frozen, but with whole bones. She tried to rise, but could not; every joint ached with rheumatism; her gown was in tatters, the mud was deep under her, and the rain pelted down. She saw the fire burning on her hearth at home, and the easy-chair in front of it, and the Bibles and a Kempis.

  Some men with lanterns came up and bent over her.

  "Great God, mother!" one of them cried. It was James, who had been on the same train, going to New York.

  The next day she was safely laid in her own bed. The fire was burning brightly, and Susy was keeping guard that she might sleep. Jenny had just brought a delicious bowl of soup and fed it to her, and baby had climbed up on the bed to hug her, and fallen asleep there. She held him in her arm. James came in on tiptoe, and bent anxiously over her. She saw them all through her half-shut eyes.

  "My own--flesh of my flesh!" she thought, and thanked God from her soul for the love that held her warm and safe.

  As she dozed, Susy and James bent over her. "Where could she have been going?" said Susy.

  "To New York; no doubt to make a better contract than the one she has with Pierce and Wall--to make a few more dollars for us. Poor dear unselfish soul. Don't worry her with questions, Susy-- don't speak of it."

  "No, I will not, Jim," said Susy, wiping her eyes. "But if she only had taken her chamois jacket!"

  James himself, when his mother was quite well, remarked one day, "We had a famous fellow-traveller in that train to New York-- Forbes, the author."

  "A most disagreeable, underbred person!" said Mrs. Palmer, vehemently. "I would not have you notice such people, James--a mere shopman of literature!"

  Susy married Jasper Tyrrell that winter. They live in the homestead, and Mrs. Palmer has four or five grandchildren about her now, whom she spoils to her heart's content. She still dabbles a little in mining speculations; but since her accident on the cars she is troubled with rheumatism, and leaves the management of the farm and house to Jasper and Susy. She has a quiet, luxurious, happy life, being petted like a baby by all of the Palmers. Yet sometimes in the midst of all this comfort and sunshine a chance note of music or the sound of the restless wind will bring an expression into her eyes which her children do not understand, as if some creature unknown to them looked out of them.

  At such times Mrs. Palmer will think to herself, "Poor Anne!" as of somebody whom she once knew that is dead.

  Is she dead? she feebly wonders; and if she is dead here, will she ever live again?