Marie-Anne

“ He believed, and Maurice hoped, that twenty-four hours of rest would restore Marie-Anne.
They were mistaken. The very springs of life in her existence seemed to have been drained dry. She did not appear to suffer, but she remained in a death-like torpor, from which nothing could arouse her. They spoke to her but she made no response. Did she hear? did she comprehend? It was extremely doubtful.
By rare good fortune the mother of the proprietor proved to be a good, kind-hearted old woman, who would not leave the bedside of Marie-Anne—of Mme. ”

“ Mme. Blanche soon discovered this. One day, early in September, she interrupted him as he began the same old story, and, looking him steadfastly in the eye, she said:
“Either you are betraying me, or you are a fool. Yesterday Martial and Marie-Anne spent a quarter of an hour together at the Croix d’Arcy.”
CHAPTER XLIV
The old physician at Vigano, who had come to Marie-Anne’s aid, was an honorable man. His intellect was of a superior order, and his heart was equal to his intelligence. He knew life; he had loved and suffered, and he possessed two sublime virtues—forbearance and charity. ”

“ She had no one with whom to talk.
Over in a corner of the room, her knitting in her lap, Anne Marie’s grandmother, called Grand’mère, napped and woke and napped again. On the mantel-shelf the white marble clock, upon which rode a bright gilt horse and horseman who went nowhere, Anne Marie knew, ticked, ticked, ticked solemnly in the quiet room.
Downstairs in the Bakery, which was owned by Anne Marie’s father, sat Anne Marie’s mother in a gay little golden cage from which she gave change to the customers who filed past her with packages of rolls or cakes or pastries or tarts in their arms. ”

“ Our love for each other has made us understand. But neither of us understands Marie-Louise. I sent her away to school, but she wouldn't stay. She likes her home and she hates rules. She loves animals, and if she were a boy she would practice medicine. Being a woman and having no outlet for her energies, she is freakish. You saw the way she was dressed at dinner."
"I liked it," Richard said; "all that dead silver with her red hair."
"But it is too—sophisticated, for a young girl. Why, man, she ought to be in white frocks and pearls, and putting cushions behind her mother's back." ”

“ Now what rhymes with dear?"
"Play," said Anne-Marie.
"No; do think a little, sweetheart. With dear!—dear?"
"Vegetables?" asked Anne-Marie, who had spent many hours in Frau Schmidl's kitchen.
Nancy groaned. "Dear!" she repeated again.
"Darling!" cried Anne-Marie triumphantly, and was lifted up and embraced.
"I wish you were a poet, Anne-Marie!" said her mother, pushing the fair locks from the child's level brow.
"What for?" said Anne-Marie, wriggling.
"Poets never die," said Nancy, thus placing a picture in the fairy-tale book. ”

“ When at last Anne had read all that he had written Marie-Louise said, importantly, "Anne is the heroine, the Princess who serves. Will you ever make me the heroine of a book, Geoffrey Fox?"
"Perhaps. Give me a plot?"
"Have a girl who loves a marble god—then some day she meets a man—and the god is afraid he will lose her, so he wakes to life and says, 'If you love [322] this man, you will have to accept the common lot of women, you will have to work for him and obey him—and some day he will die and your soul will be rent with sorrow. ”

“ Yet she had spoken of Nancy's loneliness.
"I hated to leave her," she said, "but it seemed as if I had to come."
"Of course," he agreed, with his eyes on her glowing face, "and anyhow, she has Sulie."
Marie-Louise, in the days that followed, found interest and occupation in showing the Country Mouse the sights of the city.
[306] "If you want to see such things," she said rather grandly, "I shall be glad to go with you."
Anne insisted that they should not be driven in state and style. "People make pilgrimages on foot," she told Marie-Louise gravely, but with a twinkle in her eye. ”

“ For Anne Marie longed for a playmate. She was tired of all her toys. Grand’mère was good to Anne Marie, as good as gold. She knitted for her mittens and stockings without number, and even now was at work upon a scarf for her, a scarlet scarf that matched Anne Marie’s cheeks and would make her look like a Robin Redbreast, so Papa Durant laughingly said. ”

“ In a flash all Anne Marie's ill luck ran through Jeanne Marie's mind; how her promised husband had proved unfaithful, and Jeanne Marie's faithful; and how, ever since, even to the coming out of her lottery numbers, even to the selling of vegetables, even to the catching of the rheumatism, she had been the loser. But above all, as she looked at Anne Marie in the bed, all the misery came over Jeanne Marie of her sister's not being able, in all her poor old seventy-five years of life, to remember the pressure of the arms of a husband about her waist, nor the mouth of a child on her breast. ”

“ She entered eagerly into the adventure, and ordered her car to wait. Then away they fared around the corner!
Within the homely little restaurant, Marie-Louise's elegance was more than ever apparent. Her long coat of gray velvet with its silver fox winked opulently from the back of her chair at the coarse table-cloth and the paper napkins.
But the soup was good, and the German woman smiled at them, and brought them a special dish of hard almond cakes with their coffee.
"I love it," Marie-Louise said. "It is like Hans Andersen and my fairy books. Will you bring me here again, Dr. Richard?" ”

“ He needed a companion for his daughter Marie-Louise. He wanted a lady, and Cynthia Warfield's grandchild would, of course, be that. He wanted, too, some one who was fearless, and who thought straight. He fancied that from what Richard had said that Anne would be the antidote for his daughter's abnormality. If Nancy would confirm Richard's opinion, he would write at once to Miss Warfield. A woman's estimate in such a matter would, naturally, be more satisfying. He would pay well, and Anne would be treated in every way as one of the family. ”

“ I wanted my children to have a spiritual background of character such as I have not possessed. And the result of [241] that marriage is—Marie-Louise! If she has a soul it is yet to be discovered."
"She is young. Give her time."
"I have been giving her time for eighteen years. I have wanted to see her mother in her, to see some gleam of that exquisite fineness. There are things we men, the most material of us, want in our women, and I want it in Marie-Louise. But she gives back what I have given her—nothing more. And I don't know what to do with her."
"Her mother?" Richard hinted. ”

“ When Marie-Louise joined them, Anne was glad to see Geoffrey's protective manner, as if he wanted to be nice to the child who had cried.
She had to listen to much criticism of Richard. When Eve and the Dutton-Ames dined one night in the early fall at Rose Acres, Richard's quixotic action formed the theme of their discourse.
Eve was very frank. "Somebody ought to tie Dicky down. His head is in the clouds."
Marie-Louise flashed: "I like people whose heads are in the clouds. He is doing a wonderful thing and a wise thing—and we are all acting as if it were silly." ”

“ Mrs. Austin was supported by her husband. She was a little woman with gray hair. She wore pearls and silver. Anne was in white. Marie-Louise in a quaint frock of gold brocade. There seemed to be no color in the room except the gold of the fire on the great hearth, the gold of the oranges on the table, and the gold of Marie-Louise's gown. ”

“ She was coming out of a shop with Richard. It was a great shop with a world-famous name over the door. One bought furniture there of a rare kind and draperies of a rare kind and now and then a picture.
"They are getting things for their apartment," Marie-Louise explained, and her words struck cold [307] against Anne's heart. "Eve is paying for them with Aunt Maude's money."
"When will they be married?"
"Next October. But Eve is buying things as she sees them. I don't want her to marry Dr. Dicky."
"Why not, Marie-Louise?"
"He isn't her kind. He ought to have fallen in love with you." ”

“ Love is a sacred thing."
"I like to talk about it. In summer I talk to Pan. But he's out now in the snow and his pipes are frozen."
The little drawing-room seemed to Anne anything but little until she learned that there was a larger one across the hall. Austin and his wife went up-stairs as soon as the coffee had been served, and Marie-Louise led Anne through the shadowy vastness of the great drawing-room to a window which overlooked the river. "You can't see the river, but the light over the doorway shines on my old Pan's head. You can see him grinning out of the snow." ”

“ Richard gave a big laugh. "With your head in the stars, you have your feet always firmly on the ground."
[312] "I try to, but I like to know that there are always—stars."
"No one could be near you and not know that," he told her gravely.
It was a danger signal. She rose. "I have a feeling that you are neglecting somebody. You haven't danced yet with Miss Chesley."
"Oh, Eve's all right," easily; "sit down."
But she would not. She sent him from her. His place was by Eve's side. He was going to marry Eve.
It was late that night when Marie-Louise came into Anne's room. "Are you asleep?" ”

“ I love you in joy and in sorrow, on week-days and Sundays. You are the woman I will die with, but with whom I intend first to live a long, long time. Naturally I have been longing for the caresses of my dearest love, but still more have I been longing for all the rest that means you, your true heart, your pure thought, your gentle speech, your bright smile, which is my sun in the darkness, your faithful hand which gives me strength on the way.'
But as I tell Marie this, she bursts into tears, because she knows that I speak the truth, and because she is happy. ”

“ She is an innocent young girl, to whom love seems as natural as fragrance to the rose, as song to the nightingale. But though so deeply in love, she is none the less a very wise and clever little girl. She can sew and knit and embroider. She knows several languages and is rich in knowledge. She is even a good cook.
Therefore, you see, dear proper men and matrons, to call Marie a pattern of a well-bred young lady is but to do her justice. Neither must you believe that when we were together we had nothing to think of but kisses and caresses. ”

“ The only justification that can be offered for the queen’s behavior was that they had been long separated and had little but the formal tie of relationship to bind them to each other. Anne had been but a child when Mary left England. They were both married and surrounded by other affections when they met again. They had so much resemblance of nature that each seems to have been capable of but one passion. It was Mary’s good fortune to love her husband with all her heart—but to all appearance no one else. ”

“ Marie's suitor knew that Marie did not love him as surely as he knew that he loved her. Yet he did not release her. He was content with the crumbs that fell from her lover's table.
But the man who is 'content' is not a man.
Marie is the most fascinating woman in the world, and I love her, but were I to suspect that she dreamed of any greater happiness than to be mine, then I would leave her on the instant. ”

“ It is that, only that. There can be no pain where there is no flesh to suffer."
"And no sorrow?" asked Anne.
"Sorrow," replied Marian, "that is of the mind, and the mind is part of ourselves."
"Separation is the worst," replied Anne. "Separation." "Suppose," she thought, "that I am really in another existence, where then is my dear, old John, my husband?"
"Marian," she cried out, "I must go home; at once!"
"But my dear," said Marian, "you cannot; as a mortal you could not come here; how then can you now go there? Oh, Anne, there are many loved ones waiting for you here. Many who loved you. ”

“ There was only one I always wished to enter my door, for she alone seemed ever fresh and new. There is only one with whom I would wish to live, for with her life takes on a golden meaning, a sunbright reality; there is only one I would wish to die with, for with her I know no fear. The name of my beloved is Marie. She is fairer than all other women. ”

“ She was, indeed, the persecuted damosel of mediæval romance, brought up to modern weight and size and standard—not the least of her many afflictions being that she was forcibly christened Mary Anne by heartless parents, while yet a helpless infant, and that nobody called her anything else. Her lips were full of prophetic utterances as to last straws; as to what certain people (not so very many miles away) would find for themselves one morning (not so very far ahead) when they got up and came downstairs, and said, "Where 's somebody?" ”

“ For a moment or two Maria was silent; and then she said, in a low tone--
"If the stars could have answered you, would you have asked them, Anne?"
"Yes, yes," eagerly replied Lady Anne. "Would not you, Maria?"
"I think so," answered Maria; "yet sometimes, perhaps, it were better not to know our fate."
"Oh, no, no!" exclaimed Lady Anne; "doubt is always horrible."
"Yes; but there may be trust without knowledge, faith without comprehension," replied her fair friend. "I have both, although the future is very dark and impenetrable to me just now."
"Oh, it shall be bright!" cried Lady Anne. ”

“ What is the wonderful magic wand which changes the wild rose into a gorgeous La France? Marie, found again, had developed into a clever woman, who fully understood her own beauty, who knew how to express her personality in many a subtle variation. ”