Miss Anvoy

“ I tried to think of some other great man, but I had to give it up. "Didn't Miss Anvoy express her satisfaction in any less diffident way than by her charming present?" I was reduced to enquiring instead.
"Oh, yes! she overflowed to me on the steps while he was getting into the carriage." These words somehow brushed up a picture of Saltram's big shawled back as he hoisted himself into the green landau. "She said she was not disappointed," Adelaide pursued. ”

“ There would be the technical, the strictly legal view; then there would be the way the question would strike a man of the world. He had lighted another cigarette while he talked, and I saw he was glad to have it to handle when he brought out at last, with a laugh slightly artificial: “In fact it’s a subject on which Miss Anvoy and I are pulling different ways.” ”

“ We should have had a merry life indeed if all the splashes had sprinkled us as refreshingly as the waters we were even then to feel about our ears. Kent Mulville had been up to his room, but had come back with a face that told as few tales as I had seen it succeed in telling on the evening I waited in the lecture-room with Miss Anvoy. I said to myself that our friend had gone out, but I was glad that the presence of a comparative stranger deprived us of the dreary duty of suggesting to each other, in respect of his errand, edifying possibilities in which we didn't ourselves believe. ”

“ Adelaide drove gently into London in a one-horse greenish thing, an early Victorian landau, hired, near at hand, imaginatively, from a broken-down jobmaster whose wife was in consumption—a vehicle that made people turn round all the more when her pensioner sat beside her in a soft white hat and a shawl, one of the dear woman’s own. This was his position and I dare say his costume when on an afternoon in July she went to return Miss Anvoy’s visit. The wheel of fate had now revolved, and amid silences deep and exhaustive, compunctions and condonations alike unutterable, Saltram was reinstated. ”

“ I reflected that I had never seen a young woman put such ignorance into her cleverness, such freedom into her modesty: this, I think, was when, after dinner, she said to me frankly, with almost jubilant mirth: Oh, you don't admire Mrs. Saltram! Why should I? She was truly an innocent maiden. I had briefly to consider before I could reply that my objection to the lady in question was the objection often formulated in regard to persons met at the social board—I knew all her stories. Then, as Miss Anvoy remained momentarily vague, I added: About her husband. ”

“ Saltram and the children. Late into the night we smoked and talked; old shames and old rigours fell away from us; I only let him see that I was conscious of what I owed him. He was as mild as contrition and as abundant as faith; he was never so fine as on a shy return, and even better at forgiving than at being forgiven. I daresay it was a smaller matter than that famous night at Wimbledon, the night of the problematical sobriety and of Miss Anvoy's initiation; but I was as much in it on this occasion as I had been out of it then. ”

“ Saltram into my head, and I replied that she was unfortunately never out of it. I happened to remember the wonderful accounts she had given me of the kindness Lady Coxon had shown her. Gravener declared this to be false; Lady Coxon, who didn’t care for her, hadn’t seen her three times. The only foundation for it was that Miss Anvoy, who used, poor girl, to chuck money about in a manner she must now regret, had for an hour seen in the miserable woman—you could never know what she’d see in people—an interesting pretext for the liberality with which her nature overflowed. ”

“ Adelaide could only surmise, however, as yet, and there was more, as we found, to be revealed. Mrs. Mulville, on hearing of her arrival, had brought the young lady out in the green landau for the Sunday. The Coxons were in possession of the house in Regent’s Park, and Miss Anvoy was in dreary lodgings. George Gravener had been with her when Adelaide called, but had assented graciously enough to the little visit at Wimbledon. The carriage, with Mr. Saltram in it but not mentioned, had been sent off on some errand from which it was to return and pick the ladies up. ”

“ Adelaide turned her mild, pale eyes on me as if she were amazed at my levity: "Why, the importance of her being as happy as we are!"
I'm afraid that at this my levity increased. "Oh, that's a happiness almost too great to wish a person!" I saw she had not yet in her mind what I had in mine, and at any rate the visitor's actual bliss was limited to a walk in the garden with Kent Mulville. Later in the afternoon I also took one, and I saw nothing of Miss Anvoy till dinner, at which we were without the company of Sal tram, who had caused it to be reported that he was indisposed, lying down. ”

“ A passion that had brought her back across the wintry ocean was as much of a passion as was necessary. No impulse equally strong, indeed, had drawn George Gravener to America; a circumstance on which, however, I reflected only long enough to remind myself that it was none of my business. Ruth Anvoy was distinctly different, and I felt that the difference was not simply that of her being in mourning. Mrs. Mulville told me soon enough what it was; it was the difference between a handsome girl with large expectations and a handsome girl with only four hundred a year. ”

“ You won’t do him an ill turn?” Adelaide pleaded at the door.
“What danger can equal for him the danger to which he’s exposed from himself?” I asked. “Look out sharp, if he has lately been too prim. He’ll presently take a day off, treat us to some exhibition that will make an Endowment a scandal.”
“A scandal?” Mrs. Mulville dolorously echoed.
“Is Miss Anvoy prepared for that?”
My visitor, for a moment, screwed her parasol into my carpet. “He grows bigger every day.”
“So do you!” I laughed as she went off.
That girl at Wimbledon, on the Thursday afternoon, more than justified my apprehensions. ”

“ People are simplified alike by great contentments and great yearnings, and, whether or no it was Gravener’s directness that begot my own, I seem to recall that in some turn taken by our talk he almost imposed it on me as an act of decorum to ask if Miss Anvoy had also by chance expectations from her aunt. My enquiry drew out that Lady Coxon, who was the oddest of women, would have in any contingency to act under her late husband’s will, which was odder still, saddling her with a mass of queer obligations complicated with queer loopholes. ”

“ She triumphed in what she told me and she may have triumphed still more in what she withheld. My friend of the other evening, Miss Anvoy, had but lately come to England; Lady Coxon, the aunt, had been established here for years in consequence of her marriage with the late Sir Gregory of that name. She had a house in the Regent’s Park, a Bath-chair and a fernery; and above all she had sympathy. Mrs. Saltram had made her acquaintance through mutual friends. This vagueness caused me to feel how much I was out of it and how large an independent circle Mrs. ”

“ Saltram with a flush. “It’s his own idea.”
“Then why couldn’t he send the letter to you to be delivered?”
Mrs. Saltram’s embarrassment increased; she gave me another hard look. “You must make that out for yourself.”
I made it out quickly enough. “It’s a denunciation?”
“A real lady doesn’t betray her husband!” this virtuous woman exclaimed.
I burst out laughing, and I fear my laugh may have had an effect of impertinence. “Especially to Miss Anvoy, who’s so easily shocked? Why do such things concern her?” I asked, much at a loss.
“Because she’s there, exposed to all his craft. Mr. and Mrs. ”

“ Mrs. Saltram hung fire. “Because she’s staying with Mr. and Mrs. Mulville.”
“And why should that prevent?”
Again my visitor faltered, and I began to reflect on the grotesque, the unconscious perversity of her action. I was the only person save George Gravener and the Mulvilles who was aware of Sir Gregory Coxon’s and of Miss Anvoy’s strange bounty. Where could there have been a more signal illustration of the clumsiness of human affairs than her having complacently selected this moment to fly in the face of it? “There’s the chance of their seeing her letters. They know Mr. ”

“ I could see that this presentation had been happy, for Mrs. Mulville commemorated it after her sole fashion of showing confidence in a new relation. “She likes me—she likes me”: her native humility exulted in that measure of success. We all knew for ourselves how she liked those who liked her, and as regards Ruth Anvoy she was more easily won over than Lady Maddock.
p. 54VII
One of the consequences, for the Mulvilles, of the sacrifices they made for Frank Saltram was that they had to give up their carriage. ”

“ Anna said. “I will believe you. Remember that he’s not at all a bad sort, and to speak frankly, he’s your salvation. Try and let him never regret it. There’s plenty to be got out of life in a decent sort of way. Be a good wife to him. You can if you will.”
“I promise,” Annabel declared. “He is very kind, Anna, really, and not half such a prig as he seems.”
Anna moved towards the door, but her sister detained her.
“Won’t you tell me why you have come to England?” she said. “It was such a surprise to see you. I thought that you loved Paris and your work so much.” ”

“ Anna said calmly, “that it is necessary for me also—to live. I arrived here with something less than five pounds in my pocket. My reception at West Kensington you know of. I was the black sheep, I was hurried out of the way. You did not complain then that I personated you—no, nor when Sir John came to me in Paris, and for your sake I lied.”
“You did not——”
“Wait, Annabel! When I arrived in London I went to live in the cheapest place I could find. I set myself to find employment. I offered myself as a clerk, as a milliner, as a shop girl. ”

“ Anna felt that her words had become charged with a fuller and more subtle meaning than any which she had intended to impart. “The truth!” It was a moment of awkwardness between the two sisters—a moment, too, charged with its own psychological interest, for there were secrets between them which for many months had made their intercourse a constrained and difficult thing. It was Annabel who spoke.
“How crude you are, Anna!” she exclaimed with a little sigh. “Sir John is not at all that sort. He is the kind of man who would much prefer a little dust in his eyes. ”

“ The girl who had just left the room was as great a mystery to him now as on the afternoon when he had met her in Piccadilly and taken her to tea. And behind—there was Paris, memories of amazing things, memories which made his cheeks burn and his heart beat quickly as he sat there waiting for her. For the first time a definite doubt possessed him. A woman cannot change her soul. Then it was the woman herself who was changed. Anna was not “Alcide” of the “Ambassador’s,” whose subtly demure smile and piquant glances had called him to her side from the moment of their first meeting. ”

“ But just this minute I’m well content to be Anne Shirley, Avonlea schoolma’am, driving over a road like this on such a sweet, friendly day.”
“It’s a lovely day but we have anything but a lovely task before us,” sighed Diana. “Why on earth did you offer to canvass this road, Anne? Almost all the cranks in Avonlea live along it, and we’ll probably be treated as if we were begging for ourselves. It’s the very worst road of all.”
“That is why I chose it. Of course Gilbert and Fred would have taken this road if we had asked them. ”

“ Anna laughed softly.
“You propose, then,” she remarked, “that I shall still be saddled with a pseudo husband. I think not, Annabel. You are welcome to proclaim yourself ‘Alcide’ if you will. I would even make over my engagement to you, if Mr. Earles would permit. But I should certainly want to be rid of Mr. Montague Hill, and I do not think that under those circumstances I should be long about it.”
Annabel sank suddenly into a chair. Her knees were trembling, her whole frame was shaken with sobs.
“Anna,” she moaned, “I am a jealous, ungrateful woman. But oh, how weary I am! I know. ”

“ And the witch said to Iván: "Now, Iván, the merchant's son, if you have been able to pray to God and to bring me to life again, now learn how to master me, and I will never depart one step from you."
So Iván went to the ship, and he told the old man all that had happened, and the old man said: "Ivánushka, fear nothing, take Olyóna Korólyevna [2] as your wife, only for the first three nights do not go to sleep until the cock has crowed three times, and then she will never more oppress you." ”

“ She shook her head.
[Pg 124] “Loneliness,” she said, “is a luxury which I never permit myself. Besides—there is Sir John.”
“Sir John is an ass!” he declared.
“He is Annabel’s husband,” she reminded him.
“Annabel!” He looked at her thoughtfully. “It is rather odd,” he said, “but I always thought that your name was Annabel and hers Anna.”
“Many other people,” she remarked, “have made the same mistake.”
“Again,” he said, “I am going to be impertinent. I never met your sister in Paris, but I heard about her more than once. She is not in the least like the descriptions of her.” ”

“ Anna followed her finger, and looked back into her sister’s face.
“They were sent to me by Mr. Nigel Ennison, Annabel. How on earth does it concern you?”
Annabel laughed hardly.
“Concern me!” she repeated fiercely. “You are not content then with stealing from me my name. You would steal from me then the only man I ever cared a snap of the fingers about. They are not your flowers. They are mine! They were sent to ‘Alcide’ not to you.”
Anna rose to her feet. At last she was roused. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes bright. ”