Mrs. Anderson

“ It was a marriage however that brought no happiness to either party. Mrs. Anderson was an illy educated, self willed, narrow minded [woman] , full of airs and pretensions, the only daughter of a man who had laid the foundation of his wealth by keeping a low groggery, and dying had left her his only heir. John Anderson was selfish and grasping. He loved money, and she loved display, and their home was often the scene of the most pitiful contentions about money matters. ”

“ I should find honest old [Pg 342] Anderson père rather a trial with his red beard, his broken nails, the yawning chasm between his upper teeth; even Mrs. Anderson, so comely and pleasant here in her own farm-house, would suffer by being transplanted to Lincoln's Inn. So might little Annie herself. A lapsed "h" in a country hay-field has much less significance than when lost at a London dinner-table. How is it, I wonder, that while the dear child generally speaks of 'ay and 'ouse, she invariably besmirches with the strongest of aspirates the unfortunate village of H'Orton? ”

“ And being dissenters, we do not like to appear illiberal to those who are not of our own way of thinking: so the Andersons sometimes come in after church; and I am sure you will accept their call just as if it was made in any other way.”
Hester and Margaret could only say that they should be happy to see Mr and Mrs Anderson in any mode which was most convenient to themselves. A laugh went through the family, and a general exclamation of “Mr and Mrs Anderson!” “The Andersons” happened to be two maiden sisters, who kept a young ladies’ school. ”

“ Sometimes commercial travellers infringed upon Anderson's home hours, and she was always covertly indignant. She was constantly in a state of armed humility with regard to the details of business. She felt the incongruity of herself, the elderly gentlewoman in the soft, rich, black silk, with the scarf of real lace fastened with a brooch of real pearls at the throat, with the cap of real lace, with the knots of lavender ribbon, on her fluff of white curls, remaining in the room while the discussion as to the rates of tea and coffee or sugar or soap went on. ”

“ The workingman who walked beside her had nothing to do with her conception of love. She walked with him, stayed at the office until the others had gone to walk unobserved with him, because of his eyes, because of the eager thing in his eyes that was at the same time humble, that bowed down to her. In his presence there was no danger, could be no danger. He would never attempt to approach too closely, to touch her with his hands. She was safe with him. In his apartment in the evening the man sat under the electric light with his wife and his mother-inlaw. ”

“ Anderson would no more listen to them than the dirt under his feet; no, indeed, he wouldn't. And you that he thinks so much of! why, it makes me feel real bad to see you not take that comfort in him as you might. Why, he wants to be a father to you, dearie. He hasn't got any little girl of his own, and he will give you everything that's nice, that he will, just as soon as you begin to get a little fond of him, and realize all he's doing for you. Why, most young ladies would give their two eyes for your chance, I can tell you. ”

“ Mrs. Anderson replied, although her forehead was slightly knitted. “Your mother and aunt will be back; some way will be opened. We will not worry about that now.”
Charlotte blushed painfully at the thought that she had been hasty about making preparations for the marriage, and had shocked Mrs. Anderson. “You don't think papa is very badly hurt?” she said.
“Why, of course not, dear. Didn't you hear what Randolph said? He probably was stunned. It is so easy to get stunned from a fall on the ice. My husband got a bad fall once, one icy Sunday as we were coming home from the church. ”

“ Rosalind went to help her mother with the dishes and her father sat in a chair by a window and read a paper. The daughter avoided looking again into her mother's face. "I must gather myself together if I am to do what I want to do," she thought. It was strange—in fancy she saw the lean bird-like face of Melville Stoner and the eager tired face of Walter Sayers floating above the head of her mother who leaned over the kitchen sink, washing the dishes. Both of the men's faces sneered at her. "You think you can but you can't. You are a young fool," the men's lips seemed to be saying. ”

“ Anderson's boarding-house. Clayton had met her at the Grand Central Station when she arrived in New York and had taken her to the place, introducing her to Mrs. Anderson in words which she had resented, though she had realized at the time that he was quite justified in his demands.
"Miss Farnum will be in your charge," he had explained. "It is understood that she is to do exactly as you direct in all things. She is not to accept dinner invitations [Pg 91] from any one, she is to come straight home after each performance, and she is to go nowhere unless you accompany her." ”

“ Anderson was a picture of a Sunday, in a rich lavender silk and a magnificent though old-fashioned lace shawl which floated from her shoulder in a fairy net-work of black roses. She would never wear plain black like most women of her age. She was one of the blue-eyed women who looks well in lavender. Her blue eyes, now looking at her son from under the rich purples and lavenders of the velvet pansies on her bonnet, got an indeterminate color like myrtle blossoms. A deeper pink also showed on her cheeks because of the color of her gown. ”

“ I suppose the dresses to-night will be very pretty. Miss Carroll ought to make a lovely bride. She is a very pretty girl, and so is her sister. I dare say their dresses will be prettier than anything of the kind ever seen in Banbridge.”
There was an indescribable wistfulness in Mrs. Anderson's voice. Large and rather majestic woman that she was, she spoke like a disappointed child, and her son looked at her with wonder.
“I don't understand how a woman can care so much about seeing pretty dresses,” he said, not unkindly, but with a slight inflection of amused scorn. ”

“ I never knew such a mutinous feeling in the army as that sentence created.”
Dr. Adams remarked that in all his reading and experience in life there had not been a female character brought to his notice who had shown the will, determination and good judgment that Mrs. Anderson had from the beginning of the war; her fixed Union principles; her determination to make any and all sacrifices for the cause of her country; her persistence in hunting for her husband when all others were sure of his death at Dolinsburg—few women like her have lived in our time. ”

“ Anderson is a pleasanter person to live with than Mrs. Dudgeon. To which Mrs. Dudgeon would at once reply, with reason, that Mrs. Anderson has no children to look after; no poultry, pigs nor cattle; a steady and sufficient income not directly dependent on harvests and prices at fairs; an affectionate husband who is a tower of strength to her: in short, that life is as easy at the minister’s house as it is hard at the farm. ”

“ Anderson loved to see Charlotte sitting in this chair with her feet on the footstool, her pretty head leaning back against the faded roses of the chintz, the delicate curve of her cheek towards him, as she swayed gently back and forth and seemed to gaze peacefully out of the window at the hollyhocks blooming against the green hill. It was characteristic of the man's dreams that the girl's face in them was turned a little from him. ”

“ Anderson reflected that a man might easily admire either of these women. Her manner, in spite of herself, cooled towards them. She did not think of the third woman, who was married, except to ply her with cake and tea and inquire for her husband and children. The woman, after she had finished her cake and tea, sat sunken in her corsets, under her loosely fitting black silk, and looked stupidly amiable. She rose with a slight sigh of relief when at last the others made a motion to go. She thought of her supper at home, and the children long out of school. It was past supper-time for Banbridge. ”

“ Anderson knows of some nice children, who will have to stay in the hot streets of the city all summer. We will ask them to come here.”
Of course, Mrs. Anderson knew of some nice children. She belonged to a mission-school, and knew dozens of them. So, the next Wednesday, when Mr. Brown drove down to the station, there she was, and two little ones with her, Lina and Carl Schmidt. Carl was almost a baby, and went to sleep as soon as they were in the carriage; but Lina held her breath with delight as she rode to the farm. ”

“ He followed its pennons, to discover a group around it,—a tall fellow, pallid of feature, and dressed in contrasting black, of the sort, the observing stranger decided, an American would at once label "smooth"; a trio of rascals that most certainly deserved the epithet "precious"; a smartly-dressed youth, a little the worse for whiskey—and a girl.
Pictorially she would have made an excellent Carmen, he thought, with her swarthiness set in a crimson dress, but she seemed ill at ease, every once in a while casting a troubled glance at the sea. ”

“ Elizabeth!--you may say what you like, but I am the head of the family!"
Anderson found the head of the family in bed, surrounded by novels, and a dozen books on big-game shooting in the Rockies. Philip received him with an evident and ungracious embarrassment.
"I am awfully sorry--beastly business. Hard lines on you, of course--very. Hope they'll get the men."
"Thank you. They are doing their best."
Anderson sat down beside the lad. The fragility of his look struck him painfully, and the pathetic contrast between it and the fretting spirit--the books of travel and adventure heaped round him. ”

“ They made fast the boat, and Anderson found a mossy seat under a tall pine from which the lightning of a recent storm had stripped a great limb, leaving a crimson gash in the trunk. And there Elizabeth nestled to him, and he with his arm about her, and the intoxication of her slender beauty mastering his senses, tried to answer her as a plain man may. The commonplaces of passion--its foolish promises--its blind confidence--its trembling joy--there is no other path for love to travel by, and Elizabeth and Anderson trod it like their fellows. ”

“ He had glimpses of pale contours and ruffling white draperies floating around the young man, who walked on the outside. He towered above them both with stately tenderness. He was smoking, and Anderson noted that with a throb of anger. He had an old-fashioned conviction that a man should not smoke when walking with ladies. He was sitting perfectly motionless when they came alongside, and all at once one of the girls, Ina, the eldest, perceived him, and started violently with an exclamation. All three laughed, and the young man said, raising his hat, “Good-evening, Mr. Anderson.” ”

“ With a growing sense of bitterness she realized that all her life, all through her girlhood and young womanhood, she had been waiting for this, her wedding night, and that now, having come, the occasion for which she had waited so long and concerning which she had dreamed so many dreams, had aborted into an occasion for the display of ugliness and vulgarity. Her father, the only other person in the room in any way related to her, sat at the other end of the long table. Her aunt had gone away on a visit, and in the crowded, noisy room there was no woman to whom she could turn for understanding. ”

“ Very spare of frame and also of kind thoughts was Aunt Abigail. Her eyes and the point of her spectacled nose were as sharp as her scent for neighbourhood gossip and possible misdemeanours of Sally. The sparse hair was so tightly drawn into its knob that it seemed as if coiffured by some instrument of the Spanish inquisitors whom she resembled, or rather the iron union of one of those mediæval fanatics and some Puritan dame with a tight-corseted soul. She was forever making life a perpetual inquisition for herself and others, forever straightlacing their souls. ”

“ She saw now what that friendly intimacy of nearly two years, in that isolated place, must have meant to both Louise and Forrest. How she had created for him his only social and home life; how, day after day, countless times each day, she must have felt his quiet sympathy, helpfulness, in sharp contrast to the neglect and irresponsibility of Philip. And they had played, sung, innumerable evenings together; no man on earth could so appreciate her beautiful voice, her personal sweetness; and she had always loved his violin. How could she—how could any woman—have remained indifferent? ”

“ Hands beckoned to them from doorways, and women of the town laughed at their awkwardness. In Chicago he had walked in that way. He also had been seeking, seeking the romantic, impossible mistress that lurked at the bottom of men’s tales of the submerged world. He wanted his golden girl. He was like the naïve German lad in the South Water Street warehouses who had once said to him—he was a frugal soul—“I would like to find a nice-looking girl who is quiet and modest and who will be my mistress and not charge anything.”
Sam had not found his golden girl, and now he knew she did not exist. ”

“ The imaginary man, suggested to her mind by her father's words, became every moment more and more a reality. Before her eyes danced the laughing eyes of the young man who for a moment had lingered beside her while Kate Chanceller talked to his companion that evening when they had been challenged on the streets of Columbus. She remembered the young school teacher, who had held her in his arms through a long Sunday afternoon, and the day when, as an awakening maiden, she had heard Jim Priest talking to the laborers in the barn about the sap that ran up the tree. ”