CHAPTER 26
OWEN FORD'S CONFESSION
"I'm so sorry Gilbert is away," said Anne. "He had to go--Allan Lyonsat the Glen has met with a serious accident. He will not likely behome till very late. But he told me to tell you he'd be up and overearly enough in the morning to see you before you left. It's tooprovoking. Susan and I had planned such a nice little jamboree foryour last night here."
She was sitting beside the garden brook on the little rustic seatGilbert had built. Owen Ford stood before her, leaning against thebronze column of a yellow birch. He was very pale and his face borethe marks of the preceding sleepless night. Anne, glancing up at him,wondered if, after all, his summer had brought him the strength itshould. Had he worked too hard over his book? She remembered that fora week he had not been looking well.
"I'm rather glad the doctor is away," said Owen slowly. "I wanted tosee you alone, Mrs. Blythe. There is something I must tell somebody,or I think it will drive me mad. I've been trying for a week to lookit in the face--and I can't. I know I can trust you--and, besides, youwill understand. A woman with eyes like yours always understands. Youare one of the folks people instinctively tell things to. Mrs. Blythe,I love Leslie. LOVE her! That seems too weak a word!"
His voice suddenly broke with the suppressed passion of his utterance.He turned his head away and hid his face on his arm. His whole formshook. Anne sat looking at him, pale and aghast. She had neverthought of this! And yet--how was it she had never thought of it? Itnow seemed a natural and inevitable thing. She wondered at her ownblindness. But--but--things like this did not happen in Four Winds.Elsewhere in the world human passions might set at defiance humanconventions and laws--but not HERE, surely. Leslie had kept summerboarders off and on for ten years, and nothing like this had happened.But perhaps they had not been like Owen Ford; and the vivid, LIVINGLeslie of this summer was not the cold, sullen girl of other years.Oh, SOMEBODY should have thought of this! Why hadn't Miss Corneliathought of it? Miss Cornelia was always ready enough to sound thealarm where men were concerned. Anne felt an unreasonable resentmentagainst Miss Cornelia. Then she gave a little inward groan. No matterwho was to blame the mischief was done. And Leslie--what of Leslie?It was for Leslie Anne felt most concerned.
"Does Leslie know this, Mr. Ford?" she asked quietly.
"No--no,--unless she has guessed it. You surely don't think I'd be cadand scoundrel enough to tell her, Mrs. Blythe. I couldn't help lovingher--that's all--and my misery is greater than I can bear."
"Does SHE care?" asked Anne. The moment the question crossed her lipsshe felt that she should not have asked it. Owen Ford answered it withovereager protest.
"No--no, of course not. But I could make her care if she were free--Iknow I could."
"She does care--and he knows it," thought Anne. Aloud she said,sympathetically but decidedly:
"But she is not free, Mr. Ford. And the only thing you can do is to goaway in silence and leave her to her own life."
"I know--I know," groaned Owen. He sat down on the grassy bank andstared moodily into the amber water beneath him. "I know there'snothing to do--nothing but to say conventionally, 'Good-bye, Mrs.Moore. Thank you for all your kindness to me this summer,' just as Iwould have said it to the sonsy, bustling, keen-eyed housewife Iexpected her to be when I came. Then I'll pay my board money like anyhonest boarder and go! Oh, it's very simple. No doubt--noperplexity--a straight road to the end of the world!
"And I'll walk it--you needn't fear that I won't, Mrs. Blythe. But itwould be easier to walk over red-hot ploughshares."
Anne flinched with the pain of his voice. And there was so little shecould say that would be adequate to the situation. Blame was out ofthe question--advice was not needed--sympathy was mocked by the man'sstark agony. She could only feel with him in a maze of compassion andregret. Her heart ached for Leslie! Had not that poor girl sufferedenough without this?
"It wouldn't be so hard to go and leave her if she were only happy,"resumed Owen passionately. "But to think of her living death--torealise what it is to which I do leave her! THAT is the worst of all.I would give my life to make her happy--and I can do nothing even tohelp her--nothing. She is bound forever to that poor wretch--withnothing to look forward to but growing old in a succession of empty,meaningless, barren years. It drives me mad to think of it. But Imust go through my life, never seeing her, but always knowing what sheis enduring. It's hideous--hideous!"
"It is very hard," said Anne sorrowfully. "We--her friends here--allknow how hard it is for her."
"And she is so richly fitted for life," said Owen rebelliously.
"Her beauty is the least of her dower--and she is the most beautifulwoman I've ever known. That laugh of hers! I've angled all summer toevoke that laugh, just for the delight of hearing it. And hereyes--they are as deep and blue as the gulf out there. I never sawsuch blueness--and gold! Did you ever see her hair down, Mrs. Blythe?"
"No."
"I did--once. I had gone down to the Point to go fishing with CaptainJim but it was too rough to go out, so I came back. She had taken theopportunity of what she expected to be an afternoon alone to wash herhair, and she was standing on the veranda in the sunshine to dry it.It fell all about her to her feet in a fountain of living gold. Whenshe saw me she hurried in, and the wind caught her hair and swirled itall around her--Danae in her cloud. Somehow, just then the knowledgethat I loved her came home to me--and realised that I had loved herfrom the moment I first saw her standing against the darkness in thatglow of light. And she must live on here--petting and soothing Dick,pinching and saving for a mere existence, while I spend my life longingvainly for her, and debarred, by that very fact, from even giving herthe little help a friend might. I walked the shore last night, almosttill dawn, and thrashed it all out over and over again. And yet, inspite of everything, I can't find it in my heart to be sorry that Icame to Four Winds. It seems to me that, bad as everything is, itwould be still worse never to have known Leslie. It's burning, searingpain to love her and leave her--but not to have loved her isunthinkable. I suppose all this sounds very crazy--all these terribleemotions always do sound foolish when we put them into our inadequatewords. They are not meant to be spoken--only felt and endured. Ishouldn't have spoken--but it has helped--some. At least, it has givenme strength to go away respectably tomorrow morning, without making ascene. You'll write me now and then, won't you, Mrs. Blythe, and giveme what news there is to give of her?"
"Yes," said Anne. "Oh, I'm so sorry you are going--we'll miss youso--we've all been such friends! If it were not for this you couldcome back other summers. Perhaps, even yet--by-and-by--when you'veforgotten, perhaps--"
"I shall never forget--and I shall never come back to Four Winds," saidOwen briefly.
Silence and twilight fell over the garden. Far away the sea waslapping gently and monotonously on the bar. The wind of evening in thepoplars sounded like some sad, weird, old rune--some broken dream ofold memories. A slender shapely young aspen rose up before themagainst the fine maize and emerald and paling rose of the western sky,which brought out every leaf and twig in dark, tremulous, elfinloveliness.
"Isn't that beautiful?" said Owen, pointing to it with the air of a manwho puts a certain conversation behind him.
"It's so beautiful that it hurts me," said Anne softly. "Perfectthings like that always did hurt me--I remember I called it 'the queerache' when I was a child. What is the reason that pain like this seemsinseparable from perfection? Is it the pain of finality--when werealise that there can be nothing beyond but retrogression?"
"Perhaps," said Owen dreamily, "it is the prisoned infinite in uscalling out to its kindred infinite as expressed in that visibleperfection."
"You seem to have a cold in the head. Better rub some tallow on yournose when you go to bed," said Miss Cornelia, who had come in throughthe little gate between the firs in time to catch Owen's last remark.Miss Cornelia liked Ow
en; but it was a matter of principle with her tovisit any "high-falutin" language from a man with a snub.
Miss Cornelia personated the comedy that ever peeps around the cornerat the tragedy of life. Anne, whose nerves had been rather strained,laughed hysterically, and even Owen smiled. Certainly, sentiment andpassion had a way of shrinking out of sight in Miss Cornelia'spresence. And yet to Anne nothing seemed quite as hopeless and darkand painful as it had seemed a few moments before. But sleep was farfrom her eyes that night.
Anne's House of Dreams Page 26