CHAPTER IV.
THUS one year went by; and then, slowly, another, while Anne Brown was being transformed from a nursemaid into a lady. Hamlin saw her twice during that time. Once, while Mrs Simson and Anne were staying in Paris—for he had begged that her holidays might be spent either in Switzerland, or in some place where she might see pictures and statues—when he suddenly turned up for a day on his way from England to Greece; and once at Coblenz. Mrs Simson was giving a party: suddenly into the parlour, filled with German matrons and damsels, with a sprinkling of professors and soldiers, was introduced a slight, fair man, who looked very young till you saw him closely, and at whose sight that page: 230 sombre, quiet, strange, half‐Italian girl had suddenly turned crimson, and clutched a chair, as if afraid to fall, while the company stared and whispered. Hamlin left that same evening; and as the day in Paris had been spent in seeing and talking about pictures, so this afternoon passed in trifling conversation at Mrs Simson’s table. Alone, Anne scarcely saw him for an instant. Only, when he left Coblenz, he seized her hand as he stood at the door, and kissed it fervently. It seemed to her, during the long months of absence, that she would give all her life to see him again, to be able to tell him how grateful she was to him. Yet, in reality, his presence passed like the picture of a magic‐lantern on a wall; and she felt as if her lips were glued together: it was a vision, and no more. But on that second visit Hamlin had been dazzled. He had recognised from the first the exotic beauty and strangeness of the Perrys’ servant; he had seen in Paris that his judgment had been correct; but when, after eighteen months of schooling, he page: 231 suddenly saw Anne again, it was as if he had never seen her before, a fresh revelation. A year and a half of a lady’s life, without bodily fatigue or mental weariness, had developed to the full the girl’s marvellous beauty: strange, mysterious, amazonian it was as ever; but it was as the regalness of a triumphant queen by the side of the queenliness of a deposed Amazon chief. The haughtiness which had struck him in the nursemaid of the little Perrys, was not diminished, but softened, by a kind of quiet graciousness and goodness. Hamlin remarked that she seemed, now that she was no longer humbled and cramped, to have a much kindlier spirit and a sense of humour which had at first seemed scarcely to exist, or to exist only in bitterness. But what struck him most of all was an indefinable change in Anne’s expression: the soul, which had lain as a tiny germ at the bottom of her nature, had expanded and come to the surface. She was as beautiful and singular as ever, but more manifold and subtle: her mind had increased threefold. Hamlin page: 232 went away, intending that Anne should remain at Coblenz another year. But he found that his patience, hitherto inexhaustible, had suddenly departed. He found the time intolerably heavy on his hands. He travelled about in out‐of‐the‐way countries, having fragmentary love‐affairs, in a dreamy, irresponsible way, with other women; and sending Anne more letters than usual, and presents of all manner of outlandish stuffs—silver ornaments and so forth—which used to create great excitement at the school; but he fretted with impatience. Impatience, be it well understood, not to marry Anne, for he always thought of marriage as the return from, the end of, a sort of spiritual honeymoon; but impatience to commence that long courtship which had, from the beginning, been the object of his desires. He grew tired of their correspondence, found that he had exhausted all the delights of unconsciously revealed love, love budding and developing with the girl’s mind. It began to be mere repetition; and he scarcely knew page: 233 what to write about now: the prologue had lasted long enough; the piece must begin.
One day, some two years or so after her arrival at Coblenz, Anne Brown received a letter in which Hamlin reminded her that she was twenty‐one, and that his guardianship had consequently come to an end already some months before; and suggested that, as he heard that her education was now completed, at least in so far as Coblenz went, he thought that it might be wiser if she came to England, where she would have better opportunities of continuing any special studies. Moreover, that his aunt, Mrs Macgregor, a widow without any children, was coming to settle in London, and that he thought it might be a good arrangement that she and Anne should live together, as Anne could scarcely take a house by herself. What did Miss Brown think of this arrangement? And would she authorise him to settle everything for Mrs Macgregor and her? Faintly and vaguely Anne thanked him for his forethought, and acquiesced in page: 234 everything which he might be kind enough to decide upon. She had never realised her situation, she was not the sort of mind which has clear conceptions of the future, and she had been far too much absorbed, these two years, in the unreal present. Besides, Anne felt a confused pain, a disappointment, which prevented her attending to anything else. Hamlin had said nothing about himself, not a word as to whether he also would settle in London, or whether he intended continuing his wandering life. And she had not the courage to ask him. She was conscious of a coldness and emptiness in her heart, of the disappointment of some vague, unspoken hope. But why feel disappointed? or did she really feel disappointed at all? She believed that she cared for Hamlin only as for a benefactor, a divinity, a creature who might bestow affection but could not be asked for it; and this being the case, and knowing herself to have been perfectly satisfied and happy hitherto, page: 235 she persuaded herself that she really did not feel disappointed about anything, when Hamlin thus wrote about her education and her plans and nothing else.
But as the winter drew to a close, there came another letter from Hamlin (all the intermediate ones had been only the usual talk about himself, and about books and scenery) telling her that, with a view to her living with his aunt, he had, as her ex‐guardian (he always spoke of himself as her guardian, completely ignoring Richard Brown) deemed it wise to employ part of her capital, which had been accumulating in his hands, in the purchase of the lease of a house at Hammersmith, which he was having prepared and furnished against her coming in May. “It is in a pretty neighbourhood, with the river in front and old houses and gardens all round,” he wrote. “What determined my choice, as I am sure it would have determined yours also, is that the house is itself more than a century and a page: 236 half old, and has some fine trees in the garden. Flowers seem to grow well, as it is pretty well beyond reach of smoke. There are also some fine elms and poplars in front, all along the river‐side, which is old‐fashioned, and .not yet made into a modern embankment. It is rather far from the world; but the world is hideous, and the farther away from it the better, don’t you think? My aunt is busy about the practical household properties; I am getting in some of the more useless furniture. If you should dislike the arrangement, it can all be easily undone. I hope you will not disapprove of this step; the house is pretty well unique, and I had to decide on taking it, unless some one else was to snap it up; otherwise I should certainly have consulted you first. I trust you will forgive me.”
Anne put the letter down, and wondered whether she was dreaming. What was all this about buying and consulting her, employing her capital? What capital had she page: 237 got? What right to be consulted? For a moment she felt quite bewildered; and then the full consciousness of Hamlin’s goodness rushed out and overwhelmed her, and she let her head fall on her desk and cried for sheer happiness. Then she thought it must all be a dream, and snatched the letter where it lay all crumpled, and smoothed it out trembling. Yes, there it all was. And then, as postscript, came this sentence, which made her heart leap:—
“There are two rooms additional on the garden, having a separate entrance from the embankment, and which I think you will not at present require for yourself. Would you perhaps let me rent them for a studio? My own lodgings are a long way from St John’s House (that is its name, for it was a priory once); but if I had my workshop there, I might hope to see you almost every day, if you would let me.”
The first dinner‐bell rang, and Anne, having hastily washed her eyes and smoothed her page: 238 hair, ran down‐stairs, not knowing very well why the bell rang, or what it was all about. In the sitting‐room she found the girl from New Zealand, a little nervous creature, whom she had nursed through a bad fever, in her cold, absent way, and who had conceived a shy, intense passion for this beautiful strange creature, who seemed to her an unapproachable being from another world.
“I am going away,” cried Anne—she felt she must say it—“going away from school—to London, next month.”
The thin, nervous, anæmic little girl turned ashy‐white.
“Oh, are you really going?” she exclaimed faintly, for with Anne disappeared all the poor child’s sunshine and ideal from this dreary, worse than orphaned life, among girls who had too many occupations and interests to care for her.
“Are you really going, Annie? . . . Oh, I am so sorry!”
“Sorry?” cried Anne; “it is very nasty page: 239 of you to be sorry—I am glad; oh, so glad! so glad!”
The little New Zealander had gone to the window, and was looking through its panes at the rainy street; she gave a little suppressed sob.
Anne felt as if she had committed a murder. She ran to the window, and seized the struggling small creature in her powerful arms, and knelt down before her, clasping her round the waist.
“Oh, forgive me! forgive me!” cried Anne, as the consciousness of the girl’s love, which she had never before perceived, came upon her, together with the shame and remorse at her heartlessness; “forgive me, forgive—I am a brute—a beast —oh dear, oh dear, that happiness should make me so wicked!”
The New Zealander smiled and buried her thin yellow face in the masses of Anne’s dark crisp hair.
“Will you remember me sometimes?” she asked; “I love you so much.”
page: 240Anne kissed the poor, pale, tear‐stained cheeks.
“Oh yes, I will always remember you,” she said.
But she was already thinking of Hamlin.
