Chapter XXXIV
John Douglas Speaks at Last
Anne was not without a feeble hope that something might come of it afterall. But nothing did. John Douglas came and took Janet driving, andwalked home from prayer-meeting with her, as he had been doing fortwenty years, and as he seemed likely to do for twenty years more. Thesummer waned. Anne taught her school and wrote letters and studied alittle. Her walks to and from school were pleasant. She always went byway of the swamp; it was a lovely place--a boggy soil, green with thegreenest of mossy hillocks; a silvery brook meandered through it andspruces stood erectly, their boughs a-trail with gray-green mosses,their roots overgrown with all sorts of woodland lovelinesses.
Nevertheless, Anne found life in Valley Road a little monotonous. To besure, there was one diverting incident.
She had not seen the lank, tow-headed Samuel of the peppermints sincethe evening of his call, save for chance meetings on the road. But onewarm August night he appeared, and solemnly seated himself on the rusticbench by the porch. He wore his usual working habiliments, consisting ofvaripatched trousers, a blue jean shirt, out at the elbows, and a raggedstraw hat. He was chewing a straw and he kept on chewing it while helooked solemnly at Anne. Anne laid her book aside with a sigh and tookup her doily. Conversation with Sam was really out of the question.
After a long silence Sam suddenly spoke.
"I'm leaving over there," he said abruptly, waving his straw in thedirection of the neighboring house.
"Oh, are you?" said Anne politely.
"Yep."
"And where are you going now?"
"Wall, I've been thinking some of gitting a place of my own. There'sone that'd suit me over at Millersville. But ef I rents it I'll want awoman."
"I suppose so," said Anne vaguely.
"Yep."
There was another long silence. Finally Sam removed his straw again andsaid,
"Will yeh hev me?"
"Wh--a--t!" gasped Anne.
"Will yeh hev me?"
"Do you mean--MARRY you?" queried poor Anne feebly.
"Yep."
"Why, I'm hardly acquainted with you," cried Anne indignantly.
"But yeh'd git acquainted with me after we was married," said Sam.
Anne gathered up her poor dignity.
"Certainly I won't marry you," she said haughtily.
"Wall, yeh might do worse," expostulated Sam. "I'm a good worker andI've got some money in the bank."
"Don't speak of this to me again. Whatever put such an idea into yourhead?" said Anne, her sense of humor getting the better of her wrath. Itwas such an absurd situation.
"Yeh're a likely-looking girl and hev a right-smart way o' stepping,"said Sam. "I don't want no lazy woman. Think it over. I won't change mymind yit awhile. Wall, I must be gitting. Gotter milk the cows."
Anne's illusions concerning proposals had suffered so much of late yearsthat there were few of them left. So she could laugh wholeheartedly overthis one, not feeling any secret sting. She mimicked poor Sam to Janetthat night, and both of them laughed immoderately over his plunge intosentiment.
One afternoon, when Anne's sojourn in Valley Road was drawing to aclose, Alec Ward came driving down to "Wayside" in hot haste for Janet.
"They want you at the Douglas place quick," he said. "I really believeold Mrs. Douglas is going to die at last, after pretending to do it fortwenty years."
Janet ran to get her hat. Anne asked if Mrs. Douglas was worse thanusual.
"She's not half as bad," said Alec solemnly, "and that's what makes methink it's serious. Other times she'd be screaming and throwing herselfall over the place. This time she's lying still and mum. When Mrs.Douglas is mum she is pretty sick, you bet."
"You don't like old Mrs. Douglas?" said Anne curiously.
"I like cats as IS cats. I don't like cats as is women," was Alec'scryptic reply.
Janet came home in the twilight.
"Mrs. Douglas is dead," she said wearily. "She died soon after I gotthere. She just spoke to me once--'I suppose you'll marry John now?' shesaid. It cut me to the heart, Anne. To think John's own mother thoughtI wouldn't marry him because of her! I couldn't say a word either--therewere other women there. I was thankful John had gone out."
Janet began to cry drearily. But Anne brewed her a hot drink of gingertea to her comforting. To be sure, Anne discovered later on that shehad used white pepper instead of ginger; but Janet never knew thedifference.
The evening after the funeral Janet and Anne were sitting on the frontporch steps at sunset. The wind had fallen asleep in the pinelands andlurid sheets of heat-lightning flickered across the northern skies.Janet wore her ugly black dress and looked her very worst, her eyes andnose red from crying. They talked little, for Janet seemed faintlyto resent Anne's efforts to cheer her up. She plainly preferred to bemiserable.
Suddenly the gate-latch clicked and John Douglas strode into the garden.He walked towards them straight over the geranium bed. Janet stoodup. So did Anne. Anne was a tall girl and wore a white dress; but JohnDouglas did not see her.
"Janet," he said, "will you marry me?"
The words burst out as if they had been wanting to be said for twentyyears and MUST be uttered now, before anything else.
Janet's face was so red from crying that it couldn't turn any redder, soit turned a most unbecoming purple.
"Why didn't you ask me before?" she said slowly.
"I couldn't. She made me promise not to--mother made me promise not to.Nineteen years ago she took a terrible spell. We thought she couldn'tlive through it. She implored me to promise not to ask you to marry mewhile she was alive. I didn't want to promise such a thing, even thoughwe all thought she couldn't live very long--the doctor only gave hersix months. But she begged it on her knees, sick and suffering. I had topromise."
"What had your mother against me?" cried Janet.
"Nothing--nothing. She just didn't want another woman--ANY woman--therewhile she was living. She said if I didn't promise she'd die rightthere and I'd have killed her. So I promised. And she's held me to thatpromise ever since, though I've gone on my knees to her in my turn tobeg her to let me off."
"Why didn't you tell me this?" asked Janet chokingly. "If I'd onlyKNOWN! Why didn't you just tell me?"
"She made me promise I wouldn't tell a soul," said John hoarsely."She swore me to it on the Bible; Janet, I'd never have done it if I'ddreamed it was to be for so long. Janet, you'll never know what I'vesuffered these nineteen years. I know I've made you suffer, too, butyou'll marry me for all, won't you, Janet? Oh, Janet, won't you? I'vecome as soon as I could to ask you."
At this moment the stupefied Anne came to her senses and realized thatshe had no business to be there. She slipped away and did not see Janetuntil the next morning, when the latter told her the rest of the story.
"That cruel, relentless, deceitful old woman!" cried Anne.
"Hush--she's dead," said Janet solemnly. "If she wasn't--but she IS.So we mustn't speak evil of her. But I'm happy at last, Anne. And Iwouldn't have minded waiting so long a bit if I'd only known why."
"When are you to be married?"
"Next month. Of course it will be very quiet. I suppose people will talkterrible. They'll say I made enough haste to snap John up as soon as hispoor mother was out of the way. John wanted to let them know the truthbut I said, 'No, John; after all she was your mother, and we'll keep thesecret between us, and not cast any shadow on her memory. I don't mindwhat people say, now that I know the truth myself. It don't matter amite. Let it all be buried with the dead' says I to him. So I coaxed himround to agree with me."
"You're much more forgiving than I could ever be," Anne said, rathercrossly.
"You'll feel differently about a good many things when you get to be myage," said Janet tolerantly. "That's one of the things we learn as wegrow older--how to forgive. It comes easier at forty than it did attwenty."