The days went on, and the hour of her deliverance drew nigh. But, long before it came, two other processes had been slowly arriving at maturity. She had been gaining the confidence of her mistress, so that, ere three months were over, the arrangement of all minor matters of housekeeping was entirely in her hands. It may be that Mrs. Macintosh was not a little lazy, nor sorry to leave aside whatever did not positively demand her personal attention; one thing I am sure of, that Annie never made the smallest attempt to gain this favor, if such it was. Her mistress would, for instance, keep losing the keys of the cellaret, until in despair she at last yielded them entirely to the care of Annie, who thereafter carried them in her pocket, where they were always at hand when wanted.
The other result was equally natural, but of greater importance; Hector, the only child of the house, was gradually and, for a long time, unconsciously falling in love with Annie. Those friends of the family who liked Annie, and felt the charm of her manners and simplicity, said only that his mother had herself to blame, for what else could she expect? Others of them, regarding her from the same point of view as her mistress, repudiated the notion as absurd, saying Hector was not the man to degrade himself! He was incapable of such a misalliance.
But, as I have said already, Hector, although he had never yet been in love, was yet more than usually ready to fall in love, as belongs to the poetic temperament, when the fit person should appear. As to what sort she might prove depended on two facts in Hector—one, that he was fastidious in the best meaning of the word, and the other that he was dominated by sound good sense; a fact which even his father allowed, although with a grudge, seeing he had hitherto manifested no devotion to business, but spent his free time in literary pursuits. Of the special nature of those pursuits his father knew, or cared to know, nothing; and as to his mother, she had not even a favorite hymn.
I may say, then, that the love of womankind, which in solution, so to speak, pervaded every atomic interstice of the nature of Hector, had gradually, indeed, but yet rapidly, concentrated and crystallized around the idea of Annie—the more homogeneously and absorbingly that she was the first who had so moved him. It was, indeed, in the case of each a first love, although in the case of neither love at first sight.
Almost from the hour when first Annie entered the family, Hector had looked on her with eyes of interest; but, for a time, she had gone about the house with a sense almost of being there upon false pretenses, for she knew that she was doing what she did from no regard to any of its members, but only to gain the money whose payment would relieve her from an ever-present consciousness of guilt; and for this cause, if for no other, she was not in danger of falling in love with Hector. She was, indeed, too full of veneration for her master and mistress, and for their son so immeasurably above her, to let her thoughts rest upon him in any but a distantly worshipful fashion.
But it was part of her duty, which was not over well-defined in the house, to see that her young master's room was kept tidy and properly dusted; and in attending to this it was unavoidable that she should come upon indications of the way in which he spent his leisure hours. Never dreaming, indeed, that a servant might recognize at a glance what his father and mother did not care to know, Hector was never at any pains to conceal, or even to lay aside the lines yet wet from his pen when he left the room; and Annie could not help seeing them, or knowing what they were. Like many another Scotch lassie, she was fonder of reading than of anything else; and in her father's house she had had the free use of what books were in it; nor is it, then, to be wondered at that she was far more familiar with certain great books than was ever many an Oxford man. Some never read what they have no desire to assimilate; and some read what no expenditure of reading could ever make them able to appropriate; but Annie read, understood, and re-read the "Paradise Lost"; knew intimately "Comus" as well; delighted in "Lycidas," and had some of Milton's sonnets by heart; while for the Hymn on the Nativity, she knew every line, had studied every turn and phrase in it. It is sometimes a great advantage not to have many books, and so never outgrow the sense of mystery that hovers about even an open book-case; it was with awe and reverence that Annie, looking around Hector's room, saw in it, not daring to touch them, books she had heard of, but never seen—among others a Shakspere in one thick volume lay open on his table; nor is it, then, surprising that, when putting his papers straight, she could not help seeing from the different lengths of the lines upon them that they were verse. She trembled and glowed at the very sight of them, for she had in herself the instinct of sacred numbers, and in her soul felt a vague hunger after what might be contained in those loose papers—into which she did not even peep, instinctively knowing it dishonorable. She trembled yet more at recognizing the beautiful youth in the same house with her, to whom she did service, as himself one of those gifted creatures whom most she revered—a poet, perhaps another such as Milton! Neither are all ladies, nor all servants of ladies, honorable like Annie, or fit as she to be left alone with a man's papers.
Hector knew very well how his mother would regard such an alliance as had now begun to absorb every desire and thought of his heart, and was the more careful to watch and repress every sign of the same, foreseeing that, at the least suspicion of the fact, she would lay all the blame upon Annie, at once dismiss her from the house, and remain forever convinced that she had entered it with the design in her heart to make him fall in love with her. He therefore avoided ever addressing her, except with a distant civility, the easier to him that his mind was known only to himself, while all the time the consciousness of her presence in it enveloped the house in a rosy cloud. For a long time he did not even dream of attempting a word with her alone, fondly imagining that thus he gave his mother time to know and love Annie before discovering anything between them to which she might object. But he did not yet know how incapable that mother was of any simple affection, being, indeed, one of the commonest-minded of women. He believed also that the least attempt to attract Annie's attention would but scare her, and make her incapable of listening to what he might try to say.
In the meantime, Annie, under the influence of more and better food, and that freedom from care which came of the consciousness that she was doing her best both for her mother and for her own moral emancipation, looked sweeter and grew happier every day; no cloudy sense, no doubt of approaching danger had yet begun to heave an ugly shoulder above her horizon, neither had Hector begun to fret against the feeling that he must not speak to her; in such a silence and in such a presence he felt he could live happy for ages; he moved in a lovely dream of still content.
And it was natural also that he should begin to burgeon spiritually and mentally, to grow and flourish beyond any experience in the past. Within a few such days of hidden happiness, the power of verse, and of thoughts worthy of verse, came upon him with as sure an inspiration of the Almighty as can ever descend upon a man, accompanied by a deeper sense of the being and the presence of God, and a stronger desire to do the will of the Father, which is surely the best thing God himself can kindle in the heart of any man. For what good is there in creation but the possibility of being yet further created? And what else is growth but more of the will of God?
Something fresh began to stir in his mind; even as in the spring, away in far depths of beginning, the sap gives its first upward throb in the tree, and the first bud, as yet invisible, begins to jerk itself forward to break from the cerements of ante-natal quiescence, and become a growing leaf, so a something in Hector that was his very life and soul began to yield to unseen creative impulse, and throb with a dim, divine consciousness. The second evening after thus recognizing its presence he hurried up the stair from the office to his own room, and there, sitting down, began to write—not a sonnet to his charmer, neither any dream about her, not even some sweet song of the waking spring which he felt moving within him, but the first speech of a dramatic poem. It was a bold beginning, but all beginners are daring, if not presumptuous. Hector's aim was to embody an ideal of check, of rousing, of revival, of new energy and fresh start. All that evening he wrote with running pen, forgot the dinner-bell after its first summons, and went on until Annie knocked at his door, dispatched to summon him to the meal. There was in Hector, indeed, as a small part of the world came by-and-by to know, the making of a real poet, for such there are in the world at all times—yea, even now—although they may not be recognized, or even intended to ripen in the course of one human season. I think Annie herself was one of such—so full was she of receptive and responsive faculty in the same kind, and I remain in doubt whether the genuine enjoyment of verse be not a fuller sign of the presence of what is most valuable in it than even some power of producing it. For Hector, I imagine, it gave strong proof of his being a poet indeed that, when he opened the door to her knock, the appearance of Annie herself, instead of giving him a thrill of pleasure, occasioned him a little annoyance by the evanishment of a just culminating train of thought into the vast and seething void, into which he gazed after it in vain. And Annie herself, although all the time in Hector's thought, revealed herself only, after the custom of celestials, at the very moment of her disappearance; her message delivered, she went back to her duties at the table; and then first Hector woke to the knowledge that she had been at his door, and was there no more. During the last few days he had been gradually approaching the resolve to keep silence no longer, but be bold and tell Annie how full his heart was of her. One moment he might have done so; one moment more, and he could not!
He followed close upon her steps, but not a word with her was possible, and it seemed to Hector that she sped from him like a very wraith to avoid his addressing her. Had she, then, he asked himself, some dim suspicion of his feelings toward her, or was she but making haste from a sense of propriety?
Now that very morning Mrs. Macintosh had been talking kindly to Annie—as kindly, that is, as her abominable condescension would permit—and, what to Annie was of far greater consequence, had paid her her wages, rather more than she had expected, so that nothing now lay between her and the fall of her burden from her heavy-laden conscience, except, indeed, her preliminary confession. Dinner, therefore, being over, her mistress gone to the drawing room to prepare the coffee, and her master to his room to write a letter suddenly remembered, Hector was left alone with Annie. Whereupon followed an amusing succession of disconnected attempt and frustration. For no sooner had Mr. Macintosh left the room than Annie darted from it after him, and Hector darted after Annie, determined at length to speak to her. When Annie, however, reached the foot of the stair, her master was already up the first flight, and Annie's courage failing her, she, turning sharply round, almost ran against Hector, who was close behind her. The look of disappointment on her face, to the meaning of which he had no clew, quenching his courage next, he returned in silence to the dining room, where Annie was now hovering aimlessly about the table, until, upon his re-entrance, she settled herself behind Hector's chair. He turned half-round, and would have said something to her, but, seeing her pale and troubled, he lapsed into a fit of brooding, and no longer dared speak to her. Besides, his mother might come to the dining room at any moment!
Then Annie, thinking she heard her master's re-descending step, hurried again from the room; but only at once to return afresh, which set Hector wondering yet more. Why on earth should she be lying in ambush for his father? He did not know that she was equally anxious to avoid the eyes of her mistress. And while Annie was anxious to keep her secret from the tongue of Mrs. Macintosh, Hector was as anxious to keep his from the eyes of his mother until a fit moment should arrive for its disclosure. But he imagined, I believe, that Annie saw he wanted to speak to her, and thought she was doing what she could to balk his intention.
But the necessity for disclosure was strongest in Annie, and drove her to encounter what risk might be involved. So when at last she heard a certain step of the stair creak, she darted to the door, and left the room even while the hand of her mistress, coming to say the coffee was ready, was on that which communicated with the drawing room.
"I thought I heard Annie at the sideboard: is she gone?" she said.
"She left the room this moment, I believe," answered Hector.
"What is she gone for?"
"I cannot say, mother," replied Hector indifferently, in the act himself of leaving the room also, determined on yet another attempt to speak to Annie. In the meantime, however, Annie had found her opportunity. She had met Mr. Macintosh halfway down the last flight of stairs, and had lifted to him such a face of entreaty that he listened at once to her prayer for a private interview, and, turning, led the way up again to the room he had just left. There he shut the door, and said to her pleasantly:
"Well, Annie, what is it?"
I am afraid his man-imagination had led him to anticipate some complaint against Hector: he certainly was nowise prepared for what the poor self-accusing girl had to say.
For one moment she stood unable to begin; the next she had recovered her resolution: her face filled with a sudden glow; and ere her master had time to feel shocked, she was on her knees at his feet, holding up to him a new pound-note, one of those her mistress had just given her. Familiar, however, as her master was with the mean-looking things in which lay almost all his dealings, he did not at first recognize the object she offered him; while what connection with his wife's parlor-maid it could represent was naturally inconceivable to him. He stood for a moment staring at the note, and then dropped a pair of dull, questioning eyes on the face of the kneeling girl. He was not a man of quick apprehension, and the situation was appallingly void of helpful suggestion. To make things yet more perplexing, Annie sobbed as if her heart would break, and was unable to utter a word. "What must a stranger imagine," the poor man thought, "to come upon such a tableau?" Her irrepressible emotion lasted so long that he lost his patience and turned upon her, saying:
"I must call your mistress; she will know what to do with you!" Instantly she sprang to her feet, and broke into passionate entreaty.
"Oh, please, please, sir, have a minute's patience with me," she cried; "you never saw me behave so badly before!"
"Certainly not, Annie; I never did. And I hope you will never do so again," answered her master, with reviving good-nature, and was back in his first notion, that Hector had said something to her which she thought rude and did not like to repeat. He had never had a daughter, and perhaps all the more felt pitiful over the troubled woman-child at his feet.
But, having once spoken out and conquered the spell upon her, Annie was able to go on. She became suddenly quiet, and, interrupted only by an occasional sob, poured out her whole story, if not quite unbrokenly, at least without actual intermission, while her master stood and listened without a break in his fixed attention. By-and-by, however, a slow smile began to dawn on his countenance, which spread and spread until at length he burst into a laugh, none the less merry that it was low and evidently restrained lest it should be overheard. Like one suddenly made ashamed, Annie rose to her feet, but still held out the note to her master.
How was it possible that her evil deed should provoke her master to a fit of laughter? It might be easy for him in his goodness to pardon her, but how could he treat her offense as a thing of no consequence? Was it not a sin, which, like every other sin, could nowise at all be cleansed? For even God himself could not blot out the fact that she had done the deed! And yet, there stood her master laughing! And, what was more dreadful still, despite the resentment of her conscience, her master's merriment so far affected herself that she could not repress a responsive smile! It was no less than indecent, and yet, even in that answering smile, her misery of six months' duration passed totally away, melted from her like a mist of the morning, so that she could not even recall the feeling of her lost unhappiness. But, might not her conscience be going to sleep? Was it not possible she might be growing indifferent to right and wrong? Was she not aware in herself that there were powers of evil about her, seeking to lead her astray, and putting strange and horrid things in her mind?
But, although he laughed, her master uttered no articulate sound until she had ended her statement, by which time his amusement had changed to admiration. Another minute still passed, however, before he knew what answer to make.
"But, my good girl," he began, "I do not see that you have anything to blame yourself for—at least, not anything worth blaming yourself about. After so long a time, the money found was certainly your own, and you could do what you pleased with it."
"But, sir, I did not wait at all to see how it had happened, or whether it might not be claimed. I believe, indeed, that I hurried away at once, lest anyone should know I had it. I ran to spend it at once, so for whatever happened afterward I was to blame. Then, when it was too late, I learned that the money was yours!"
"What did you do with it, if I may ask?" said the master.
"I gave it to a school-fellow of mine who had married a helpless sort of husband and was in want of food."
"I am afraid you did not help them much by that," murmured the banker.
"Please, sir, I knew no other way to help them; and the money seemed to have been given me for them. I soon came to know better, and have been sorry ever since. I knew that I had no right to give it away as soon as I knew whose it was."
She ceased, but still held out the note to him.
Mr. Macintosh stood again silent, and made no movement toward taking it.
"Please, sir, take the money, and forgive me," pleaded Annie. "And please, sir, please do not say anything about it to anybody. Even my mother does not know."
"Now there you did wrong. You ought to have told your mother."
"I see that now, sir; but I was so glad to be able to help the poor creatures that I did not think of it till afterwards."
"I dare say your mother would have been glad of the money herself; I understand she was not left very well off."
"At that time I did not know she was so poor. But now that my mistress has paid me such good wages, I am going to take her every penny of them this very afternoon."
"And then you will tell her, will you not?"
"I shall not mind telling her when you have taken it back. I was afraid to tell her before! It was to pay you back that I asked Mrs. Macintosh to take me for parlor-maid."
"Then you were not in service before?"
"No, sir. You see, my mother thought I could earn my bread in a way we should both like better."
"So now you will give up service and go back to her?"
"I am not sure, sir. It would be long, I fear, before the school would pay me as well. You see, I have my food here too. And everything tells. Please, sir, take the pound."
"My dear girl," said her master, "I could not think of depriving you of what you have so well earned. It is more than enough to me that you want to repay it. I positively cannot take it."
"Indeed, I do want to repay it, sir," rejoined Annie. "It's anything but willing I shall be not to repay it. Indeed, there is no other way to get my soul free."
Here it seems time I should mention that Hector, weary of waiting Annie's return, had left the dining room to look for her; and running up the stair, not without the dread of hearing his mother's foot behind him, had slid softly into his father's room, to find Annie on her knees before him, and hear enough to understand her story before either his father or she was aware of his presence.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but indeed you must take it," urged Annie. "Surely you would not be so cruel to a poor girl who prays you to take the guilt off her back. Don't you see, sir, I never can look my father in the face till I have paid the money back!"
Here his father caught sight of Hector, and, perceiving that Annie had not yet seen him, and possibly glad of a witness, put up his hand to him to keep still. "Where is your father, then?" he asked Annie.
"In heaven somewhere," she answered, "waiting for my mother and me. Oh, father!" she broke out, "if only you had been alive you would soon have got me out of my shame and misery! But, thank God! it will soon be over now; my master cannot refuse to set me free."
"Certainly I will set you free," said Mr. Macintosh, a good deal touched. "With all my heart I forgive you the—the—the debt, and I thank you for bringing me to know the honestest girl—I mean, the most honorable girl I have ever yet had the pleasure to meet."
Hector had been listening, hardly able to contain his delight, and at these last words of his father, like the blundering idiot he was, he rushed forward, and, clasping Annie to his heart, cried out:
"Thank God, Annie, my father at least knows what you are!"
He met with a rough and astounding check. Far too startled to see who it was that thus embraced her, and unprepared to receive such a salutation, least of all from one she had hitherto regarded as the very prince of gentleness and courtesy, she met it with a sound, ringing box on the ear, which literally staggered Hector, and sent his father into a second peal of laughter, this time as loud as it was merry, and the next moment swelled in volume by that of Hector himself.