Part 70

After her father had gone, Annie sat taking even stitch after even stitch, but a few tears ran over her cheeks and fell upon the soft mass of muslin. Effie watched with shrewd, speculative silence, like a pet cat. Then suddenly she rose and went close to Annie, with her little arms around her neck, and the poor dumb mouth repeating her little speeches: “Thank you, I am very well, thank you, I am very well,” over and over.

Annie kissed her fondly, and was aware of a sense of comfort and of love for this poor little Effie. Still, after being nearly two months with the child, she was relieved when Felicia Hempstead came, the first of September, and wished to take Effie home with her. She had not gone to Europe, after all, but to the mountains, and upon her return had missed the little girl.

Effie went willingly enough, but Annie discovered that she too missed her. Now loneliness had her fairly in its grip. She had a telephone installed, and gave her orders over that. Sometimes the sound of a human voice made her emotional to tears. Besides the voices over the telephone, Annie had nobody, for Benny returned to college soon after Effie left. Benny had been in the habit of coming in to see Annie, and she had not had the heart to check him. She talked to him very little, and knew that he was no telltale as far as she was concerned, although he waxed most communicative with regard to the others. A few days before he left he came over and begged her to return.

“I know the girls have nagged you till you are fairly worn out,” he said. “I know they don't tell things straight, but I don't believe they know it, and I don't see why you can't come home, and insist upon your rights, and not work so hard.”

“If I come home now it will be as it was before,” said Annie.

“Can't you stand up for yourself and not have it the same?”

Annie shook her head.

“Seems as if you could,” said Benny. “I always thought a girl knew how to manage other girls. It is rather awful the way things go now over there. Father must be uncomfortable enough trying to eat the stuff they set before him and living in such a dirty house.”

Annie winced. “Is it so very dirty?”

Benny whistled.

“Is the food so bad?”

Benny whistled again.

“You advised me--or it amounted to the same thing--to take this stand,” said Annie.

“I know I did, but I didn't know how bad it would be. Guess I didn't half appreciate you myself, Annie. Well, you must do as you think best, but if you could look in over there your heart would ache.”

“My heart aches as it is,” said Annie, sadly.

Benny put an arm around her. “Poor girl!” he said. “It is a shame, but you are going to marry Tom. You ought not to have the heartache.”

“Marriage isn't everything,” said Annie, “and my heart does ache, but--I can't go back there, unless--I can't make it clear to you, Benny, but it seems to me as if I couldn't go back there until the year is up, or I shouldn't be myself, and it seems, too, as if I should not be doing right by the girls. There are things more important even than doing work for others. I have got it through my head that I can be dreadfully selfish being unselfish.”

“Well, I suppose you are right,” admitted Benny with a sigh.

Then he kissed Annie and went away, and the blackness of loneliness settled down upon her. She had wondered at first that none of the village people came to see her, although she did not wish to talk to them; then she no longer wondered. She heard, without hearing, just what her sisters had said about her.

That was a long winter for Annie Hempstead. Letters did not come very regularly from Tom Reed, for it was a season of heavy snowfalls and the mails were often delayed. The letters were all that she had for comfort and company. She had bought a canary-bird, adopted a stray kitten, and filled her sunny windows with plants. She sat beside them and sewed, and tried to be happy and content, but all the time there was a frightful uncertainty deep down within her heart as to whether or not she was doing right. She knew that her sisters were unworthy, and yet her love and longing for them waxed greater and greater. As for her father, she loved him as she had never loved him before. The struggle grew terrible. Many a time she dressed herself in outdoor array and started to go home, but something always held her back. It was a strange conflict that endured through the winter months, the conflict of a loving, self-effacing heart with its own instincts.

Toward the last of February her father came over at dusk. Annie ran to the door, and he entered. He looked unkempt and dejected. He did not say much, but sat down and looked about him with a half-angry, half-discouraged air. Annie went out into the kitchen and broiled some beefsteak, and creamed some potatoes, and made tea and toast. Then she called him into the sitting-room, and he ate like one famished.

“Your sister Susan does the best she can,” he said, when he had finished, “and lately Jane has been trying, but they don't seem to have the knack. I don't want to urge you, Annie, but--”

“You know when I am married you will have to get on without me,” Annie said, in a low voice.

“Yes, but in the mean time you might, if you were home, show Susan and Jane.”

“Father,” said Annie, “you know if I came home now it would be just the same as it was before. You know if I give in and break my word with myself to stay away a year what they will think and do.”

“I suppose they might take advantage,” admitted Silas, heavily. “I fear you have always given in to them too much for their own good.”

“Then I shall not give in now,” said Annie, and she shut her mouth tightly.

There came a peal of the cracked door-bell, and Silas started with a curious, guilty look. Annie regarded him sharply. “Who is it, father?”