Chapter XXXIV

John Douglas Speaks at Last

Anne was not without a feeble hope that something might come of it

after all. But nothing did. John Douglas came and took Janet driving,

and walked home from prayer-meeting with her, as he had been doing for

twenty years, and as he seemed likely to do for twenty years more. The

summer waned. Anne taught her school and wrote letters and studied a

little. Her walks to and from school were pleasant. She always went by

way of the swamp; it was a lovely place—a boggy soil, green with the

greenest of mossy hillocks; a silvery brook meandered through it and

spruces 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 be

sure, there was one diverting incident.

She had not seen the lank, tow-headed Samuel of the peppermints since

the evening of his call, save for chance meetings on the road. But one

warm August night he appeared, and solemnly seated himself on the

rustic bench by the porch. He wore his usual working habiliments,

consisting of varipatched trousers, a blue jean shirt, out at the

elbows, and a ragged straw hat. He was chewing a straw and he kept on

chewing it while he looked solemnly at Anne. Anne laid her book aside

with a sigh and took up 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 the

direction 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’s

one that’d suit me over at Millersville. But ef I rents it I’ll want a

woman.”

“I suppose so,” said Anne vaguely.

“Yep.”

There was another long silence. Finally Sam removed his straw again and

said,

“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 and

I’ve got some money in the bank.”

“Don’t speak of this to me again. Whatever put such an idea into your

head?” said Anne, her sense of humor getting the better of her wrath.

It was 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 my

mind yit awhile. Wall, I must be gitting. Gotter milk the cows.”

Anne’s illusions concerning proposals had suffered so much of late

years that there were few of them left. So she could laugh

wholeheartedly over this one, not feeling any secret sting. She

mimicked poor Sam to Janet that night, and both of them laughed

immoderately over his plunge into sentiment.

One afternoon, when Anne’s sojourn in Valley Road was drawing to a

close, Alec Ward came driving down to “Wayside” in hot haste for Janet.

“They want you at the Douglas place quick,” he said. “I really believe

old Mrs. Douglas is going to die at last, after pretending to do it for

twenty years.”

Janet ran to get her hat. Anne asked if Mrs. Douglas was worse than

usual.

“She’s not half as bad,” said Alec solemnly, “and that’s what makes me

think it’s serious. Other times she’d be screaming and throwing herself

all 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’s

cryptic reply.

Janet came home in the twilight.

“Mrs. Douglas is dead,” she said wearily. “She died soon after I got

there. She just spoke to me once—‘I suppose you’ll marry John now?’ she

said. It cut me to the heart, Anne. To think John’s own mother thought

I wouldn’t marry him because of her! I couldn’t say a word either—there

were other women there. I was thankful John had gone out.”

Janet began to cry drearily. But Anne brewed her a hot drink of ginger

tea to her comforting. To be sure, Anne discovered later on that she

had used white pepper instead of ginger; but Janet never knew the

difference.

The evening after the funeral Janet and Anne were sitting on the front

porch steps at sunset. The wind had fallen asleep in the pinelands and

lurid sheets of heat-lightning flickered across the northern skies.

Janet wore her ugly black dress and looked her very worst, her eyes and

nose red from crying. They talked little, for Janet seemed faintly to

resent Anne’s efforts to cheer her up. She plainly preferred to be

miserable.

Suddenly the gate-latch clicked and John Douglas strode into the

garden. He walked towards them straight over the geranium bed. Janet

stood up. So did Anne. Anne was a tall girl and wore a white dress; but

John Douglas 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 twenty

years and _must_ be uttered now, before anything else.

Janet’s face was so red from crying that it couldn’t turn any redder,

so it 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’t

live through it. She implored me to promise not to ask you to marry me

while she was alive. I didn’t want to promise such a thing, even though

we all thought she couldn’t live very long—the doctor only gave her six

months. But she begged it on her knees, sick and suffering. I had to

promise.”

“What had your mother against me?” cried Janet.

“Nothing—nothing. She just didn’t want another woman—_any_ woman—there

while she was living. She said if I didn’t promise she’d die right

there and I’d have killed her. So I promised. And she’s held me to that

promise ever since, though I’ve gone on my knees to her in my turn to

beg her to let me off.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this?” asked Janet chokingly. “If I’d only

_known!_ 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’d

dreamed it was to be for so long. Janet, you’ll never know what I’ve

suffered these nineteen years. I know I’ve made you suffer, too, but

you’ll marry me for all, won’t you, Janet? Oh, Janet, won’t you? I’ve

come as soon as I could to ask you.”

At this moment the stupefied Anne came to her senses and realized that

she had no business to be there. She slipped away and did not see Janet

until 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 I

wouldn’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

talk terrible. They’ll say I made enough haste to snap John up as soon

as his poor mother was out of the way. John wanted to let them know the

truth but I said, ‘No, John; after all she was your mother, and we’ll

keep the secret between us, and not cast any shadow on her memory. I

don’t mind what people say, now that I know the truth myself. It don’t

matter a mite. Let it all be buried with the dead’ says I to him. So I

coaxed him round to agree with me.”

“You’re much more forgiving than I could ever be,” Anne said, rather

crossly.

“You’ll feel differently about a good many things when you get to be my

age,” said Janet tolerantly. “That’s one of the things we learn as we

grow older—how to forgive. It comes easier at forty than it did at

twenty.”