CHAPTER XII

_Making Alive_

During three days and for as many long nights Anne Dallas lived intensely in unrealities. Richard Latham was not inclined to talk; she herself was submerged in feeling that silenced words. It seemed to her that it blanketed thought, yet all the time she was thinking intently and, unknown to herself, was reaching conclusions. She worked fast, for Richard was working fast; she rapidly took down notes for the first part of his third act, and was aware somewhere in her brain behind her absorption that he was dictating to her lines which surpassed himself at his previous best.

Little Anne Berkley was dangerously ill. Pneumonia had developed on the second day after her pitiful penance, and, little-Anne-like, she was having it hard. Anne Dallas and Richard Latham were surprised to find what a large place in their days and hearts the child had filled. The thin little body as it lay prostrate in its fight for life cast a shadow over the house in Latham Street. His anxiety stimulated Richard to better work, but in Anne’s mind fear for little Anne aggregated to her personal anxiety and benumbed her further. The world had grown still, hushed by anxiety; she was feeling so intensely that she seemed not to feel.

Nor did the shadow of little Anne’s suffering darken only the poet’s house. Kit was so afflicted by her danger that he hovered constantly around the Berkley door, getting bulletins many times a day, bringing preposterous gifts to the child who could not see them.

Once, when she was sleeping, Mrs. Berkley took Kit up to look at her. She lay with a disreputable doll beside her, her face so pinched, her breathing so laboured, the look of suffering, of imminent death so stamped upon her that Kit groaned aloud. Mrs. Berkley led him away as little Anne stirred.

“It’s bad, Kit, dear, but we are hoping and praying,” she said with such a brave smile that when Kit got down to where Antony Paul was waiting for him he broke down.

Peter sat with his head in his hands, bowed over his knees. He looked up fiercely as he heard Kit sob.

“She isn’t your little sister. How do you suppose I feel?” he demanded. “There never was such a kid as Anne. Joan isn’t in the same class, Antony, no matter what you say. More brains than all the other children in town put together, and never a fresh thing about her; sweet, obedient, pious! And I wouldn’t forgive her for a clever little trick that I ought to have enjoyed; yes, been proud to think she was smart enough to work it! Wouldn’t kiss her! Oh, my Lord! Anne, Anne! Told her to go stand in the river for penance, when she was so sorry, the little saint! Wouldn’t kiss her!”

Down went Peter’s head again and his shoulders heaved.

“See here, old chap, we haven’t lost her yet. You know what to do. Get out and do it. I believe she’ll be given back to us,” said Antony, his arm laid across poor Peter as tenderly as a woman’s. Kit watched and wondered, but Peter understood Antony. He drew his arm across his eyes, got his cap, and went out without a word.

Kit went miserably home. Aside from his sense of personal loss, it seemed to him unbearable that a child so young, so vital as little Anne should die. He had not meditated so profoundly on the mysteries of life in all the brief time that he had lived it as he found himself doing on his way home that afternoon. He distinctly shrank from going into the metallic brightness of his aunt and Helen’s presence from the sublime patience that he divined in Mrs. Berkley, and the solemnity of little Anne, clothed in the mystery of suffering and death.

He was met at the door by Helen, her face all gentle commiseration.

“I am sure that you have nothing good to tell me, Kit, but Anne?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Not either sort of news. Of course there’s a chance she may pull through.”

“Kit, don’t feel so sorry. I can’t bear to see it. But if you are sorry don’t exclude me as you do. What makes you? I’m not absolutely inhuman!” Helen smiled, but she looked hurt.

“She’s a nice child. You don’t like children,” said Kit, dangerously near to rudeness. “It’s not excluding, Nell. What’s the use of talking about things, anyway?”

Kit went upstairs, leaving Helen where she stood. As he went he was conscious that he would not have asked Anne Dallas what was the use of talking about things; he knew that it would be the greatest comfort to him to go to her and discuss little Anne and his recent thoughts. But, he reminded himself, this was explained by Anne’s love for the sick child.

The next afternoon he did go to Richard Latham’s. He was shown directly into the peaceful room where Anne Dallas and the poet were sitting.

“Do I interrupt work?” Kit asked, pausing in the doorway.

“No, indeed; all done for to-day,” said Richard. “Kit, have you bad news?” he added.

“Oh, your face says so!” exclaimed Anne; Richard had caught the note of strain in his voice.

Kit came in and dropped heavily into a chair.

“I don’t know; I suppose it is not anything portentous. They are waiting for the crisis, now; it’s near. Poor little girl!” He paused, and Richard patted him on the shoulder.

“We are all broken up here, too,” he said.

“But there is something else, some change?” Anne asked.

“She was conscious this morning and in the night,” said Kit. “She has been conscious a good deal, they say. She asked what day this was, and when they said Thursday, she asked if it was Corpus Christi? I don’t know what that means, but----”

“Yes, I do. I’ve seen it kept abroad, processions, and----” Richard began, but Kit interrupted him.

“Well,” he said, indifferently. “But the point is that this was the day on which little Anne and some other children were to go to Communion for the first time, and that through her pain the poor mite had kept track of the days, somewhere in her fevered brain. And Joan told me that the priest came and she did--what do they say?--make her First Communion this morning. And afterward she said--isn’t this like her?--‛I didn’t know my white dress for to-day would be my nightie.’ That sort of broke me up.” Kit choked, and neither Anne nor Richard spoke.

“Well, little Anne’s father and Antony Paul were to get flowers for her to give to the church. So they bought them for her room. Her mother took me up. It was full of flowers, but Anne was not conscious when I was there. They said she’d asked to have them taken to the church; Peter was going to take them. They--the priest--he gave her--what did Joan say? He anointed her for death. Little Anne!”

Kit’s voice had been getting more unsteady; it stopped altogether and he dropped his face into his hands.

Anne was crying softly, but Richard said, though the effort was audible:

“I’ve been told they often recover, those who receive Extreme Unction. I am unable to believe that little Anne will die. Something tells me that she is coming here one of these fine summer days to tell us extraordinary things of her fight with death, just as she has so often said strange things of her experiences in life. We won’t grieve till we must, dear Kit, and dear other Anne. I am hopeful.”

“Poets have visions withheld from us. We will trust this poet and hope!” said Anne, trying to smile. “I wonder why this slender little creature has so deeply entered our hearts? It really seems to me that I could not bear to see little Anne lying dead.”

“I only know that she has crawled into our hearts,” said Kit. He went away comforted. Not only was Richard Latham’s hopefulness a relief when he had felt that little Anne was doomed, but in an intangible way it seemed to Kit that Anne Dallas had drawn near to him, that her tears had been shed so close to him that he had wiped them away, comforting her. It was not a reasonable feeling, but reason and feeling are often opposed terms. In their love for this little child he and Anne were one. How easily that oneness might go further!

Kit’s simplicity accepted the oneness and rested upon it. His was a nature inclined to believe in all that was good, even in good things coming to him. And perhaps the impression of sympathy was not mistaken, whatever might come of it. He slept little that night. The greater part of it he spent in a chair at the window, gazing out on the silent world, at the watching stars.

It seemed to him now like something inconceivably solemn, rather than sad, that little Anne might have passed out from this visible beauty. He had only the vaguest ideas of what the sacraments which the child had received meant, but “anointing for death” had a sound as awesome as the sweep of Azrael’s wings. It lifted the child beyond the little creature whom he had known and loved, the precocious, innocent, elfin, spiritual child, full of contradictory charm; she was now become merely a soul, a passing soul, set apart and chosen to know at the dawn of life all that man had yearned to fathom.

He no longer cared to keep her. It was as if it were too stupendous a matter for human desire to interfere in it, that little Anne must be left alone to go on or come back, the decision untrammelled.

Kit’s thoughts turned calmly to Anne Dallas; they partook of the mood wrought by little Anne’s apotheosis. Anne Dallas loved him! Wonderful, impossible once to have believed as this was, it seemed to Kit quite certain. He did not know why, he could not have given a reason for this certainty, but when one knows a thing beyond question it would be absurd to ask for proof.

He felt uplifted. Little Anne was close to infinity; he and Anne were blessed in their closeness to each other. It was a profound, a restful conviction. There would flow from it, Kit realized, intensely vital action, but now it sufficed to rest in it, conscious feeling absorbed. In a frame of mind in which he did not recognize himself Kit passed the night. It was not unlike the vigil of a youth beside his arms on the eve of knighthood.

As the east began to redden Kit dozed, his arms on the windowsill pillowing his head. He roused and shook himself as boys and dogs shake themselves after a nap, and went downstairs, winding his forgotten watch as he went, setting it by the tall clock on the landing. He was surprised to see that it was after seven.

He went out on the steps, intending to go to the Berkley house to ask for news. He shrank from ringing the sharp telephone bell in that house which he pictured as filled with the silence of oppressive grief. For now, though the rising sun usually brings hope after the night’s despair, Kit felt sure that little Anne was dead.

As he came out he saw on the bottom step of his aunt’s house a figure. It sat huddled, arms folded, head pillowed, knees drawn up, bowed forward in a heap that for a moment prevented recognition. Then Kit saw that it was young Peter Berkley.

“Peter!” he cried, and went down to lay his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

Peter jumped and sat up, rubbing his eyes, bewildered.

“Must have dropped off,” he apologized. “I’m not used to being awake all night, and this was the third one. I was awake pretty much all of the two before this one. I thought I’d stop and see you, but I hated to ring, didn’t hear any one stirring in the house. When I sat down I guess I went right off.”

“Have you been here long?” asked Kit, not daring to ask the question that was uppermost in his mind.

“Don’t know what time it is now,” said Peter. “I got here about ten minutes to seven, I suppose. I went around to serve Mass at six. That’s the first one. I had to go.”

“Did you?” Kit’s voice was as softly pitying as Peter’s mother’s could have been. “Is that what you do when----”

“It’s what you want to do. You can’t thank God yourself; you’re not big enough,” said Peter, simply. “What I came to tell you, Kit, is that Anne’s pulled through.”

“Living? Going to live?” Kit shouted.

Peter nodded. “The crisis was last night about one. She got through it like the little sport she is. The doctor stayed and helped all he could, but he said it was her heart won out. He says her heart’s fine this morning, so it’s sure she’ll get well with proper care. Think she won’t get it? The doctor doesn’t know how true what he said was. Say, don’t you think it was little Anne’s heart? She’s such a good kid and tries so hard to do what she’s told.”

Kit nodded. He found it hard to speak, but he patted Peter’s shoulder steadily, as though something would go wrong if he stopped.

“I knew how you’d feel,” said Peter, stretching his weary muscles. “Got to go on home now. I haven’t had anything to eat yet, and I don’t believe we had dinner; I can’t seem to remember. Isn’t that funny? I didn’t go to bed; I lit right out for the six--Mass at six, I mean. I’m going to serve that one for nine days; it takes something to get up at five. That’s a novena I’m going to make.”

Kit understood the boy’s elisions, being still a boy in spite of his approaching third decade.

“Well, Peter, I’d know you’d be thankful,” Kit said. “I am, too. I’d like it if I knew how to do something to show I’m thankful.”

“Oh, thankful!” Peter seemed to inhale the word. “Well, say! If Anne had died from standing in the river when I was such a fool and a brute as to say what I did to her---- Thankful! Well, say!”

The boy walked away, head up, but shoulders heaving.

Kit stood for a few moments on the steps, his head thrown back, the sunshine on his face. He looked radiant but stunned.

“I didn’t think she’d make it!” he said aloud. “I was sure when I saw Peter sitting here she hadn’t made it. Gracious, but I _am_ glad! Anne will be glad. I must call and tell her.”

Anne received Kit’s message at her boarding place. She hurried her breakfast and went to Latham Street earlier than usual to take the joyful news there.

Richard Latham received it as a twice-told tale, not the less welcome.

“The dear little thing!” he said. “But I felt sure that she was safe. The first thing I thought when I wakened was that little Anne was all right. But it is joyful to be confirmed by certainty. How glad you are! I can feel the happiness radiating from you like an electric current!”

“Indeed I am happy!” cried Anne. “I love the child, but it’s not that alone. That is such a dear family, so simple, so united, so loving that I couldn’t endure the thought of their loss of little Anne. Though perhaps it would have been better to let her slip away to the heaven she’s so fond of talking about.”

“Nonsense!” said Richard, briskly. “That’s a morbid, wrong notion. Life is a gift. A wicked life is the gift thrown away, but do you really think there is great danger of little Anne’s conscience ever abandoning her to a misspent life--or of her abandoning her conscience, more correctly? Anne’s conscience is as intrinsic to her as her heart, or any other vital organ! She’ll be a good woman. So I’m mighty glad she’s to live to make a happier world, as her mother has done. How good it will be to have her around again! How did you hear about her?”

“Kit Carrington telephoned me. Peter Berkley had been there to tell Kit, and he knew that I--we--would be eager to hear,” said Anne.

“Ah! Well, that was kind of him; we were eager to hear,” said Richard. Anne did not see his face; he turned and left the room as he spoke, but she heard the change in his voice that answered to a drooping body.

“You do not feel too perturbed to work to-day?” Richard suggested when Anne followed him to the living room a few minutes later. There was no note of regret in his voice now.

“Dear me, no!” laughed Anne. “I feel more like work than usual; there is a load rolled off, isn’t there?”

Anne had set down her problem in accurate figures, and had solved it. There was nothing in the way of her making Richard as happy as she could make him, except selfishness. She wanted the love that had not come to her, which was to her the ideal approach to marriage. This ideal was the true one, but her case was altered by circumstances. First of all, there was no one whom she loved better than Richard Latham. If there were, she could not have been untrue to that love, whether or not it led to joy. Richard Latham was not only a man to be honoured for his genius, pitied for his blindness, but he was a man to be loved for himself. Rarely would any woman find in one person the qualities which he united in himself; the manliness with the delicacy; the tenderness with the courage; the unbending austerity with the unfailing mercy. He could love a woman as few men could love one; he would idealize her while protecting her; serve her in all humility, yet expect from her all the goodness and strength that was in her. Anne had decided that if Richard really were giving her this power and wanted her, it was not for her to refuse his wealth, nor further impoverish one who had been so bereft. Having reached her decision, she went serenely on her way, characteristically debating it no more; ready to give if the demand were made, desiring nothing except not to fail either Richard or herself.

This morning Richard resumed the dictation of his third act; Anne, pen in hand, set down the cabalistic signs which Richard had once accused of signifying more than he could produce.

Suddenly she paused, her pen suspended, a shocked expression on her face.

“But, Mr. Latham, why are you saying this?” she cried. “What are you doing with this act? This dialogue? You are turning it all wrong!”

“No,” said Richard. “I am not going to follow my first plan. Our friend, the hero, is not to be made happy, after all! I am separating him from his beloved. They are not to marry, as we meant them to. It won’t affect the two preceding acts; it will merely make another play of it, perhaps a sadder one, but not a weaker one--better, I think. Don’t you approve?”

“Indeed I do not!” cried Anne. “Why do you want to martyr him? And to frustrate that beautiful, ideal love! It’s unbearable! I can’t take the dictation that does this! And really, Mr. Latham, it will frustrate the play as well as the hero’s life. Don’t you think we all want the happy ending? It is always possible to get it in a play or a story! I’m sure the public will rebel, that your play will never succeed if you change your plot. No one ever drew a more ideal love than you have in the acts already written. And to spoil it all, sever these two who have dared for each other, borne for each other with such courage, yet so nobly, so wisely! Oh, why do you want to do it?”

“What a little enthusiast!” said Richard. “I am forced to do it. I can’t tell you why, Anne--Miss Dallas--but I’ve wholly lost the power to end it as I at first intended. It’s got to be a tragedy, a bloodless but poignant tragedy. I don’t know any other ending. I’ll make our nice girl happy with the nice youth, but for the man----” He shook his head after a moment’s hesitation. “I know no other end,” he repeated.

Anne laid down her pen. Her face wore an uplifted look, unlike the look with which a woman goes to her lover, but nevertheless she arose and went to her lover. She knelt beside him and took his hand.

“Why do you know no happy end for him?” she asked.

“Anne!” cried Richard Latham. “What are you doing? What do you mean? Anne, Anne--what do you know?”

“I know that if there were any one whom you wanted, Richard Latham, she would be a happy, a blessed woman.” Anne spoke hardly above a whisper, yet her words were clearly audible in the intense quiet of the room. Richard bent toward her, but pulled himself back.

“Do you mean--Anne, stop this! I love you. What right have you----”

“Perfect right, Richard,” said Anne, and lifted his hand to lay it on her bowed head.

“Oh, my God!” cried Richard, with a sob in his throat.

Then he leaped to his feet and caught her up in his arms and held her tight, kissing again and again her soft masses of hair, her closed eyes, at last her lips.

“Oh, my God, my good kind God,” he said, hoarsely. “How can it be true?”