Annie Kilburn by W. D. Howells

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"No. The truth is, Miss Kilburn, I was very anxious to see you about a
matter I have at heart--that I desire your help with."

"He wants me," Annie thought, "to give him the use of my name as a
subscriber to his book"--there seemed really to be a half-dozen books in
his bundle--"and he's come to me first."

"I had expected to come with Mrs. Munger--she's a great friend of mine;
you haven't met her yet, but you'll like her; she's the leading spirit
in South Hatboro'--and we were coming together this morning; but she was
unexpectedly called away yesterday, and so I ventured to call alone."

"I'm very glad to see you, Mr. Brandreth," Annie said. "Then Mrs. Munger
has subscribed already, and I'm only second fiddle, after all," she
thought.

"The truth is," said Mr. Brandreth, "I'm the factotum, or teetotum, of the
South Hatboro' ladies' book club, and I've been deputed to come and see if
you wouldn't like to join it."

"Oh!" said Annie, and with a thrill of dismay she asked herself how much
she had let her manner betray that she had supposed he was a book agent. "I
shall be very glad indeed, Mr. Brandreth."

"Mrs. Munger was sure you would," said Mr. Brandreth joyously. "I've
brought some of the books with me--the last," he said; and Annie had time
to get into a new social attitude toward him during their discussion of the
books. She chose one, and Mr. Brandreth took her subscription, and wrote
her name in the club book.

"One of the reasons," he said, "why I would have preferred to come with
Mrs. Munger is that she is so heart and soul with mo in my little scheme.
She could have put it before you in so much better light than I can. But
she was called away so suddenly."

"I hope for no serious cause," said Annie.

"Oh no! It's just to Cambridge. Her son is one of the Freshman Nine, and
he's been hit by a ball."

"Oh!" said Annie.

"Yes; it's a great pity for Mrs. Munger. But I come to you for advice as
well as co-operation, Miss Kilburn. You must have met a great many English
people in Rome, and heard some of them talk about it. We're thinking, some
of the young people here, about getting up some outdoor theatricals, like
Lady Archibald Campbell's, don't you know. You know about them?" he added,
at the blankness in her face.

"I read accounts of them in the English papers. They must have been
very--original. But do you think that in a community like Hatboro'--Are
there enough who could--enter into the spirit?"

"Oh yes, indeed!" cried Mr. Brandreth ardently. "You've no idea what a
place Hatboro' has got to be. You've not been about much yet, Miss
Kilburn?"

"No," said Annie; "I haven't really been off our own place since I came.
I've seen nobody but two or three old friends, and we naturally talked more
about old times than anything else. But I hear that there are great
changes."

"Yes," said Mr. Brandreth. "The social growth has been even greater than
the business growth. You've no idea! People have come in for the winter
as well as the summer. South Hatboro', where we live--you must see South
Hatboro', Miss Kilburn!--is quite a famous health resort. A great many
Boston doctors send their patients to us now, instead of Colorado or the
Adirondacks. In fact, that's what brought _us_ to Hatboro'. My mother
couldn't have lived, if she had tried to stay in Melrose. One lung all
gone, and the other seriously affected. And people have found out what
a charming place it is for the summer. It's cool; and it's so near, you
know; the gentlemen can run out every night--only an hour and a quarter
from town, and expresses both ways. All very agreeable people, too; and
cultivated. Mr. Fellows, the painter, makes a long summer; he bought an old
farm-house, and built a studio; Miss Jennings, the flower-painter, has a
little box there, too; Mr. Chapley, the publisher, of New York, has built;
the Misses Clevinger, and Mrs. Valence, are all near us. There's one family
from Chicago--quite nice--New England by birth, you know; and Mrs. Munger,
of course; so that there's a very pleasant variety."

"I certainly had no idea of it," said Annie.

"I knew you couldn't have," said Mr. Brandreth, "or you wouldn't have felt
any doubt about our having the material for the theatricals. You see,
I want to interest all the nice people in it, and make it a whole-town
affair. I think it's a great pity for some of the old village families and
the summer folks, as they call us, not to mingle more than they do, and
Mrs. Munger thinks so too; and we've been talking you over, Miss Kilburn,
and we've decided that you could do more than anybody else to help on a
scheme that's meant to bring them together."

"Because I'm neither summer folks nor old village families?" asked Annie.

"Because you're both," retorted Mr. Brandreth.

"I don't see that," said Annie; "but we'll suppose the case, for the sake
of argument. What do you expect me to do in theatricals, in-doors or out?
I never took part in anything of the kind; I can't see an inch beyond the
end of my nose without glasses; I never could learn the simplest thing by
heart; I'm clumsy and awkward; I get confused."

"Oh, my dear Miss Kilburn, spare yourself! We don't expect you to take part
in the play. I don't admit that you're what you say at all; but we only
want you to lend us your countenance."

"Oh, is that all? And what do you expect to do with my countenance?" Annie
said, with a laugh of misgiving.

"Everything. We know how much influence your name has--one of the old
Hatboro' names--in the community, and all that; and we do want to interest
the whole community in our scheme. We want to establish a Social Union for
the work-people, don't you know, and we think it would be much nicer if it
seemed to originate with the old village people."

Annie could not resist an impression in favour of the scheme. It gave
definition to the vague intentions with which she had returned to Hatboro';
it might afford her a chance to make reparation for the figure on the
soldiers' monument.

"I'm not sure," she began. "If I knew just what a Social Union is--"

"Well, at first," Mr. Brandreth interposed, "it will only be a
reading-room, supplied with the magazines and papers, and well lighted and
heated, where the work-people--those who have no families especially--could
spend their evenings. Afterward we should hope to have a kitchen, and
supply tea and coffee--and oysters, perhaps--at a nominal cost; and
ice-cream in the summer."

"But what have your outdoor theatricals to do--But of course. You intend
to give the proceeds--"

"Exactly. And we want the proceeds to be as large as possible. We propose
to give our time and money to getting the thing up in the best shape, and
then we want all the villagers to give their half-dollars and make it a
success every way."

"I see," said Annie.

"We want it to be successful, and we want it to be distinguished; we
want to make it unique. Mrs. Munger is going to give her grounds and the
decorations, and there will be a supper afterward, and a little dance."

"Such things are a great deal of trouble," said Annie, with a smile, from
the vantage-ground of her larger experience. "What do you propose to
do--what play?"

"Well, we've about decided upon some scenes from _Romeo and Juliet_.
They would be very easy to set, outdoors, don't you know, and everybody
knows them, and they wouldn't be hard to do. The ballroom in the house of
the Capulets could be made to open on a kind of garden terrace--Mrs. Munger
has a lovely terrace in her grounds for lawn-tennis--and then we could have
a minuet on the grass. You know Miss Mather introduces a minuet in that
scene, and makes a great deal of it. Or, I forgot. She's come up since you
went away."

"Yes; I hadn't heard of her. Isn't a minuet at Verona in the time of the
Scaligeri rather--"

"Well, yes, it is, rather. But you've no idea how pretty it is. And then,
you know, we could have the whole of the balcony scene, and other bits
that we choose to work in--perhaps parts of other acts that would suit the
scene."

"Yes, it would be charming; I can see how very charming it could be made."

"Then we may count upon you?" he asked.

"Yes, yes," she said; "but I don't really know what I'm to do."

Mr. Brandreth had risen; but he sat down again, as if glad to afford her
any light he could throw upon the subject.

"How am I to 'influence people,' as you say?" she continued. "I'm quite a
stranger in Hatboro'; I hardly know anybody."

"But a great many people know _you_, Miss Kilburn. Your name is
associated with the history of the place, and you could do everything for
us. You _won't_ refuse!" cried Mr. Brandreth winningly. "For instance,
you know Mrs. Wilmington."

"Oh yes; she's an old girl-friend of mine."

"Then you know how enormously clever she is. She can do anything. We want
her to take an active part--the part of the Nurse. She's delightfully
funny. But you know her peculiar temperament--how she hates initiative of
all kinds; and we want somebody to bring Mr. Wilmington round. If we could
get them committed to the scheme, and a man like Mr. Putney--he'd make
a capital Mercutio--it would go like wildfire. We want to interest the
churches, too. The object is so worthy, and the theatricals will be so
entirely unobjectionable in every respect. We have the Unitarians and
Universalists, of course. The Baptists and Methodists will be hard to
manage; but the Orthodox are of so many different shades; and I understand
the new minister, Mr. Peck, is very liberal. He was here in your house, I
believe."

"Yes; but I never saw him," said Annie. "He boarded with the farmer. I'm a
Unitarian myself."

"Of course. It would be a great point gained if we could interest him.
Every care will be taken to have the affair unobjectionable. You see, the
design is to let everybody come to the theatricals, and only those remain
to the supper and dance whom we invite. That will keep out the socially
objectionable element--the shoe-shop hands and the straw-shop girls."

"Oh," said Annie. "But isn't the--the Social Union for just that class?"

"Yes, it's _expressly_ for them, and we intend to organise a system of
entertainments--lectures, concerts, readings--for the winter, and keep them
interested the whole year round in it. The object is to show them that the
best people in the community have their interests at heart, and wish to get
on common ground with them."

"Yes," said Annie, "the object is certainly very good."

Mr. Brandreth rose again, and put out his hand. "Then you will help us?"

"Oh, I don't know about that yet."

"At least you won't hinder us?"

"Certainly not."

"Then I consider you in a very hopeful condition, Miss Kilburn, and I feel
that I can safely leave you to Mrs. Munger. She is coming to see you as
soon as she gets back."

Annie found herself sadder when he was gone, and she threw herself upon the
old feather-cushioned lounge to enjoy a reverie in keeping with the dreary
storm outside. Was it for this that she had left Rome? She had felt, as
every American of conscience feels abroad, the drawings of a duty, obscure
and indefinable, toward her country, the duty to come home and do something
for it, be something in it. This is the impulse of no common patriotism; it
is perhaps a sense of the opportunity which America supremely affords for
the race to help itself, and for each member of it to help all the rest.

But from the moment Annie arrived in Hatboro' the difficulty of being
helpful to anything or any one had increased upon her with every new fact
that she had learned about it and the people in it. To her they seemed
terribly self-sufficing. They seemed occupied and prosperous, from her
front parlour window; she did not see anybody going by who appeared to be
in need of her; and she shrank from a more thorough exploration of the
place. She found she had fancied necessity coming to her and taking away
her good works, as it were, in a basket; but till Mr. Brandreth appeared
with his scheme, nothing had applied for her help She had always hated
theatricals; they bored her; and yet the Social Union was a good object,
and if this scheme would bring her acquainted in Hatboro' it might be
the stepping-stone to something better, something really or more ideally
useful. She wondered what South Hatboro' was like; she would get Mrs.
Bolton's opinion, which, if severe, would be just. She would ask Mrs.
Bolton about Mrs. Munger, too. She would tell Mrs. Bolton to tell Mr. Peck
to call to dine. Would it be thought patronising to Mr. Peck?

The fire from the Franklin-stove diffused a drowsy comfort through the
room, the rain lashed the window-panes, and the wind shrilled in the gable.
Annie fell off to sleep. When she woke up she heard Mrs. Bolton laying the
table for her one o'clock dinner, and she knew it was half-past twelve,
because Mrs. Bolton always laid the table just half an hour beforehand. She
went out to speak to Mrs. Bolton.

There was no want of distinctness in Mrs. Bolton's opinion, but Annie felt
that there was a want of perspective and proportion in it, arising from the
narrowness of Mrs. Bolton's experience and her ignorance of the world; she
was farm-bred, and she had always lived upon the outskirts of Hatboro',
even when it was a much smaller place than now. But Mrs. Bolton had her
criterions, and she believed in them firmly; in a time when agnosticism
extends among cultivated people to every region of conjecture, the social
convictions of Mrs. Bolton were untainted by misgiving. In the first place,
she despised laziness, and as South Hatboro' was the summer home of open
and avowed disoccupation, of an idleness so entire that it had to seek
refuge from itself in all manner of pastimes, she held its population in
a contempt to which her meagre phrase did imperfect justice. From time to
time she had to stop altogether, and vent it in "Wells!" of varying accents
and inflections, but all expressive of aversion, and in snorts and sniffs
still more intense in purport.

Then she held that people who had nothing else to do ought at least to be
exemplary in their lives, and she was merciless to the goings-on in South
Hatboro', which had penetrated on the breath of scandal to the elder
village. When Annie came to find out what these were, she did not think
them dreadful; they were small flirtations and harmless intimacies between
the members of the summer community, which in the imagination of the
village blackened into guilty intrigue. On the tongues of some, South
Hatboro' was another Gomorrah; Mrs. Bolton believed the worst, especially
of the women.

"I hear," said Mrs. Bolton, "that them women come up here for _rest_.
I don't know what they want to rest _from_; but if it's from doin'
nothin' all winter long, I guess they go back to the city poot' near's
tired's they come."

Perhaps Annie felt that it was useless to try to enlighten her in regard
to the fatigues from which the summer sojourner in the country escapes
so eagerly; the cares of giving and going to lunches and dinners; the
labour of afternoon teas; the late hours and the heavy suppers of evening
receptions; the drain of charity-doing and play-going; the slavery of
amateur art study, and parlour readings, and musicales; the writing of
invitations and acceptances and refusals; the trying on of dresses; the
calls made and received. She let her talk on, and tried to figure, as well
as she could from her talk, the form and magnitude of the task laid upon
her by Mr. Brandreth, of reconciling Old Hatboro' to South Hatboro', and
uniting them in a common enterprise.

"Mrs. Bolton," she said, abruptly leaving the subject at last, "I've been
thinking whether I oughtn't to do something about Mr. Peck. I don't want
him to feel that he was unwelcome to me in my house; I should like him to
feel that I approved of his having been here."

As this was not a question, Mrs. Bolton, after the fashion of country
people, held her peace, and Annie went on--

"Does he never come to see you?"

"Well, he was here last night," said Mrs. Bolton.

"Last _night_!" cried Annie. "Why in the world didn't you let me
know?"

"I didn't know as you wanted to know," began Mrs. Bolton, with a sullen
defiance mixed with pleasure in Annie's reproach. "He was out there in my
settin'-room with his little girl."

"But don't you see that if you didn't let me know he was here it would look
to him as if I didn't wish to meet him--as if I had told you that you were
not to introduce him?"

Probably Mrs. Bolton believed too that a man's mind was agile enough for
these conjectures; but she said she did not suppose he would take it in
that way; she added that he stayed longer than she expected, because the
little girl seemed to like it so much; she always cried when she had to go
away.

"Do you mean that she's attached to the place?" demanded Annie.

"Well, yes, she is," Mrs. Bolton admitted. "And the cat."

Annie had a great desire to tell Mrs. Bolton that she had behaved very
stupidly. But she knew Mrs. Bolton would not stand that, and she had to
content herself with saying, severely, "The next time he comes, let me know
without fail, please. What is the child like?" she asked.

"Well, I guess it must favour the mother, if anything. It don't seem to
take after him any."

"Why don't you have it here often, then," asked Annie, "if it's so much
attached to the place?"

"Well I didn't know as you wanted to have it round," replied Mrs. Bolton
bluntly.

Annie made a "Tchk!" of impatience with her obtuseness, and asked, "Where
is Mr. Peck staying?"

"Well, he's staying at Mis' Warner's till he can get settled."

"Is it far from here?"

"It's down in the north part of the village--Over the Track."

"Is Mr. Bolton at home?"

"Yes, he is," said Mrs. Bolton, with the effect of not intending to deny
it.

"Then I want him to hitch up--now--at once--right away--and go and get the
child and bring her here to dinner with me." Annie got so far with her
severity, feeling that it was needed to mask a proceeding so romantic,
perhaps so silly. She added timidly, "Can he do it?"

"I d'know but what he can," said Mrs. Bolton, dryly, and whatever her
feeling really was in regard to the matter, her manner gave no hint of it.
Annie did not know whether Bolton was going on her errand or not, from Mrs.
Bolton, but in ten or twelve minutes she saw him emerge from the avenue
into the street, in the carry-all, tightly curtained against the storm.
Half an hour later he returned, and his wife set down in the library a
shabbily dressed little girl, with her cheeks bright and her hair curling
from the weather, and staring at Annie, and rather disposed to cry. She
said hastily, "Bring in the cat, Mrs. Bolton; we're going to have the cat
to dinner with us."

This inspiration seemed to decide the little girl against crying. The cat
was equipped with a doily, and actually provided with dinner at a small
table apart; the child did not look at it as Annie had expected she would,
but remained with her eyes fastened on Annie herself: She did not stir from
the spot where Mrs. Bolton had put her down, but she let Annie take her
up and arrange her in a chair, with large books graduated to the desired
height under her, and made no sign of satisfaction or disapproval. Once she
looked round, when Mrs. Bolton finally went out after bringing in the last
dish for dinner, and then fastened her eyes on Annie again, twisting her
head shyly round to follow her in every gesture and expression as Annie
fitted on a napkin under her chin, cut up her meat, poured her milk, and
buttered her bread. She answered nothing to the chatter which Annie tried
to make lively and entertaining, and made no sound but that of a broken and
suppressed breathing. Annie had forgotten to ask her name of Mrs. Bolton,
and she asked it in vain of the child herself, with a great variety of
circumlocution; she was so unused to children that she was ashamed to
invent any pet name for her; she called her, in what she felt to be a stiff
and school-mistressly fashion, "Little Girl," and talked on at her, growing
more and more nervous herself without perceiving that the child's condition
was approaching a climax. She had taken off her glasses, from the notion
that they embarrassed her guest, and she did not see the pretty lips
beginning to curl, nor the searching eyes clouding with tears; the storm of
sobs that suddenly burst upon her astounded her.

"Mrs. Bolton! Mrs. Bolton!" she screamed, in hysterical helplessness. Mrs.
Bolton rushed in, and with an instant perception of the situation, caught
the child to her bony breast, and fled with it to her own room, where Annie
heard its wails die gradually away amid murmurs of comfort and reassurance
from Mrs. Bolton.

She felt like a great criminal and a great fool; at the same time she was
vexed with the stupid child which she had meant so well by, and indignant
with Mrs. Bolton, whose flight with it had somehow implied a reproach of
her behaviour. When she could govern herself, she went out to Mrs. Bolton's
room, where she found the little one quiet enough, and Mrs. Bolton tying on
the long apron in which she cleared up the dinner and washed the dishes.

"I guess she'll get along now," she said, without the critical tone which
Annie was prepared to resent. "She was scared some, and she felt kind of
strange, I presume."

"Yes, and I behaved like a simpleton, dressing up the cat, I suppose,"
answered Annie. "But I thought it would amuse her."

"You can't tell how children will take a thing. I don't believe they like
anything that's out of the common--well, not a great deal."

There was a leniency in Mrs. Bolton's manner which encouraged Annie to go
on and accuse herself more and more, and then an unresponsive blankness
that silenced her. She went back to her own rooms; and to get away from her
shame, she began to write a letter.

It was to a friend in Rome, and from the sense we all have that a letter
which is to go such a great distance ought to be a long letter, and from
finding that she had really a good deal to say, she let it grow so that
she began apologising for its length half a dozen pages before the end.
It took her nearly the whole afternoon, and she regained a little of her
self-respect by ridiculing the people she had met.

VI.

Toward five o'clock Annie was interrupted by a knock at her door, which
ought to have prepared her for something unusual, for it was Mrs. Bolton's
habit to come and go without knocking. But she called "Come in!" without
rising from her letter, and Mrs. Bolton entered with a stranger. The little
girl clung to his forefinger, pressing her head against his leg, and
glancing shyly up at Annie. She sprang up, and, "This is Mr. Peck, Miss
Kilburn," said Mrs. Bolton.

"How do you do?" said Mr. Peck, taking the hand she gave him.

He was gaunt, without being tall, and his clothes hung loosely about him,
as if he had fallen away in them since they were made. His face was almost
the face of the caricature American: deep, slightly curved vertical lines
enclosed his mouth in their parenthesis; a thin, dust-coloured beard fell
from his cheeks and chin; his upper lip was shaven. But instead of the
slight frown of challenge and self-assertion which marks this face in the
type, his large blue eyes, set near together, gazed sadly from under a
smooth forehead, extending itself well up toward the crown, where his dry
hair dropped over it.

"I am very glad to see you, Mr. Peck," said Annie; "I've wanted to tell you
how pleased I am that you found shelter in my old home when you first came
to Hatboro'."

Mr. Peck's trousers were short and badly kneed, and his long coat hung
formlessly from his shoulders; she involuntarily took a patronising tone
toward him which was not habitual with her.

"Thank you," he said, with the dry, serious voice which seemed the fit
vocal expression of his presence; "I have been afraid that it seemed like
an intrusion to you."

"Oh, not the least," retorted Annie. "You were very welcome. I hope you're
comfortably placed where you are now?"

"Quite so," said the minister.

"I'd heard so much of your little girl from Mrs. Bolton, and her attachment
to the house, that I ventured to send for her to-day. But I believe I gave
her rather a bad quarter of an hour, and that she liked the place better
under Mrs. Bolton's _régime_."

She expected some deprecatory expression of gratitude from him, which would
relieve her of the lingering shame she felt for having managed so badly,
but he made none.

"It was my fault. I'm not used to children, and I hadn't taken the
precaution to ask her name--"

"Her name is Idella," said the minister.

Annie thought it very ugly, but, with the intention of saying something
kind, she said, "What a quaint name!"

"It was her mother's choice," returned the minister. "Her own name was
Ella, and my mother's name was Ida; she combined the two."

"Oh!" said Annie. She abhorred those made-up names in which the New England
country people sometimes indulge their fancy, and Idella struck her as a
particularly repulsive invention; but she felt that she must not visit the
fault upon the little creature. "Don't you think you could give me another
trial some time, Idella?" She stooped down and took the child's unoccupied
hand, which she let her keep, only twisting her face away to hide it in her
father's pantaloon leg. "Come now, won't you give me a forgiving little
kiss?" Idella looked round, and Annie made bold to gather her up.

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