A Woman of Yesterday

by Caroline Atwater Mason

“I will go over and inquire,” he said, taking his hat, and they left the house at once.

The night was cold, a light fall of snow lay over the valley, and the stars glittered from a frosty sky.

When they reached the neighbourhood of Anna’s cottage Gregory sent Barnabas up to the door, while he waited at a little distance. In a few moments Frieda, who now shared Anna’s cabin, joined him, while Barnabas, with the action of a waiting watch-dog, humble, and yet with a due sense of responsibility, hung about near by. Frieda’s account was reassuring, as far as immediate solicitude for Anna was concerned; she had come home ill from the afternoon sewing class, and had a chill, headache, and fever. She was resting now, and would doubtless be up again in a day or two.

“Nothing can keep her down, Mr. Gregory,” Frieda said in conclusion. “I am not frightened just now, but we all see plainly that Sister Benigna is killing herself by inches. She eats hardly anything, and yet works as if there were no limit to her strength. Sometimes I think she is just laying down her very life for us here in Fraternia, and we’re not worth it,” and with this Frieda’s voice broke a little, and without stopping to say more she hurried back.

Gregory bade Barnabas good night hastily, and then, instead of going home, he walked rapidly down the rough road to the mill, unlocked the door, and went into his office and sat down at his desk. His face had changed strangely; it had grown grey and his lips were tightly compressed. He sat long in motionless silence, thinking intensely. Although he had himself watched Anna with growing uneasiness, the suggestions of Frieda and Barnabas came upon him with startling effect. He asked himself now with unsparing definiteness whether this was indeed the final turn of the wheel of torture on which he was bound, or whether he could wait for another. The conviction was upon him, stark and stern, that in the end he should yield and seek the one means of escape which was still open to him, and which he had been holding off with almost dogged resolution. He recalled the shaping of events in Anna’s life during the last few months, and his face softened.

Late in November, when Keith went North, she had accompanied him, having been sent for by her sister Lucia. Their mother, Gulielma Mallison, upon whom age and infirmity had increased heavily, had conceived a controlling desire to return to her childhood home, the Moravian town of Bethlehem, to end her days. Anna had visited Haran therefore, and had brought her mother back to her early home, establishing her there in the quiet Widows’ House in peace and satisfaction.

At Christmas, when she returned alone to Fraternia, Anna had seemed to bring with her a new infusion of active and aggressive force. Relieved of anxiety for Keith, whom she had left in good spirits, and from the constant ministration to his comfort, she was now wholly free to devote herself to the common good. With new and contagious ardour she had thrown herself therefore into the life of the discouraged little community, cheering the faint-hearted and rekindling the flagging purposes of the fickle. She taught the girls and women quaint fashions of embroidery and work on linen which she had learned from her mother, and inspired them with the ambition to earn something with their needles, thus dispelling their listlessness. She seemed at times to possess in her own enthusiasm and courage sufficient motive power to energize them all; she worked and moved among them as if no less a task had been given her, and with a sweetness and sympathy that never failed.

All who watched her wondered at the power in her, and many who had murmured hitherto now declared themselves ashamed, and responded willingly. John Gregory marvelled more and more at the qualities of brilliant leadership which she now developed. Within him a voice, which he could not always silence, sometimes whispered that if such a nature as that which had been gradually revealed to him in Anna Burgess, in its plenitude of power and its greatness of purpose, could have been allied to his own, a movement far beyond what he had even dreamed of in Fraternia might have been possible.

But while a certain reënforcement of courage had followed Anna’s strong initiative, and while in some respects the domestic conditions of the people had been improved and their murmurings for the time partially silenced, the gravity of the situation and of the prospects for the future as Gregory saw them remained unchanged. Keith’s mission had proved unproductive, as the letter just received emphasized afresh. Gregory himself could not leave Fraternia at this juncture without manifest peril. Only his personal influence now availed to hold together many discordant elements which were very actively at work and arrayed against each other. From no quarter could he discern any hope of substantial support.

And now, last of all, she was laid low; worse, they told him she was laying down her life in her devotion to his cause—she, his one high-hearted, intrepid, dauntless ally! Bitterly Gregory said to himself that she who had freely left wealth and station was starving and working to her death to save him from defeat, and all in vain, unless—Should he calmly sit by and permit the sacrifice? Great of heart as she was, all her work could not avail, nor his, unless aid of another kind could be found, and that at once.