Doctor Hathern's daughters

by Mary Jane Holmes

In her excitement she had laid her heart more bare than she had done in her letter. Jack had understood that;—he understood her now and pitied her for the pain he must inflict. At the mention of money his face clouded and his voice was harder than it would otherwise have been, as he said, “How much you mistake me, if you think I could take your money,—his money. You mean it kindly, I know, and so far I thank you. I am not as poor now as I was when you shrank from sharing my poverty, and if I were, you must see that I should accept nothing from you. I do forgive you, Fanny. It is impossible that I should feel otherwise than kindly to one who was so much to me once that the whole world was full of her, and I had no thought of anything which was not connected with her.”

Fanny was not crying now, but listening with her head upon the table where his arm was resting while he toyed with a fancy paper-knife, the last article he had bought for her. He had found it in Richmond and brought it to the room the morning of the day her letter came. He was thinking of this and of everything connected with that time. Perhaps this was why he spoke so plainly. He did not mean to wound her unnecessarily, but he did mean to remove from her mind all hope that things could ever be again between them as they had been.

“You have no idea,” he said, “of my happiness that day when I brought Annie here. It was as if all Heaven had come down to make its abode in this room where the blow fell, and I felt as if my blood were leaving me drop by drop until I was one great block of ice. Heavens, how cold I was, and I never was warm again until the Florida sun shone on me as I sat on the sand at noon, with my head uncovered, hoping the iceberg would thaw.”

Fanny was now sitting bolt upright, her eyes growing larger and blacker until, as Jack went on, she felt her blood oozing away drop by drop and leaving her the iceberg Jack was describing. She was warm enough later on, as Jack continued: “I have never felt unkindly towards you, Fanny, and had you come into this room that night and asked me to forgive you and spoken to me and looked at me as you have looked and spoken now, I have no doubt I should have taken you back, I loved you so much. Even now you stand to me in a different relation from any woman in the world, for you embody the memory of something in my early manhood which was very sweet. I would go through fire and water to serve you, but the past is dead. You have been the wife of another man, and I shall soon be the husband of another woman.”

Fanny’s face was spotted, but it turned as white as the bit of muslin she wore at her throat when Jack added, “Annie is to be my wife.”

“Annie! And she never told me!” Fanny gasped. “I’ll never forgive her, never!”

Jack knew she would, for it was not her nature to harbor malice against anyone, and especially against Annie, who was a part of herself. But the blow had struck her hard. She was so sure of winning Jack that she had never thought of a possible rival, and that rival Annie. Now, however, she began to read backward and to see what in her blindness she had not seen before. For a few minutes resentment against Annie was uppermost in her mind. “She should have told me; it would have saved me all this shame,” she said. And mentally Jack agreed with her, although he would not say so, lest he should seem to be blaming Annie. But he was sorry for Fanny. All her hopes were dead. Jack was gone from her past recall, and the world looked very desolate stretching on into the future year after year, while she walked in it alone. Then with a great effort she controlled herself and, smiling at Jack through her tears, she said, “Never was there a woman more abased and crushed than I am, but I shall not die. I am too plucky for that. If you wanted revenge you have had it. I think we are quits, and now I am going home to have it out with Annie, and that will end it. Don’t come with me. Wait till evening when the storm will be over. My tantrums never lasted long, you know.”

The next moment she was gone, and Jack saw her taking the path through the woods to The Elms. “Annie is somewhat to blame, but I hope Fan won’t scratch her eyes out,” he thought, as he started for the village in another direction. There was no danger of that although Fanny was very indignant, and rushing into the house like a cyclone she plunged at once into the fray. It was nearly supper time, and Annie was in her room making some changes in her toilet when Fanny came in banging the door behind her and standing with her back to it as she told in part what had transpired at The Plateau.

“Were you engaged when I came home at Thanksgiving?” she asked, and Annie answered “No.”

“Were you engaged when you came to Washington?”