Chapter V: Mildred Atherton

“How is Miss Atherton?” Adam asked of Martha, while he kindly attempted to assist Anna in removing the heavy shawl her mother had wrapped around her.

“Who? What did you call her?” Anna asked, her hands dropping helplessly at her side.

“Why, I thought I told you. I surely did your mother. I beg pardon for my carelessness. It’s Mildred Atherton,” and Adam’s voice sank to a whisper. “She was on her way to visit Mrs. Harcourt. I suppose it would be well to send for Dunallen, but I thought it hardly proper for me to suggest it. I’ll let you get at it somehow, and see if she wants him. You girls have a way of understanding each other.”

Knowing how, in similar circumstances, he should yearn for Anna’s presence, Adam had deemed it natural that Mildred’s first wish would be for Herbert, and one reason for his insisting that Anna should come back with him was the feeling that the beautiful girl, whose face had interested him at once, would be more free to communicate her wishes to one of her own age.

“Mildred Atherton,” Anna kept repeating to herself, every vestige of color fading from her cheeks and lips, as she wondered how she could meet her, or what the result of the meeting would be.

“Sarah, where are you? Has everybody left me?” came from the bed, where the outline of a girlish form was plainly discernible to Anna, who started at the tones of what seemed to her the sweetest voice she had ever heard.

“Go to her,” Adam whispered, and Anna mechanically obeyed.

Gliding to the bedside, she stood a moment gazing upon the beautiful face nestled among the snowy pillows. The eyes were closed, and the long, silken lashes shaded the fair, round cheek, not one half so white as Anna’s, notwithstanding that a spasm of pain occasionally distorted the regular features, and wrung a faint cry from the pretty lips. Masses of soft black curls were pushed back from the forehead, and one hand lay outside the counterpane, a little soft, fat hand, on whose fourth finger shone the engagement ring, the seal of her betrothal to the heir of Castlewild! Oh, how debased and wicked Anna felt standing by that innocent girl, and how she marveled that having known Mildred Atherton, Herbert Dunallen could ever have turned to her. Involuntarily a sigh escaped her lips, and at the sound the soft black eyes unclosed, and looked at her wonderingly. Then a smile broke over the fair face, and extending her hand to Anna, Mildred said,

“Where am I? My head feels so confused. I remember the horses reared when that flash of lightning came, the carriage was overturned, and some young man, who seemed a second Apollo in strength and beauty, brought me in somewhere so gently and carefully, that I could have hugged him for it, he was so good. Are you his sister!”

“No, I am Anna Burroughs. He came for me,” Anna replied, and looking her full in the face, Mildred continued,

“Yes, I remember now, his nurse or housekeeper told me he had gone for the girl who was to be his wife; and you are she. It’s pleasant to be engaged, isn’t it?” and Mildred’s hand gave Anna’s a little confidential squeeze, which, quite as much as the words she had uttered, showed how affectionate and confiding was her disposition.

The entrance of the physician put an end to the conversation, and withdrawing to a little distance where in the shadow she could not be well observed Anna stood while the doctor examined the swollen ankle, and his volatile patient explained to him in detail how it all happened, making herself out quite a heroine for courage and presence of mind, asking if he knew Mrs. Harcourt, and if next morning he would not be kind enough to let her know that Mildred Atherton was at the cottage. The doctor promised whatever she asked, and was about to leave the room, when Adam stepped forward and said,

“Is there any one else whom Miss Atherton would like to see—any friend in the neighborhood who ought to be informed?”

Eagerly Anna waited for the answer, watching half jealously the crimson flush stealing over Mildred’s face, as she replied,

“Not to-night; it would do no good; to-morrow is soon enough. I never like to make unnecessary trouble.”

The head which had been raised while Mildred spoke to Adam lay back upon the pillow, but not until with a second thought the sweet voice had said to him,

“I thank you, sir, you are so kind.”

As a creature of impulse, Anna felt a passing thrill of something like pride in Adam as Mildred Atherton spoke thus to him, and when as he passed her he involuntarily laid his hand a moment on her shoulder she did not shake it off, though her heart throbbed painfully with thoughts of her intended treachery. They were alone now, Mildred and Anna, and beckoning the latter to her side, Mildred said to her.

“He meant Herbert Dunallen. How did he know that I am to be Herbert’s wife?”

There was no tremor in her voice. She spoke of Herbert as a matter of course, while Anna could hardly find courage to reply.

“Mr. Floyd works at Castlewild sometimes, and probably has heard Mr. Dunallen speak of you.”

“Mr. Floyd—Adam Floyd, is that the young man’s name?” was Mildred’s next question, and when Anna answered in the affirmative, she continued, “I have heard of him. Herbert wrote how invaluable he was and how superior to most mechanics—his prime minister in fact. I am glad the accident happened here, and Herbert too will be glad.”

For a moment Mildred seemed to be thinking, then starting up, she said, abruptly,

“And it was Anna—Anna Burroughs, yes, I’m sure that’s the name. Would you mind putting that lamp nearer to me, and coming yourself where I can see just how you look?”

Anna shrank from the gaze of those clear, truthful eyes, but something in Mildred’s manner impelled her to do as she was requested, and moving the lamp she came so near that Mildred placed a hand on either side of her burning face and gazed at it curiously; then, pushing back the golden hair, and twining one of the curls a moment about her finger, she laid it by her own long, black shining tresses, saying sadly, “I wish my curls were light and fair like yours. It would suit Herbert better. He fancies a blonde more than a brunette, at least he told me as much that time he wrote to me of you.”

“Of me?” Anna asked anxiously, the color receding from her cheek and lip. “Why did he write of me, and when?”

The dark eyes were shut now and Anna could see the closed lids quiver, just as did the sweet voice which replied, “It’s strange to talk so openly to you as if we were dear friends, as we will be when I come to Castlewild to live. It is my nature to say right out what I think, and people sometimes call me silly. Herbert does, but I don’t care. When I like a person I show it, and I like you. Besides, there’s something tells me there is a bond of sympathy between us greater than between ordinary strangers. I guess it is because we are both engaged, both so young, and both rather pretty, too. You certainly are, and I know I am not bad looking, if Aunt Theo. did use to try and make me think I was. Her story and the mirror’s did not agree.”

Anna looked up amazed at this frank avowal, which few would ever have made, even though in their hearts they were far vainer of their beauty than was Mildred Atherton of hers. Was she really silly, or was she wholly artless and childlike in her manner of expression? Anna could not decide, and with a growing interest in the stranger, she listened while Mildred went on: “In one of his letters last May Herbert said so much of Anna Burroughs, with her eyes of blue and golden hair, calling her a ‘Lily of the Valley,’ and asking, all in play, you know, if I should feel very badly if he should elope some day with his Lily. It shocks you, don’t it!” she said, as Anna started with a sudden exclamation, “But he did not mean it. He only tried to tease me, and for a time it did make in my heart a little round spot of pain which burned like fire, for though Herbert has some bad habits and naughty ways, I love him very dearly. He is always better with me. He says I do him good, though he calls me a puritan, and that time when the burning spot was in my heart, I used to go away and pray, that if Herbert did not like me as he ought, God would incline him to do so. Once I prayed for you, whom I had never seen,” and the little soft hand stole up to Anna’s bowed head smoothing the golden locks caressingly, “You’ll think me foolish, but thoughts of you really troubled me then, when I was weak and nervous, for I was just recovering from sickness, and so I prayed that the Lily of the Valley might not care for Herbert, might not come between us, and I know God heard me just as well as if it had been my own father of whom I asked a favor. Perhaps it is not having any father or mother which makes me take every little trouble to God. Do you do so, Anna? Do you tell all your cares to him?”

Alas for conscience-stricken Anna, who had not prayed for so very, very long! What could she say? Nothing, except to dash the bitter tears from her eyes and answer, sobbingly,

“I used to do so once, but now—oh, Miss Atherton! now I am so hard, so wicked, I dare not pray!”

In great perplexity Mildred looked at her a moment, and then said, sorrowfully.

“Just because I was hard and wicked, I should want to pray—to ask that if I had done anything bad I might be forgiven, or if I had intended to do wrong, I might be kept from doing it.”

Mildred little guessed how keen a pang her words “or _intended_ to do wrong” inflicted upon the repenting Anna, who involuntarily stretched her hands toward the young girl as towards something which, if she did but grasp it, would save her from herself. Mildred took the hands between her own, and pressing them gently, said:

“I don’t know why you feel so badly, neither can I understand how anything save sin can make you unhappy when that good man is almost your husband. You must love him very much, do you not?”

“Yes,” came faintly from Anna’s lips, and laying her face on the pillow beside Mildred’s, she murmured, inaudibly: “God help me, and forgive that falsehood, I will love him, if I do not now.”

Anna did not know she prayed, but He who understands our faintest desire knew it, and from that moment dated her return to duty. She should not wrong that gentle, trusting girl. She could not break Milly’s heart with Adam’s as break it she surely should if her wicked course were persisted in. And then there flashed upon her the conviction that Herbert had deceived her in more ways than one. He had represented Mildred as tiring of the engagement as well as himself—had said that though her pride might be a little wounded, she would on the whole be glad to be rid of him so easily, and all the while he knew that what he said was false. Would he deal less deceitfully by her when the novelty of calling her his wife had worn away? Would he not weary of her and sigh for the victim sacrificed so cruelly? Anna’s head and heart both seemed bursting with pain, and when Mildred, alarmed at the pallor of her face, asked if she were ill, there was no falsehood in the reply, “Yes, I’m dizzy and faint—I cannot stay here longer,” and scarcely conscious of what she was doing, Anna quitted the room, leaning for support against the banisters in the hall and almost falling against old Martha who was carrying hot tea to Mildred Atherton.

“Let me go home, I am sick,” Anna whispered to Adam, who, summoned by Martha, bent anxiously over her, asking what was the matter.

It was too late to go home, he said. She must stay there till morning; and very tenderly he helped her up to the chamber she was to occupy, the one next to his own, and from which, at a late hour, she heard him, as, thinking her asleep, he thanked his Heavenly Father for giving her to him, and asked that he might be more worthy of her than he was.

“No, Adam, oh, no—pray that I may be more worthy of you,” trembled on Anna’s lips, and then lest her resolution might fail, she arose and striking a light, tore a blank leaf from a book lying on a table, and wrote to Herbert Dunallen that she could never meet him again, except as a friend and the future husband of Mildred Atherton.

Folding it once over, she wrote his name upon it, then, faint with excitement, and shivering with cold, threw herself upon the outside of the bed, and sobbed herself into a heavy sleep, more exhausting in its effects than wakefulness would have been.