LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VII, Issue 796, 10 January 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

ANNE. (Continuedfrom Globe, January 4.) ' Johnny, what can Ido ? What do you think I can do ?' In the pretty grey silk that she had worn at her father's wedding, and with a whole world of perplexity in her soft brown eyes, Anne Lewis stood by me, and whispered the question. As soon as the bride and bridegroom had driven off, Anne was to depart for Maythorn Bank, with J ulia and Fanny Podd ; all three of them to remain there for the few days that Dv and Mrs Lewis purposed to be away. But now, no sooner had the sound of the bridal wheels died on our ears, and Anne had suggested that they should get ready for their journey home, than the two young ladies burst into a laugh, and said, Did she think they were going off to that dead-and-alive place! Not if they knew it. And, giving her an emphatic nod to prove they meant what they said, they waltzed to the other end of the room in their shining pink dresses to talk to Mr Angerstyne. Consternation sat in every line of Anne's face. ' I cannot go there by myself, or stay there by myself,' she said to me. 'These things are not done in France.' No : though Maythorn Bank was her own home, and though she was as thoroughly English as a girl can be, it could not be done. French customs and ideas did not permit it, and she had been brought up in them. It was certainly not nice behaviour of the girls. They should have objected before their mother left.

' I don't know what you can do, Anne, Better ask Miss Dinah.'

' Not go with you, after the arrangements are made—and your servant Sally is expecting you all' cried Miss Dinah Lake. ' Oh, you must be mistaken,' she added; and went up to talk to them. Julia only laughed. ' Go to be buried alive at Maythorn Bank as long as mamma chooses to stay away !' she cried. ' You'll not get either of us to do anything of the kind, Miss Dinah.' • Mrs Podd —I mean Mrs Lewis —will be back to join you there in less than a week,' said Miss Dinah.

' Oh, will she, though ! You don't know mamma. She may be off to Paris and fifty other places, before she turns her head homewards again. Anne Lewis can go home by herself if she wants to go : I and Fanny mean to stay with you, Miss Dinah.' So Anne had to stay also. She sat down and wrote two letters : one to Sally, saying their coming home was delayed ; the other to Dr Lewis, asking what she was to do. 'And the gain is mine,' observed Mr Angerstyne. ' What would the house have been without you ?' He appeared to speak to the girls generally. But his eyes and his smile evidently were directed to Anne. She saw it too, and blushed. Blushed ! when she had not yet known him four-ami -twenty hours. But he was just the fellow for a girl to fall in love with—and no disparagement to her to say so,

' Who is he ?' I that evening asked Miss Dinah.

'A Mr Henry Angerstyne/ she answered. ' I don't know much of him, except that he is an independent gentleman with a beautiful estate in Essex and a fashionable man. 1 see what you are thinking, Johnny : that it is curious a man of wealth and fashion should be staying at Lake's boarding house. But Mr Angerstyne came over from Malvern to see Captain Bristow, the old invalid, who keeps his room upstairs, and when here the captain persuaded him to stay for a day or two, if we could give him a room. That's how it was. Captain Bristow leaves us soon, and I suppose Mr Angerstyne will be leaving too.' I had expected to go home the following day, but that night up came two of the young Sankers, Dan and King, and said I was to go and stay with them. Leave to do so was easily had from home ; for just as our school at old Frost's was re-assembing, two boys who had stayed the holidays were taken with bad throats, and we were not to go back till goodness knew when. Tod, who was on a visit in Gloucester shire, thought it would be Michaelmas.

Back came letters from Cheltenham. Mrs Lewis told her girls they might remain at Worcester if they liked. And Dr Lewis wrote to Anne, saying she must not go home alone, and he enclosed a note to Mrs Lake, asking her to be so kind as to take care of her daughter. After that we had a jolly time. The Sankers and Lakes amalgamated well, and were always at one another's houses. This does not apply to Mrs Lake and Miss Dinah : as Miss Dinah put it, they had no time for gadding down to Sankers'. But Mr Angerstyne (who had not left) grew quite familiar there, the Sankers, who never stood on the slightest ceremony, making no stranger of him. Captain Sanker discovered that two or three former military chums of his were known to Mr Angerstyne; one dead old gentleman in particular, who had been his bosom friend. This was quite enough. Mr Angerstyne had, so to say, the key of the house given him, and went in and out of it at will.

Everybody liked Mr Angerstyne. And for all the pleasurable excursions that fell to our lot, we were indebted to him. Without being ostentatious, he opened his purse freely; and there was a delicacy in his manner of doing it that prevented its being felt. On the plea of wanting, himself, to see some noted spot or place in the neighbourhood, he would order a large po.st-carriage from the Star or the Crown, and invite as many as it would hold to accompany him, and bring baskets of choice fruit, or dainties from the pastry-cook's to regale us on. Or he would tell tne Sankers that King looked delicate : poor lame King, who was to die ere another year had flown. Down would come the carriage, ostensibly to take King for a drive ; and a lot of us reaped the benefit. Mrs Sanker was always of the party : without a chaperone, the young ladies could not have gone. Generally speaking the Miss Podds would come : they took care of that: and Anne Lewis always came ; which I think Mr Angerstyne took care of. The golden page of life was opening for Anne Lewis : she seemed to be entering on a pathway of flowers, that could lead only through Elysium. One day we went to Holt Fleet. The carriage came down to the Sankers' in the morning, Mr Angerstyne in it, and the Captain stepped out, his face beaming, to see the start. Once in a way he would be of the party himself, but not often. Mr Angerstyne handed Mrs Sanker in, and then called out for me. I held back, feeling uncomfortable at being always taken, and knowing that Fred and Dan thought me seliish for it. But it was of no use : Mr Angerstyne had a way of carrying out his own will. ' Get up on the box, Johnny,' he said to me. And, close upon my heels, wanting to share the box with me, came Dan Sanker. Mr Angerstyne pulled him back. ' Not you, Dan. I shall take King.' ' King has been ever so many times —little wretch !' grumbled Dan. ' It's my turn. It's not fair, Mr Angerstyne.' ' You, Dan, and Fred, and Toby, all the lot of you, shall have a carriage to yourselves for a whole day if you like, but King goes with me,' said Mr Angerstyne, helping the lad up. He got in himself, took his seat by Mrs Sanker, and the post-boy touched up his horses. Mrs Sanker, mildly delighted, for she liked these drives, sat in her ordinary costume : a fancy shawl of some thick kind of silk crape, all the colours of the rainbow blended into its pattern, and a black velvet bonnet with a turned-up brim and a rose in it, beneath which her light hair hung down in loose curls. We stopped at Lake's boarding-house to take up the three girls, who got in, and sat on the seat opposite Mrs Sanker and Mr Angerstyne, and then the post-boy started for Holt Fleet. ' The place is nothing,' observed Captain Sanker, who had suggested it as an easy, pleasant drive, to Mr Angerstyne ; ' but the inn is comfortable, and . the garden's nice to sit or stroll in.'

We reached Holt Fleet at one o'clock. The first thing Mr Angerstyne did was to order luncheon, anything they could conveniently give us, and to serve it in the garden. It proved to be ham and eggs ; first-rate ; we were all hungry, and he bade them keep on frying till further orders. At which the girl who waited on us laughed, as she drew the corks of some bottled perry. I saw a bit of by-play later. Strolling about to digest the ham and eggs, some in one part of the grounds, which in j)laces had a wild and picturesque aspect, some in another, Mr Angerstyne suddenly laid hold of Anne, as if to save her from falling. She was standing in that high narrow pathway that is perched up aloft and looks so dangerous, steadying herself by a tree, and bending cautiously forwards to look down. The path may be gone now. The features of the whole place may ha altered : perhaps even done away with altogether ; for I am writing of years and years ago. He stole up and caught her by the waist. ' Oh, Mr Angerstyne !' she exclaimed, blushing and starting. ' Were you going to take a leap ?' * No, no,' she smiled. ' Would it kill me if I did 1'

' Suppose I let you go—and send you over to try it ? ' Ah, he would not do that. He was holding her all too safely. Anne made an effort to free herself; but her eyelids drooped over her tell-tale eyes, her all conscious face betrayed what his presence was to her. ' How beautiful the river is from this, as we look up it! ' she exclaimed. ' More than beautiful.'

Julia Podd rushed up to mar the harmony. Never does a fleeting moment of this kind set in but somebody mars it. Julia flirted desperately with Mr Angerstyne. * * * * *

As the days went on, there could be no mistake made by the one or two of us who kept our eyes open. I mean, as to Mr Angerstyne's liking for Anne Lewis, and the reciprocal feelings be had awakened. With her, it had been a case of love at first sight; or nearly so. And that, if you may believe the learned in the matter, is the only love deserving the name. Perhaps it had been so with him : I don't know.

Three parts of their time they talked together in French, for Mr Angerstyne spoke it well. And that vexed Julia and Fanny Podd, who called themselves good French scholars, but who somehow failed to understand. ' They talk so fast; they do it on purpose,' grumbled Fanny. That a fine gentleman and a man of the great world should stay dawdling at a boarding-house, puzzled Miss Dinah, who knew what was what. But of course it was no business of hers ; she and Mrs Lake were only too glad to have one who paid so liberally. Twice a week regularly he went over to Malvern for the day, sometimes getting back in time for dinner, sometimes not.

The college school had begun again, and I was back at Lake's. For Tom and Alfred Lake were at home now; and nothing would do but I must come to their house before I went home—to which I was daily expecting a summons. As to the bride and bridegroom, they probably meant to remain away for good; weeks had elapsed since their departure. Nobody regretted that: Julia and Fanny Podd considered Maythorn Bank the fag-end of the world, and hoped they might never be called to it. As to Anne—who, living in the Elysian Fields, would care to exchange them for the dreary land outside their borders ?

One evening we were invited to a teadinner at Captain Sanker's. The Miss Podds persisted in calling it a soiree. It turned out to be a scrambling kind of entertainment, and must have amused Mr Angerstyne. Biddy had poured the bowl of sweet custard over the meat patties by mistake, and put salt on the open tartlets in place of sugar. The evening, with its mistakes, and its laughter, and its genuine hospitality, came to an end, and we started to go home under the convoy of Mr Angerstyne, all the Sanker boys, except Toby, attending us. It was a lovely moonlight night; Mrs Lake, who had come in at the tail of the soiree, remarked that the moon was never brighter. ' Why, just look there !' she exclaimed, as we turned up Edgar street, intending to take that and the steps onwards; ' the Tower gates are open !' For it was the custom to close the great gates of Edgar Tower at dusk.

' Oh, I know,' cried Fred Sanker. « The sub-dean gives a dinner to-night; and the porter has left the gates wide for the carriages. Who is good for a race round the Green ?'

It seems that we all were, for the whole lot of us followed him in, leaving Mrs Lake calling after us in consternation. The old Tower porter, no doubt thinking the Gieen was being charged by an army of ill-doers, rushed out of his place, shouting to us to come back.

Much we heeded him ! Counting the carriages (three of them) waiting at the subdean's door, we raced homewards at will, some hither, some yonder. The evening's coolness felt delicious after the hot and garish day : the moonlight brought out the lights and shades of the queer old houses and the older cathedral. Collecting ourselves together again presently, at Frank Sanker's whoop, Mr Angerstyne and Anne were missing. 'They've gone to look at the Severn, I think,' said Dan Sanker. ' I heard him tell her it was worth looking at in the moonlight.' Yes, they were there. He had Anne's arm tucked up under his, and his head bent over her that she might catch his whispers. He turned round when he heard us.

'lndeed we must go home, Mr Angerstyne,' said Julia Podd, who had run down after me, and spoke crossly. ' The college clock is chiming the quarter to eleven. What will Mrs Lake say ?' 'ls it so late ?' he answered her, in a pleasant voice. ' Time flies quickly in the moonlight : I've often remarked it.' Walking forward, he kept by the side of Julia; Anne and I followed together. Some of the boys were shouting themselves hoarse from the top of the ascent, wanting to know if we were lost.

'ls it all settled, Anne ?' I asked her, jestingly, dropping my voice. 'ls what settled ?' she returned. But she understood ; for her face looked like a rose in the moonlight. ' You know. I can see, if the others can't. And if it makes you happy, Anne, I'm very glad of it.' ' Oh, Johnny, I hope—l hope no one else does see. But indeed you are making more of it than it deserves.'

' What does he say to you ?' 'He has not said anything. So you see, Johnny, you may be quite mistaken.'

It was all the same : if he had not said anything yet, there could be no question that he meant soon to say it. We were passing the old elm trees just then, and the moonlight, flickering through them on Anne's face, lighted up the sweet hope that lay on it.

' Sometimes I think if—if papa should not approve of it!' she whispered. ' But he is sure to approve of it. One can't help liking Mr Angerstyne, and his position is undeniable.' The three carriages were gone ; and the porter kept up a lire of abuse as he waited to watch us through the little postern door. The boys, being college boys, returned it with interest. Wishing the Sankers good night, Avho ran straight down Edgar street on their way home, Ave turned off up the steps, and found Mrs Lake standing patiently at the door. I saw Mr Angerstyne catch Anne's hand for a moment in his, under cover of our entrance. I To oe continued^