Anna

by Norman Collins

  And when Anna told him that it was only because the dress that she had chosen didn’t need any jewellery, M. Moritz refused to listen.

  “No, I insist,” he said. “I positively insist. Carlos shall collect them in the morning. There is a jeweller in Rotterdam who understands these things. I will place them all in his hands.”

  He paused, and a look of abject misery came over him.

  “But I forgot,” he said. “I didn’t tell you. I shall have to go away again to-morrow. It is always the way—as soon as life really begins again, something comes along to interfere with it. It is not my choice to spend all my time in railway carriages.”

  It was not, indeed, until they had arrived at the Casino that he had succeeded in throwing off his depression. On the way there in the carriage, he continued to deplore the way Fate and a syndicate of Dutch financiers were treating him. But once inside the gold and ivory palace of the Casino, his spirits returned to him.

  “I shall be reckless to-night,” he said. “I shall risk everything. It is always most successful that way. I am quite confident that I shall win. I feel it here.”

  As he spoke he indicated the region of his heart.

  “It tells me everything,” he explained. “When to play. When to do business. When to make love.”

  He paused for a moment.

  “And when to stop,” he added.

  He was quite right about winning; his heart had not betrayed him. And in a mood of bravado he began gambling against himself, doubling the stakes, offering to sell his chances to the bank, putting back again everything that he had made.

  By the time he rose he had won six thousand francs, and his whole body radiated satisfaction and success. He ordered another bottle of champagne and, sitting with Anna at a table set back in one of the red plush alcoves of the lounge, he toasted everything—Anna, the future, his new enterprise in Holland, his little daughter. His daughter, in particular, seemed in his present mood to fascinate him: it might have been a daughter and not a son for which all the time he had been praying. And when they reached the villa again, he insisted on going up into the night nursery so that he could see her. M. Moritz stood beside the cot breathing deeply.

  “Such innocence,” he said. “Such serenity.”

  He reached in his pocket for the wad of notes from the Casino and extracted the first note that came to his hand. It was a note to the value of a hundred francs. Crumpling it into a ball he dropped it among the shawls of the cot.

  “For her money-box,” he said simply. “A present from her father.”

  And taking hold of Anna’s hand he raised it to his lips.

  V

  When M. Moritz next returned, it was not even to spend the night there. He simply descended upon the place, collected an armful of papers from the tin box in his study and went away again. He was so rushed in fact that he entirely forgot to mention the matter of the jewellery which Carlos had collected.

  Chapter XXXV

  I

  The possession of the child occupied Anna entirely. It blunted her senses to everything else. She made chains of flowers for her in the garden; she bought her toys; she embroidered dresses for her; she showed her the fish swimming in the pool below the fountain. It seemed that whenever she was separated from the child even for a moment she was empty and desolate, and when she was with her she was complete and happy.

  Despite the disapproval of the nurse she had said that the child’s cot was to be moved into her own room; and she would get up sometimes in the night and stand over her, a candle in her hand, shading the flame so that the light should not fall on the child’s face, simply so that she could watch her sleeping, could see the faint rise and fall of the coverlet with the drowsy breathing.

  It was only gradually that the fear of what M. Moritz’s absence portended, took possession of her.

  “He is growing tired of me,” she realised. “It is what I should have been prepared for.”

  And the very fact of M. Moritz’s indifference made Annette more precious still.

  She dandled the child in her arms.

  “But he loves you, my little one,” she told her. “You have a Mama and a Papa who both adore you.”

  It seemed, indeed, now that they shared Annette, that there was something deep and permanent binding them together.

  “He may see a pretty face on his travels,” she told herself. “But Annette means more to him. He has never had a child of his own before.”

  And because M. Moritz would have wished his daughter to have it, she ordered Annette a brightly coloured Noah’s Ark that she had seen in a toy-shop. It was the most expensive plaything in the place.

  It was when she returned from the shop that she found a telegram awaiting her. It was not from M. Moritz, but was from Carlos. And it was strangely worded. It announced that he would be at the villa on the following afternoon and begged her to be there to see him. The business he had to discuss, the telegram said, was private.

  The whole tone of the telegram made her angry. It was an impertinence for Carlos to have written to her in such a way. But the very strangeness of it frightened her.

  “Perhaps his business has failed,” she reflected. “Perhaps he is ruined and he has sent Carlos to break it to me. For all I know, this villa no longer belongs to me.”

  Nevertheless, to show Carlos that she did not attach too great importance to the telegram, she kept him waiting. She drove as usual in the carriage in the afternoon, and when she returned, he was in the drawing-room already.

  He was lying almost full length on one of the couches, reading an illustrated paper that he had brought with him: his feet in their suède and patent leather boots dangled carelessly in mid-air. The sight astonished her. It had always been understood that Carlos did not use the drawing-room: he existed discreetly and selfeffacingly somewhere in the back part of the house. But what was more remarkable was his behaviour: he did not rise immediately she entered and when at last he had got to his feet he took out his watch and looked at it meaningly.

  “I am afraid that I shall have little time to break my news to you,” he said. “I have to return to Geneva this evening.”

  “M. Moritz told you to come here?” Anna asked.

  Carlos nodded.

  “He was most anxious that I should see you in person,” he explained.

  “What is it that M. Moritz wanted to say to me that he was unable to put into a letter?” she asked.

  Carlos avoided her gaze and shifted in his seat a little.

  “It may come as a shock to you,” he said. “But I assure you that M. Moritz is anxious to arrange everything as agreeably as possible.”

  Anna made a little gesture of impatience.

  “I want to hear what you have come to tell me,” she said.

  Carlos hesitated and then—as if to give himself the confidence that he had suddenly found he lacked—thrust his two hands into his trouser pockets.

  “M. Moritz is closing the villa,” he said.

  “Closing the villa?”

  As Anna spoke the words a sudden faintness came over her, even though she realised that she did not know what they meant. Her hand closed tightly on to the arm of her chair. But seeing that Carlos was observing her, she sat back again and spoke in a voice that was steady and without emotion.

  “And why was M. Moritz not able to come and tell me this himself?” she asked.

  The question came positively as a relief to Carlos: he pounced upon it.

  “He is so busy,” he said. “So much involved in his affairs. He does not have a moment. It was difficult for him to spare me even for a day. But he would not hear of letting you learn this simply in a letter.”

  Anna paused.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I shall be writing to M. Moritz.”

  She turned deliberately away as if, so far as she was concerned, the interview was over. But Carlos made no sign of moving.

  “If I might suggest it,” he continued, “it would be far
simpler if you would allow me to carry back any message personally. M. Moritz will be expecting your reply.”

  “I have nothing to say at the moment,” she told him.

  Carlos shrugged his shoulders.

  “But I feel that I should tell you a little more,” he said, “so that you can … can make your arrangements.”

  “What arrangements?” Anna asked.

  “Where you and the little girl are to live,’ Carlos went on quietly. “You see M. Moritz will be closing the villa almost immediately—at the end of the week in fact. I have fixed everything with the servants: he will be taking Henri to Geneva with him.”

  He hesitated again and began playing with his watch chain.

  “There is a smaller villa outside Cannes that M. Moritz has placed at your disposal. And he does not want you to be short of money. He has asked me to arrange with whatever bank you like to pay …”

  But Anna had risen now: she was standing over the young man.

  “I speak of such matters only to M. Moritz himself,” she told him.

  Carlos shook his head sadly.

  “That is impossible now,” he said. “I’m afraid that you would not find him. He is going away. He will not be back for some weeks. He will be travelling.”

  He paused and proceeded to straighten the bright silk cravat that he was wearing.

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, “he is leaving for his honeymoon. M. Moritz was married yesterday.”

  II

  Next morning she rose early, and bathed her eyes before the maid came into the bedroom.

  “I must be calm,” she told herself. “If must betray nothing until I have decided.”

  It seemed now that facing the servants was perhaps the greatest ordeal of it all. The servants were under Carlos’s instructions. Their wages were being stopped at the end of the week and, in the meantime, there were certain instructions that they had been given. When Anna went into the drawing-room, she did not recognise it. The furniture had been moved into the centre of the room and large white dust-clothes were now spread over it. The carpet had been made up into a roll, and the statues and ornaments were all stowed away in chests and packing cases. In the space of two hours the room that had seemed so pleasant before Carlos came, had been reduced to a wilderness.

  As she turned away she saw Henri standing in the doorway, a green baize apron stretched across his middle. He gave her an ashamed, apologetic look.

  “I’m very sorry, Madame,” he said. “I hope that this doesn’t inconvenience you too much. I have given instructions that your boudoir shall be left till the last.”

  And as she went out of the room that was hers no longer, she saw him pull up a pair of steps that had been resting against the wall and mount them so that he could begin taking down the curtains.

  Because she was still so much dazed, because her mind refused to understand what it was that she was facing, she spent the morning as she had spent so many other mornings—in the garden with Annette. She played with her, throwing the big coloured ball across the terrace; she dandled her on her knee; she read to her.

  And all the time, through the play, she heard voices advising her.

  “He is still ready to pay you money,” the voice was saying. “It is only you that he is tired of.”

  “I could never accept it,” she answered, as though the voice could hear.

  “But you must,” the voice replied. “There is no other way.”

  She shook her head, praying that the voice would stop. But it continued as insistently as before.

  “Don’t think only of your own feelings,” it advised her. “Think of your child. Do you want her to have to go without simply because you’re too proud to care what becomes of her?”

  She gave Annette back to the nurse almost roughly, and began walking about.

  “As a matter of fact he is leaving for his honeymoon. M. Moritz was married yesterday”: the words, as loud as though spoken in her ear, rang through her head.

  “I shall go to Father Ignatius,” she told herself, “I shall ask him to find somewhere for us both while I can try to make my own living. I shall support Annette myself.”

  The voice was still there, however.

  “There is no way of earning your own living,” it went on. “Father Ignatius can’t help you. It’s only your soul, not your body that he’s interested in.”

  When she returned to the house, it was already lunch-time. Her solitary place had been laid for her as usual. She sat there but ate nothing, crumbling the bread between her fingers. The dining-room had not been touched yet: the silver was still out upon the table, and flowers from the garden were set in vases as she had always remembered them. Henri was there to wait upon her. He waspolite as ever. It was only that never for a moment did he stop eyeing her.

  “I can’t make her out,” he was thinking. “It’s as though she doesn’t understand what’s happened.”

  And next day it was the same. She seemed unaware of the fate that was impending. She even played with Annette again upon the terrace. But the household meanwhile was changing shape rapidly. Already the chef—declaring that he was bettering himself—had departed; and one of the maids had gone with him. There were other changes, too. The dining-room, like the drawing-room, had now disappeared under a layer of dust sheets; and the tapestry in the hall had been covered up. The life that she had come to accept, that she had planned for Annette, was every moment being destroyed. It was dying, room by room, before her eyes.

  “I must decide—to-morrow,” she told herself. She knew that she was not strong enough to decide to-day.

  In the end it was a chance remark of Henri’s that decided her. The house was empty now, and voices carried. He was speaking in the room that had once been M. Moritz’s dressing-room. One of the maids was covering the furniture while he folded up the clothes.

  “Mind you, I respect her,” Henri was saying. “You can tell that she is a lady. She has taken it very differently from the way some of the others did before her.”

  And as Anna listened she heard the names, “Marguerite… Odette … Pauline …”

  III

  “There is only the convent,” Father Ignatius said slowly. “I will see the Superior in the morning.”

  He was walking up and down the small parlour of the presbytery, his fingers playing with the rosary at his waist.

  “And Annette?” Anna asked.

  “They have a wing there for children,” he told her. “She will be well looked after.”

  Anna started up.

  “But she can’t be separated from me. She is too little.”

  Father Ignatius paused.

  “If you are needed,’ you will always be close at hand,” he said.

  “But I must have her with me,” Anna said. “I must.”

  Father Ignatius fixed his dark eyes upon her. He stood there motionless.

  “You cannot enter a convent and make your own conditions,” he said. “You must accept the new life as it is offered to you.”

  “But she won’t understand,” Anna told him. “I’ve given her such a happy life. She’s been used to so much.”

  “It is the child of whom I’m thinking,” he said slowly. “You have decided your life. She has hers before her.”

  “I can’t bear it,” Anna said. “I can’t.”

  Father Ignatius did not speak for a moment. When he did, his voice was gentle.

  “In later life when you come to look back on this,” he said. “you will see it differently. You will find that it has been your salvation. God has given you the opportunity of a new life, a good one. And your child—she will be saved too. She will be among people who love her; she will have the company of other children, she will grow up in the Spirit.”

  Father Ignatius paused: he realised suddenly that he had been preaching when he had meant only to advise. It was his old weakness, this vanity: it was constantly betraying him. And as he looked at Anna sitting huddled in her chair, a new kind
of pity came over him. He saw how young she was: she seemed with her head uncovered and in the heavy cloak which she had thrown around her to be scarcely more than a girl—and he wondered if he had not judged her too harshly.

  “She is helpless,” he began telling himself; “I should have tried to do more for her. I should not have been so stern.”

  He went over to her.

  “At first you will be very lonely in the convent—very lonely,” he said. “You will be unhappy. You may even find yourself wishing your life away. But if you are too wretched, if you feel that you can bear it no longer, send for me and I will come to you. Think of me as you would think of your own father. Do not even for a single moment imagine that there is no one who cares for you, who minds what happens.”

  His voice faltered a little as he was speaking, and he paused. He was an awkward sort of man at such moments. He was too much shut away within himself to share in another’s emotion in this fashion.

  “You must go back home now,” he said. “Go back and pray. Ask to be made humble; and remember the mercies that God has shown to you. In the morning I will come for you.”

  As he spoke, he drew from his pocket a small rosary of gilt and enamel. He stood there for a moment dangling it in his hand, his eyes following the little crucifix as it swung pendulum-like.

  Then he held it out towards her.

  “Take this,” he said. “You will remember this evening by it. It can be the foundation of your new life.”

  When Anna had gone he went through to his own private sitting-room that was as bleak almost as the parlour in which they had been talking. But somehow he could not drink the thick soup that the housekeeper had set before him. Instead, he drank a little of the cheap red wine and prepared himself for what he was to say to the Reverend Mother on the morrow.

  IV

  It was the last day. When Anna’s maid heard that she really had to go, that she was seeing Annette for the last time she wept bitterly. She was overcome and took hold of Anna’s hand and kissed it. For the future, she declared, she would always be miserable. Anna took out a brooch that she had bought—it was too poor a thing for Carlos to have collected—and gave it to her. The girl declared that she would wear it for ever.