Anne's House of Dreams
They played lots of tricks on people and thought it great fun, the two
scamps. George Moore was a little taller and a good deal fatter than
Dick--though neither of them was what you would call fat--they were
both of the lean kind. Dick had higher color than George, and his hair
was a shade lighter. But their features were just alike, and they both
had that queer freak of eyes--one blue and one hazel. They weren’t
much alike in any other way, though. George was a real nice fellow,
though he was a scalawag for mischief, and some said he had a liking
for a glass even then. But everybody liked him better than Dick. He
spent about a month here. Leslie never saw him; she was only about
eight or nine then and I remember now that she spent that whole winter
over harbor with her grandmother West. Captain Jim was away, too--that
was the winter he was wrecked on the Magdalens. I don’t suppose either
he or Leslie had ever heard about the Nova Scotia cousin looking so
much like Dick. Nobody ever thought of him when Captain Jim brought
Dick--George, I should say--home. Of course, we all thought Dick had
changed considerable--he’d got so lumpish and fat. But we put that
down to what had happened to him, and no doubt that was the reason,
for, as I’ve said, George wasn’t fat to begin with either. And there
was no other way we could have guessed, for the man’s senses were clean
gone. I can’t see that it is any wonder we were all deceived. But
it’s a staggering thing. And Leslie has sacrificed the best years of
her life to nursing a man who hadn’t any claim on her! Oh, drat the
men! No matter what they do, it’s the wrong thing. And no matter who
they are, it’s somebody they shouldn’t be. They do exasperate me.”
“Gilbert and Captain Jim are men, and it is through them that the truth
has been discovered at last,” said Anne.
“Well, I admit that,” conceded Miss Cornelia reluctantly. “I’m sorry I
raked the doctor off so. It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever felt
ashamed of anything I said to a man. I don’t know as I shall tell him
so, though. He’ll just have to take it for granted. Well, Anne,
dearie, it’s a mercy the Lord doesn’t answer all our prayers. I’ve
been praying hard right along that the operation wouldn’t cure Dick.
Of course I didn’t put it just quite so plain. But that was what was
in the back of my mind, and I have no doubt the Lord knew it.”
“Well, He has answered the spirit of your prayer. You really wished
that things shouldn’t be made any harder for Leslie. I’m afraid that
in my secret heart I’ve been hoping the operation wouldn’t succeed, and
I am wholesomely ashamed of it.”
“How does Leslie seem to take it?”
“She writes like one dazed. I think that, like ourselves, she hardly
realizes it yet. She says, ‘It all seems like a strange dream to me,
Anne.’ That is the only reference she makes to herself.”
“Poor child! I suppose when the chains are struck off a prisoner he’d
feel queer and lost without them for a while. Anne, dearie, here’s a
thought keeps coming into my mind. What about Owen Ford? We both know
Leslie was fond of him. Did it ever occur to you that he was fond of
her?”
“It--did--once,” admitted Anne, feeling that she might say so much.
“Well, I hadn’t any reason to think he was, but it just appeared to me
he MUST be. Now, Anne, dearie, the Lord knows I’m not a match-maker,
and I scorn all such doings. But if I were you and writing to that
Ford man I’d just mention, casual-like, what has happened. That is
what _I_’d do.”
“Of course I will mention it when I write him,” said Anne, a trifle
distantly. Somehow, this was a thing she could not discuss with Miss
Cornelia. And yet, she had to admit that the same thought had been
lurking in her mind ever since she had heard of Leslie’s freedom. But
she would not desecrate it by free speech.
“Of course there is no great rush, dearie. But Dick Moore’s been dead
for thirteen years and Leslie has wasted enough of her life for him.
We’ll just see what comes of it. As for this George Moore, who’s gone
and come back to life when everyone thought he was dead and done for,
just like a man, I’m real sorry for him. He won’t seem to fit in
anywhere.”
“He is still a young man, and if he recovers completely, as seems
likely, he will be able to make a place for himself again. It must be
very strange for him, poor fellow. I suppose all these years since his
accident will not exist for him.”
CHAPTER 33
LESLIE RETURNS
A fortnight later Leslie Moore came home alone to the old house where
she had spent so many bitter years. In the June twilight she went over
the fields to Anne’s, and appeared with ghost-like suddenness in the
scented garden.
“Leslie!” cried Anne in amazement. “Where have you sprung from? We
never knew you were coming. Why didn’t you write? We would have met
you.”
“I couldn’t write somehow, Anne. It seemed so futile to try to say
anything with pen and ink. And I wanted to get back quietly and
unobserved.”
Anne put her arms about Leslie and kissed her. Leslie returned the
kiss warmly. She looked pale and tired, and she gave a little sigh as
she dropped down on the grasses beside a great bed of daffodils that
were gleaming through the pale, silvery twilight like golden stars.
“And you have come home alone, Leslie?”
“Yes. George Moore’s sister came to Montreal and took him home with
her. Poor fellow, he was sorry to part with me--though I was a
stranger to him when his memory first came back. He clung to me in
those first hard days when he was trying to realize that Dick’s death
was not the thing of yesterday that it seemed to him. It was all very
hard for him. I helped him all I could. When his sister came it was
easier for him, because it seemed to him only the other day that he had
seen her last. Fortunately she had not changed much, and that helped
him, too.”
“It is all so strange and wonderful, Leslie. I think we none of us
realize it yet.”
“I cannot. When I went into the house over there an hour ago, I felt
that it MUST be a dream--that Dick must be there, with his childish
smile, as he had been for so long. Anne, I seem stunned yet. I’m not
glad or sorry--or ANYTHING. I feel as if something had been torn
suddenly out of my life and left a terrible hole. I feel as if I
couldn’t be _I_--as if I must have changed into somebody else and
couldn’t get used to it. It gives me a horrible lonely, dazed,
helpless feeling. It’s good to see you again--it seems as if you were
a sort of anchor for my drifting soul. Oh, Anne, I dread it all--the
gossip and wonderment and questioning. When I think of that, I wish
that I need not have come home at all. Dr. Dave was at the station
when I came off the train--he brought me home. Poor old man, he feels
very badly because he told me years ago that nothing could be done for
Dick. ‘I honestly thought so, Leslie,’ he said to me today. ‘But I
should have told you not to depend on my opinion--I should have told
you to go to a specialist. If I had, you would have been saved many
bitter years, and poor George Moore many wasted ones. I blame myself
very much, Leslie.’ I told him not to do that--he had done what he
thought right. He has always been so kind to me--I couldn’t bear to
see him worrying over it.”
“And Dick--George, I mean? Is his memory fully restored?”
“Practically. Of course, there are a great many details he can’t
recall yet--but he remembers more and more every day. He went out for
a walk on the evening after Dick was buried. He had Dick’s money and
watch on him; he meant to bring them home to me, along with my letter.
He admits he went to a place where the sailors resorted--and he
remembers drinking--and nothing else. Anne, I shall never forget the
moment he remembered his own name. I saw him looking at me with an
intelligent but puzzled expression. I said, ‘Do you know me, Dick?’
He answered, ‘I never saw you before. Who are you? And my name is not
Dick. I am George Moore, and Dick died of yellow fever yesterday!
Where am I? What has happened to me?’ I--I fainted, Anne. And ever
since I have felt as if I were in a dream.”
“You will soon adjust yourself to this new state of things, Leslie.
And you are young--life is before you--you will have many beautiful
years yet.”
“Perhaps I shall be able to look at it in that way after a while, Anne.
Just now I feel too tired and indifferent to think about the future.
I’m--I’m--Anne, I’m lonely. I miss Dick. Isn’t it all very strange?
Do you know, I was really fond of poor Dick--George, I suppose I should
say--just as I would have been fond of a helpless child who depended on
me for everything. I would never have admitted it--I was really
ashamed of it--because, you see, I had hated and despised Dick so much
before he went away. When I heard that Captain Jim was bringing him
home I expected I would just feel the same to him. But I never
did--although I continued to loathe him as I remembered him before.
From the time he came home I felt only pity--a pity that hurt and wrung
me. I supposed then that it was just because his accident had made him
so helpless and changed. But now I believe it was because there was
really a different personality there. Carlo knew it, Anne--I know now
that Carlo knew it. I always thought it strange that Carlo shouldn’t
have known Dick. Dogs are usually so faithful. But HE knew it was not
his master who had come back, although none of the rest of us did. I
had never seen George Moore, you know. I remember now that Dick once
mentioned casually that he had a cousin in Nova Scotia who looked as
much like him as a twin; but the thing had gone out of my memory, and
in any case I would never have thought it of any importance. You see,
it never occurred to me to question Dick’s identity. Any change in him
seemed to me just the result of the accident.
“Oh, Anne, that night in April when Gilbert told me he thought Dick
might be cured! I can never forget it. It seemed to me that I had
once been a prisoner in a hideous cage of torture, and then the door
had been opened and I could get out. I was still chained to the cage
but I was not in it. And that night I felt that a merciless hand was
drawing me back into the cage--back to a torture even more terrible
than it had once been. I didn’t blame Gilbert. I felt he was right.
And he had been very good--he said that if, in view of the expense and
uncertainty of the operation, I should decide not to risk it, he would
not blame me in the least. But I knew how I ought to decide--and I
couldn’t face it. All night I walked the floor like a mad woman,
trying to compel myself to face it. I couldn’t, Anne--I thought I
couldn’t--and when morning broke I set my teeth and resolved that I
WOULDN’T. I would let things remain as they were. It was very wicked,
I know. It would have been just punishment for such wickedness if I
had just been left to abide by that decision. I kept to it all day.
That afternoon I had to go up to the Glen to do some shopping. It was
one of Dick’s quiet, drowsy days, so I left him alone. I was gone a
little longer than I had expected, and he missed me. He felt lonely.
And when I got home, he ran to meet me just like a child, with such a
pleased smile on his face. Somehow, Anne, I just gave way then. That
smile on his poor vacant face was more than I could endure. I felt as
if I were denying a child the chance to grow and develop. I knew that
I must give him his chance, no matter what the consequences might be.
So I came over and told Gilbert. Oh, Anne, you must have thought me
hateful in those weeks before I went away. I didn’t mean to be--but I