mr. ramy, after a decent interval, returned to the shop; and anneliza, when they met, was unable to detect whether the emotionswhich seethed under her black alpaca found an echo in his bosom.
outwardly he made no sign. he lit his pipe as placidly as ever andseemed to relapse without effort into the unruffled intimacy ofold. yet to ann eliza's initiated eye a change became graduallyperceptible. she saw that he was beginning to look at her sisteras he had looked at her on that momentous afternoon: she evendiscerned a secret significance in the turn of his talk withevelina. once he asked her abruptly if she should like to travel,and ann eliza saw that the flush on evelina's cheek was reflectedfrom the same fire which had scorched her own.
so they drifted on through the sultry weeks of july. at thatseason the business of the little shop almost ceased, and onesaturday morning mr. ramy proposed that the sisters should lock upearly and go with him for a sail down the bay in one of the coneyisland boats.
ann eliza saw the light in evelina's eye and her resolve wasinstantly taken.
"i guess i won't go, thank you kindly; but i'm sure my sisterwill be happy to."she was pained by the perfunctory phrase with which evelinaurged her to accompany them; and still more by mr. ramy's silence.
"no, i guess i won't go," she repeated, rather in answer toherself than to them. "it's dreadfully hot and i've got a kinderheadache.""oh, well, i wouldn't then," said her sister hurriedly.
"you'd better jest set here quietly and rest."*** a summary of part i of "bunner sisters" appears on page 4of the advertising pages.
"yes, i'll rest," ann eliza assented.
at two o'clock mr. ramy returned, and a moment later he andevelina left the shop. evelina had made herself another new bonnetfor the occasion, a bonnet, ann eliza thought, almost too youthfulin shape and colour. it was the first time it had ever occurred toher to criticize evelina's taste, and she was frightened at theinsidious change in her attitude toward her sister.
when ann eliza, in later days, looked back on that afternoonshe felt that there had been something prophetic in the quality ofits solitude; it seemed to distill the triple essence of lonelinessin which all her after-life was to be lived. no purchasers came;not a hand fell on the door-latch; and the tick of the clock in theback room ironically emphasized the passing of the empty hours.
evelina returned late and alone. ann eliza felt the comingcrisis in the sound of her footstep, which wavered along as if notknowing on what it trod. the elder sister's affection had sopassionately projected itself into her junior's fate that at suchmoments she seemed to be living two lives, her own and evelina's;and her private longings shrank into silence at the sight of theother's hungry bliss. but it was evident that evelina, neveracutely alive to the emotional atmosphere about her, had no ideathat her secret was suspected; and with an assumption of unconcernthat would have made ann eliza smile if the pang had been lesspiercing, the younger sister prepared to confess herself.
"what are you so busy about?" she said impatiently, as anneliza, beneath the gas-jet, fumbled for the matches. "ain't youeven got time to ask me if i'd had a pleasant day?"ann eliza turned with a quiet smile. "i guess i don't haveto. seems to me it's pretty plain you have.""well, i don't know. i don't know how i feel--it's all so queer. i almost think i'd like to scream.""i guess you're tired.""no, i ain't. it's not that. but it all happened sosuddenly, and the boat was so crowded i thought everybody'd hearwhat he was saying.--ann eliza," she broke out, "why on earth don'tyou ask me what i'm talking about?"ann eliza, with a last effort of heroism, feigned a fondincomprehension.
"what are you?""why, i'm engaged to be married--so there! now it's out! andit happened right on the boat; only to think of it! of course iwasn't exactly surprised--i've known right along he was going tosooner or later--on'y somehow i didn't think of its happening to-day. i thought he'd never get up his courage. he said he was so'fraid i'd say no--that's what kep' him so long from asking me.
well, i ain't said yes yet--leastways i told him i'd have tothink it over; but i guess he knows. oh, ann eliza, i'm so happy!"she hid the blinding brightness of her face.
ann eliza, just then, would only let herself feel that she wasglad. she drew down evelina's hands and kissed her, and they heldeach other. when evelina regained her voice she had a tale to tellwhich carried their vigil far into the night. not a syllable, nota glance or gesture of ramy's, was the elder sister spared; andwith unconscious irony she found herself comparing the details ofhis proposal to her with those which evelina was imparting withmerciless prolixity.
the next few days were taken up with the embarrassedadjustment of their new relation to mr. ramy and to each other.
ann eliza's ardour carried her to new heights of self-effacement,and she invented late duties in the shop in order to leave evelinaand her suitor longer alone in the back room. later on, when shetried to remember the details of those first days, few came back toher: she knew only that she got up each morning with the sense ofhaving to push the leaden hours up the same long steep of pain.
mr. ramy came daily now. every evening he and his betrothedwent out for a stroll around the square, and when evelina came inher cheeks were always pink. "he's kissed her under that tree atthe corner, away from the lamp-post," ann eliza said to herself,with sudden insight into unconjectured things. on sundays theyusually went for the whole afternoon to the central park, and anneliza, from her seat in the mortal hush of the back room, followedstep by step their long slow beatific walk.
there had been, as yet, no allusion to their marriage, exceptthat evelina had once told her sister that mr. ramy wished them toinvite mrs. hochmuller and linda to the wedding. the mention ofthe laundress raised a half-forgotten fear in ann eliza, and shesaid in a tone of tentative appeal: "i guess if i was you iwouldn't want to be very great friends with mrs. hochmuller."evelina glanced at her compassionately. "i guess if you wasme you'd want to do everything you could to please the man youloved. it's lucky," she added with glacial irony, "that i'm nottoo grand for herman's friends.""oh," ann eliza protested, "that ain't what i mean--and youknow it ain't. only somehow the day we saw her i didn't think sheseemed like the kinder person you'd want for a friend.""i guess a married woman's the best judge of such matters,"evelina replied, as though she already walked in the light of herfuture state.
ann eliza, after that, kept her own counsel. she saw thatevelina wanted her sympathy as little as her admonitions, and thatalready she counted for nothing in her sister's scheme of life. toann eliza's idolatrous acceptance of the cruelties of fate thisexclusion seemed both natural and just; but it caused her the mostlively pain. she could not divest her love for evelina of itspassionate motherliness; no breath of reason could lower it to thecool temperature of sisterly affection.
she was then passing, as she thought, through the novitiate ofher pain; preparing, in a hundred experimental ways, for thesolitude awaiting her when evelina left. it was true that it wouldbe a tempered loneliness. they would not be far apart. evelinawould "run in" daily from the clock-maker's; they would doubtlesstake supper with her on sundays. but already ann eliza guessedwith what growing perfunctoriness her sister would fulfillthese obligations; she even foresaw the day when, to get news ofevelina, she should have to lock the shop at nightfall and goherself to mr. ramy's door. but on that contingency she would notdwell. "they can come to me when they want to--they'll always findme here," she simply said to herself.
one evening evelina came in flushed and agitated from herstroll around the square. ann eliza saw at once that something hadhappened; but the new habit of reticence checked her question.
she had not long to wait. "oh, ann eliza, on'y to think whathe says--" (the pronoun stood exclusively for mr. ramy). "ideclare i'm so upset i thought the people in the square wouldnotice me. don't i look queer? he wants to get married rightoff--this very next week.""next week?""yes. so's we can move out to st. louis right away.""him and you--move out to st. louis?""well, i don't know as it would be natural for him to want togo out there without me," evelina simpered. "but it's all sosudden i don't know what to think. he only got the letter thismorning. do i look queer, ann eliza?" her eye was rovingfor the mirror.
"no, you don't," said ann eliza almost harshly.
"well, it's a mercy," evelina pursued with a tinge ofdisappointment. "it's a regular miracle i didn't faint right outthere in the square. herman's so thoughtless--he just put theletter into my hand without a word. it's from a big firm outthere--the tiff'ny of st. louis, he says it is--offering him aplace in their clock-department. seems they heart of him througha german friend of his that's settled out there. it's a splendidopening, and if he gives satisfaction they'll raise him at the endof the year."she paused, flushed with the importance of the situation,which seemed to lift her once for all above the dull level of herformer life.
"then you'll have to go?" came at last from ann eliza.
evelina stared. "you wouldn't have me interfere with hisprospects, would you?""no--no. i on'y meant--has it got to be so soon?""right away, i tell you--next week. ain't it awful?" blushedthe bride.
well, this was what happened to mothers. they bore it, anneliza mused; so why not she? ah, but they had their own chancefirst; she had had no chance at all. and now this life which shehad made her own was going from her forever; had gone, already, inthe inner and deeper sense, and was soon to vanish in even itsoutward nearness, its surface-communion of voice and eye. at thatmoment even the thought of evelina's happiness refused her itsconsolatory ray; or its light, if she saw it, was too remote towarm her. the thirst for a personal and inalienable tie, for pangsand problems of her own, was parching ann eliza's soul: it seemedto her that she could never again gather strength to look herloneliness in the face.
the trivial obligations of the moment came to her aid. nursedin idleness her grief would have mastered her; but the needs of theshop and the back room, and the preparations for evelina'smarriage, kept the tyrant under.
miss mellins, true to her anticipations, had been called on toaid in the making of the wedding dress, and she and ann eliza werebending one evening over the breadths of pearl-grey cashmere whichin spite of the dress-maker's prophetic vision of gored satin, hadbeen judged most suitable, when evelina came into the room alone.
ann eliza had already had occasion to notice that it was a badsign when mr. ramy left his affianced at the door. it generallymeant that evelina had something disturbing to communicate, and anneliza's first glance told her that this time the news was grave.
miss mellins, who sat with her back to the door and her headbent over her sewing, started as evelina came around to theopposite side of the table.
"mercy, miss evelina! i declare i thought you was a ghost,the way you crep' in. i had a customer once up in forty-ninthstreet--a lovely young woman with a thirty-six bust and a waist youcould ha' put into her wedding ring--and her husband, he crep' upbehind her that way jest for a joke, and frightened herinto a fit, and when she come to she was a raving maniac, and hadto be taken to bloomingdale with two doctors and a nurse to holdher in the carriage, and a lovely baby on'y six weeks old--andthere she is to this day, poor creature.""i didn't mean to startle you," said evelina.
she sat down on the nearest chair, and as the lamp-light fellon her face ann eliza saw that she had been crying.
"you do look dead-beat," miss mellins resumed, after a pauseof soul-probing scrutiny. "i guess mr. ramy lugs you round thatsquare too often. you'll walk your legs off if you ain't careful.
men don't never consider--they're all alike. why, i had a cousinonce that was engaged to a book-agent--""maybe we'd better put away the work for to-night, missmellins," ann eliza interposed. "i guess what evelina wants is agood night's rest.""that's so," assented the dress-maker. "have you got the backbreadths run together, miss bunner? here's the sleeves. i'll pin'em together." she drew a cluster of pins from her mouth, in whichshe seemed to secrete them as squirrels stow away nuts. "there,"she said, rolling up her work, "you go right away to bed, missevelina, and we'll set up a little later to-morrow night. i guessyou're a mite nervous, ain't you? i know when my turn comes i'llbe scared to death."with this arch forecast she withdrew, and ann eliza, returningto the back room, found evelina still listlessly seated by thetable. true to her new policy of silence, the elder sister setabout folding up the bridal dress; but suddenly evelina said in aharsh unnatural voice: "there ain't any use in going on with that."the folds slipped from ann eliza's hands.
"evelina bunner--what you mean?""jest what i say. it's put off.""put off--what's put off?""our getting married. he can't take me to st. louis. heain't got money enough." she brought the words out in themonotonous tone of a child reciting a lesson.
ann eliza picked up another breadth of cashmere and began tosmooth it out. "i don't understand," she said at length.
"well, it's plain enough. the journey's fearfully expensive,and we've got to have something left to start with when we get outthere. we've counted up, and he ain't got the money to do it--that's all.""but i thought he was going right into a splendid place.""so he is; but the salary's pretty low the first year, andboard's very high in st. louis. he's jest got another letter fromhis german friend, and he's been figuring it out, and he's afraidto chance it. he'll have to go alone.""but there's your money--have you forgotten that? the hundreddollars in the bank."evelina made an impatient movement. "of course i ain'tforgotten it. on'y it ain't enough. it would all have to go intobuying furniture, and if he was took sick and lost his place againwe wouldn't have a cent left. he says he's got to lay by anotherhundred dollars before he'll be willing to take me out there."for a while ann eliza pondered this surprising statement; thenshe ventured: "seems to me he might have thought of it before."in an instant evelina was aflame. "i guess he knows what'sright as well as you or me. i'd sooner die than be a burden tohim."ann eliza made no answer. the clutch of an unformulated doubthad checked the words on her lips. she had meant, on the day ofher sister's marriage, to give evelina the other half of theircommon savings; but something warned her not to say so now.
the sisters undressed without farther words. after they hadgone to bed, and the light had been put out, the sound of evelina'sweeping came to ann eliza in the darkness, but she lay motionlesson her own side of the bed, out of contact with her sister's shakenbody. never had she felt so coldly remote from evelina.
the hours of the night moved slowly, ticked off with wearisomeinsistence by the clock which had played so prominent a part intheir lives. evelina's sobs still stirred the bed at graduallylengthening intervals, till at length ann eliza thought she slept.
but with the dawn the eyes of the sisters met, and ann eliza'scourage failed her as she looked in evelina's face.
she sat up in bed and put out a pleading hand.
"don't cry so, dearie. don't.""oh, i can't bear it, i can't bear it," evelina moaned.
ann eliza stroked her quivering shoulder. "don't, don't," sherepeated. "if you take the other hundred, won't that be enough?
i always meant to give it to you. on'y i didn't want to tell youtill your wedding day."
