Anna

BY

KATHARINE S. MACQUOID

Three thousand feet up the side of a Swiss mountain a lateral valley strikes off in the direction of the heights that border the course of the Rhine on its way from Coire to Sargans. The closely-cropped, velvet-smooth turf, the abundant woods, sometimes of pine-trees and sometimes of beech and chestnut, give a smiling, park-like aspect to the broad green track, and suggest ideas of peace and plenty.
 

 As the path gradually ascends on its way to Fadara the wealth of wild flowers increases, and adds to the beauty of the scene.

A few brown cow-stables are dotted about the flower-sprinkled meadows; a brook runs diagonally across the path, and some freshly-laid planks show that inhabitants are not far off; but there is not a living creature in sight. The grasshoppers keep up their perpetual chirrup, and if one looks among the flowers one can see the gleam of their scarlet wings as they jump; for the rest, the flowers and the birds have it all to themselves, and they sing their hymns and offer their incense in undisturbed solitude.

When one has crossed the brook and climbed an upward slope into the meadow beyond it, one enters a thick fir-wood full of fragrant shadow; at the end is a bank, green and high, crowned by a hedge, and all at once the quiet of the place has fled.

'Come, Anna!'

Such a variety of sounds come down the green bank! A cock is crowing loudly, and there is the bleat of a young calf; pigs are squeaking one against another, and in the midst of the din a dog begins to bark. At the farther corner, where the hedge retreats from its encroachments on the meadow, a grey house comes into view, with a signboard across its upper part announcing that here the tired traveller may get dinner and a bed.

Before the cock has done crowing--and really he goes on so long that it is a wonder he is not hoarse--another voice mingles with the rest.

It is a woman's voice, and, although neither hoarse nor shrill, it is no more musical than the crow of the other biped, who struts about on his widely-spread toes in the yard, to which Christina Fasch has come to feed the pigs. There are five of them, pink-nosed and yellow-coated, and they keep up a grunting and snarling chorus within their wooden enclosure, each struggling to oust a neighbour from his place near the trough while they all greedily await their food.

'Come, Anna, come,' says the hard voice; 'what a slow coach you are! I would do a thing three times over while you are thinking about it!'

       *       *       *       *       *

The farmyard was bordered by the tall hedge, and lay between it and the inn. The cow-house, on one side, was separated from the pigstyes by a big stack of yellow logs, and the farther corner of the inn was flanked by another stack of split wood, fronted by a pile of brushwood; above was a wooden balcony that ran also along the house-front, and was sheltered by the far-projecting eaves of the shingled roof.

Only the upper part of the inn was built of logs, the rest was brick and plaster. The house looked neatly kept, the yard was less full of the stray wood and litter that is so usual in a Swiss farmyard, but there was a dull, severe air about the place. There was not a flower or a plant, either in the balcony or on the broad wooden shelves below the windows--not so much as a carnation or a marigold in the vegetable plot behind the house.

A shed stood in the corner of this plot, and at the sound of Christina's call a girl came out of the shed; she was young and tall and strong-looking, but she did not beautify the scene.

To begin with, she stooped; her rough, tangled hair covered her forehead and partly hid her eyes; her skin was red and tanned with exposure, and her rather wide lips drooped at the corners with an expression of misery that was almost grotesque. She carried a pail in each hand.

'Do be quick!' Christina spoke impatiently as she saw her niece appear beyond the wood-stack.

Anna started at the harsh voice as if a lash had fallen on her back; the pig's food splashed over her gown and filled her heavy leather shoes.
 

'Go, you unlucky child!'

'I had better have done it myself,' cried her aunt. 'See, unhappy child,

 you have wasted food and time also! Now you must go and clean your shoes and stockings; your gown and apron are only fit for the wash-tub! Ah!'

She gave a deep sigh as she took up first one pail and then the other and emptied the wash into the pig-trough without spilling a drop by the way. Anna stood watching her admiringly.

'Well!' Christina turned round on her. 'I ask myself, what is the use of you, child? You are fifteen, and so far it seems to me that you are here only to make work for others! When do you mean to do things as other people do them? I ask myself, what would become of you if your father were a poor man, and you had to earn your living?'

Anna had stooped yet more forward; she seemed to crouch as if she wanted to get out of sight. Christina suddenly stopped and looked at her for an answer. Anna fingered her splashed apron; she tried to speak, but a lump rose in her throat, and she could not see for the hot tears that would, against her will, rush to her eyes.

'I shall never do anything well,' she said at last, and the misery in her voice touched her aunt. 'I used not to believe you, aunt, but now I see that you are right. I can never be needful to any one.' Then she went on bitterly: 'It would have been better if father had taken me up to the lake on Scesaplana when I was a baby and drowned me there as he drowned the puppies in the wash-tub.'

Christina looked shocked; there was a frown on her heavy face, which was usually as expressionless as if it had been carved in wood.

'Fie!' she said. 'Think of Gretchen's mother, old Barbara; she does not complain of the goitre; though she has to bear it under her chin, she tries to keep it out of sight. I wish you would do the same with your clumsiness. There, go and change your clothes, go, you unlucky child, go!'

       *       *       *       *       *

You are perhaps wondering how it comes to pass that an inn can exist placed alone in the midst of green pasture-land, and only approached by a simple foot track, which more than once leads the wayfarer across mere plank bridges, and which passes, only at long intervals, small groups of cottages that call themselves villages. You naturally wonder how the guests at this lonely inn fare with regard to provisions. It is true that milk is sent down every day from the cows on the green Alps higher up the mountain, and that the farm boasts of plenty of ducks and fowls, of eggs and honey. There are a few sheep and goats, too; we have seen that there are pigs. Fraeulein Christina Fasch makes good bread, and she is famous for her delicate puddings and sauces; the puzzle is, whence come the groceries, and the extras, and the wines that are consumed in the inn?

A mile or so beyond, on a lower spur of the mountain ridge that overlooks the Rhine, a gap comes in the hedge that screens an almost precipitous descent into the broad, flat valley. The descent looks more perilous than it is, for constant use has worn the slender track into a series of rough steps, which lead to the vine-clad knoll on which is situated Malans, and at Malans George Fasch, the landlord of our inn, can purchase all he needs, for it is near a station on the railway line between Zurich and Coire and close to the busy town of Mayenfeld in the valley below.

Just now there are no visitors at the inn, so the landlord only makes his toilsome journey once a fortnight; but when there is a family in the house he visits the valley more frequently, for he cannot bring very large stores with him, although he does not spare himself fatigue, and he mounts the natural ladder with surprising rapidity, considering the load he carries strapped to his shoulders.

The great joy of Anna was to meet her father at the top of the pass, and persuade him to lighten his burden by giving her some of it to carry; and to-day, when she had washed her face and hands, and had changed her clothes, she wished that he had gone to Malans; his coming back would have helped her to forget her disaster. Her aunt's words clung to the girl like burs; and now, as they rang in her ears again, she went into the wood to have her cry out, unobserved.

She stood leaning against a tree; and, as the tears rolled over her face, she turned and hid it against the rough red bark of the pine. She was crying for the loss of the dear, gentle mother who had always helped her. Her mother had so screened her awkwardness from public notice that Anna had scarcely been aware of it. Her Aunt Christina had said, when she was summoned four years ago to manage her brother's household, 'Your wife has ruined Anna, brother. I shall have hard work to improve her.'

Anna was not crying now about her aunt's constant fault-finding; there was something in her grief more bitter even than the tears she shed for her mother; it seemed to the girl that day by day she was becoming more and more clumsy and stupid; she broke the crockery, and even the furniture; she spoiled her frocks; and, worst of all, she had more than once met her father's kind blue eyes fixed on her with a look of sadness that went to her heart. Did he, too, think that she would never be useful to herself or to any one?

At this thought her tears came more freely, and she pressed her hot face against the tree.

'I wonder why I was made!' she sobbed.

There came a sharp crackling sound, as the twigs and pine-needles snapped under a heavy tread.

Anna caught up her white apron and vigorously rubbed her eyes; then she hurried out to the path from her shelter among the trees.

In another minute her arms were round her father, and she was kissing him on both cheeks.

George Fasch kissed her and patted her shoulder; then a suppressed sob caught his ear. He held Anna away from him, and looked at her face.

It was red and green in streaks, and her eyes were red and inflamed. The father was startled by her appearance.

'What is the matter, dear child?' he said. 'You are ill.'

Then his eyes fell on her apron. Its crumpled state, and the red and green smears on it, showed the use to which it had been put, and he began to guess what had happened.

Anna hung her head.

'I was crying and I leaned against a tree. Oh, dear, it was a clean apron! Aunt will be vexed.'

Her father sighed, but he pitied her confusion.

'Why did you cry, my child?' he said, half-tenderly, half in rebuke. 'Aunt Christina means well, though she speaks abruptly.'

He only provoked fresh tears, but Anna tried so hard to keep them back that she was soon calm again.

'I am not vexed with Aunt Christina for scolding me,' she said; 'I deserved it; I am sorry for myself.'

'Well, well,' he said cheerfully, 'we cannot expect old heads on young shoulders.' His honest, sunburned face was slightly troubled as he looked at her. 'You will have to brush up a bit, you know, when Christina goes to Zurich. You are going to be left in charge of the house for a week or so.'

Anna pressed her hands nervously together. She felt that the house would suffer greatly under her guidance; but then, she should have her father all to herself in her aunt's absence, and she should be freed from those scathing rebukes which made her feel all the more clumsy and helpless when they were uttered in her father's presence.

George Fasch, however, had of late become very much aware of his daughter's awkwardness, and secretly he was troubled by the prospect of her aunt's absence. He was a kind man and an affectionate father, but he objected to Gretchen's unaided cookery, and he had therefore resolved to transact some long-deferred business in Zurich during his sister's stay there. This would lessen the number of his badly-cooked dinners at home.

'I shall start with Christina,' he said--'some one must go with her to Pardisla; and next day I shall come home by Malans, so you will have to meet me on Wednesday evening at the old place, eh, Anna?'

She nodded and smiled, but she felt a little disappointed. She reflected, however, that she should have her father alone for some days after his return.

Christina was surprised to see how cheerful the girl looked when she came indoors.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the Marsh

Rain fell incessantly for several days, and even when it ceased masses of white vapour rose up from the neighbouring valleys and blotted out everything. The vapour had lifted, however, when Fasch and his sister started on their expedition, and Anna, tired of her week's seclusion, set out on a ramble. A strange new feeling came over the girl as soon as she lost sight of her aunt's straight figure. She was free, there would be no one to scold her or to make her feel awkward; she vaulted with delight, and with an ease that surprised her, over the fence that parted the two meadows; she looked down at her skirt, and she saw with relief that she had not much frayed it, yet she knew there were thorns, for there had been an abundance of wild roses in the hedge.

A lark was singing blithely overhead, and the grasshoppers filled the air with joyful chirpings. Anna's face beamed with content.

'If life could be always like to-day!' she thought, 'oh, how nice it would be!'

Presently she reached the meadow with the brook running across it, and she gave a cry of delight; down in the marsh into which the brook ran across the sloping field she saw a mass of bright dark-blue. These were gentian-flowers, opening blue and green blossoms to the sunshine, and in front of them the meadow itself was white with a sprinkling of grass of Parnassus.

Anna had a passionate love of flowers, and, utterly heedless of all but the joy of seeing them, she ran down the slope, and only stopped when she found herself ankle-deep in the marsh below, in which the gentian grew.

This sobered her excitement. She pulled out one foot, and was shocked to find that she had left her shoe behind in the black slime; she was conscious, too, that her other foot was sinking deeper and deeper in the treacherous marsh. There was nothing to hold by, there was not even an osier near at hand; behind the gentian rose a thicket of rosy-blossomed willow-herb, and here and there was a creamy tassel of meadowsweet, but even these were some feet beyond her grasp.

Anna looked round her in despair. From the next field came a clicking sound, and as she listened she guessed that old Andreas was busy mowing.

He was old, but he was not deaf, and she could easily make him hear a cry for help; but she was afraid of Andreas. He kept the hotel garden in order, and if he found footmarks on the vegetable plots, or if anything went wrong with the plants, he always laid the blame on Anna; he was as neat as he was captious, and the girl shrank from letting him see the plight she was in.

She stooped down and felt for her shoe, and as she recovered it she nearly fell full length into the bog; the struggle to keep her balance was fatal; her other foot sank several inches; it seemed to her that she must soon be sucked down by the horrible black water that spurted up from the marsh with her struggles.

Without stopping to think, she cried out as loud as she could, 'Help me, Andreas! Help! I am drowning!'

Rescued

At the cry the top of a straw hat appeared in sight, and its owner came up-hill--a small man, with twisted legs, in pale clay-coloured trousers, a black waistcoat, and brown linen shirtsleeves. His wrinkled face looked hot, and his hat was pushed to the back of his head. He took it off and wiped his face with his handkerchief while he looked round him.

'Pouf!' He gave a grunt of displeasure. 'So you are once more in mischief, are you? Ah, ah, ah! What, then, will the aunt, that ever to be respected Fraeulein, say, when she hears of this?'

He called this out as he came leisurely across the strip of meadow that separated him from Anna.

She was in an agony of fear lest she should sink still farther in before he reached her; but she knew Andreas far too well to urge him even by a word to greater haste. So she stood shivering and pale with fear while she clasped her bog-stained shoe close to her.

Andreas had brought a stake with him, and he held this out to Anna, but when she tried to draw out her sinking foot she shook her head, it seemed to be stuck too fast in the bog.

Andreas gave a growl of discontent, and then went slowly up to the plank bridge. With some effort he raised the smaller of the two planks and carried it to where Anna stood fixed like a statue among the flowering water-plants. Then he pushed the plank out till it rested on a hillock of rushes, while the other end remained on the meadow.

'Ah!'--he drew a long breath--'see the trouble you give by your carelessness.'

He spoke vindictively, as if he would have liked to give her a good shaking; but Anna smiled at him, she was so thankful at the prospect of release.

The mischievous little man kept her waiting some minutes. He pretended to test the safety of the plank by walking up and down it and trying it with his foot. At last, when the girl's heart had become sick with suspense, he suddenly stretched out both hands and pulled her on to the plank, then he pushed her along before him till she was on dry ground once more.

'Oh, thank you, Andreas,' she began, but he cut her thanks very short.

'Go home at once and dry yourself,' he said. 'You are the plague of my life, and if I had been a wise man I should have left you in the marsh. Could not your senses tell you that all that rain meant danger in boggy places? There'll be mischief somewhere besides this; a landslip or two, more than likely. There, run home, child, or you'll get cold.'

He turned angrily away and went back to his work.

Anna hurried to the narrowest part of the brook and jumped across it. She could not make herself in a worse plight than she was already; her skirts were dripping with the black and filthy water of the marsh.

Heavy rain fell again during the night, and continued throughout the morning, but in the afternoon there was a glimpse of sunshine overhead. This soon drew the vapour up again from the valley, and white steam-clouds sailed slowly across the landscape.

Gretchen had been very kind and compassionate about Anna's disaster; she made the girl go to bed for an hour or two, and gave her some hot broth, and Anna would have forgotten her trouble but for the certainty she felt that old Andreas would make as bad a story of it as he could to her Aunt Christina. But this morning the girl was looking forward to her father's home-coming, and she was in good spirits; she had tried to make herself extra neat, and to imitate as closely as she could her Aunt Christina's way of tidying the rooms; but one improvement suggested itself to Anna which would certainly not have occurred to her tidy aunt; if she had thought of it, she would have scouted the idea as useless, and a frivolous waste of time.

Directly after the midday meal Anna went out to gather a wild-flower nosegay, to place in the sitting-room in honour of her father's return. It seemed to her the only means she had of showing him how glad she was to see him again.

While she was busy gathering Andreas crossed the meadow; he did not see Anna stooping over the flowers, and she kept herself hidden; but the sight of him brought back a haunting fear. What was it? What had Andreas said that she had forgotten? He had said something which had startled her at the time, and which now came pressing urgently on her for remembrance, although she could not distinctly recall it.

What was it? Anna stood asking herself; the flowers fell out of her hand on to the grass among their unplucked companions; she stood for some minutes absorbed in thought.

Andreas had passed out of sight, and she could not venture to follow him, for she did not know what she wanted him to tell her.

A raindrop fell on her hand, and she looked up. Yes, the rain had begun again. Anna gave a sudden start; she left the flowers and set off running towards the point at which she was accustomed to meet her father.

With the raindrop the clue she had been seeking had come to her. Andreas had said there might very likely be landslips, and who could say that there might not have been one on the hillside above Malans? Anna had often heard her father say that, though he could climb the steep ascent with his burden, he should be sorry to have to go down with it. If the track had been partly carried away, he might begin to climb without any warning of the danger that lay before him. . . .

Anna trembled and shivered as she thought of the danger. It would be growing dusk before her father began to climb, and who could say what might happen?

She hurried on to the place at which she always met her father. When she had crossed the brook that parted the field with the gap from the field preceding it, Anna stood still in dismay. The hedge was gone, and so was a good strip of the field it had bordered.

There had already been a landslip.

A Landslip

Anna had learned wisdom by her mischance yesterday, and she went on slowly and cautiously till she drew near the edge; then she knelt down on the grass, and, creeping along on her hands and knees, she peered over the broken, slippery edge. The landslip seemed to have reached midway down the cliff, but the rain had washed the earth and rubbish to one side.

So far as Anna could make out, the way up, half-way, was as firm as ever; then there came a heap of debris from the fall of earth, and then the bare rock rose to the top, upright and dreadful.

Anna's head turned dizzy as she looked down the precipice, and she forced herself to crawl backward from the crumbling edge only just in time, for it seemed to her that some mysterious power was beckoning her from below.

When she got on her feet she stood and wondered what was to be done. How was she to warn her father of this danger?

She looked at the sun; it was still high up in the sky, so she had some hours before her. There was no other way to Malans but this one, unless by going back half-way to Seewis, to where a path led down to Pardisla, and thence into the Landquart valley, where the high-road went on to Malans, past the corner where the Landquart falls into the Rhine. Anna had learned all this as a child from the big map which hung in the dining-room at the inn. But on the map it looked a long, long way to the Rhine valley, and she had heard her father tell her Aunt Christina that she must take the diligence at Pardisla; it would be too far, he said, to walk to Landquart, and Anna knew that Malans was farther still. She stood wondering what could be done.

In these last four years she had become by degrees penetrated with a sense of her own utter uselessness, and she had gradually sunk into a melancholy condition. She did only what she was told to do, and she always expected to be told how to do it.

Her first thought now was, how could she get help or advice? she knew only two people who could help her--Gretchen and Andreas. The last, she reflected, must be already at some distance. When she saw him, he was carrying a basket, and he had, no doubt, gone to Seewis, for it was market-day in that busy village. As to Gretchen, Anna felt puzzled. Gretchen never went from home; what could she know about time and the distance from the Rhine valley?

Besides, while the girl stood thinking her sense of responsibility unfolded, the sense that comes to every rational creature in a moment that threatens danger to others; and she saw that by going back even to consult with Gretchen she must lose many precious minutes. There was no near road to the valley, but it would save a little to keep well behind the inn on her downward way to Pardisla.

As Anna went along the day cleared again. The phantom-like mists drifted aside and showed on the opposite mountain's side brilliant green Alps in the fir-wood that reached almost to the top. The lark overhead sang louder, and the grasshopper's metallic chirp was incessant under foot.

Father must be Warned

Anna's heart became lighter as she hurried on; surely, she thought, she must reach Malans before her father had begun to climb the mountain. She knew that he would have left his knapsack at Mayenfeld, and that he must call there for it on his way home. Unless the landslip was quite recent it seemed to her possible that some one might be aware of what had happened, and might give her father warning; but Anna had seen that for a good way above Malans the upward path looked all right, and it was so perpendicular that she fancied the destruction of its upper portion might not have been at once discovered, especially if it had occurred at night. No, she was obliged to see that it was extremely doubtful whether her father would receive any warning unless she reached the foot of the descent before he did.

So she went at her utmost speed down the steep stony track to Pardisla. New powers seemed to have come to her with the intensity of her suspense.

       *       *       *       *       *

George Fasch had every reason to be content with the way in which he had managed his business at Zurich; and yet, as he travelled back to Mayenfeld, he was in a desponding mood. All the way to Zurich his sister had talked about Anna. She said she had tried her utmost with the girl, and that she grew worse and worse.

'She is reckless and thoroughly unreliable,' she said, 'and she gets more stupid every day. If you were wise you would put her into a reformatory.'

George Fasch shrugged his shoulders.

'She is affectionate,' he said bluntly, 'and she is very unselfish. I should be sorry to send her from home.'

Christina held up her hands.

'I call a girl selfish who gives so much trouble. Gretchen has to wash out three skirts a week for Anna. She is always spoiling her clothes. I, on the contrary, call her very selfish, brother.'

George Fasch shrugged his shoulders again; he remembered the red and green apron, and he supposed that Christina must be right; and now, as he travelled back alone, he asked himself what he must do. Certainly he saw no reason why he should place Anna in a reformatory--that would be, he thought, a sure way of making her unhappy, and perhaps even desperate; but Christina's words had shown him her unwillingness to be plagued with his daughter's ways, and he shrank from the idea of losing his useful housekeeper. He had been accustomed to depend on his sister for the management of the inn, and he felt that no paid housekeeper would be able to fill Christina's place. Besides, it would cost more money to pay a stranger.

Yes, he must send Anna away, but he shrank from the idea. There was a timid, pathetic look in the girl's dark eyes that warned him against parting her from those she loved. After all, was she not very like her mother? and his sweet lost wife had often told George Fasch how dreamy and heedless and stupid she had been in childhood. He was sure that Anna would mend in time, if only he could hit on some middle course at present.

The weather had been fine at Zurich; and he was surprised, when he quitted the train, to see the long wreaths of white vapour that floated along the valley and up the sides of the hill. It was clearer when he had crossed the river; but before he reached Malans evening was drawing in, and everything grew misty.

He had made his purchases at Mayenfeld so as to avoid another stoppage; and, with his heavy load strapped on his back, he took a by-path that skirted Malans, and led him straight to the bottom of the descent without going through the village. There was a group of trees just at the foot of the path, which increased the gathering gloom.

'My poor child will be tired of waiting,' he thought, and he began to climb the steep ascent more rapidly than usual.

All at once a faint cry reached him; he stopped and listened, but it did not come again.
 

'You cannot climb To-night!'

The way was very slippery, he thought; his feet seemed to be clogged with soft earth, and he stopped at last to breathe. Then he heard another cry, and the sound of footsteps behind him.

Some one was following him up the dangerous ascent. And as his ears took in the sound he heard Anna's voice some way below.

'Father! father! stop! stop!' she cried; 'there is a landslip above; you cannot climb to-night.'

George Fasch stopped. He shut his eyes and opened them again. It seemed to him that he was dreaming. How came Anna to be at the foot of the pass if it was not possible to climb to the top of it?

'What is it, Anna? Do you mean that I must come down again?' he said wonderingly.

'Yes, yes; the path above is destroyed.'

And once more he wondered if all this could be real.

'Father, can you come down with the pack, or will you unfasten it and leave it behind?'

George Fasch thought a moment.

'You must go down first,' he said, 'and keep on one side; the distance is short, and I think I can do it; but I may slip by the way.'

There were minutes of breathless suspense while Anna stood in the gathering darkness, and then the heavy footsteps ceased to descend, and she found herself suddenly hugged close in her father's arms.

'My good girl,' he said, 'my good Anna, how did you come here?'

Anna could not speak. She trembled like a leaf, and then she began to sob. The poor girl was completely exhausted by the terrible anxiety she had gone through, and by fatigue.

'I thought I was too late,' she sobbed; 'it looked so dark. I feared you could not see; I cried out, but you did not answer. Oh, father!'--she caught at his arms--'if I had been really too late!'

Her head sank on his shoulder.

George Fasch patted her cheek. He was deeply moved, but he did not speak; he would hear by-and-by how it had all happened. Presently he said cheerfully:

'Well, my girl, we must let Gretchen wonder what has happened to us to-night. You and I will get beds at Malans. My clever Anna has done enough for one day.'

       *       *       *       *       *

Three years have passed since Anna's memorable journey. Her Aunt Christina has married, and she has gone to live in Zurich; Anna is now alone with her father and Gretchen. She has developed in all ways; that hurried journey to the foot of the mountain had been a mental tonic to the girl. She has learned to be self-reliant in a true way, and she has found out the truth of a very old proverb, which says, 'No one knows what he can do till he tries.'