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May 2009
Anne by Constance Fenimore Woolson

Anne by Constance Fenimore Woolson

Excerpt from the novel Anne by Constance Fenimore Woolson. Published in the 1880’s and set on Mackinac Island.

May 19, 2009 Constance Fenimore Woolson

(page 3 of 5)

William Douglas played a few more soft strains, and turned round. “Well, child,” he said, stroking his thin gray beard with an irresolute motion habitual with him, and looking at the small perspective of the chapel with critical gaze, “so you have put Miss Lois’s wreath up there?”

“Yes; it is the only thing she had time to make, and she took so much pains with it I could not bear to have her disappointed. It will not much be noticed.”

“Yes, it will.”

“I am sorry, then; but it can not be moved. And tell the truth, father, although I suppose you will laugh at me, I think it looks well.”

“It looks better than anything else in the room, and crowns the whole,” said Douglas, rising and standing by his daughter’s side. “It was a stroke of genius to place it there, Anne.”

“Was it?” said the girl, her face flushing with pleasure. “But I was only thinking of Miss Lois.”

“I am afraid you were,” said Douglas, with his shadowy smile.

The rough walls and beams of the chapel were decorated with fine spray-like lines of evergreen, all pointing toward the chancel; there was not a solid spot upon which the eye could rest, no upright branches in the corners, no massed bunches over the windows, no stars of Bethlehem, anchors, or nondescript Greek letters; the whole chapel was simply outlined in light feathery lines of green, which reached the chancel, entered it, played about its walls, and finally came together under the one massive wreath whose even circle and thick foliage held them all firmly in place, and ended in their wanderings in a restful quiet strength. While the two stood gazing, the lemon-colored light faded, and almost immediately it was night; the red glow shining out under the doors of the large stoves alone illuminated the room, which grew into a shadowy place, the aromatic fragrance of the evergreens filling the warm air pungently, more perceptible, as fragrance always is, in the darkness. William Douglas turned to the organ again, and began playing the music of an old vigil.

“The bugle sounded long ago, father,” said Anne. “It is quite dark now, and very cold; I know by the crackling noise the men’s feet make across the parade-ground.”

But the father played on. “Come here, daughter,” he said; “listen to this waiting, watching, praying music. Do you not see the old monks in the cloisters telling the hours through the long night, waiting for the dawn, the dawn of Christmas? Look round you; see this dim chapel, the air filled with fragrance like incense. These far-off chords, now; might they not be the angels, singing over the parapet of heaven?”

Anne stood by her father’s side, and listened. “Yes,” she said, “I can imagine it. And yet I could imagine it a great deal better if I did not know where every bench was, and every darn in the cancel carpet, and every mended pane in the widows. I am sorry I am so dull, father.”