The Countess G----.
No one was yet stirring in the little village, which, scarcely
emerged from the early twilight, lay still and silent, except
for the ceaseless, monotonous clang of the forges. Madelon was
tired out; she knew it was too early for any train to start
for Spa, and nothing better occurred to her than to sit down
and rest once more in a sheltered corner amongst some bushes
under a big hawthorn-tree growing on the bank of the river;
and in a few minutes she was again sound asleep, whilst the
mass of snowy blossoms above her head grew rosy in the
sunlight.
It was broad daylight when she awoke again, and sat up rubbing
her eyes, and feeling very chilly, and stiff, and sleepy, but
with a quickly succeeding delight in the bright May morning, a
joyous sense of escape and freedom, of all that she had
accomplished already, and was going to accomplish on this day
to which she had looked forward so long. Everything looked
gold and blue in the early sunlight; the river danced and
sparkled, the poplar-trees were now green, now silvery-grey,
as they waved about in the breeze; the country people were
passing along the road, laughing and chattering gaily in their
queer _patois_. The dark night seemed to have vanished into
indefinite remoteness, like some incongruous dream, which, on
waking, one recalls with difficulty and wonder, in the midst
of bright familiar surroundings. The two years of convent
life, too, seemed to be slipping out of little Madelon's
existence, as if they had never been; she could almost fancy
she had been sleeping all these months, and had awakened to
find all the same--ah! no, not quite the same. Madelon had a
sharp little pang of grief as she thought of her father, and
then a glad throb of joy as she thought of Monsieur Horace--and
then she suddenly discovered that she was horribly hungry,
and, jumping up, she began to walk towards the village.
Not fifty yards from where she had been sleeping stood the
hotel where she had so often stayed, and where she had first
met Horace Graham. There, too, everything was stirring and
awakening into activity--shutters being thrown back, windows
opened, the sunny courtyard swept out. Madelon stood still for
a moment looking on. She wondered whether her old friend,
Mademoiselle Cécile, was still there; she thought it would be
very pleasant to go in and see her, and have some breakfast in
the big _salle-à-manger_, with the pink and yellow paper roses,
and long rows of windows looking out into the courtyard and
garden. But then, she further reflected, breakfasting at an
hotel might probably cost a great deal of money, and she had
so little money to spare; so that on the whole it might be
better to see what she could find in a shop, and she walked
quickly up the village street. Chaudfontaine contains none of
the luxuries, and as few as possible of the necessaries of
life, which are for the most part supplied from Liége; but
sour bread is not unknown there, and Madelon having procured a
great, dark tough hunch for her sous, turned back towards the
hotel. She stood outside the iron railing, eating her bread,
and watching what was going on inside; the stir and small
bustle had a positive fascination for her, after her months of
seclusion in the convent. It brought back her old life with
the strangest vividness, joining on the present with the past
which had been so happy; it was as if she had been suddenly
brought back into air and light after long years of darkness
and silence. Through the open door of the hotel she could see
the shadowy green of the garden beyond. Was the swing in which
she had so often sat for hours still there? The windows of the
salon were open too, and there were the old pictures on the
wall, the piano just where it used to stand, and a short,
stout figure, in skirt and camisole, moving about, who might
be Mademoiselle Cécile herself. Presently some children came
running out into the courtyard, with shining hair and faces,
and clean white pinafores, fresh out of the nurse's hands.
Madelon looked at them with a sudden sense of having grown
much older than she used to be--almost grown up, compared to
these small things. She had been no bigger than that when she
had first seen Monsieur Horace. She tried to recall their
first meeting, but in truth she could not remember much about
it; it was so long ago, and succeeding visits had so nearly
effaced the remembrance of that early time, that it was rather
the shadowy memory of a memory, than the reality itself, that
came back to her mind.
Madelon had long finished her breakfast, but, busy with these
recollections, was still lingering outside the courtyard, when
a gentleman and lady came out of the hotel and walked down
towards the gate. The gentleman was stout, black-haired, red-
faced, and good-humoured-looking; the lady elderly, thin, and
freckled, with a much tumbled silk gown, and frizzy, sandy
hair, under a black net bonnet, adorned with many artificial
flowers. In all our Madelon's reminiscences of the past, these
two figures assuredly had no place, and yet this was by no
means the first time they had met at this very hotel. The lady
was the Countess G----, with whom one memorable evening Madelon
had had a grand fight over a roulette board; the gentleman was
Horace Graham's _quondam_ fellow-traveller, the Countess's old
admirer, and now her husband.
They were talking as they came together down the courtyard,
and Madelon caught the last words of their conversation.
"Adieu, _mon ami_," cried the lady, as they approached the gate;
"I shall rejoin you this afternoon at Liége."
"And by the earliest train possible, I beg of you," answered
the other. "I may find it necessary to go on to Brussels this
evening."
"By the earliest train possible, _mon ami_. Adieu, then,--_au
revoir_."
"_Au revoir, ma chérie_," answered the gentleman, turning back
to the hotel, but pausing before he had taken a dozen steps.
_"Ma chérie_, you will not forget my business at Madame
Bertrand's?"
"But no, _mon ami_, it shall be attended to without fail."
"_Ma chérie_----"
"_Mon ami_----"
"You must hasten, or you will miss the train."
"I go, I go," cried the Countess, waving her parasol in token
of farewell, and hurrying out of the gateway. These last words
aroused Madelon also. In hearing strange voices talking what
seemed some familiar, half-forgotten tongue, she had almost
forgotten the train; but she started up now from where she had
been half standing, half leaning, and followed the Countess
across the bridge into the railway station. Indeed she had
only just time to take her ticket, before the train for Spa
came rushing up with slackening speed into the station. There
were few passengers either coming or going at this early hour,
but Madelon's heart gave a great jump as she saw two black-
robed figures get out of one of the carriages and come towards
her. In another moment she saw they were Soeurs de Charité,
with a dress quite different from that worn by the nuns; but
the imaginary alarm suggested very real causes of fear, which
somehow had almost slipped from her mind since the first hours
of her escape from the convent. In her new, glad sense of
freedom, she had quite forgotten that the hour had long since
arrived when her flight must most certainly be discovered, and
that there were, after all, still only six miles of road
between her and her old life; and it was with quite a newly
awakened dread that even now unfriendly eyes might be watching
her from some one of the carriage-windows, that she jumped
hastily into the nearest compartment she could find. It was
not empty, however, for the Countess, who had preceded her
across the bridge had already taken her place, and was
arranging her flounces in one corner. She looked up, astounded
at Madelon's somewhat precipitate entrance; and as the train
moved off, she treated her small companion to a most
unceremonious stare, which took in every detail of her
personal appearance.
"Are you travelling alone?" she asked, at length, abruptly.
"Yes, madame," said Madelon, getting rather red. She had
resented the stare, and did not want to be talked to; her one
idea now was to get to Spa unnoticed. But she had ill-chosen
her travelling companion--the Countess was a lady whose
impertinent curiosity was rarely baffled.
"What! quite alone? Is there nobody at all with you?"
"No, madame."
"But that is very extraordinary, and not at all the thing for
a young person of your age. What makes you go about all by
yourself?"
"I--I have no one to go with me," faltered Madelon, getting
more and more hot and uncomfortable.
"But that is very strange, and, as one may say, very improper;
have you no friends?"
"Yes,--no," began Madelon; but at that moment, with a shriek,
the train entered a tunnel, and the sudden noise and darkness
put a stop to the conversation for a time. The Countess began
again presently, however, as they went speeding across the
next valley.
"Do you live at Chaudfontaine?" was her next inquiry.
"No," says poor Madelon, looking around despairingly, as for
some means of escape; but that was hopeless, and she could
only shrink further into her corner.
"And where are you going now, then?"
"I am going to Spa."
"To Spa? Ah, indeed--and what are you going to do there?
Perhaps," said the Countess, more graciously, and with another
glance at the shabby frock and poor little bundle, "perhaps
you are going into some situation there?"
"Situation?" repeated Madelon, bewildered.
"Yes--you would make a very nice little nursery-maid, I dare
say," said the Countess, with much condescension; "and,
indeed, if you should be wanting any assistance in that way,
you have only to apply to me; and if you can produce good
credentials, I shall be most happy to assist you. I am always
ready to help deserving young people."
Madelon grew red as fire. "I am not a nursery-maid," she said,
with much indignation; "I don't know what you mean, and you
have no right to ask me so many questions--I will not answer
any more."
Another shriek and another tunnel; when they once more emerged
into daylight, Madelon had retreated into that corner of the
carriage remotest from the Countess, who, for her part, showed
some wisdom, perhaps, in making no attempt to resume the
conversation.
At Pepinster, they changed trains; and here Madelon found an
empty carriage, where, without disturbance, she might sit and
congratulate herself on having accomplished this first step in
her journey. Indeed, this seemed to her so great a success,
that she felt nothing but hope as she sat curled up in a
corner, only wishing vaguely, from time to time, that her head
would not ache so much, and that she did not feel so very,
very tired. She had a great confidence in the swiftness of the
train, which was every moment increasing the distance between
herself and Liége, and so, as she thought, lessening the
chances of her being discovered in case of pursuit; and yet,
when it stopped at length at the well-remembered Spa station,
she lingered a moment in the carriage, feeling as if it were a
friendly place of refuge she was leaving, to face unknown
dangers in the outer world.
No one noticed her, however, as she slowly alighted and looked
about her. There were, as we have said, but few passengers at
this early hour, and the platform was already nearly deserted.
At a little distance she could see Madame la Comtesse and her
flounces walking briskly away; on one side was an English
family of the received type, wrangling with porters and
omnibus-drivers in the midst of their luggage; on the other,
an invalid Russian wrapped to the nose in furs, leaning on his
valet's arm; in the foreground, a party of gay Liégeois, come
over for a day's amusement. No one looked at our poor little
Madelon, as, half-bewildered, she stood for a moment on the
platform, her bundle on her arm, her veil pulled down over her
face; one after the other they vanished, and then she too
followed, out into the tree-bordered road, with the familiar
hills on either side, sheltering the little gay white town.
The day had changed within the last hour, the sunshine was
gone, and in its place was a grey, lowering sky. Madelon
shivered as she walked along; her head ached more and more;
she wondered what it was that made her feel so tired and weak,
and then she remembered that she had been ill for a long time,
and that she had been up all night. "I will ask Madame
Bertrand to let me lie down and go to sleep," she thought,
"before I go to the Redoute, and then I shall be all right."
She walked on as fast as she could, so as to arrive sooner at
the hotel; she remembered its situation perfectly, in the
Place Royale, not far from the stand where the band used to
play every evening; and there its was at last, all unchanged
since she had last seen it three years ago, and with "Hôtel de
Madrid" shining in big gold letters above the door.
Every one who knows Spa, knows the Place Royale, with its
broad walks and rows of trees, leading from the shady avenues
of the Promenade à Sept Heures at the one end, to the winding
street with its gay shops at the other. The Hôtel de Madrid
was situated about half-way down the Place, and, as compared
with the great hotels of Spa, it was small, mean, and third-
rate, little frequented therefore by the better class of
visitors, and with no particular recommendation beyond its
situation on the Place Royale, its cheap terms, and its
excellent landlady. M. Linders, whose means did not always
admit of reckless expenditure, and whose credit was not wholly
unlimited, had gone there two or three times, when visiting
Spa to retrieve fallen fortunes; and the first time he had
taken Madelon with him, she and Madame Bertrand had become
such fast friends, that, for his child's sake, he never
afterwards went anywhere else. Madelon had the most lively,
pleasant recollections of the stout motherly landlady, whose
store of bonbons and confitures had been absolutely endless.
Of all her friends in this class, Madame Bertrand had been the
one to whom she had most attached herself, and now it was
almost with the feeling of finding herself at home that she
saw the hotel before her.
The door stood open, and she went into the small hall, or
rather passage, which ran through the house, ending in another
door, which, also open, afforded a green view of many currant
and gooseberry bushes in Madame Bertrand's garden. To the
right was the staircase, to the left the _salle-à-manger_, a low
room with two windows looking on to the Place, and furnished
with half-a-dozen small round tables, for the hotel was of too
unpretentious a nature to aspire to a _table d'hôte_; the floor
lacked polish, and the furniture was shabby, yet the room had
a friendly look to our homeless Madelon, as a frequent
resting-place in such wanderings to and fro as had been hers
in former years. She went in. A man was sitting at one of the
tables, a tall bottle of red wine at his side, and a dish of
cutlets before him, eating his late _déjeuner_, and reading a
newspaper; whilst a waiter moved about, arranging knives and
forks, table-napkins, and _pistolets_, with occasional pauses
for such glimpses of the outer world as could be obtained
through the muslin curtains hanging before the somewhat dingy
windows.
"Is Madame Bertrand at home?" asked Madelon, coming up to him.
The man stared down at the shabbily dressed little figure
before him, glanced at the bundle hanging on her arm, and then
answered civilly enough that Madame Bertrand was not at home.
Did Mademoiselle want anything?
"I wanted to speak to Madame Bertrand," answered Madelon
rather piteously; "will she be back soon, do you think? When
can I see her?"
"_Eh, je n'en sais rien_," said the man. "If Mademoiselle wants
to see her, she had better call again--or she can leave a
message," and he went on laying the tables.
Madelon sat down despondingly on a chair near the door, hardly
knowing what to do next. It was the first check in the
carrying out of her little programme, a programme so neatly
arranged, but with this defect, mainly arising from
inexperience, that it had made no sort of allowance for
unforeseen circumstances--and yet of such so many were likely
to arise. She had quite settled in her own mind what she was
going to say to Madame Bertrand, and also what Madame Bertrand
would say to her, but she had not provided for this other
contingency of not finding her at all. She sat and considered
for a minute. Two or three men came in laughing and talking,
and stared in her face as they passed by and called for what
they wanted. She began to feel uncomfortable; she could not
stay there till Madame Bertrand returned; what if she were to
go to the Redoute first, and then return to the hotel? Yes,
that would be the best plan; if only she had not felt so very
tired, with such aching limbs and head; the sight and smell of
the meat and wine made her feel almost faint. However, that
could not be helped, she must do the best she could. She went
up to the waiter again. "I must go now," she said, "but I will
come back presently to see Madame Bertrand; may I leave these
things here?" and she held up her bundle.
"Mademoiselle wants a room--or is it something for Madame?"
said the man, perplexed at this strange little visitor, who
was wholly out of the range of his experience.
"No, no, it is mine," said Madelon; "if I might leave it here----"
The waiter set down the tray he was holding, and left the room
followed by Madelon. "Mademoiselle Henriette!" he cried.
"Mademoiselle Henriette is in the garden," answered a shrill
voice from above; and at the same moment a trim little figure
appeared from amongst the currant and gooseberry bushes, and
came in at the open door leading into the passage.
"Does any one want me?" she cried.
"Pardon, Madame," said Madelon, coming forward to tell her
little story, whilst the waiter returned to his plates and
dishes, "I wanted to see Madame Bertrand, but they say she is
out, and that I must return later; might I leave my things
here for a little while till I come back?"
"Do you want a room, Mademoiselle?" said the other; "I regret
to say that the hotel is quite full; we have not a single bed
at your disposal."
"Ah, what shall I do? what do you think would be best?" said
poor Madelon, piteously, suddenly breaking down in the grown-
up part she had been half unconsciously acting, and ready to
burst into tears. Things were not turning out at all as she
had wished or intended. "I did want a room, but I thought I
should have found Madame Bertrand, and she would have helped
me; I don't know what to do now."
"Do you know my aunt? I am Madame Bertrand's niece," says
Mademoiselle Henriette in explanation. "She will not be in
just yet, but if you like to wait in here a little while, you
can do so, or you can return by-and-by."
She opened the door of a small parlour as she spoke, and stood
aside for Madelon to enter. A little faded room, with a high
desk standing in the window, gaudy ornaments on the
mantelpiece, a worn Utrecht velvet sofa, and a semicircle of
worsted-work chairs--not much in it all to awaken enthusiasm,
one would think, and yet, as Madelon came in, she forgot
disappointment, and fatigue, and everything else for a moment,
in a glad recognition of well-remembered objects.
"It is not a bit altered," she cried, quite joyfully, turning
to Mademoiselle Henriette as she spoke.
"You have been here before then," says Mademoiselle, looking
curiously at the child, and seeing for the first time, in the
clearer light of the room, what a child she was.
"Yes," answered Madelon, "I used to come here very often; we
liked coming, because Madame Bertrand was so kind. I know she
will be glad to see me again--ah!" she cried, breaking off in
the middle of her sentence, "there is the little china dog I
used to play with, and the bonbonnière with the flowers
painted on the top--ah, and my little glass--do you know, Madame
used always let me drink out of that glass when I had supper
with her--but you were not here, then, Mademoiselle."
"That is true, I have only been with my aunt about six months;
she is growing old, and wants some one to help her," answered
Mademoiselle Henriette, a most brisk, capable-looking little
personage, "but I daresay she will recollect you. Are you all
alone? Have you come far to-day?"
"Not very far," said Madelon, colouring up, and suddenly
recalled to the present. "I think, please, I will leave my
things here now, and come back presently."
"I think you had better stay here quietly and rest; you look
very tired," said Mademoiselle kindly; and indeed as the glow
faded from her cheeks, Madelon showed a most colourless little
face, with heavy eyelids, that seemed as if they could hardly
open.
"No, I would rather go out now," she answered; "I can rest
afterwards."
Indeed, tired as she felt, she had changed her mind, thinking
that if she stayed now, it would be hard to set off again by-
and-by, and she was determined to get her business done to-
day--she had a morbid dread, too, of questions from strangers,
after her experience with the Countess.
"I _must_ go out," she repeated; "but I will come back again,
and then perhaps Madame Bertrand will have come in, and will
tell me where I can sleep to-night."
Mademoiselle Henriette had neither time nor sufficient
interest in the child to contest the point further; and
Madelon, having safely deposited her bundle in a corner of the
sofa, departed on her errand.