The old Letter.
When Horace went to see after Madelon the next morning, he
found her already up and dressed. She opened her bedroom door
in answer to his knock, and stood before him, her eyes cast
down, her wavy hair all smooth and shining, even the old black
silk frock arranged and neat--a very different little Madelon
from the passionate, despairing, weeping child of the evening
before.
"Good morning, Madelon," said Graham, taking her hand and
looking at her with a smile and a gleam in his kind eyes; "how
are you to-day? Did you sleep well?"
"I am very well, Monsieur," says Madelon, with her downcast
eyes. "I have been up a long time. I have been thinking of
what I shall do; I do not know, will you help me?"
"We will talk of that presently," said Graham, "but first we
must have some breakfast; come downstairs with me now."
"Monsieur Horace," said Madelon, drawing back, "please I
wanted to tell you, I know I was very naughty last night, and
I am very sorry;" and she looked up with her eyes full of
tears.
"I don't think we either of us quite knew what we were doing
last night," said Graham, squeezing her little hand in his;
"let us agree to forget it, for the present at all events; I
want you to come with me now; there is a lady downstairs who
very much wishes to see you."
"To see me?" said Madelon, shrinking back again.
"Yes, don't be frightened, it is only my aunt. She wants to
know you, and I think will be very fond of you. Will you come
with me?" And then, as they went along the passage and
downstairs, he explained to her that he was not alone at the
hotel, but that his aunt, Mrs. Treherne, was also there, and
that he had been telling her what old friends he and Madelon
were, and how unexpectedly they had met last night.
He opened the door of a sitting-room on the _premier_; a wood-
fire was crackling, breakfast was on the table, and before the
coffee-pot stood a lady dressed in black.
"Here is Madelon, Aunt Barbara," said Graham; and Mrs.
Treherne came forward, a tall, gracious, fair woman, with
stately manners, and a beautiful sad face.
"My dear," she said, taking Madelon's hand, "Horace has been
telling me about you, and from what he says, I think you and I
must become better acquainted. He tells me your name is
Madeleine Linders."
"Yes, Madame," says Madelon, rather shyly, and glancing up at
the beautiful face, which, with blue eyes and golden hair
still undimmed, might have been that of some fair saint or
Madonna, but for a certain chilling expression of cold
sadness.
"I knew something of a Monsieur Linders once," said Mrs.
Treherne, "and I think he must have been your father, my dear.
Your mother was English, was she not? Can you tell me what her
name was before she married?"
"I--I don't know," said Madelon; "she died when I was quite a
baby."
"Nearly thirteen years ago, that would be? Yes, that is as I
thought; but have you never heard her English name, never seen
it written? Have you nothing that once belonged to her?"
"Yes, Madame," answered Madelon; "there is a box at the
convent that was full of things, clothes, and some books.
There was a name written in them--ah! I cannot remember it--it
was English."
"Moore?" asked Mrs. Treherne. "Stay, I will write it. Magdalen
Moore--was that it?"
"Yes," said Madelon; "I think it was--yes, I know it was. I
remember the letters now. But I have something of hers here,
too," she added--"a letter, that I found in the pocket of this
dress--this was mamma's once, and it was in the trunk. Shall I
fetch it?--it is upstairs."
"Yes, I should like to see it, my dear. You will wonder at all
these questions, but, if I am not mistaken, your mother was a
very dear friend of mine."
Madelon left the room, and Mrs. Treherne, sitting down at the
table, began to arrange her breakfast-cups. Horace was
standing with one arm on the mantel-piece, gazing into the
fire; he had been silent during this short interview, but as
Madelon disappeared,--
"Is she at all like her mother?" he inquired.
"She is like--yes, certainly she is like; her eyes remind me of
Magdalen's--and yet she is unlike, too."
"You must be prepared," said Horace, after a moment's pause,
"to find her devoted to her father's memory; and not without
reason, I must say, for he was devoted to her, after his own
fashion. She thinks him absolute perfection; and, in fact, I
believe this escapade of hers to have been entirely founded on
precedents furnished by him."
"I think it is the most dreadful thing I ever heard of," said
Mrs. Treherne--"a child of that age alone in such a place!"
"Well, I really don't know," answered Graham, half laughing.
"I don't suppose it has done her much mischief; and of this I
am quite sure, that she had no idea of there being any more
harm in going to a gambling-table than in going for a walk."
"That appears to me the worst part of it, that a child should
have been brought up in such ignorance of right and wrong.
However, she can be taught differently."
"Certainly; but don't you think the teaching had better come
gradually?--it would break her heart, to begin with, to be told
her father was not everything she imagines--if indeed she could
be made to understand it just yet, which I doubt."
"Of course it would be cruel to shake a child's faith in her
father," answered Mrs. Treherne; "but she must learn it in
time. Monsieur Linders was one of the most worthless men that
ever lived, and Charles Moore was as bad, if not worse. I
wonder--good heavens, Horace, how one wonders at such things!--I
wonder what Magdalen had done that she should be left to the
mercy of two such men as those."
"Well, it is no fault of Madelon's, at any rate," Horace
began; and then stopped, as the door opened, and Madelon came
in. In her hand she carried a queer little bundle of
treasures, that she had brought away with her from the
convent--the old German's letter, the two that Horace had sent
her, and one or two other things, all tied together with a
silk thread.
"This is the letter," she said, selecting one from the packet,
and giving it to Mrs. Treherne. It was the one she had read in
the evening twilight in her convent cell last May. "I am
afraid there is no name on it, for there is no beginning nor
ending. I think it must have been burnt."
"Why, that is your writing, Aunt Barbara!" said Graham, who
had come forward to inspect these relics.
"Yes, it is mine," said Mrs. Treherne. "It was written by me
many years ago."
She glanced at the letter as she spoke, then crushed it up
quickly in her hand, and with a sudden flush on her pale cheek
turned to Madelon.
"My dear," she said, putting one arm round the child's waist,
and caressing her hair with the other hand, "I knew you mother
very well; she was my cousin, and the very dearest friend I
ever had. I think you must come and live with me, and be my
child, as there is no one else who has any claim on you."
"Did you know mamma, Madame?" said Madelon. "And papa--did you
know him?"
"No, my dear, I never knew your father," said Mrs. Treherne,
with a change in her voice, and relaxing her hold of the
child.
"You forget, Madelon," said Graham, coming to the rescue,
"your father never went to England, so he did not make
acquaintance with your mother's friends. But that is not the
question now; my aunt wants to know if you will not come and
live with her in England, and be her little girl? That would
be pleasanter than the convent, would it not?"
"Yes, thank you. I should like to go and live in England very
much," said Madelon, her eyes wandering wistfully from Mrs.
Treherne to Graham. "And with you too, Monsieur Horace?" she
added, quickly.
"Not with me, exactly," he answered, taking her hand in his;
"for I am going off to America in a month or two; and you know
we agreed that you and I could not go about the world
together; but I shall often hear of you, and from you, and be
quite sure that you are happy; and that will be a great thing,
will it not?"
"Yes, thank you," she said again. Her eyes filled with sudden
tears, but they did not fall. It was a very puzzling world in
which she found herself, and events, which only yesterday she
had thought to guide after her own fashion, had escaped quite
beyond the control of her small hand.
Perhaps Mrs. Treherne saw how bewildered she was, for she drew
her towards her again, and kissed her, and told her that she
was her child now, and that she would take care of her, and
love her for her mother's sake.
"Now let us have some breakfast," she said. "After that we
will see what we have to do, for I am going to leave Spa to-
morrow."
Late in the afternoon of the same day, Horace, who had been
out since the morning, coming into the sitting-room, found
Madelon there alone. It was growing dark, and she was sitting
in a big arm-chair by the fire, her eyes fixed on the
crackling wood, her hands lying listlessly in her lap. She
hardly looked up, or stirred as Graham came in, and drew a
chair to her side.
"Well, Madelon," he said, cheerfully, "so we start for England
to-morrow?"
"Yes," she said; but there was no animation in her manner.
"Has my aunt told you?" he went on. "We are going to sleep at
Liége, so that she may go to the convent, and settle matters
there finally, and let the nuns know they are not to expect
you back again."
"Yes, I know," said Madelon. "Monsieur Horace, do you think we
might stop for just a little while--for half-an-hour--at Le
Trooz, to see Jeanne-Marie? She would not like me to go away
without wishing her good-bye."
"Of course we will. It was Jeanne-Marie who took care of you
when you were ill, was it not? Tell me the whole story,
Madelon. What made you run away from Liége?"
"There was a fever in the convent; I caught it, and Aunt
Thérèse died; and when I was getting well I heard the nuns
talking about it, and saying I was to live in the convent
always, and be made a nun--and I could not, oh! I could not--
papa said I was never to be a nun, and it would have been so
dreadful; and I could not have kept my promise to you,
either."
"What was this promise, Madelon? I can't remember your making
me one, or anything about it."
"Yes, don't you know? That evening at Liége, the night before
I went into the convent, when we were taking a walk. You said
you wanted to make your fortune, and I said I would do it for
you. I knew how, and I thought you did not. I meant to do it
at once, but I could not, and I was afraid you would think I
had forgotten my promise, and would want the money, so I got
out of the window and came to Spa. But I lost all my money the
first time I went to the tables, and there was a lady who
wanted to take me back to the convent; but she went to sleep
in the train, and I got out at Le Trooz. I don't remember much
after that, for the fever came on again; but Jeanne-Marie, who
keeps a restaurant in the village, found me in the church, she
says, and took me home, and nursed me till I was well."
"And how long ago was all this?"
"It was last May that I ran away from the convent, and I was
with Jeanne-Marie all the summer; but as soon as I was well
again, and had enough money, I came back here--that was four
days ago; and last night I had the money, and to-day I should
have written to you to tell you that I had kept my promise,
and made your fortune."
"And so it was all for me," said Graham, with a sudden pang of
tenderness and remorse. "My poor little Madelon, you must have
thought me very cruel and unkind last night."
"Never mind," she answered, "you did not understand; I thought
you knew I had promised;" but she turned away her head as she
spoke, and Graham saw that she was crying.
"Indeed I don't remember anything about it," he said; "why, my
poor child, I should never have thought of such a thing. Well,
never mind, Madelon, you shall come to England with us. Do you
know you are a sort of cousin of mine?"
"Am I?" she answered, "did you know mamma as well as Mrs. ----
as Madame _votre Tante?_"
"Well, no; the fact is, I never even heard her married name,
though I knew we had some relations named Moore, for she was
my mother's cousin, also. But she went abroad and married when
I was quite a child, and died a few years afterwards, and that
is how it happened that I never heard of, or saw her."
"Ah! well, you knew papa," said Madelon; and then there was
silence between them for a minute, till a flame leaping up
showed Madelon's face all tearful and woe-begone.
"You are not happy, Madelon," said Graham. "What is it? Can I
help you in any way? Is there anything I can do for you?"
She fairly burst into sobs as he spoke.
"Monsieur Horace," she answered, "I--I wanted to make your
fortune; I had looked forward to it for such a long time, and
I was so happy when I had done it, and I thought you would be
so pleased and glad, too, and now it is all at an end----"
How was Graham to console her? How explain it all to her?
"Listen to me, Madelon," he said at last; "I think you were a
dear little girl to have such a kind thought for me, and I
don't know how to thank you enough for it; but it was all a
mistake, and you must not fret about it now. I don't think I
care so very much about having a fortune; and anyhow, I like
working hard and getting money that way for myself."
"But mine is the best and quickest way," said Madelon,
unconvinced; "it was what papa always did."
"Yes, but you know everybody does not set to work the same
way, and I think I like mine best for myself."
"Do you?" she said, looking at him wistfully; "and may I not
go and try again, then?"
"No, no," he answered kindly; "that would not do at all,
Madelon; it does not do for little girls to run about the
world making fortunes. Your father used to take you to those
rooms, but he would not have liked to have seen you there
alone last night, and you must never go again."
He tried to speak lightly, but the words aroused some new
consciousness in the child, and she coloured scarlet.
"I--I did not know--" she began; and then stopped suddenly, and
never again spoke of making Monsieur Horace's fortune.