Partings.
So it was something like the end of a fairy tale after all;
for a carriage stopped before the restaurant at Le Trooz, and
out of it came a gentleman, and a lady beautiful enough to be
a fairy godmother, and the little wandering Princess herself,
no other than our Madelon, who ran up to Jeanne-Marie as she
came to the door, and clasping her round the neck, clung to
her more tightly than she had ever clung before, till the
woman, disengaging herself, turned to speak to her other
visitors. Mrs. Treherne came into the little public room,
which happened to be empty just then, and siting down on one
of the wooden chairs, began to talk to Jeanne-Marie; whilst
Madelon, escaping, made her way to the garden at the back,
where she had spent so many peaceful hours. It was not a week
since she had been there and it looked all unchanged; the sun
was shining again after the last few days, and filling the air
with summer heat and radiance; the grapes were ripening on the
wall; the bees humming among the flowers; Jeanne-Marie's pots
and pans stood in the kitchen window. How quiet, and sunny,
and familiar it looked! Madelon half expected to find her
chair set in the old shady corner, to see Jeanne-Marie's face
appearing through the screen of vine-leaves at the open
window, to hear her voice calling to her to leave her work,
and come and help her make the soup! Ah no, it was not all
unchanged; was there indeed anything the same as in the old
days that already seemed such ages distant, the old time gone
for ever? With a sudden pang, Madelon turned away, and went
quickly up the outside staircase, all overgrown with unpruned
sprays and tendrils, into the room she had occupied for so
many weeks. How happy she had been there! what dreams she had
dreamed! what hopes she had cherished! what visions she had
indulged in! Where were they all now? Where was that golden
future to which she had so confidently looked forward, for
which she had worked, and striven, and ventured all? She knelt
down by the bed, flinging her arms out over the coarse blue
counterpane. Ah, if she had but died there, died while she was
all unconscious, before this cruel grief and disappointment
had come upon her!
And meanwhile, Jeanne-Marie, in the room below, had been
hardening her heart against the child after her own fashion.
She had answered Mrs. Treherne's questions curtly, rejected
the faintest suggestion of money as an insult, and stood
eyeing Graham defiantly while the talk went on. "Madelon has
grand new friends now," she was thinking all the time very
likely, "and will go away and be happy, and forget all about
me; well, let her go--what does it matter?" And then presently,
going upstairs to look for this happy, triumphant Madelon, she
found her crouching on the floor, trying to stifle the sound
of her despairing sobs.
"Oh, Jeanne-Marie, Jeanne-Marie!" she cried, as soon as she
could speak, "I wish I might stay with you, I wish I had never
gone away; what was the use of it all? I thought I was going
to be so happy, and now I am to go to England, and Monsieur
Horace is to go to America, and I shall never, never, be happy
again!"
"What was the use of what?" says Jeanne-Marie, taking the
child into her kind arms; "why will you never be happy again?
Are they unkind to you? Is that gentleman downstairs Monsieur
Horace that you used to talk about?"
"Yes, that is Monsieur Horace. Ah, no, he is not unkind, he is
kinder than any one--you do not understand, Jeanne-Marie, and I
cannot tell you, but I am very unhappy." She put her arms
round the woman's neck, and hid her face on her shoulder. In
truth, Jeanne-Marie did not understand what all this terrible
grief and despair were about. Madelon, as we know, had never
confided her hopes, and plans, and wishes to her; but she knew
that the child whom she loved better than all the world was in
trouble, and that she must send her away without being able to
say a word to comfort her, and that seemed hard to bear.
So they sat silent for awhile; and then Jeanne-Marie got up.
"You must go, _ma petite_," she said; "Madame is waiting, and I
came to fetch you." She walked to the door, and then turned
round suddenly. "_Ecoutez, mon enfant_," she said, placing her
two hands on Madelon's shoulders, and looking down into her
face, "you will not forget me? I--I should not like to think
you will go away, and forget me."
"Never!" cried Madelon; "how could I? I will never forget you,
Jeanne-Marie, and some day, if I can, I will come back and see
you."
So they parted, and, of the two, it was the brave, faithful
heart of the woman that suffered the sharper pang, though she
went about her daily work without saying a word or shedding a
tear.
Mrs. Treherne had large estates in Cornwall, on which, since
her husband's death, she had almost constantly resided; and
thither, with Madelon, she proceeded, a few days after their
arrival in London. Graham did not go with them. He had been
appointed to accompany a government exploring party into
Central America, and his time was fully occupied with business
to settle, arrangements to make, outfit to purchase, and,
moreover, with running down to his sister's house in the
country as often as possible, so as to devote every spare hour
to Miss Leslie. The summer love-making had ended in an
engagement before he started for Spa--an engagement which--
neither he nor Miss Leslie having any money to speak of--
promised to be of quite indefinite length. In the midst of all
his bustle, however, Graham contrived to take Madelon to as
many sights as could be crowded into the three or four days
that they stayed at the London hotel; and in a thousand kind
ways tried to encourage and cheer the child, who never said a
word about her grief, but drooped more and more as the moment
for separation drew near. Graham went to see her and his aunt
off at the Great Western terminus, and it was amidst all the
noise, and hurry, and confusion of a railway-station that they
parted at last. It was all over in a minute, and as Graham
stood on the platform, watching the train move slowly out of
the station, a little white face appeared at a carriage-
window, two brown eyes gazed wistfully after him, a little
hand waved one more farewell. It was his last glimpse of our
small Madelon.
PART III.
CHAPTER I.
Letters.
For five years Horace Graham was a wanderer on the other side
of the Atlantic. He had left England with the intention of
remaining abroad for two years only; but at the end of that
time, when the exploring party to which he belonged was
returning home, he did not find it difficult to make excuses
for remaining behind. He had only begun to see the country, he
said in his letters to England; he knew two men who were going
further south, to Paraguay, to La Plata, to Patagonia,
perhaps; and he meant to accompany them, and see what was to
be seen; time enough to think of coming home afterwards; of
what use would it be for him to return just then? "We are both
young," he wrote to his future wife, Maria Leslie, "and can
well afford to wait a year or two before settling down into
sober married life. You, my dear Maria, who so often said this
to me when, in the first days of our engagement, I urged a
speedy marriage, will, I know, agree with me. I see now that
in those days you were right and I was wrong. We are not rich
enough to marry. I should do wrong to make you submit to all
the trials and hardships which struggling poverty entails;
though indeed, in all the world, I know of no one so well
fitted to meet them as my dearest Molly. How often we used to
picture to ourselves some little snuggery where you could knit
and darn stockings, and I could smoke my pipe! Is not that the
correct division of labour between man and woman? Well, some
day we will have some such dear little hole, and I will smoke
my pipe; but you shall not be condemned to stitching--you shall
do--let me see--what shall you do?--anything in the world you
like best, my dear girl; for I mean to be a rich man in those
days, which I often picture to myself as the good time coming,
to which some of us are looking forward. When I hear of an
opening in England, I shall return--perhaps sooner, if it is
very long in coming; unless, indeed, you would like to join me
out here. What do you think of that proposal? We could settle
down comfortably in Peru or Mexico, and you could make friends
among the Spanish ladies, and learn from them to sleep all day
and dance all night, unless you would prefer to accompany my
pipe with your cigarette; for, of course, you too would smoke,
like every one else. And from time to time we could go on long
expeditions--such as I am making now--day and night in an open
boat, on some river flowing through trackless forests, great
trees dipping down into the water, strange flowers blooming
overhead, strange beasts that one never saw before, hopping
and rushing about; and mosquitoes, of which one has seen
plenty, eating one up alive at every opportunity. My poor
Molly! I can see your face of dismay. No, don't be afraid; you
shall not be asked to leave your own comfortable home till I
can return and take you to as good a one; and then I mean to
write a book about my adventures, and you shall do nothing
worse than shudder over them at your leisure at our own
fireside."
To which Maria replied:--"I think, my dear Horace, you are
quite right not to hurry home. As you say, we are both young,
and have life before us; and do not trouble yourself about me,
for as long as I hear that you are well and happy, I can and
ought to desire nothing further. The idea of coming out to you
made me shiver indeed; you will say I am very unenterprising,
but I don't think I should ever care about leaving England;
one is so happy here, what more can one desire? What can I
tell you in return for your long letter? Georgie will have
given you all the village news, no doubt; has she told you
that we have a new curate--Mr. Morris? He preached last Sunday,
and is a great improvement on Mr. Saunders, who was the
dullest man I ever heard. The school gets on nicely; I have
two more pupils, and receive many compliments, I assure you,
on the way in which I manage my class. I sometimes wonder if
it could not be arranged some day, that you should enter into
partnership with Dr. Vavasour, who is growing old, and gets
tired with his day's work? I often think of this, and of how
pleasant it would be, but, as you may suppose, have never even
hinted at it to your sister. Is it such a very wild castle in
the air? It is a very pleasant one, and I sometimes sit and
think it all over. We should never have to leave Ashurst then;
there is a pretty little house lately built at the end of the
village, which would just suit us, I think; you could write
your book, and when it was done, read it to me, as you know I
do not much care about reading. You should smoke your pipe as
much as you please, and I would sit and work, for there is
nothing I like doing better, and I should find it very
uncomfortable to sit with my hands before me. Do you think I
mean to grow idle in my old age? No, not if we have a hundred
thousand a-year, for I am sure there must be always something
for every one to do," and so on; a little moral sentiment
closed the letter.
When Graham received it, he read it over twice, and sighed a
little as he folded it up, and put it away. He was relieved
that Maria should take such a calm view of the subject, for he
had felt his own letter to be somewhat egotistical, and yet--
well, right or wrong, he could not help it; he _could_ not give
up his travels and researches just then. The spirit of
adventure was upon him, driving him, as it has driven many a
man before, further and further into the wilderness, heedless
of danger, and hardships, and discomfort; almost heedless,
too, of home, and friends, and love--all that, he would have
time to think of at some future day, when he should find
himself obliged to return to England. Maria's suggestion of
the country partnership as the goal of his ambition and his
hopes, her picture of the new house at the end of the village,
rose before his mind, but in no such tempting light as before
hers. "She is a dear, good girl," he thought, "but she does
not understand. Well, I suppose it will come to that, or
something like that, at least; what better can one look
forward to? one cannot roam about the world for ever--at least,
I cannot, bound as I am; not that I repent that;" and then it
was that he sighed. Nevertheless he did roam about for three
years longer; and then his health giving way, he was obliged
to return to England, and arrived at his sister's house, a
bronzed, meagre, bearded traveller, with his youth gone for
ever, and years of life, and adventure, and toil separating
him from the lad who had first seen little Madelon at
Chaudfontaine.
He had not forgotten her; it would have been strange indeed if
he had, for Mrs. Treherne's letters, which followed him in his
wanderings with tolerable regularity, were apt to be full of
Madeleine; and in them would often be enclosed a sheet, on
which, in her cramped foreign handwriting, Madelon would have
recorded, for Monsieur Horace's benefit, the small experiences
of her every-day life.
"I am learning very hard," so these little effusions would
run; "and Aunt Barbara says that I advance in my studies, but
that I shall do better when I go to London, for I will have
masters then, and go to classes. I like Cornwall very much; I
have a garden of my own, but the flowers will not grow very
well--the gardener says the wind from the sea will kill them.
It seems to me there is always a wind here, and last week
there was a great storm, and many ships were wrecked. Aunt
Barbara said she was glad you were the other side of the
ocean, and so indeed was I. I never thought the wind and sea
could make so much noise; it is not here as at Nice with the
Mediterranean, which was almost always calm, and tranquil, and
blue like the sky. Here the sea is grey like the sky--that
makes a great difference. Will you soon write to me once more?
I read your letter to me over and over again. I like to hear
all about the strange countries you are in, and I should like
to see them too. We have a book of travels which tells us all
about South America, and I read it very often. I send you one
little primrose that I gathered to-day in my garden."
Again, nearly a year later.
"I do not know how people can like to live always in one
place, when there is so much that is beautiful to see in the
world. Aunt Barbara says that she would be content always to
live in Cornwall; and it is very kind of her to come to
London, for it is that I may have masters, she says; but I
cannot help being glad, for I was so tired of the rocks, and
the sea always the same. We arrived last week, and Aunt
Barbara says we shall stay the whole winter, and come back
every year, very likely. I like our house very much; it is in
Westminster, not far from the Abbey, where I went with you;
one side looks on to the street, that is rather dull; but the
other looks on to St. James's Park, where I go to walk with
Aunt Barbara. We went to the Abbey last Sunday; it reminded me
of the churches abroad, and the singing was so beautiful. In
Cornwall there was only a fiddle and a cracked flute, and
everybody sang out of tune; I did not like going to church
there at all. Please write to me soon, Monsieur Horace, and
tell me where you are, and what you are doing; I fancy it all
to myself--the big forests, and the rivers, and the flowers,
and everything."
Accompanying these would be Mrs. Treherne's reports:
"Madeleine improves every day, I think. She is much grown, and
resembles her mother more and more, though she will never be
so beautiful, to my mind; she has not, and never will have,
Magdalen's English air and complexion. She gets on well with
her London masters and classes, and has great advantages in
many ways over girls of her own age, especially in her
knowledge of foreign languages. I trust that by degrees the
memory of her disastrous past may fade away; we never speak of
it, and she is so constantly employed, and seems to take so
much interest in her occupation and studies, that I hope she
is ceasing to think of old days, and will grow up the quiet,
English girl I could wish to see Magdalen's daughter. Indeed
she is almost too quiet and wanting in the gaiety and
animation natural to girls of her age; but otherwise I have
not a fault to find with her. She is fond of reading, and gets
hold of every book of travels she can hear of, that will give
her any idea of the country you are exploring. We share your
letters, my dear Horace, and follow you in all your
wanderings, with the greatest interest."
One more letter.
"March 1st, 186--.
"My dear Monsieur Horace,
"Aunt Barbara bids me write and welcome you back to England.
We look forward to seeing you very much; but she says, if you
can remain with your sister a week longer, it will be better
than coming down to Cornwall now, as we shall be in London on
Monday next, at the latest. We should have come up to town for
Christmas as usual, if Aunt Barbara had not been so unwell;
and now that she is strong again, she wishes to be there as
soon as possible. It would not be worth while, therefore, for
you to make so long a journey just now. I hope you will come
and see us soon; it seems a long, long time since you went
away--more than five years.
"Ever your affectionate
"Madeleine Linders."
It was at the end of a dull March day that Horace Graham, just
arrived from Kent, made his way to his aunt's house in
Westminster. He thought more of Madelon than of Mrs. Treherne,
very likely, as the cab rattled along from the station. There
had never been much affection or sympathy between him and his
aunt, although he had always been grateful to her, for her
kindness to him as a boy; but she was not a person who
inspired much warmth of feeling, and his sister's little house
in the village where he had been born, had always appeared to
him more home-like than the great Cornwall house, where, as a
lad, he had been expected to spend the greater part of his
holidays. But he was pleased with the idea of seeing his
little Madelon again. He had not needed letters to remind him
of her during all these years; he had often thought of the
child whom he had twice rescued in moments of desolation and
peril, and who had been the heroine of such a romantic little
episode--thought of her and her doings with a sort of wonder
sometimes, at her daring, her independence, her devotion--and
all for him! When Graham thought of this, he felt very tender
towards his foolish, rash, loving little Madelon; he felt so
now, as he drove along to Westminster; he would not realize
how much she must be altered; she came before him always as
the little pale-faced girl, with short curly hair, in a shabby
black silk frock. It was a picture that, somehow, had made
itself a sure resting-place in Graham's heart.
"We did not expect you till the late train, sir; it is close
upon dinner-time, and the ladies are upstairs in the drawing-
room, I believe," said the old butler who opened the door.
"Upstairs? in the drawing-room?" said Graham; "stop, I will
find my way, Burchett, if you will look after my things."
He ran upstairs; the house was strange to him, but a door
stood open on the first landing, and going in, he found
himself in a drawing-room, where the firelight glowed and
flickered on picture-lined walls, and chintz-covered easy-
chairs and sofas, on an open piano, on flower-stands filled
with hyacinths and crocuses, on the windows looking out on the
dark March night, and the leafless trees in the Park. No one
was there--he saw that at a glance, as he looked round on the
warm, firelit scene; but even as he ascertained the fact, some
one appeared, coming through the curtains that hung over the
folding-doors between the two drawing-rooms--some one who gave
a great start when she saw him, and then came forward blushing
and confused. "My aunt is upstairs,"--she began, then stopped
suddenly, glancing up at this stranger with the lean brown
face, and long rough beard. "Monsieur Horace!" she cried,
springing forward. He saw a tall, slim girl, all in soft
flowing white, he saw two hands stretched out in joyous
welcome, he saw two brown eyes shining with eager gladness and
surprise; and all at once the old picture vanished from his
mind, and he knew that this was Madelon.
CHAPTER II.
Sehnsucht.
Graham had numberless engagements in London, and except at
breakfast, or at lunch perhaps, little was seen of him at his
aunt's house during the first days after his arrival in town.
One evening, however, coming home earlier than usual, he found
the two ladies still in the drawing-room, and joining them at
the fireside, he first made Madelon sing to him, and then,
beginning to talk, the conversation went on till long after
midnight, as he sat relating his travels and adventures.
Presently he brought out his journal, and read extracts from
it, filling up the brief, hurried notes with fuller details as
he went on, and describing to them the plan of his book, some
chapters of which were already written, and which he hoped to
bring out before the season was over. Mrs. Treherne was a
perfect listener; she was sufficiently well informed to make
it worth while to tell her more, and she knew how to put
intelligent questions just at the right moment. As for
Madelon, she had been busily engaged on some piece of
embroidery when he first began talking, but gradually her
hands had dropped into her lap, and with her eyes fixed on him
in the frankest unconsciousness, she had become utterly
absorbed in what he was saying. Graham's whole heart was in
his work, past and present, and this rapt naïve interest on
the part of the girl at once flattered and encouraged him.
"I can trust you two," he said, putting away his papers at
last, "and I am not forestalling my public too much in letting
you hear all this; but you are my first auditors, and my first
critics. You won't betray me, Madelon?" he added, turning to
her with a smile.
She shook her head, smiling back at him without speaking; and
then, rising, began to fold up her work, while Mrs. Treherne
said,--
"I should have thought you would have found your first
audience at Ashurst."
"I did try it one evening," he said, "but one of the children
began to scream, and Georgie had to go and attend to it; and
the Doctor went to sleep, and Maria, who had been all the
afternoon in a stuffy school-room, looking after a school-
feast or something of the sort, told me not to mind her, and
presently went to sleep too; so I gave it up, after that."
"It was certainly not encouraging," said Mrs. Treherne; "but
you must surely have fallen upon an unfortunate moment; they
do not go to sleep every evening, I presume?"
He did not answer; he was looking at Madelon, his eyes
following her as she moved here and there about the room,
putting away her work, closing the piano, setting things in
order for the night. It was a habit he had taken up, this of
watching her whenever they were in the room together,
wondering perhaps how his little Madelon had grown into one of
the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Indeed she was
little Madelon no longer--and yet not wholly altered after all.
She was tall now, above the middle height, and her hair was a
shade darker, and fastened up in long plaits at the back of
her head; but her cheeks were pale as in old days, and a
slight accent, an occasional idiom, something exceptional in
style, and gesture, and manner, showed at once and
unmistakably, her foreign birth and breeding. As Mrs. Treherne
had once said, she had not, and never would have, an English
air and complexion; but her beauty was not the less refined
and rare that the clear, fair cheeks were without a tinge of
colour, that one had to seek it in the pure red lips, the soft
brown hair, the slight eyebrows and dark lashes, the lovely
eyes that had learnt to express the thought they had once only
suggested, but still retained something of the old, childish,
wistful look. And yet Graham watched her with a vague sense of
disappointment.
"What do you think of Madeleine?" Mrs. Treherne said to him
the following afternoon; he had come in early, and they were
together alone in the drawing-room. "Do you not find her grown
and improved? Do you think her pretty? She is perhaps rather
pale, but----"
"She has certainly grown, Aunt Barbara, but this is not
astonishing--young ladies generally do grow between the ages of
thirteen and eighteen: and I think her the prettiest girl I
ever saw--not at all too pale. As for being improved--well--I
suppose she is. She wears very nice dresses, I observe, and
holds herself straight, and I daresay knows more geography and
history than when we last parted."
"You are disappointed in her," said Mrs. Treherne. "Do you
know I suspected as much, Horace, from the way in which you
look at her and speak to her. Tell me in what way--why you are
not satisfied?"
"But I am satisfied," cried Graham; "why should I not be?
Madelon appears to me to have every accomplishment a young
lady should have; she sings to perfection, I daresay, dances
equally well, and I have no doubt that on examination she
would prove equally proficient in all the ologies. I am
perfectly satisfied, so far as it is any concern of mine, but
I don't see what right I have to be sitting in judgment one
way or the other."
"You have every right, Horace; I have always looked upon you
as the child's guardian in a way, and in all my plans
concerning her education I have considered myself, to a
certain extent, responsible to you."
"It was very good of you, Aunt Barbara, to consider me in the
matter. I thought my responsibility had ceased from the moment
you took charge of her; but for her father's sake--does Madelon
ever speak of him, by-the-by?"
"Never."
"Never alludes to her past life?"
"Never--we never speak of it; I have carefully avoided doing
so, in the hope that with time, and a settled home, and new
interests, she could cease to think of it altogether; and I
trust I have succeeded. The memory of it can only be painful
to her now, poor child, for, though I have never referred to
the subject in any way, I feel convinced she must have learnt
by this time to see her father's character in its true light."
"It is possible," said Graham. "Well, as I was saying; Aunt
Barbara, for the sake of the promise I made her father on his
death-bed, if for no other reason, I shall and must always
take an interest in Madelon."
"And I for her mother's sake," replied Mrs. Treherne, stiffly.
"If you have no other interest in Madelon than----however, it is
useless to discuss that. I want to know how we have
disappointed you--Madelon and I--for you are disappointed; tell
me, Horace--I am really anxious to know."
"Dear Aunt Barbara, I am not at all disappointed; or, if I am,
it is not your fault or hers--quite the reverse. Nothing but
the perversity of human nature. Shall I own the truth? All
these years I have kept in my mind a dear little girl in a
shabby old frock which she had outgrown--a dear, affectionate
little soul, with so few ideas on people and things, that she
actually took me for one of the best and wisest of human
beings. See how much vanity there is in it all! I come back,
and find a demure, well-drilled, fashionable young lady. I
might have known how it would be, but it gave me a sort of
shock, I own--my little wild Madelon gone for ever and a day,
and this proper young lady in her place."
"You are unreasonable, Horace," said Mrs. Treherne, half
laughing, half vexed; "and ungrateful too, when Madeleine has
been working so hard, with the hope, I know, of pleasing and
astonishing you with her doings."
"But I am pleased," said Graham. "Astonished? No, I cannot be
astonished that Madelon, with you to help her, should
accomplish anything; but I am delighted, charmed. What more
shall I say? So much so, Aunt Barbara, that when I am married--
as I mean to be shortly, and set up a house of my own--you and
Madelon will have to pay me visits of any length. I _shall_
always feel that I have a sort of property in her, through
early associations."
"Are you going to be married shortly?" said Mrs. Treherne;
"have you anything definite to do? Where are you going to
settle?"
"Do you not know?" he answered. "Dr. Vavasour has offered me a
partnership."
"And you have accepted it?"
"Not yet. He has given me six months to think it over; so I
need not hurry my decision; and, in the meantime, I have
plenty to do with my book. In fact, I need the rest."
"It seems a pity--" began Mrs. Treherne.
"What seems a pity, Aunt Barbara?"
"That with your talents you should settle down for life in a
country village. You could surely do something better."
"I don't know," he answered with a sigh. "There is nothing
else very obvious at present, and I cannot be a rover all my
life. For one thing, my health would not allow of my taking up
that sort of thing again just at present; and then there is
Maria to be considered. She hates the idea of leaving Ashurst,
and it has been her dream for years that this partnership
should be offered me, and that I should accept it. I owe it to
her to settle down into steady married life before long."
He rose, as he said these last words, and walked to the
window. Mrs. Treherne was called away at the same moment, and
he stood gazing out at the strip of garden before the house,
the Birdcage Walk beyond, the trees in the Park blowing about
against the dull sky. His thoughts were not there; they had
wandered away to the tropics, to the glowing skies, the
strange lands, the wild, free life in which his soul
delighted. He was glad to find himself in England once more,
amongst kindred and friends, but he loathed the thought of
being henceforth tied down to a life from which all freedom
would be banished, which must be spent in the dull routine of
a country parish. Graham was not now the lad who had once
looked on the world as lying at his feet, on all possibilities
as being within his grasp; he had long ceased to be a hero in
his own eyes; he had learnt one of life's sternest lessons, he
had touched the limits of his own powers. But in thus gaining
the knowledge of what he could not do, he had also proved what
he could be--he had recognised the bent of his genius, and he
knew that of all the mistakes of his life he had committed
none more grievous than that of binding himself to a woman who
neither sympathised nor pretended to sympathise with him and
his pursuits; and in compliance with whose wishes he was
preparing to take up the life for which, of all others within
the limits of his profession, he felt himself the least
suited. And she? Did she care for him?--did she love him enough
to make it worth the sacrifice?--was there the least chance of
their ever being happy together? Ah! what lovers' meeting had
that been that had passed between them at his sister's house!
What half-concealed indifference on her side, what
embarrassment on his, what silence falling between them, what
vain efforts to shake off an ever-increasing coldness and
constraint! It was five years since they had parted--was it
only years and distance that had estranged them, or had they
been unsuited to each other from the beginning? Not even now
would Graham acknowledge to himself that it was so, but it was
a conviction he had been struggling against for years.
"Will you take some tea, Monsieur Horace?" said a voice behind
him. He turned round. The grey daylight was fading into grey
dusk, afternoon tea had been brought in, and Madelon was
standing by him with a cup in her hand. "Aunt Barbara has gone
out, and will not be home till dinner-time," she added, as she
returned to the tea-table and fireside.
"Then you and I will drink tea together, Madelon," said
Graham, seating himself in an arm-chair opposite to her.
"Where have you been all this afternoon? Have you been out
too?"
"I have been to a singing-class. I generally go twice a-week
when we are in town."
"And do you like it?"
"Yes, I like it very much."
So much they said, and then a silence ensued. Madelon drank
her tea, and Graham sat looking at her. Yes, a change had
certainly come over her--this Madelon, who came and went so
quietly, with a certain harmonious grace in every movement--
this Madelon, who sometimes smiled, but rarely laughed, who
spoke little, and then with an air of vague weariness and
indifference--this was not the little impetuous, warm-hearted
Madelon he remembered, who had clung to him in her childish
sorrow, who had turned from him in her childish anger, who in
her very wilfulness, in her very abandonment to the passion of
the moment, had been so winning and loveable. It was not
merely that she was not gay--gaiety was an idea that he had
never associated with Madelon; it had always been a sad little
face that had come before him when he had thought of her; but
in all her sadness, there had been an animation and spring, an
eagerness and effusion in the child, that seemed wholly
wanting in the girl. It was as if a subtle shadow had crept
over her, toning down every characteristic light to its own
grey monotonous tint.
Madelon had not the smallest suspicion of what was passing in
her companion's mind. During all these years, in whatever
other respects she might have altered, the attitude of her
heart towards him had never changed. What he had always been
to her, he was now; the time that had elapsed since they
parted had but intensified and deepened her old feeling
towards him--that was all. He had been in her thoughts day and
night; in a thousand ways she had worked, she had striven,
that he might find her improved when he came home, less
ignorant, less unworthy, than the little girl he had parted
with. His return had been the one point to which all her hopes
had been directed; and, poor child, with a little unconscious
egotism, she took it for granted that just then she occupied
almost as large a share in Graham's mind as he did in hers. He
had always been so good, so kind to her, he must surely be
glad to see her again, almost as glad as she was to see him.
She, on her side, was ready to go on just where they had left
off; and yet now, when for the first time they were alone
together, a sort of shyness had taken possession of her.
She was the first to break the silence, however. "Why do you
look at me so?" she said, setting her tea-cup down, and
turning to Horace with a sudden smile and blush.
"I am trying to adjust my ideas," he answered, smiling too; "I
am trying to reconcile the little Madelon I used to know with
this grand young lady I have found here."
"Ah, you will never see that little Madelon again," said the
girl, shaking her head rather sorrowfully; "she is gone for
ever."
"How is that?" said Graham. "You have grown tall, you wear
long gowns, and plait up your hair, I see; but is that a
reason----"
"Ah, how can one survive one's old life?" said Madelon,
plaintively; "one ought not, ought one? All is so changed with
me, things are so different, the old days are so utterly gone--
I try not to think of them any more; that is the best; and my
old self is gone with them, I sometimes think--and that is best
too."
She sat leaning forward, staring at the dull red coals; and
Graham was silent for a moment.
"Then you have forgotten the old days altogether?" he said at
last.
"I never speak of them," she answered slowly; "no, I have not
forgotten--it is not in me to forget, I think--but I do not
speak of them; of what use? It is like a dream now, that old
time, and no one cares for one's dreams but oneself."
"Am I part of the dream too, Madelon? For I think I belong
more to that old time you talk about, which is not so very
remote, after all, than to the present. I had a little friend
Madelon once, but I feel quite a stranger with this
fashionable Miss Linders before me."
"You are laughing at me," said Madelon, opening her eyes wide.
"I am not at all fashionable, I think. I don't know what you
mean; what should make you think such a thing, Monsieur
Horace?"
"Well, your general appearance," he answered. "It suggests
balls, fêtes, concerts, operas----"
Madelon shook her head, laughing.
"That is a very deceptive appearance," she said. "Aunt Barbara
and I never go anywhere but to classes, and masters, and to a
small tea-party occasionally, and to see pictures sometimes."
"But how is that?--does Aunt Barbara not approve of society?"
"Oh, yes, but she thinks I am not old enough," answered
Madelon, demurely. "So I am not out yet, and I have not been
to a ball since I was ten years old."
"And do you like that sort of thing? It does not sound at all
lively," said Graham.
"It is rather dull," replied Madelon, "simply; but then I think
everything in England is--is _triste_--I beg your pardon," she
added, quickly, colouring, "I did not mean to complain."
"No, no, I understand. You need not mind what you say to me,
Madelon; I want to know what you are doing, what sort of life
you are leading, how you get on. So you find England _triste?_
In what way?"
"I don't know--not in one way or another--it is everything.
There is no life, no movement, no colour, or sunshine--yes, the
sun shines, of course, but it is different. Ah, Monsieur
Horace, you who have just come back to it, do you not
understand what I mean?"
"I think I do in a way; but then, you know, coming to England
is coming home to me, Madelon, and that makes a great
difference."
"Yes, that makes a great difference; England can never be home
to me, I think. I will tell you, Monsieur Horace--yesterday at
that Exhibition I went to with Aunt Barbara, you know, I saw a
picture; it was an Italian scene, quite small, only a white
wall with a vine growing over the top, and a bit of blue sky,
and a beggar-boy asleep in the shade. One has seen the same
thing a hundred times before, but this one looked so bright,
so hot, so sunny, it gave me such a longing--such a longing----"
She started up, and walked once or twice up and down the room.
In a moment she came back, and went on hurriedly:--
"You ask me if I have forgotten the past, Monsieur Horace. I
think of it always--always. I cannot like England, and English
life. Aunt Barbara will not let me speak of it, and I try to
forget it when she is by, but I cannot. Aunt Barbara is very
kind--kinder than you can imagine--it is not that; but I am
weary of it all so. When we walk in the Park, or sit here in
the evening, reading, I am thinking of all the beautiful
places there are in the world; of all the great things to be
done, of all that people are seeing, and doing, and enjoying.
I wish I could get away; I wish I could go anywhere--if I could
run away--I have a voice, I could sing, I could make money
enough to live upon. I think I should have done so, Monsieur
Horace, if I had not known you were coming home. Yes, if I
could run away somewhere, where I could breathe--be free----"
"You must never do that," cried Graham hastily--he was standing
opposite to her now, with his back to the fire; "you don't
know what you are saying, Madelon. Promise me that you will
not think of it even."
"I was talking nonsense, I don't suppose I meant it really,"
she answered; "I could not do it, you know; but I promise all
the same, as you wish it."
"And you always keep your promises, I know," said Graham,
smiling at her.
"Ah, do not," she cried, suddenly covering her face with her
hands, "don't speak of that, Monsieur Horace--I know now--ah,
yes, I understand what you must have thought--but I did not
then; indeed I was only a child then, I did not know what I
was doing."
"I don't think you are much more than a child now," said
Graham, taking one of her hands in his; "you are not much
altered, after all, Madelon."
"Am I not?" she said. "But I have tried to improve; I have
worked very hard, I thought it would please you, and that you
would be glad to find me different--and I am different," she
added, with a sudden pathetic change in her voice. "I
understand a great deal now that I never thought of before; I
think of the old life, but it is not all with pleasure, and I
know why Aunt Barbara--and yet I do love it so much, and you
are a part of it, Monsieur Horace--when you speak your vice
seems to bring it back; and you call me Madelon--no one else
calls me Madelon--" Her voice broke down.
"You are not happy, my dear little girl," said Graham, in his
old kind way, and trying to laugh off her emotion. "I shall
have to prescribe for you. What shall it be?--a course of balls
and theatres? What should Aunt Barbara say to that?"
"She would not employ you for a doctor again, I think," said
Madelon, smiling. "No, I am not unhappy, Monsieur Horace--only
dull sometimes; and Aunt Barbara would say, that is on account
of my foreign education. I know she thinks all foreigners
frivolous and ill educated; I have heard her say so."
When Madelon went to her room that night, she sat long over
her fire, pondering, girl-fashion, on her talk with Horace
Graham. The tones of his voice were still ringing in her ears;
she seemed still to see his kind look, to feel the friendly
grasp of his hand; and as she thought of him, her familiar
little bed-room, with its white curtained bed, and pictured
walls, and well-filled bookshelves, seemed to vanish, and she
saw herself again, a desolate child, sitting at the window of
the Paris hotel that hot August night her father died, weeping
behind the convent grating, crouched on the damp earth in the
dark avenues of the Promenade à Sept Heures. He had not
changed in all these years, she thought; he had come back kind
and good as ever, to be her friend and protector, as he had
always been; and he had said she was not altered much either,
and yet she was--ah! so altered from the unconscious,
unthinking, ignorant child he had left. She began to pace up
and down the room, where indeed she had spent many a wakeful
night before now, thinking, reflecting, reasoning, trying to
make out the clue to her old life--striving to reconcile it
with the new life around her--not too successfully on the
whole. How was it she had first discovered the want of harmony
between them? How was it she had first learnt to appreciate
the gulf that separated the experiences of her first years,
from the pure, peaceful life she was leading now? She could
hardly have told; no one had revealed it to her, no one had
spoken of it; but in a thousand unconsidered ways--in talk, in
books, in the unconscious influences of her every-day
surroundings, she had come to understand the true meaning of
her father's life, and to know that the memory of these early
days, that she had found so bright and happy, was something
never to be spoken of, to be hidden away--a disgrace to her,
even, perhaps. Aunt Barbara never would let her talk of them,
would have blotted them out, if possible; she had wondered why
at first--she understood well enough now, and resented the
enforced silence. She only cherished the thought of them, and
of her father the more; she only clung to her old love for him
the more desperately, because it must be in secret; and she
longed at times, with a sad, inexpressible yearning, for
something of the old brightness that had died out one mournful
night nearly eight years ago, when she had talked with her
father for the last time.
"I think I must be a hundred years old," the girl would say to
herself sometimes, after returning from one of those little
parties of which she had spoken to Graham, where she had spent
the evening in the company of a dozen other young ladies of
her own age, all white muslin and sash-ribbons. "These girls,
how tiresome they all are!--how they chatter and laugh, and
what silly jokes they make! How can it amuse them? But they
are still in the school-room, as Aunt Barbara is always
telling me; and before that, they were all in the nursery, I
suppose; they do not know anything about life; their only
experiences concern nurses and governesses; whilst I--I--ah! is
it possible I am no older than they are?"
She would lean her arms on the window-sill, and look out on
the midnight sky; the Abbey chimes would ring out over the
great city, overhead the stars would be shining perhaps, but
down below, between the trees in the Park, a great glare would
show where a million lamps were keeping watch till dawn. Shall
we blame our Madelon, if she sometimes looked away from the
stars, and down upon the glare that brightened far up into the
dark sky? All the young blood was throbbing and stirring in
her veins with such energy and vigour; the world was so wide,
so wide, the circle around her so narrow, and in that bright,
misty past, which, after all, she only half understood, were
to be found so many precedents for possibilities that might
still be hidden in the future. Shall we blame her, if, in her
youthful belief in happiness as the chief good, her youthful
impatience of peace, and calm, and rest, she longed with a
great longing for movement, change, excitement? Outside, as it
seemed to her, in her vague young imagination, such a free,
glorious life was going on--and she had no part in it! As she
stood at her window, the distant, ceaseless roar of the street
traffic would sound to her, in the stillness of the night,
like the beat of the great waves of life that for ever broke
and receded, before they could touch the weary spot where she
stood spell-bound in isolation. And through it all she said to
herself, "When Monsieur Horace comes home,"--and now Monsieur
Horace had come, would he do anything to help her?
Graham, indeed, was willing enough to do what he could do for
her; and before he went to bed that night he wrote the
following letter to his sister, Mrs. Vavasour:
"My dear Georgie,
"The butter and eggs arrived in safety, and Aunt Barbara
declared herself much pleased with your hamper of country
produce; but you will, no doubt, have heard from her before
this. She is looking wonderfully well, and not a day older
than when I left England. As for Madeleine Linders, I hardly
recognised her, she is so grown and so much improved. I find I
have at least a fortnight's business in London, and then I
will run down to you for another visit, if I may. Would it put
you out very much if I brought Madeleine with me for a time? I
should like you and her to know each other, and a change would
do her good. Aunt Barbara seems to have been giving her a
high-pressure education, with no fun to counterbalance it, and
the poor child finds it horribly dull work; and no wonder--I
know I should be sorry to go through it myself. A few weeks
with you and the children would brighten her up, and do her
all the good in the world. Let me know what you think of it.
"Ever yours,
"Horace Graham."
CHAPTER III.
At Ashurst.
It was two days after Graham's talk with Madelon, that some
people of whom mention has once or twice been made in this
little history, were sitting chatting together as they drank
their afternoon tea in Mrs. Vavasour's drawing room at
Ashurst, a low, dark-panelled, chintz-furnished room, with an
ever-pervading scent of dried rose-leaves, and fresh flowers,
and with long windows opening on to the little lawn, all shut
in with trees and shrubberies. Mrs. Vavasour, who sat by the
fire knitting, was a calm, silent, gentle-looking woman, with
smooth, fair hair under her lace cap, and those pathetic lines
we sometimes see in the faces of those who through
circumstances, or natural temperament, have achieved
contentment through the disappointments of life, rather than
through its fulfilled hopes. She was the mother of many
children, of whom the elder half was already dispersed--one was
married, one dead, one in India, and one at sea; of those
still at home, the eldest, Madge, an honest, sturdy, square-
faced child of eleven or twelve, was in the room now, handing
about tea-cups and bread-and-butter. Dr. Vavasour was a big,
white-haired man, many years older than his wife, who had
married him when she was only seventeen; he was a clever man,
and a popular doctor, and having just come in from a twenty
miles' drive through March winds and rain, was standing with
his back to the mantelpiece, with an air of having thoroughly
earned warmth and repose. He was discussing parish matters
with Mr. Morris the curate, who was sitting at the small round
table where Maria Leslie, a tall, rosy, good-humoured-looking
young woman of five or six-and-twenty, was pouring out the
tea.
"If the Rector is on your side, Morris," said the Doctor, "of
course I can say nothing; only I can tell you this, you will
lose me. I will have nothing to do with your new-fangled
notions; I have said my prayers after the same fashion for the
last sixty years, and as sure as you begin to sing-song them,
instead of reading them, I give up my pew, and go off to
church at C----, with my wife and family."
"Not with Miss Leslie, I trust, Doctor," said the Curate; "we
could not get on without Miss Leslie, to lead the singing."
"Miss Leslie does as she likes, and if she prefers sham
singing to honest reading, that's her concern, not mine. But I
tell you plainly, sir, I am an old-fashioned man, and have no
patience with all these changes. I have a great mind to see if
I can't get made churchwarden, and try the effect of a little
counter-irritation. Madge, my child, bring me a cup of tea."
"I hope _you_ do not hold these opinions, Miss Leslie," said the
Curate, in an under tone to Maria Leslie; "we could not afford
to lose you from amongst us; you must not desert us."
"Oh, no, I could not give up my Ashurst Sundays," answers
Maria, fidgeting amongst her cups and saucers; "I have too
many interests here, the schools, and the church--and the
preaching--not that the Rector's sermons are always very
lively; and then I like chanting and intoning."
"And can you not convert the Doctor?"
"I think that would be impossible; Dr. Vavasour always held to
his own opinions. Will you have some more tea?"
"No more, thank you. I should have thought, Miss Leslie, you
might have converted any one; I cannot fancy any arguments you
might use being other than irresistible."
"Mr. Morris," said Mrs. Vavasour, breaking in upon this little
tête-à-tête, "have you seen those curious spiders that my
brother brought home from South America? You might fetch Uncle
Horace's case, Madge, and show them to Mr. Morris; they are
worth looking at, I assure you."
An hour later this little party had dispersed. Mr. Morris had
taken leave, Maria had gone to dress for dinner, Madge to her
school-room; Dr. Vavasour and his wife were left alone.
"I had a letter from Horace this afternoon," she said, taking
it out of her pocket, and giving it to the Doctor to read.
"What do you say to our having Miss Linders here for a time? I
have often thought of asking her, and this will be a good
opportunity. Do you object?"
"Not in the least, my dear; she is some sort of a cousin of
yours; is she not?"
"A remote one," said Mrs. Vavasour, smiling. "However, I am
very willing to make her acquaintance, especially if the poor
girl wants a change. I agree with Horace, that a too prolonged
course of Aunt Barbara must be trying."
"Why, I thought Mrs. Treherne was everything that was perfect
and admirable; she has never troubled us much with her
society, but I am sure I understood from you----"
"So she is," said his wife, interrupting him; "that is just
it--Aunt Barbara is quite perfect, a kind of ideal gentlewoman
in cultivation, and refinement, and piety, and everything
else; but she is, without exception, the most alarming person
I know."
"Well, let Miss Linders come by all means," repeated the
Doctor. "Isn't it nearly dinner-time? I am starving. I have
been twenty miles round the country to-day, and when I come in
I find that long-legged fellow Morris philandering away, and
have to listen to his vacuous nonsense for an hour. Whatever
brings him here so often? He ought to have something better to
do with his time than to be idling it away over afternoon tea.
Is he looking after Madge?"
"Poor little Madge!" answered Mrs. Vavasour, laughing. "No, I
wish I could think Mr. Morris had nothing more serious on
hand: but it is much more likely to be Maria."
"Maria!" cried the doctor; "is that what the man is up to? But
surely he knows she is engaged to Horace."
"Indeed I much doubt it," Mrs. Vavasour answered; "the
engagement was to be a secret, and I am not aware that any one
knows of it but ourselves, and Aunt Barbara--and Miss Linders
probably--and if Maria will not enlighten Mr. Morris as to how
matters stand, I do not see what any one else can do."
"Then Molly is very much to blame; and I have a great mind to
tell her so."
"I think you had better let things take their own course,"
said Mrs. Vavasour. "Maria is quite old enough to know what
she is about, and Horace will be down here in a few days to
look after his own interests."
"Well, but--bless my soul!" cried the doctor, "I can't make it
out at all. Do you mean that Maria is allowing this fellow
Morris's attention? I thought she and Graham were devoted to
each other, and had been for the last five years?"
"I think they thought they were, five years ago, when Horace,
fresh home from the Crimea, was all the heroes in the world in
Molly's eyes; and he was just in the mood to fall in love with
the first pretty bright girl he saw. But all that was over
long ago, and in these five years they have grown utterly
apart."
"Then the sooner they grow together again the better," said
the Doctor.
"I don't believe it is possible," answered his wife. "I don't
see how they can ever pull together; they have different
tastes, different aims, different ideas on every conceivable
subject. I am very fond of Molly; she is an excellent, good
girl in her way, but it is not the way that will fit her to
become Horace's wife. She will weary him, and he will--not
neglect her, he would never be unkind to a woman--but he will
not be the husband she deserves to have. For my part, I think
it will be a thousand pities if a mistaken sense of honour
makes them hold to their engagement."
"That may be all very well for Horace," said the Doctor; "but
what about Molly? When a girl has been looking forward to
marrying and having a house of her own, it is not so pleasant
for her to have all her prospects destroyed."
"Then she can marry Mr. Norris, if she pleases."
"Indeed! Well, if Maria's mistaken sense of honour does not
stand in the way of a flirtation with Morris, I shall be much
astonished if Horace's does not make itself felt one way or
another. However, it is no concern of mine; manage it your own
way."
"Indeed I have no intention of interfering," said Mrs.
Vavasour. "I can imagine nothing more useless, especially as
Horace will be here in less than a fortnight. But I will write
to-night to Aunt Barbara about Miss Linders."
"Oh, yes, ask Miss Linders down here, by all means; and if
Morris would only fall in love with her, that might settle all
difficulties; but I suppose there is not much chance of that."
And so saying, the Doctor went to dress for dinner.
It was a new world, this, in which our Madelon found herself,
after the still leisure of her home in Cornwall, with its
outlook on rocks, and sea, and sky, after the unbroken
regularity of her London life, with its ever-recurring round
of fixed employments--a new world, this sheltered English
village, lying amongst woods, and fields, and pastures,
divided by trim brown hedges, whose every twig was studded
with red March buds, and beneath which late March primroses
were blowing--and a new world, too, the varied life of this
bright, cheerful house, where people were for ever coming and
going, and where children's footsteps were pattering, and
children's voices and laughter ringing, all day long.
It was with the children especially that Madelon made friends
in the early days of her visit. From Mrs. Vavasour she had the
kindliest welcome; but the mistress of this busy household had
a thousand things to attend to, that left her but little time
to bestow on her guest. She had deputed Maria Leslie to
entertain Madelon; but Maria also had her own business--school-
teaching, cottage-visiting in the village; nor, in truth, even
when the two were in each other's society, did they find much
to say to each other. It had never been a secret to Madelon
that Graham was engaged to Maria Leslie, and the girl had
looked forward, perhaps, to making friends with the woman who
was accounted worthy of the honour of being Monsieur Horace's
wife; but the very first day she had turned away disappointed.
There was, both instinctively felt, no common ground on which
they could meet and speak a common language intelligible to
both; memories, interests, tastes, all lay too wide apart; and
as for those larger human sympathies which, wider and deeper
than language can express, make themselves felt and understood
without its medium, something forbade their touching upon them
at all. There was, from the first, a certain coolness and
absence of friendliness in Maria's manner, which was quite at
variance with her usual good-humoured amiability, and which
Madelon felt, but did not understand. She could not guess that
it was the expression of a vague jealousy in Maria's mind,
excited by Madelon's beauty and graciousness of air and
manner, and by a knowledge of her past relations with Horace
Graham; Maria would hardly have acknowledge it to herself, but
it raised an impassable barrier between these two.
As for Graham, no one saw much of him. He was shut up all day
in his brother-in-law's study, writing, copying notes, sorting
and arranging specimens, preparing the book that was to come
out in the course of the next season; and, when he did appear,
at breakfast or dinner, he was apt to be silent and moody,
rarely exchanging more than a few words with any one. Madelon
wondered sometimes at this taciturn Monsieur Horace, so
different from the one she had always known; though, indeed,
in speaking to her the old kindly light would always come back
to his eyes, the old friendly tones to his voice. But, like
every one else, she saw but little of him; and, in fact,
Graham in these days, a grim, melancholy, silent man, brooding
over his own thoughts, his own hopes, plans, disappointments
perhaps, was no very lively addition to a family party.
There was one small person, however, whom our Madelon at once
inspired with a quite unbounded admiration for her. A few
evenings after her arrival, some one knocked at her bedroom
door as she was dressing for dinner; she opened it, and there
stood Madge in the passage, her hands full of red and white
daisies.
"I have brought you some flowers, Cousin Madelon," said the
child shyly.
"They are beautiful," said Madelon, taking them from her;
"won't you come in? I will put some of them in my hair."
She sat down before the looking-glass, and began arranging
them in her hair, whilst Madge stood and watched her with
wide-open eyes.
"They are out of my own garden," she said presently.
"I might have guessed that, they are so pretty," said Madelon,
turning round and smiling at her; it was in the girl's nature
to make these little gracious speeches, which came to her more
readily than ordinary words of thanks. "I like them very
much," she went on; "they remind me of some that grew in the
convent garden."
"Were you ever in a convent?" asked Madge, with a certain awe.
"Yes, for two years, when I was about as old as you are."
"And were there any nuns there?" asked Madge, whose ideas were
not enlarged, and who looked upon a nun as the embodiment of
much romance.
"To be sure," answered Madelon, rather amused; "they were all
nuns, except some little girls who came every day to be taught
by them."
"Then you were at school there?" said Madge.
"Not exactly; my aunt was the--what do you call it?--Lady
Superior of the convent; that was why I went there."
"And did you like it?" inquired Madge, who was apparently of
opinion that such an opportunity for gaining exceptional
information should not be wasted.
"I don't know," answered Madelon; "I don't think I did at the
time; I used to find it very dull, and I often longed to be
away. But the nuns were very kind to me; and it is pleasant to
look back upon, so quiet and peaceful. I think we don't always
know when and where we are happy," she added, with a little
sigh.
She sat leaning against the table, her head resting on her
hand, thinking over the past--as she was for ever thinking of
the past now, poor child! How sad, how weary they had been,
those years in the convent--yes, she knew that she had found
them so--and yet how peaceful, how innocent, how sheltered!
Reading her past life in the new light that every day made its
shadows darker, she knew that those years were the only ones
of her childhood which she could look back upon, without the
sudden pang that would come with the memory of those others
which she had found so happy then, but which she knew now
were--what? Ah, something so different from what she had once
imagined! But as for those days at the convent, they came back
to her, softened by the kindly haze of time, with the
strangest sense of restfulness and security, utterly at
variance, one would say, with the restless longing with which
she looked out on the world of action--and yet not wholly
inconsistent with it perhaps, after all. Did she indeed know
when and where she would be happy?
Madge, meanwhile, stood and looked at her. She had fairly
fallen in love with this new cousin of hers; her beauty, and
gracious ways, her foreign accent, and now her experiences of
nuns and convents had come like a revelation to the little
English girl in her downright, everyday life. With a comical
incongruity, she could compare her in her own mind to nothing
but an enchanted princess in some fairy tale; and she stood
gazing first at her and then at the glass, where soft wavy
brown hair and red and white daisies were reflected.
"What are you thinking of?" said Madelon, looking up suddenly.
"I--I don't know," replied Madge, quite taken aback, colouring
and stammering; and then, as if she could not help it--"Oh!
Cousin Madelon, you are so pretty."
"It is very pretty of you to say so," said Madelon, laughing
and blushing too a little; then holding out both hands she
drew Madge towards her, and kissed her on her two cheeks. "I
think you and I will be great friends; will we not?" she said.
"Yes," says unresponsive Madge shortly, looking down and
twisting her fingers in her awkward English fashion.
"I would like you to be fond of me," continued Madelon, "for I
think I shall love you very much; and I like you to call me
Madelon--nobody else calls me so--except--except your Uncle
Horace."
"It was Uncle Horace told me to," cried Madge. "I asked him
what I should call you, and he said he thought Cousin Madelon
would do."
"I think it will do very well," said Madelon, rising. "To-
morrow will you take me to your garden? I should like to see
your daisies growing."
After this Madge and Madelon became great friends; and when
the former was at her lessons, there was a nurseryfull of
younger children to pet and play with, if Madelon felt so
disposed. Sometimes in the morning, when she was sitting alone
in the drawing-room, little feet would go scampering along the
floor upstairs, shrill little voices would make themselves
heard from above, and then Madelon, throwing down book or
work, would run up to the big nursery, where, whilst the two
elder children were in the school-room with their mother,
three round, rosy children kept up a perpetual uproar. It was
quite a new sensation to our lonely Madelon to have these
small things to caress, and romp with, and fondle, and she
felt that it was a moment of triumph when they had learnt to
greet her entrance with a shout of joy. Down on the floor she
would go, and be surrounded in a moment with petitions for a
game, a story, a ride.
Graham came up one day in the midst of a most uproarious romp.
"Nurse," he said, putting his head in at the door, "I do wish
you would keep these children quiet--" and stopped as suddenly
as the noise had stopped at his appearance. Madelon, all
blushing and confused, was standing with the youngest boy
riding on her back, whilst the little girls, Lina and Kate,
were holding on to her skirts behind; they had pulled down all
her hair, and it was hanging in loose waves over her
shoulders.
"I beg your pardon, Madelon," said Graham, coming in, and
smiling at her confusion. "I had no idea that you were here,
and the instigator of all this uproar; where is nurse? I shall
have to ask her to keep you all in order together."
"Nurse has gone downstairs to do some ironing," says Lina.
"Oh, Uncle Horace, we were having such fun with Cousin
Madelon."
"Uncle Horace, will you give me a ride? You give better rides
than Cousin Madelon," cries Jack, slipping down on to the
ground.
"Uncle Horace, Cousin Madelon has been telling us about South
America, and we have been hunting buffaloes."
"I am sorry," says Madelon; "I quite forgot how busy you are,
Monsieur Horace, and that you could hear all our noise. We
will be quieter for the future, and not hunt buffaloes just
over your head."
He looked at her without answering; there was a flush on her
pale cheeks under the shadow of the heavy waves of hair, a
smile in her eyes as she looked at him with one of her old,
shy, childish glances, as if not quite sure how he would take
her apology. He could not help smiling in answer, then laughed
outright, and turned away abruptly.
"Come here, then Jack, and I will give you a ride," he said,
lifting the boy on to his shoulder. "This is the way we hunt
buffaloes."
Half-an-hour later, Maria, just come in from the village,
looked into the nursery, attracted by the shouts and laughter.
"It is really very odd," she said afterwards to Mrs. Vavasour,
in a somewhat aggrieved tone, "that when Horace always
declares he cannot find time to walk with me, or even to talk
to me, he should spend half his morning romping with the
children in the nursery." And Mrs. Vavasour, who had also gone
upstairs with Madge and Harry when they had finished their
lessons, had not much to say in answer.
CHAPTER IV.
Ich kann nicht hin!
One day, Madelon said to Mrs. Vavasour, "Please let me have
all the children for a walk this afternoon."
"What, all! my dear girl," said Mrs. Vavasour; "you don't know
what you are undertaking."
"Oh, yes, I do," Madelon answered, smiling; "they will be very
good, I know, and Madge will help me."
So they all set out for their walk, through the garden, and
out at the gate that led at once into the fields which
stretched beyond. They walked one by one along the narrow
track between the springing corn, a little flock of brown-
holland children, and Madelon last of all, in her fresh grey
spring dress. Harry had a drum, and marched on in front,
drubbing with all his might; and Jack followed, brandishing a
sword, and blowing a tin trumpet. Madge would have stopped
this horrible din, which indeed scared away the birds to right
and left, but Madelon only laughed and said she liked it.
Graham, coming across the fields in another direction, saw the
little procession advancing towards him, and waited on the
other side of a stile till it should come up. The children
tumbled joyfully over into Uncle Horace's arms, and were at
once ready with a hundred plans for profiting by the unwonted
pleasure of having him for a companion in their walk; but he
distinctly declined all their propositions, and sending them
on in front with Madge, walked along at Madelon's side.
"Why do you plague yourself with all these children," he said,
"instead of taking a peaceable walk in peaceable society?"
"I like the children," she answered, "and I should have found
no society but my own this afternoon, for Mrs. Vavasour was
going to pay visits, she said, and Maria went out directly
after lunch."
"And you think your own society would have been less peaceable
than that of these noisy little ruffians?"
"I don't know," she answered; "I like walking by myself very
much sometimes, but I like the children, too, and Madge and I
are great friends."
"I think Madge shows her sense--she and I are great friends,
too," said Graham, laughing.
"Madge thinks there is no one in the world like Uncle Horace--
she is always talking about you," said Madelon, shyly.
"That is strange--to me she is always talking about you--she
looks upon you as a sort of fairy princess, I believe, who has
lived in a charmed world as strange to her as any she reads
about in story-books. Madge's experiences are limited, and it
does not take much to set her little brain working. If Maria
and I are abroad next winter, I think I must get Georgie to
spare her to me for a time."
"Are you going abroad again?" said Madelon; and as she asked
the question, a chill shadow seemed to fall upon the bright
spring landscape.
"It is possible-- I have heard of an opening."
He paused for a moment, and then went on,--
"I don't know why I should not tell you all about it, Madelon,
though I have said nothing about it to any one yet--but it will
be no secret. I had a letter this morning telling me that
there is an opening for a physician at L----, that small place
on the Mediterranean, you know, that has come so much into
fashion lately as a winter place for invalids. Dr. B----, an old
friend of mine, who is there now, is going to leave it, and he
has written to give me the first offer of being his
successor."
"And shall you go?" asked Madelon.
"Well, I should like it well enough for a good many reasons,
for the next two or three years, at any rate. It is a lovely
place, a good climate, and I should not feel myself tied down
if anything else turned up that suited me better; but there
are other considerations--in fact, I cannot decide without
thinking it well over."
"But at any rate, you would not go there till next winter,
would you?" said Madelon, with a tremor in her voice which she
vainly tried to conceal.
"Not to stop; but if I accept this offer, I should go out
immediately for a week or two, so as to get introduced to B----
's patients before they leave. A good many will be returning
next winter probably, and it would be as well for me, as a
matter of business, to make their acquaintance; you
understand?"
"Yes, I understand--but then you would have to go at once,
Monsieur Horace, for it is already April, and the weather is
so warm that people will be coming away. I remember how they
used to fly from Nice and Florence--every one that we knew as
soon as it began to get hot."
"Yes, I have not much time to lose, and if I decide to go at
all, I shall start at once. But it is very doubtful."
They had reached the end of the field whilst talking; a heavy
gate separated it from a lane beyond, and the children, unable
to open it, had dispersed here and there along the bank,
hunting for primroses.
"Shall we go on?" said Graham, "or would you like to turn back
now? You look tired."
Madelon did not answer; what was the use of going on? What did
it matter? Everything came to the same end at last--a sense of
utter discouragement and weariness had seized her, and she
stood leaning against the gate, staring blankly down the road
before her. There were about twenty yards of shady, grassy
lane, and then it was divided by a cross-road, with a cottage
standing at one of the angles. Graham, who was looking at
Madelon, saw her face change suddenly.
"Why, there are----" she began, and then stopped abruptly,
colouring with confusion.
Graham looked; two figures had just appeared from one of the
cross-roads, and walking slowly forward, had paused in front
of the cottage; they were Mr. Morris the curate and Maria
Leslie. The clergyman stood with his back to Graham and
Madelon, but they could see Maria with her handkerchief to her
eyes, apparently weeping bitterly. The curate was holding one
of her hands in both his, and so they stood together for a
moment, till he raised it to his lips. Then she pulled it away
vehemently, and burying her face completely in her
handkerchief, hurried off in a direction opposite to that by
which she had come. Mr. Morris stood gazing after her for a
moment, and then he also disappeared within the cottage.
This little scene passed so rapidly, that the two looking on
had hardly time to realize that they were looking on, before
it was all over. There was a sort of pause. Madelon gave one
glance to Graham, and turned away--then the children came
running up with their primroses. "Here are some for you, Uncle
Horace; Cousin Madelon, please may I put some in your hat?"
Madelon took off her hat, and stooped down to help Madge
arrange the flowers; she would not try to understand the
meaning of what they had just witnessed, nor to interpret
Monsieur Horace's look.
"You are going home," said Graham, unfastening the gate
without looking at her; "then we part company here; I have to
go further." And without another word he strode off, leaving
the children disconcerted and rebellious at this abrupt
termination of their walk.
"Madge," said Madelon, caressing the little square perplexed
face, "you won't mind having a short walk to-day, will you?
Let us go home now, and we will play in the garden till your
tea-time;" and wise little Madge agreed without further demur.
It was on the evening of the same day that Madelon, coming in
from the garden where she had been wandering alone in the
twilight, found Horace discussing his plans with Mrs.
Vavasour, who was making tea. She would have gone away again,
but Graham called her back, and went on talking to his sister.
"I must send an answer as soon as possible," he was saying; "I
can't keep B---- waiting for a month while I am making up my
mind; I will speak to Maria this evening."
"It would be as well," answered Mrs. Vavasour; "she ought to
be told at once. But must an answer be sent immediately? I
think you will see that it will be useless to hurry Maria for
a decision; she will want time for consideration."
"She shall have any reasonable time," he replied shortly; "but
that is why I shall speak at once--she can think it over."
"And if you have in a measure made up your mind," continued
her sister, "she will be better pleased, I am sure; she will
wish in some sort to be guided by your wishes."
"That is just what I am anxious to avoid," he answered
impatiently. "I do not desire to influence her in any way; I
would not for the world that she should make any sacrifice on
my account, and then be miserable for ever after."
"My dear Horace, you do not suppose Maria----"
"My dear Georgie, I know what Maria is, and you must allow me
to take my own way."
He began to stride up and down the room with his hands in his
pockets, Madelon watching him in silence. Presently he began
again:--
"I know what Molly is; if she imagined that I wanted to go to
this place, she would say 'Go,' without thinking of herself
for a moment; but ten to one, when we got there, she would be
for ever regretting England, and hating the society, and the
mode of life, and everything, and everybody; and it would be
very natural--she has never been abroad, and knows nothing of
foreign life and manners."
"Then you do not mean to go?" said Mrs. Vavasour.