calmly before Maria; tell her what I think are the reasons for
and against, and leave her to decide. I suppose she cannot
complain of that."
"I do not imagine for a moment she will complain," replied
Mrs. Vavasour; "but I think she will want your judgment to
help her."
He only muttered something in answer to this; and Madelon
asked in a low voice, "Is it about going abroad that Monsieur
Horace is doubting?"
"Yes, he told you about it, did he not?" said Mrs. Vavasour.
"I hope he may decide to go--it would be the very thing for
him."
"Do you think so?" said Graham, who had overheard this last
remark; and turning to Madelon with rather a melancholy smile,
"Listen to the description, Madelon, and tell me what you
think of it--a little town on the shores of the Mediterranean,
sheltered on every side by hills, so that all the winter is
spring, and flowers bloom all the year round. The gardens are
full of pomegranate and orange trees, and the hills are
terraced with vineyards, and covered with olives and chestnuts
everywhere else. Do you think that that sounds inviting?"
"A great deal too good to be true," said Mrs. Vavasour,
laughing. "I never believe thoroughly in these earthly
paradises." But Madelon did not laugh; her eyes lighted up,
her cheeks glowed.
"Ah!" she cried, "I can imagine all that. I believe in such
places; they exist somewhere in the world, but one cannot get
to them."
"One can sometimes," said Graham; "for perhaps Maria and I are
going to this one, and then you had better become an invalid
as fast as possible, Madelon, that Aunt Barbara may bring you
there too."
"And you are really going?" she asked, with a sad sick feeling
at her heart.
"Perhaps," he said, "we shall see what Maria says. I am afraid
she may not take the same view of it all that you do;" and
Maria coming in at that moment, the conversation dropped.
After tea they were all sitting, as usual, in the drawing-
room; a wood fire burnt and crackled on the low hearth, but
the evening was warm, and the long windows were open to the
lawn, where Graham was walking up and down, smoking a pipe.
Dr. Vavasour was dozing in an arm-chair, Mrs. Vavasour sat a
the table stitching, Maria in the shade knitting cotton socks,
and Madelon was leaning back in her chair, the lamplight
falling on her brown hair and white dress, a piece of
embroidery between her fingers, but her hands lying in her
lap, and such sad thoughts in her poor little weary head. So
this was the end of it all? Monsieur Horace was going to be
married, and then live abroad--yes, she was certain he would
live abroad--who would stay in England if they could help it?--
and she would never, never see him again! The one thought
revolved in her brain with a sort of dull weariness, which
prevented her seizing more than half its meaning, but which
only required a touch to startle it into acutest pain. No one
spoke or moved, and this oppressive silence of a room full of
people seemed to perplex her as with a sense of unreality, and
was more distracting for the moment than would have been the
confusion of a dozen tongues around her.
Presently, however, Graham came in from the garden, and walked
straight up to her.
"Will you not sing something?" he said.
She rose at once without speaking or raising her eyes, and
went to the piano.
"What shall I sing?" she said then, turning over her music.
"Anything--it does not matter," said Graham, who had followed
her; "never mind your music--sing the first thing that comes
into your head."
She considered a moment, and then began.
When Madelon sang, her hearers could not choose but listen; in
other matters she had very sufficient abilities, but in
singing she rose to genius. Gifted by nature with a superb
voice, an exceptional musical talent, these had been carefully
cultivated during the last two or three years, and the result
was an art that was no art, a noble and simple style, which
gave an added intensity to her natural powers of expression,
and forbade every suspicion of affectation. As she sang now,
the Doctor roused up from his doze, and Mrs. Vavasour dropped
her work; only Maria Leslie, sitting in the shadow of the
window-curtain, knitted on with increased assiduity.
It was a German song, Schumann's "Sehnsucht," that she was
singing; it was the first that had come to her mind at
Graham's bidding, and, still preoccupied, she began it almost
without thought of the words and sentiment; but she had not
sung two lines, when some hidden emotion made itself felt in
her face with a quite irresistible enthusiasm and pathos.
These were the words:--
"Ich blick' im mein Herz, und ich blick' in die Welt,
Bis vom schwimmenden Auge die Thräne mir fällt:
Wohl leuchtet die Ferne mit goldenem Licht,
Doch hält mich der Nord, ich erreiche sie nicht.
O die Schranken so eng, und die Welt so weit!
Und so flüchtig die Zeit, und so flüchtig die Zeit.
Ich weiss ein Land, wo aus sonnigem Grün
Um versunkene Temple die Trauben blühn,
Wo die purpurne Woge das Ufer besaümt,
Und von kommenden Sängern der Lorbeer träumt;
Fern lockt es und winkt dem verlangenden Sinn,
Und ich kann nicht hin--kann nicht hin!"
As Madelon sang these last words she looked up, and her eyes
met Graham's, as he stood leaning against the piano, gazing at
her face. She blushed scarlet, and stopped suddenly.
"I--I don't think I can sing any more," she said, letting her
hands fall from the keys into her lap. She turned round, and
saw Maria looking at her also, watching her and Graham
perhaps. "How hot it is!" she cried, pushing the hair off her
forehead with a little impatient gesture. "_J'étouffe ici!_" And
she jumped up quickly and ran out of the room.
Out of the atmosphere of love, and suspicion, and jealousy
that was stifling her, into the hall, up the shallow staircase
to the long matted passage which ran the length of the house,
the bed-rooms opening on to it on either side. Madelon paced
it rapidly for some minutes, then opened a door at the end,
and entered the nursery. Nothing stifling here; a large, cool,
airy room, with white blinds drawn down, subduing the full
moonlight to a soft gloom, in which one could discern two
little beds, each with its small occupant, whose regular
breathing told that they had done, for ever, with the cares
and sorrows of at least that day.
Madelon stood looking at them, the excitement that had made
her cheeks burn, and her pulses throb, subsiding gradually in
presence of this subdued, unconscious life. She smoothed the
sheets and counterpane of one little sleeper, who, with bare
limbs tossed about, was lying right across the bed, all the
careful tuckings-up wofully disarranged; and then, passing on,
went into an inner room, that opened out of the larger
nursery. The window was open here to the cool, grey sky, the
moonlight shining in on the white curtains, the little white
bed at the further end.
"Is that you, Cousin Madelon?" says Madge, raising a brown,
shaggy head as Madelon softly opened the door. "Won't you come
in, please? I am not asleep."
Madelon came in, and went to the window. It looked down upon
the lawn, with the still tree-shadows lying across it, and
some other shadows that were not still--those of two people
walking up and down, talking earnestly. She could distinguish
Monsieur Horace's voice, and then Maria's in answer, and then
Monsieur Horace again, and a sudden pang seemed to seize the
poor child's heart, and hold it tight in its grasp. How happy
they were, those two, talking together down there, whilst she
was all alone up her, looking on!
"Do come here, Cousin Madelon," said Madge's impatient voice
from the bed. "I want you to tuck me up, and give me a kiss."
Madelon went up to the bed, and kneeling down by it, laid her
cheek wearily by Madge's on the pillow. The child passed her
arm round her neck, and hugged her tight, and the innocent,
loving caress soothed the girl's sore heart, for the moment,
more than anything else could have done.
"Little Madge," she said, drawing the child closer to her, as
if the pressure of the little, soft, warm limbs had power to
stop the aching at her heart. "Oh! Madge, I wish I were no
bigger and no older than you. One is happier so."
"Do you?" said Madge, wondering. "I should like to be grown-
up, as tall and beautiful as you are, and to sing like you.
You were singing just now downstairs; I opened the window, and
could hear you quite plainly. Why did you stop so soon?"
"It was hot," said Madelon, her face flushing up again at the
recollection; "and one is not always in the mood for singing,
you know, Madge."
"Ah, but do sing me just one song, now, Cousin Madelon--just
here, before I go to sleep."
Still kneeling, with Madge's head nestling on her shoulder,
Madelon began to sing a little half-gay, half-melancholy
French romance of many verses. The tune seemed to grow more
and more plaintive as it went on, a pathetic, monotonous
chant, rising and falling. Before it was ended, Madge's hold
had relaxed, her eyes were closed--she was sound asleep for the
night. Madelon rose gently, kissed the honest, rosy, freckled
face; and then, as if drawn by some invincible attraction,
went back to the window.
Yes; they were still there, those two, not walking up and down
now, but standing under the big tree at the end of the lawn
still talking, as she could see by their gestures. "Ah, how
happy they are!" thinks our Madelon again, forgetting the
scene of the afternoon, her doubts, her half-formed
suspicions--how happy they must be, Monsieur Horace, who loves
Maria, Maria who is loved by Monsieur Horace, whilst she--why,
it is she who loves Monsieur Horace, who has loved him since
he rescued her, a little child, from loneliness and despair--
she, who for all these years has had but one thought, Monsieur
Horace, one object, Monsieur Horace, and who sees herself now
shut out from such a bright, gleaming paradise, into such
shivering outer darkness. Ah, she loved him--she loved him--she
owned it to herself now, with a sudden burst of passion--and he
was going away; he had no thought of her; his path in life lay
along one road, and hers along another--a road how blank, how
dreary, wrapped in what grey, unswerving mists.
"Ah, why must I live? Oh! that I could die--if I could only
die!" cries the poor child passionately in her thoughts,
stretching out her hands in her young impatience of life and
suffering. "I love him--is it wrong? How can I help it? I loved
him before I knew what it meant, I never knew till----"
She stopped suddenly, with a blush that seemed to set her
cheeks all a-flame--she had never known till half-an-hour ago,
when she had looked up and met his eyes for that one moment.
Ah! why had he looked at her so? And she--oh, merciful heavens!
had she betrayed herself? At the very thought Madelon started
as if she had been stung. She turned from the window, she
covered her face with her hands, and escaping swiftly, she
fled to her own room, and throwing herself on the bed, buried
her face in the pillow, to wrestle through her poor little
tragedy of love, and self-consciousness, and despair.
And while Madelon is crying her heart out upstairs, this is
what has been going on below. There had been an uncomfortable
pause in the sitting-room after her swift retreat; Mrs.
Vavasour neither moved nor spoke, Maria knitted diligently,
and Graham stood gloomily staring down on the music-stool
where Madelon had sat and sung, and looked up at him with that
sudden gleam in her eyes, till, rousing himself, he walked
through the open window, into the garden, across the lawn, to
the shrubbery. He stood leaning over the little gate at the
end of the path, looking over the broad moonlit field, where
the scattered bushes cast strange fantastic shadows, and for
the first time he admitted to himself that he had made a
great, a terrible mistake in life, and he hated himself for
the admission. What indeed were faith, and loyalty, and honour
worth, if they could not keep him true to the girl whose love
he had won five years ago, and to whom he was a thousand times
pledged by every loving promise, every word of affection that
had once passed between them? And yet, was this Maria to whom
he had come back, this Maria so cold and indifferent, so alien
from him in tastes, ideas, sympathies, was she indeed the very
woman who had once won his heart, whom he had chosen as his
life-long companion? How had it all been? He looked back into
the past, to the first days after his return from the Crimea,
when, wounded and helpless, worn out with toil and fever, he
had come back to be tended by Englishwomen in an English home.
A vision rose before him of a blooming girl with blue ribbons
that matched blue eyes, who came and went about him softly
through the long spring and summer days, arranging his
cushions, fetching his books, and reading to him by the hour
in gentle, unvarying tones. Yes, he understood well enough how
it had all come to pass; but those days had gone by, and the
Maria who had brightened them, was not she gone also? or
rather, had she ever existed except in the eyes that had
invested the kind girl-nurse with every perfection? And now
what remained? Graham groaned as he bowed his head upon his
crossed arms, and suddenly another vision flitted before him--a
pale face, a slender form, a pair of brown eyes that seemed to
grow out of the twilight, and look at him with a child's
affection, a woman's passion--Graham was no boy, to be tossed
about on the tempestuous waves of a first love; he had long
held that there were things in life, to which love and
courtship, marrying and giving in marriage, might be looked
upon as quite subordinate--and yet he felt, at that moment, as
if life itself would be a cheap exchange for one touch of the
small hand that had clung so confidingly to his, years ago,
for one more look into the eyes that had met his, scarcely ten
minutes since.
Such a mood could not long endure in a man of Graham's stamp
and habit of mind; and in a moment he had roused himself, and
begun to walk slowly back towards the house. What he might
feel could have no practical bearing on the matter one way or
another, and feeling might therefore as well be put out of
sight. He was bound to Maria by every tie of honour, and he
was no man to break those ties--if she were disposed to hold by
them. But was she indeed? Graham had not been blind to what
had been going on round him during the last few weeks, and he
felt that some explanation with Maria was due. Well, there
should be an explanation, and if he found that she was still
willing to hold to their engagement--why, then they would be
married.
He went up to Maria, sitting at the window.
"It _is_ very warm in-doors," he said; "suppose you come and
take a turn in the garden."
"As you like," she answered; "I don't find it particularly
warm;" but she laid down her work at once, and joined him in
the garden.
They took two or three turns up and down the lawn in silence,
till at last Graham, trying to speak cheerfully, said, "I had
a letter this morning, Maria, that I want to consult you
about, as it concerns you as well as me."
"Does it?" she said indifferently. "Well?"
"There is an opening for a physician at that winter place for
invalids on the Mediterranean," said Graham, explaining, "and
I have the offer of it; it would suit me very well, for the
next year or two at any rate, and would enable us to marry at
once; but my doubt, Maria, is, whether you would not object to
leaving England."
"I don't see what that has to do with it," answered Maria,
shortly and coldly. "Of course you will do what you think
best."
"What I might think best in the abstract, Maria, is not the
point; what I want to ascertain are your wishes in the
matter."
"I should have thought you might have known already," she
replied; "you are very well aware that, for years, it has been
my wish that you should have this partnership with Dr.
Vavasour."
"I am aware of it," he said, and paused. "Listen to me,
Maria," he continued in a moment, "let me put the case fairly
before you. If I accept Dr. Vavasour's offer, it closes, so to
speak, my career. I shall be bound down to this country
practice for life probably, for years at any rate, since,
after making the arrangement, I could not feel justified in
altering it again during Dr. Vavasour's lifetime. If, on the
other hand, I go to L----, I shall be bound to no one, and free
to take anything else that might suit me better."
"Go, then!" cried Maria, hastily, "I will not stand in your
way. I should have thought, Horace, that after all these
years, you would have been glad to look forward to a quiet
home and a settled life; but I see it is different, so go to
L----, and never mind me. If it becomes a question between me
and your career, I should think your choice would not be a
difficult one."
Her voice began to tremble, but she went on vehemently: "Why
do you ask my opinion at all? It can make no difference to
you; you have gone your own way these five years past without
much regard for my wishes, one way or another; and since your
return home, you have hardly spoken to me, much less consulted
me----"
It was at that moment that Madelon, kneeling at Madge's
bedside, began to sing, and the sound of her voice ringing
through the open window of her little upper room, Graham
involuntarily stopped, and lost the thread of Maria's speech.
She perceived it at once.
"Ah! yes, that is it," she cried passionately, hardly knowing
what she said. "Do you think I do not see, that I cannot
understand? Do I not know who it is you care to listen to now,
to talk to, to consult? Ask her what she thinks, ask
Madeleine's advice----"
"Be silent!" cried Horace, with sudden anger, "I will not have
Madeleine's name mentioned between us in that way. Forgive me,
Maria," he went on, more calmly, "but this sort of talk is
useless; though, if I cared to recriminate, I might perhaps
ask you, how it happens that Mr. Morris comes here so
frequently."
"Mr. Morris!" faltered Maria; "who told you----"
Her momentary indignation melted into tears and sobs; she
turned, and put out her hand to Graham, as they stood together
under the big plane-tree.
"Oh, Horace," she said, "I am very unhappy, and if you blame
me, I cannot help it--I daresay I deserve it."
"My poor Molly," he answered, taking her hand in his. "Why
should I blame you? and why are you unhappy? Let me help you--
unless, indeed, I am altogether the cause of it all."
Meanwhile, Mrs. Vavasour, left all alone in the sitting-room,
stitched away in the lamplight, looking out from time to time
into the dewy garden, where the two figures were pacing up and
down. The murmur of their voices reached her, and presently
she also heard Madelon singing up above, and then the two went
away out of hearing, and she could distinguish nothing in the
silence but the rustling of her own work and the soft,
inarticulate sounds of the early night. She could guess pretty
well what the result of that talk would be. That very
afternoon, going to Maria's room on her return home, she had
found the girl in an agony of weeping, and had learnt from her
that Mr. Morris had just made her an offer, and that she had
been obliged to tell him that she was already engaged--and 'Oh!
what could Mr. Morris think of her, and what would Horace
think?' cried poor Maria, filled with remorse. And Mr. Morris
cared for her so much; he had been so miserable when she had
told him they must part, and said she was the only woman he
had seen that he could care for; and that was the only
reproach he had uttered, though she had treated him so badly.
And Horace did not care for her one bit now--she could see it,
she knew it, he was tired of her, and she was not clever
enough for him, and would never make him a good wife. All this
our little-reticent Maria had sobbed out in answer to Mrs.
Vavasour's sympathising questions, with many entreaties to
know what she had better do next. Mrs. Vavasour could only
advise her to say to Horace just what she had said to her, and
she had sufficient confidence in Maria's courage and good
sense to trust that she would do so now, when matters had
evidently come to a crisis. But it was with the keenest
interest she awaited the end of their conversation.
She had not to wait very long. In a few minutes she saw Maria
coming quickly across the lawn; she passed through the window
and the room without looking up or speaking, and, with a
little sob, disappeared. Graham followed more slowly, and
sitting down by the table, moodily watched his sister's
fingers moving rapidly to and fro.
"That is all over," he said at last.
"What is all over?" inquired Mrs. Vavasour.
"Everything between Maria and me. We have agreed upon one
thing at last, at any rate."
"I am sure it is for the best, Horace," said Mrs. Vavasour,
looking at him with her kind, gentle eyes.
"I don't see how anything should be for the best when one has
behaved like a brute, and knows it," he answered, getting up,
and beginning to walk up and down the room.
"Is it you who have been behaving like a brute, Horace? I
cannot fancy that."
"I don't know why not," he answered gloomily; then, pausing in
his walk, "No one knew of our engagement except ourselves and
Aunt Barbara?" he asked.
"No one else was told."
"Well, then, no great harm is done, so far as gossip goes. You
had better write to Aunt Barbara. I shall go abroad at once."
"To this town on the Mediterranean?"
"Yes, I shall write to-night to B----; and I will start by the
seven o'clock train to-morrow morning for London. No one need
get up; I will tell Jane to let me have some breakfast."
"We shall hear from you?"
"Yes, I will write when I am across the water. Good-bye."
He stooped down and kissed her as he spoke. She laid her hand
on his arm, and detained him for a moment.
"Horace," she said, "you must not vex yourself to much about
this; you and Maria have only discovered in time what numbers
of people discover when it is too late--that you are not suited
to each other. Believe me, it is far better to find it out
before marriage than after."
"I daresay you are right," he said. "Don't be afraid, Georgie,
I shall not vex myself too much, but at present the whole
thing appears hateful to me, as far as I am concerned."
The next morning he was gone before any one of the family was
stirring.
CHAPTER V.
Er, der Herrlischste von Allen.
"Ashurst, July, 186--,
"Dear Uncle Horace,--Mamma has a bad headache, and says I am to
write and ask you whether you have quite forgotten us, and if
you are never coming to see us again. She says, cannot you
come next week, because Lady Lorrimer's great ball is on the
31st. She and cousin Madelon are going, and she would be very
glad if you could escort them, as papa says he will not go.
Cousin Madelon is here still, and Aunt Barbara is coming on
Monday to stay with us for a little while before she goes back
with her to Cornwall. Cousin Madelon has been reading French
with me, and giving me music-lessons. We had a pic-nic in the
woods last week, and my holidays begin to-morrow. I wish you
would come back, Uncle Horace, and then we could have some fun
before Cousin Madelon goes away. I wish she would never go,
but stay here always, as Maria used. I have been reading some
of your book; mamma said I might, and I like it very much.
Mamma sends her love, and I am
"Your affectionate niece,
"Madge Vavasour."
"Mamma says that she received yesterday the note that I
enclose, and that she sends it to you to read."
The note was from Maria Leslie, and was dated from a country-
town whither she had gone to stay with some friends, shortly
after Graham's departure from Ashurst.
"Dearest Georgie,
"I feel that you are the first person to whom I should write
the news that I am engaged to be married to Mr. Norris. He has
just had the offer of a living in the north, and lost no time
in coming to tell me of his prospects, and to invite me to
share them. To you, who know him so well, I need say nothing
of my own great happiness. I only fear that, after all that
has passed, you may think I have been a little precipitate;
but I could not but feel that something was due to Mr. Morris,
and that it would be wrong to keep him in suspense. Send me
you good wishes and congratulations, dear Georgie, for I
cannot feel that my happiness is complete without them.
"Ever your affectionate,
"Maria Leslie."
Graham arrived by the last available train on the evening of
the 31st, and was told by Madge, who came running into the
hall to meet him, that Mamma and Cousin Madelon were dressing,
and would Uncle Horace have some dinner, or go and dress too?
Uncle Horace said he had dined already, and would dress at
once, and so disappeared upstairs with his portmanteau.
When he came down to the drawing-room, he found Mrs. Treherne
sitting alone in the summer twilight at the open window.
"Is that you, Horace?" she said, putting out her hand; "you
are quite a stranger here, I understand. Georgie says she has
been jealous of my seeing so much of you in London."
"I think Georgie has no right to complain of me," he answered;
"if there is a thing on earth I hate it's a ball--are you
going, too, Aunt Barbara?"
"Indeed, no--I think you will have enough to do with two
ladies; here comes one of them."
A tall, slender figure, moving through the dusk with her soft
trailing draperies, and water-lilies in her brown hair. Graham
had not seen her since that evening, more than three months
ago, when she had looked up at him, and escaped in the midst
of her unfinished song. They took each other's hands in
silence now; a sudden consciousness and embarrassment seemed
to oppress them both, and make the utterance of a word
impossible.
Madelon was the first to speak; she went up to Mrs. Treherne.
"Can you see my flowers, Aunt Barbara?" she said; "are they
not pretty? Madge walked three miles to-day to the sedge
ponds, on purpose to get them for me."
"Is Madge still your devoted friend?" Horace asked.
"Oh! yes, Madge and I are always great friends. I must not
expect all her attentions though, now that you are come back,
Monsieur Horace."
The old childish name seemed to break the spell, and to bring
back the old familiarity.
"And so you are going to a ball at last, Madelon," Graham
said. "For the first time in my life I am sorry I cannot
dance, for I shall be deprived of the pleasure of having you
for a partner."
"Thank you," she said, "I should have liked to have danced
with you very much; but, after all, it is in the intention
that is the greatest compliment, so I will not mind too much.
I think I will be very happy even if I do not dance at all."
She looked up at him for the first time, and even in the dusk
he seemed to see the light in her eyes, the smile on her lips,
the colour flushing in her cheeks. It was not of the ball she
was thinking--it was of him; she had felt the grasp of his kind
hand, his voice was sounding in her hears, he has come back at
last--at last.
"You have been away a long time, Monsieur Horace," she said
softly, "but we have heard of you often; we have read your
book, and the critiques upon it; it has been a great success,
has it not? And then we have seen your name in the papers--at
dinners, at scientific meetings----"
"Yes," said Graham, "I have been doing plenty of hard work
lately; but I have come down into the country to be idle, and
have some fun, as Madge would say. We will take our holidays
together, will we not, Madge?" he added, as the child,
followed by her mother, came into the room.
Lady Lorrimer's ball was the culminating point of a series of
festivities given in honour of the coming of age of an eldest
son. To ordinary eyes, I suppose, it was very like any other
ball, to insure whose success no accessory is wanting that
wealth and good taste can supply; but to our Madelon there was
something almost bewildering in this scene at once familiar
and so strange; in these big, lighted, crowded rooms; in this
music, whose every beat seemed to rouse a thousand memories
and associations, liking the present with the so remote past.
As for Madelon herself, she made a success, ideal almost, as
if she had indeed been the enchanted Princess of little
Madge's fairy tale. Something rare in the style of her beauty--
something in her foreign air and appearance, distinguished her
at once in the crowd of girls; she was sought after from the
moment she entered the room, and the biggest personages
present begged for an introduction to Miss Linders. The girl
was not insensible to her triumphs; her cheeks flushed, her
eyes brightened with excitement and pleasure. Once, in a pause
of the waltz, she was standing with her partner close to where
Graham was leaning against a wall. He had an air of being
horribly bored, as indeed he was; but Madelon's eye caught
his, and he was obliged to smile in answer to her look of
radiant pleasure.
"You are enjoying yourself, I see, Madelon," he said.
"I never was so happy!" she cried. "Ah! if you knew how I love
dancing!--and it is so many years since I have had a waltz!"
Later on in the evening, Lady Lorrimer, the fashionable, gay,
kind-hearted hostess, came up to her.
"Miss Linders," she said, "I have a favour to ask of you. My
aunt, Lady Adelaide Spencer, is passionately fond of music,
and Mrs. Vavasour has been telling us how beautifully you
sing. Would it be too much to ask you for one song? It is not
fair, I know, in the midst of a ball, but the next dance is
only a quadrille, I see----"
"I shall be most happy," says Madelon, blushing up, and
following Lady Lorrimer down a long corridor into a music-
room. There were not above a dozen people present when she
began to sing, but the room was quite full before she rose
from the piano. She sang one song after another, as it was
asked for--French, German, English. The excitement of the
moment, the sense of triumph and success, seemed to fill her
with a sort of exaltation; never had her voice been so true
and powerful, her accent so pure, her expression so grand and
pathetic; she sang as if inspired by the very genius of song.
"We must not be unconscionable, and deprive Miss Linders of
all her dancing," said Lady Lorrimer at last--"you would like
to go back to the ball-room now, would you not? But first let
me introduce you to my aunt; she will thank you better than I
can for your singing."
Lady Adelaide Spencer, the great lady of the neighbourhood, a
short, stout, good-natured old woman in black velvet, and a
grizzled front, gave Madelon a most flattering reception.
"Sit down and talk to me a little," she said. "I want to thank
you again for your lovely voice and singing. It is not every
young lady who would give up her dancing just for an old
woman's caprice."
"Indeed I like singing as much as dancing," says Madelon.
"And you do both equally well, my dear; you may believe me
when I tell you so, for I know what good dancing is, and I
have been watching you all the evening. You must come and see
me and sing to me again. You live with your aunt, Mrs.
Treherne, Mrs. Vavasour tells me."
"Yes," replied Madelon.
"I knew Mrs. Treherne well years ago; tell her from me when
you go home, that an old woman has fallen in love with her
pretty niece, and ask her to bring you to see me. She is
staying at Ashurst, I believe?"
"Yes," said Madelon, "we are both at Dr. Vavasour's house. I
have been there all the spring and summer, and Aunt Barbara
has come for a few weeks before we go home to Cornwall."
"Do you live always in Cornwall?" asked Lady Adelaide. "Have
you never been abroad? Your French and German in singing were
quite perfect, but you seem to me to speak English with a
foreign accent, and a very pretty one too."
"I was born abroad," answered Madelon--"I spent all the first
part of my life on the Continent. I have been in England only
five years."
"Ah, that accounts for it all, then. What part of the
Continent do you come from?"
"I was born in Paris," says unthinking Madelon, "but we--I
travelled about a great deal; one winter I was in Florence,
and another in Nice, but I know Germany and Belgium best. I
was often at Wiesbaden, and Homburg, and Spa."
"Very pretty places, all of them," said Lady Adelaide, "but so
shockingly wicked! It is dreadful to think of the company one
meets there. Did you ever see the gambling tables, my dear?
But I dare say not; you would of course be too young to be
taken into such places."
"Yes, I have seen them," said Madelon, suddenly scarlet.
"My health obliges me to go to these baths from time to time,"
continued the old lady; "but the thought of what goes on in
those Kursaals quite takes away any pleasure I might otherwise
have; and the people who frequent the tables--the women and the
men who go there night after night! I assure you my blood has
run cold sometimes when one of those notorious gamblers has
been pointed out to me, and I think of the young lives he may
have ruined, the young souls he may have tempted to
destruction. I myself have known some sad cases--I am sure you
sympathise with me, Miss Linders?"
"Lady Adelaide," said a portly gentleman, coming up, "will you
allow me to take you into supper?"
"You will not forget to come and see me, my dear," cried Lady
Adelaide, with a parting wave of her fan as she moved away,
leaving the girl sitting there, silent and motionless. People
brushed by her as they left the room, but she paid no heed.
Mrs. Vavasour spoke to her as she passed on her way to supper,
but Madelon did not answer. All at once she sprang up, looking
round as if longing to escape; as she did so, her eyes met
Graham's; he was standing close to her, behind her chair, and
something in his expression, something of sympathy, of
compassion perhaps, made her cheeks flame, and her eyes fill
with sudden tears of resentment and humiliation. He had heard
them, he had heard every word that had been said, and he was
pitying her! What right had he, what did she want with his
compassion? She met his glance with one of defiance, and then
turned her back upon him; she must remain where she was, she
could not go out of the room alone, but, at any rate, he
should not have the opportunity of letting her see that he
pitied her.
Horace, however, who had in fact heard every word of the
conversation, and perhaps understood Madelon's looks well
enough, came up to her, as she stood alone, watching the
people stream by her out of the room.
"There is supper going on somewhere," he said; "will you come
and have some, or shall I bring you an ice here?"
"Neither," she answered, quickly. "I--I don't want anything,
and I would rather stay here."
"Perhaps you are right," he said. "We shall have the room to
ourselves in a minute, and then it will be cooler."
In fact, the room was nearly deserted--almost every one had
gone away to supper. Madelon stood leaning against the window,
half hidden by the curtain; the sudden gleam of defiance, of
resentment against Horace, had faded; it had vanished at the
sound of his kind voice, which she loved better than any other
in the world. But there were tears of passion still in her
eyes; her little moment of joyousness and triumph had been so
cruelly dashed from her; she felt hurt, humiliated, almost
exasperated.
"How hot it is!" she said, glancing round impatiently. "Where
is every one gone? Cannot we go too? No, not in to supper.
What is going on in that little room? I have not been there."
"It leads into the garden, I think," answered Graham. "Shall
we see? Wait a moment. I will fetch you a shawl, and then, if
you like, we can go out."
He strode off quickly. There was vexation and perplexity in
his kind heart too. He understood well enough how the girl had
been wounded--his little Madelon, for whom it would have seemed
a small thing to give his right hand, could such a sacrifice
have availed her aught. And he could do nothing. His
compassion insulted her, his interference she would have
resented; no, he could do nothing to protect his little girl.
So he thought as he made his way into the cloak-room to
extract a shawl. He was going his way in the world, and she
hers, and she might be suffering, lonely, unprotected, for
aught that he could do, unless--unless----
"Those cloaks belong to Lady Adelaide's party," cried the
maid, as Graham recklessly seized hold of one in a bundle.
"You must not take those, sir; Lady Adelaide will be going
immediately."
"Confound the cloaks, and Lady Adelaide too!" cried Graham,
impatiently. "Here, give me something--anything. Where is Miss
Linders' shawl? Which are Mrs. Vavasour's things?"
Madelon had stood still for a moment after Horace had left
her, and then, as he did not immediately return, she left her
station behind the window-curtain, and began walking up and
down the room. "How tired I am!" she thought wearily. "Will
this evening never end? Oh! I wish I have never come. I wish I
were going away somewhere, anywhere, so that I should never
see or hear again of anybody, that knows anything about me.
Why cannot we go home? It must be very late. I wonder what
time it is? Perhaps there is a clock in here."
The door of the room which Graham had said led into the garden
stood ajar; she pushed it open, and went in. It was a small
room, with a glass door at the further end, and on this
evening had been arranged for cards, so that Madelon, on
entering, suddenly found herself in the midst of green-baize-
covered tables, lighted candles, packs of cards, and a dozen
or so of silent, absorbed gentlemen, intent upon the trumps
and honours, points and odd tricks. The girl, already excited,
and morbidly susceptible, stopped short at this spectacle, as
one struck with a sudden blow. Not for years, not since that
evening the memory of which ever came upon her with a sudden
sting, when she had met Monsieur Horace at the gambling-tables
of Spa, had Madelon seen a card; Mrs. Treherne never had them
in her house; in those little parties of which mention has
been made as her only dissipation, they had formed no part of
the entertainment, and the sight of them now roused a thousand
tumultuous emotions of pain and pleasure. A thousand
associations attached themselves to those little bits of
pasteboard, whose black and red figures seemed to dance before
her eyes--recollections of those early years with their for-
ever-gone happiness, of her father, of happy evenings that
she, an innocent, unconscious child, had passed at his side,
building houses with old packs of cards, or spinning the
little gold pieces that passed backwards and forwards so
freely. She was happy then, happier than she could ever be
again, she thought despairingly, now that she had been taught
so sore a knowledge of good and evil. The last evening of her
father's life came suddenly before her; she seemed to hear
again his last words to herself, to see the scene with Legros,
the cards tumbling in a heap on the floor, his dying face. A
kind of terror seized her, and she stood gazing as though
fascinated at the dozen respectable gentlemen dealing their
cards and marking their games, till Graham's step and voice
aroused her.
"Here is your shawl, Madelon," he said, putting it round her
shoulders; "did you think I was ever coming? That woman----"
He stopped short in his speech; she turned round and looked at
him with her white, scared face, her wide-open, brown eyes, as
if she had seen a ghost. Ghosts enough, indeed, our poor
Madelon had seen during these last five minutes; but they were
not visible to Graham, who stood sufficiently astonished and
alarmed, as she turned abruptly away again, and disappeared
through the glass door into the garden.
"Stay, Madelon!" he cried and followed her out into the night.
It was raining, he found, as soon as he got outside. The
garden had been prettily illuminated with coloured lamps hung
along the verandah, and amongst the trees and shrubs, but they
were nearly all extinguished now. It was a bleak mournful
night, summer time though it was, the wind moaning and
sighing, the rain falling steadily. Graham, as he passed
quickly along the sodden path, had a curious sensation of
having been through all this before; another sad, rainy night
came to his mind, a lighted street, a dark avenue, and a
little passionate figure flying before him, instead of the
tall, white one who moved swiftly on now, and finally
disappeared beneath the long shoots of climbing plants that
overhung a sort of summer-house at the end of a walk. The
lamps were not all extinguished here; the wet leaves glistened
as the wind swept the branches to and fro, and Horace, as he
entered, could see Madelon sitting by the little table,
trembling and shivering, her hair all blown about and shining
in the uncertain light. What had suddenly come over her?
Graham was fairly perplexed.
"Madelon," he said, going up to her, "what is the matter? has
anything happened, or any one vexed you?"
"_Non, non_," she cried, jumping up impatiently, and speaking in
French as she sometimes did when excited, "_je n'ai rien--rien du
tout;_ leave me, Monsieur Horace, I beg of you! How you weary
me with your questions! I was rather hot, and came here for a
little fresh air. That was all."
"You are cooler now," said graham, as she stood drawing her
shawl round her, her teeth chattering.
"Yes," she said, with a little shiver, "it is rather cold
here, and damp; it is raining, is it not? Let us go back and
dance. I adore dancing; it was papa who first taught it to me;
do you know, Monsieur Horace? He taught me a great many
things."
"You had better not dance any more," said Graham, taking her
little burning hand in his. "You are overheated already, and
will catch cold."
She snatched away her hand impatiently.
"Ah! do not touch me!" she cried. "Let us go--why do we stay
here? I do not want your prescriptions, Monsieur Horace. I
_will_ go and dance."
"Wait a minute," said Graham; "let me wrap your shawl closer
round you, or you will be wet through: it is pouring with
rain."
The friendly voice and action went to her heart, and seemed to
reproach her for her harsh, careless words. They walked back
in silence to the house; but when they reached the empty
music-room again, she put both hands on his arm with an
imploring gesture, as if to detain him.
"Don't go--don't leave me!" she said; "I am very wicked,
Monsieur Horace, but--"
And then she dropped down on to a seat in the deep recess
formed by the window.
The sight of her unhappiness touched Graham's heart with a
sharper pang than anything else had power to do. He loved her
so--this poor child--he would have warded off all unhappiness,
all trouble from her life; and there she sat miserable before
him, and it seemed to him he could not raise a finger to help
her.
"You are not happy, Madelon," he said, at length. "Can I do
nothing to help you?"
She raised her head and looked at him.
"Nothing, nothing!" she cried. "Ah, forgive me, Monsieur
Horace, for speaking so to you; but you do not know, you
cannot understand how unhappy I am."
"Buy why, Madelon? What is it? Has any one spoken unkindly to
you?"
"No, no, it is not that. You do not understand. Why do you
come to me here? Why am I here at all? If people knew who and
what I am, would they talk to me as they do? Supposing I had
told Lady Adelaide just now--yes, you heard every word of that
conversation--she would have despised me, as you pitied me,
Monsieur Horace. Yes, you pitied me; I saw it in your eyes."
"My pity is not such as you need resent, Madelon," said
Graham, with a sigh.
"I do not resent it," she answered hastily. "You are kind, you
are good; you do well to pity me. What al I? The daughter of
a--a--yes, I know well enough now--I did not once, but I do now--
and I am here in your society, amongst you all, on
sufferance."
"You are wrong," answered Graham quickly, scarcely thinking of
what he said. "In the first place, it can make no difference
to any one that knows you who your father was; and then you
are here as Mrs. Treherne's niece----"
"I am my father's daughter!" cried Madelon, blazing up, "and I
must not own it. Yes, yes, I understand it all. As Mrs.
Treherne's niece I may be received; but not as---- Oh, papa,
papa!" her voice suddenly breaking down, "why did you die? why
did you leave me all alone?"
Graham stood silent. He felt so keenly for her; he had so
dreaded for her the time when this knowledge of her father's
true character must come home to her. In his wide sympathy
with everything connected with her, he had regrets of that
poor father also, dead years ago, who in his last hours had so
plainly foreseen some such moment as this, and yet not quite,
either.
"Monsieur Horace," Madelon went on wildly, "I did so love
papa, and he loved me--ah, you cannot imagine how much! When I
think of it now, when I see other fathers with their children,
how little they seem to care for them in comparison, I wonder
at his love for me. He nursed me, he played with me, he took
such care of me, he made me so happy. I think sometimes if I
could only hear his voice once more, and see him smiling at me
as he used to smile--and I must not speak of him, I must not
even mention him. It is unjust, it is cruel. I do not want to
live with people who will not let me think of my father."
"You may speak of him to me, Madelon----"
"To you?" she said, interrupting him; "ah, you knew him--you
know how he loved me. But Aunt Barbara--she will not let me
even mention his name."
"Then she is very wrong and very foolish," Graham answered
hastily. "Listen to me, Madelon. You are making yourself
miserable for nothing. To begin with, if everybody in the room
to-night knew who your father was, and all about him, I don't
suppose it would make the least difference; and as for the
rest, you have no occasion to concern or distress yourself
about anything in your father's life, except what relates to
yourself. Whatever he may have been to others, he was the
kindest and most loving of fathers to you, and that is all you
need think about."
"But Aunt Barbara----"
"Never mind Aunt Barbara. If she chooses to do what you and I
think foolish we will not follow her example. You may talk to
me, Madelon, as much as ever you please. I should like to hear
about your father, for I know how often you think of him. Now,
will you go back to the ball-room? I give you leave to dance
now," he added, smiling.
She did not move nor answer, but she looked up at him with a
sudden change in her face, and he saw that she was trembling.
"What is it now, Madelon?" he said.
"You are so good," she said. "When I am unhappy, you always
comfort me--it has always been so----"
"Do I comfort you?" said Graham--"why, that is good news,
Madelon."
"Ah! yes," she cried, in her impulsive way, "you have always
been good to me--how can I forget it? That night when papa
died, and I was so unhappy all alone--and since then, how
often--"
Graham turned away, and walked twice up and down the room.
There was a distant sound of music, and footsteps, and voices,
but people had drifted away into the ball-room again, and they
were alone. He came back to where Madelon was sitting.
"If you think so, indeed, Madelon," he said, "will you not let
it be so always? Do you think you can trust me enough to let
me always take care of you? I can ask for nothing dearer in
life."
"What do you mean?" she cried, glancing up at him startled.
"Do you not understand?" he said, looking at her, and taking
one her little hands in his--"do you not understand that one
may have a secret hidden away for years, and never suspected
even by oneself, perhaps, till all at once one discovers it? I
think I must have had some such secret, Madelon, and that I
never guessed at it till a few months since, when I found a
little girl that I knew years ago, grown up into somebody that
I love better than all the world----"
"Ah! stop!" she cried, jumping up, and pulling her hand away.
"You are good and kind, but it is not possible that you--ah!
Monsieur Horace, I am not worthy!"
"Not worthy! Good heavens, Madelon, you not worthy!" He paused
for a moment. "What is not possible?" he went on. "Perhaps I
am asking too much. I am but a battered old fellow in these
days, I know, and if, indeed, you cannot care enough for me----"
He held out his hand again with a very kind smile. She looked
up at him.
"Monsieur Horace," she said, "I--I do--"
And then she put both hands into his with her old, childish
gesture, and I daresay the little weary spirit thought it had
found its rest at last.
CHAPTER VI.
Mrs. Treherne's Forgiveness.
Mrs. Treherne was sitting in the drawing-room of her London
house. The window was open to the hot dusty street, long
shadows lay upon the deserted pavement, the opposite houses
were all closed, and no sound disturbed the stillness of the
September evening but the shouts of the children, as they
played up and down the steps, and under the porticoes of the
houses, and the bells of the Westminster clocks chiming one
quarter after another. Through the half-drawn curtains that
hung between the two drawing-rooms she could see Graham and
Madelon sitting together, looking out upon the Park, as they
talked in low tones, and a sudden sadness filled her heart.
They were to be married next week, and go abroad at once,
whilst she returned to Cornwall; and the even current of a
lonely life, that had been stirred and altered in its course
five years ago, would return to its original channel, to be
disturbed, perhaps, no more.
It was of these five years that Mrs. Treherne was thinking
now, and of others, perhaps, beyond them again, when she too
had been young, and beloved, and happy. There are some lives
which, in their even tenour of mild happiness, seem to glide
smoothly from one scattered sorrow to another, so that to the
very end some of the hopefulness and buoyancy of youth are
retained; but there are others in which are concentrated in
one brief space those keen joys and keener sorrows that no one
quite survives, which, in passing over us take from us our
strongest vitality, our young capacity for happiness and
suffering alike. Such a life had been Mrs. Treherne's. She had
been a woman of deep affections and passions, and they all lay
buried in those early years that had taken from her husband,
and children, and friend, and it was only a dim shadow of her
former self that moved, and spoke, and lived in these latter
days.
It was an old story with her now, however. She did not envy
these two happy people who were talking together in the next
room. It was of Madelon she was thinking most, thinking sadly
enough that in all these years she had not been able to win
the girl's heart. When she had first seen the child of the
friend who in all the world had been most dear to her, she had
promised herself that, for Magdalen's sake, she would take her
home and bring her up as her own daughter; and she had kept
her promise, but she had failed in making her happy. She knew
it now, when she contrasted the Madelon of to-day, going about
with the light in her eyes, and the glad ring in her voice,
with the Madelon of six months ago. She had not been able to
make her happy, and she would leave her without a regret; and
the thought gave Mrs. Treherne a sharper pang than she had
felt for many a day.
And meanwhile this was what Madelon was saying,--
"In another month, Madelon," Graham had said to her, "we shall
be at L----, and you will be looking out on the blue skies that
you have so often longed for."
"Yes," she replied, "and then perhaps I shall be thinking of
the grey ones I have left behind; I shall be sorry to leave
England after all. I will pay your country so much of a
compliment as that, Monsieur Horace, or rather I shall be
sorry to leave some of the English people--Aunt Barbara, I do
not like to think of her alone; she will miss me, she says."
"I should not wonder if she did, Madelon."
"I do not know why she should; I think I have been ungrateful
to her; she has been so good, so kind to me, why have I not
been able to love her more? Where should I have been if she
had not taken care of me? and such care! If I lived to be a
hundred I could never repay all she has done, and now I am
going away to be happy, and she will be lonely and sad."
"We will ask her to come and see us, some day, at L----. I saw a
house when I was there, that would suit us exactly, and it has
a room, which shall be sometimes for Aunt Barbara, sometimes
for Madge. It has an open gallery, and an outside staircase
leading down to the garden, which will delight Madge's small
mind."
"Like my room at Le Trooz," cried Madelon. "Ah! how glad I am
that you can go there first, and that I shall see Jeanne-Marie
again; if only we do not find her ill--it is so long since I
have heard from her, and she used to write so regularly."
"For my part," said Graham, "I wish to see the hotel at
Chaudfontaine, where I first met a small person who was very
rude to me, I remember."
"And your wish will not be gratified, sir, for the season will
be over by next month and the hotel closed for the winter. I
am sorry for that, but I wonder you can wish to see a place
where any one was rude to you--now with me of course it is
different."
"In what way, Madelon?"
"Ah! that I will not tell you--but we will go to the convent at
Liége, Monsieur Horace; I would like to see Soeur Lucie again.
Poor Soeur Lucie--but it is sad to think that she is always
there making her confitures--there are so many other things to
be done in the world."
"For example?"
"Joining a marching regiment," she said, looking at him half-
laughing, half-shyly. "Monsieur Horace, where will you go when
you are tired of L----? You will be tired of it some day, I
know, and so shall I. Where will you go next?"
"I don't know," he answered; "you see, Madelon, in taking a
wife, I undertake a certain responsibility; I can't go
marching about the world as if I were a single man."
"You don't mean that!" she cried, "if I thought you meant
that, I--I--ah, why do you tease me?" she added, as Graham could
not help laughing, "you know you promised me I should go with
you everywhere. I am very strong, I love travelling, I want to
see the world. Where will you go? To America again? I will
adopt the customs and manners of any country; I will dress in
furs with a seal-skin cap, and eat blubber like an Esquimau,
or turn myself into an Indian squaw; would you like to have me
for a squaw, Monsieur Horace? I would lean all their duties; I
believe they carry their husband's game, and never speak till
they are spoken to. My ideas are very vague. But I would
learn--ah, yes, I could learn anything."
Mrs. Treherne was still sitting, thinking her sad thoughts
when she felt an arm passed round her neck, and turning round,
saw Madelon kneeling at her side. "Horace has gone out," she
said; "we have been talking over our plans, Aunt Barbara; we
have settled quite now that we will first go to Liége and Le
Trooz, and see Jeanne-Marie, and then go on to the south. It
is good of Monsieur Horace to go to Liége, for it is all to
please me, and it is quite out of his way."
"And you go on to L---- afterwards? You will be glad to find
yourself abroad again, Madeleine."
"Yes," she said, hesitating; "but I shall be sorry to leave
you, Aunt Barbara."
"Will you, my dear? I am afraid, Madeleine, that I have not
made you very happy, though I have only found it out in these
last few weeks."
"Aunt Barbara, how can you say such a thing?" cried Madelon.
"What have you not done for me? Why, I could never, never
thank you for it all; it is for that--because it is so much--
that I cannot say more. One cannot use the same words that one
does for ordinary things."
"I know, my dear," said Mrs. Treherne, smoothing the girl's
hair, "but nevertheless I have not made you happy, and I now
know the reason why. Yes, I have been talking to Horace, and I
understand your feeling; and if it were all to come again,
perhaps I might act differently; but it is too late now, and
it matters little, since you are happy at last."
"Aunt Barbara, I have been happy----"
"You see, Madeleine, your mother was my very dearest friend;
all your love has been for your father, and that is only
natural; but some day, perhaps, you will understand what a
mother might have been to you, and then, my dear, you will
care for me also a little, knowing how dearly I loved yours."
"I know," said Madelon, "and I do love you, Aunt Barbara, but
I must always care for papa most of all."
"I know, my dear; it is only natural, and from what Horace
tells me, he must have deserved your love." And with those
words, Mrs. Treherne in some sort forgave the man who had been
the one hatred of her life, and won the heart of the girl
beside her.
"Aunt Barbara," she cried again, "I do love you." And this
time Mrs. Treherne believed her.
CHAPTER VII.
Conclusion.
The hotel at Chaudfontaine was closed for the winter. Every
window in the big white building was shuttered, every door
barred; the courtyard was empty; not a footstep, nor a voice
was resounded. Nevertheless, an open carriage from Liége
stopped in front of the gate, and two people getting out,
proceeded to look through the iron bars of the railing.
"Was I not right?" said Madelon. "I told you, Horace, it would
be closed for the winter, and so it is."
"I don't care in the least," he replied. "If it affords me any
gratification, Madelon, to look through the railings into that
courtyard, I don't see why I should not have it."
"Oh! by all means," she answered; "but it is just a little
tame, is it not?--for a sentimental visit, to be looking
through these iron bars."
"That is the very place where I sat," said Graham, not heeding
her, "and took you on my knee."
"I don't remember anything about it, Monsieur Horace----"
"Nothing, Madelon?"
"Well, perhaps--you gave me a fish, I remember--it was the fish
that won my heart; and I have it still, you see."
"Oh! then, your heart was won?"
"A little," she answered, glancing up at him for a moment; and
then, moving on, she said, "See here, Horace, this is the
hawthorn bush under which I slept that morning after I had run
away from the convent. How happy I was to have escaped! I
remember standing at this gate afterwards eating my bread, and
that dreadful woman came out of the hotel."
"Is there no way of getting in?" said Graham, shaking the
gate.
"None, I am afraid," Madelon answered. "Stay, there used to be
a path that led round at the back across a little bridge into
the garden. Perhaps we might get in that way."
They were again disappointed; they found the path, and the
wooden bridge that crossed the stream, but another closed gate
prevented their entering the garden.
"This, however, becomes more and more interesting," said
Graham, after looking at the spot attentively. "Yes, this is
the very place, Madelon, where I first saw you with a doll in
your arms."
"Really!" she said.
"Yes, really; and then some one--your father, I think--called
you away."
They were silent for a minute, looking at the trees, the
shrubs, the grass growing all rough and tangled in the
deserted garden.
"We must go," Graham said at last; "it is getting late,
Madelon, and we have to drive back to Liége, remember, after
we have seen Jeanne-Marie."
They got into the carriage again, and drove on towards Le
Trooz, along the valley under the hills, all red and brown
with October woods, beside the river, gleaming between green
pastures in the low afternoon sun. They had arrived at Liége
the day before, and that morning was to have been devoted to
visiting the convent; but the convent was gone. On inquiry,
they learnt that the nuns had removed to another house ten
miles distant from Liége, and on the hills where the old farm-
house, the white, low-roofed convent had once stood so
peacefully, a great iron-foundry was smoking and spouting fire
day and night, covering field and garden with heaps of black
smouldering ashes.
"How places and things change!" said Madelon, as they drove
along; "we have had two disappointments to-day--shall we have a
third, I wonder? Supposing Jeanne-Marie should have gone to
live in another house? Ah! how glad I shall be to see her
again!--and she will be pleased to see me, I know."
As she spoke, the scattered houses, the church, the white
cottages of Le Trooz came in sight. Madelon checked the driver
as they approached the little restaurant, the first house in
the village, and she and Graham got out of the carriage. The
bench still stood before the door, the pigeons were flying
about, and the bee-hives were on their stand, but the blue
board was gone from the white wall, and the place had a
deserted look.
"It is strange," said Madelon. She pushed open the door that
stood ajar, and went into the little public room; it was
empty; the table shoved away into one corner, the chairs
placed against the wall--no signs of the old life and
occupation.
"Can Jeanne-Marie have gone away, do you think?" said Madelon,
almost piteously. "I am sure she cannot be here."
"I will inquire," said Graham.
He went out into the road, and stopped a little girl of ten or
twelve years, who was walking towards the village with a
pitcher of water.
"Do you know whether the woman who lived in this house has
left?" he asked. "Jeanne-Marie she was called, I think?"
The child stared up at the strange gentleman with the foreign
accent:
"Jeanne-Marie that used to live here?" she said. "She is
dead."
"Dead?" cried Madelon. The tears came rushing into her eyes.
"Ah! why did I not know? I would have come if I had known.
When did she die?"
"More than a month ago," the girl answered; "she died here in
this house."
"And who lives here now?" inquired Graham.
"Jacques Monnier--he that works at the factory now. He is out
all day; but his wife should be here."
And in fact, at the sound of the voices, the door leading into
the kitchen opened, and a young woman appeared.
"Pardon," said Madelon, going forward; "we came here to
inquire for Jeanne-Marie; but she--she is dead, we hear."
"Yes, she is dead," the woman replied; then, in answer to
further questions, told how Jeanne-Marie, when she was taken
ill, had refused to let any one be written to, or sent for;
and had died alone at last with no one near her but a hired
nurse. "She left enough money for her burial, and to have a
wooden cross put on her grave," said the woman, "and asked M.
le Curé to see that all her things were sold, and the money
given to the poor."
"Is she buried here?" said Madelon. "Horace, I should like to
see her grave."
"Louise, there, can show it to you," says Madame Monnier,
pointing to the child; "run home with your water, _ma petite_,
and then come back and show Monsieur and Madame the road to
the churchyard."
"And I have a favour to beg," said Madelon, turning to the
woman again. "I knew Jeanne-Marie well; she was very kind to
me at one time. Might I see the room in which she died? It is
upstairs, is it not, with the window opening on to the steps
leading into the garden?"
The woman consented civilly enough, concealing any
astonishment she might feel at this tall, beautiful lady, who
had come to inquire after Jeanne-Marie; and Madelon left
Graham below, and went up alone to the little bed-room, where
she had spent so many hours. It was hardly altered. The bed
stood in the old place; the vines clustered round the window.
Madelon's heart was full of sorrow; she had loved Jeanne-Marie
so much, and more and more perhaps, as years went on, and she
had learnt to understand better all that the woman had done
for her--and she had died alone--she who had saved her life.
When she came down again Louise had reappeared, and was
waiting to conduct them to the churchyard. The child went on
in front, and they followed her in silence down the village
street. It was already evening, the sun had sunk behind the
hills; the men were returning from their work; the children
were playing and shouting, and the women stood gossiping
before their doors. All was life and animation in the little
village, where a strange, silent woman had once passed to and
fro, with deeds and words of kindness for the suffering and
sorrowful, but who would be seen there no more.
"There is the grave," says Louise, pointing it out to them. It
was in a corner of the little graveyard; the earth was still
fresh over it, and the black cross at its head was one of the
newest amongst the hundred similar ones round about. Graham
dismissed the child with a gratuity, and he and Madelon went
up to the grave. There was no name, only the initials J. M. R.
painted on the cross beneath the three white tears, and the
customary "_Priez pour elle!_" Some one had hung up a wreath of
immortelles, and a rose-tree, twined round a neighbouring
cross, had shed its petals above Jeanne-Marie's head.
Madelon knelt down and began to pull out some weeds that had
sprung up, whilst Graham stood looking on. Long afterwards,
one might fancy, would that hour still live in his memory--the
peaceful stillness brooding over the little graveyard, the
sunset sky, the sheltering hills, the scent of the falling
roses, and Madelon, in her dark dress, kneeling by the grave.
Her task was soon accomplished, but she knelt on motionless.
Who shall say of what she was thinking? Something perhaps of
the real meaning of life, of its great underlying sadness,
ennobled by patient suffering, by unselfish devotion, for
presently she turned round to Graham.
"Oh, Horace," she said, "help me to be good; I am not, you
know, but I would like to be----and you will help me."
"My little Madelon!" he raised her up, he took her in his
arms. "We will both try to be good, with God's help. The world
is all before us, to work in, and do our best--we will do what
we can; with God's help, I say, we will do what we can."
They drove swiftly back towards Liége; the air blew freshly in
their faces, the sunset colours faded, the stars came out one
by one. As they vanish from our sight, they seem to fade into
the mysterious twilight land. For them, as for us, other suns
will rise, other days will dawn, but we shall have no part in
them; between them and us falls the darkness of eternal
separation.
THE END.
PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER.
Typographical errors silently corrected by the transcriber :
Part 1 chapter 3 : =Ou est-il donc, ce petit drôle?= silently
corrected as =Où est-il donc, ce petit drôle?=
Part 1 chapter 3 : =ton père nous attends= silently corrected as
=ton père nous attend=
Part 1 chapter 5 : =large porte-cochères at intervals= silently
corrected as =large portes-cochères at intervals=
Part 1 chapter 5 : =went to the grande messe= silently corrected
as =went to the grand' messe=
Part 1 chapter 5 : =for a late déjeûner= silently corrected as
=for a late déjeuner=
Part 2 chapter 4 : =bursts of passionate crying?= silently
corrected as =bursts of passionate crying.=
Part 2 chapter 8 : =Ecoutes, Madelon= silently corrected as
=Ecoute, Madelon=
Part 2 chapter 11 : =his late déjeûner= silently corrected as
=his late déjeuner=
Part 2 chapter 12 : =quite irrevelant= silently corrected as
=quite irrelevant=
Part 2 chapter 14 : =said so many things;= silently corrected as
=said so many things,=
Part 3 chapter 2 : =he said, but one of the children= silently
corrected as =he said, "but one of the children=
Part 3 chapter 3 : =but she is; without exception= silently
corrected as =but she is, without exception=
Part 3 chapter 4 : =je m'étouffe ici= silently corrected as
=j'étouffe ici=
Part 3 chapter 5 : =aret hey not pretty= silently corrected as
="are they not pretty=
Part 3 chapter 5 : ="Yes, you pitied me= silently corrected as
=Yes, you pitied me=
Part 3 chapter 6 : =like an Esquimaux= silently corrected as =like an
Esquimau=
Part 3 chapter 7 : =lived in this house has left!= silently
corrected as =lived in this house has left?=
End of Project Gutenberg's My Little Lady, by Eleanor Frances Poynter