PANSY.
“A hundred thousand welcomes: I could weep,
And I could laugh; I am light and heavy: welcome!”
SHAKESPEARE.
Madame Le Conte received her legal adviser that morning in her boudoir,
rising from her easy chair in her eager haste to learn if he were the
bearer of tidings, and coming forward to meet him as he entered.
“What news, Mr. Tredick? I see in your face that you have some for me!”
she cried, almost breathless with excitement and the exertion, slight
as it was.
“Ah! are you so skilled in reading faces?” he returned playfully.
“Well, I own that I have a bit of news for you--good news as far as
it goes. But let me beg you to be seated and calm yourself before I
proceed further.”
“Oh, go on, go on! don’t keep me in suspense!” she cried in increasing
agitation, sinking into her chair again and pointing him to a seat as
she spoke.
“Remember it is good news,” he repeated, taking up a large feather
fan and beginning to fan her flushed cheeks, while Mary brought her
smelling-salts and asked if she would have a glass of water.
She made a gesture of refusal, and pointed to the door opening into her
dressing-room.
The girl at once obeyed the hint and went out, closing the door after
her.
“Now, Mr. Tredick, speak, speak!” exclaimed the Madame imperatively.
“Have you heard anything of--of--”
“Your sister? No--yes; that is, nothing recent, but I have just learned
that she has a daughter living at no great distance from this. Shall I
send for the girl?”
“Send for her? How could you wait to ask? Why did you delay a moment
when you know that I’m dying with longing for the sight of somebody
who has a drop of my blood in her veins?” she interrupted in great
excitement and anger.
“Only for your own sake, Madame,” he answered deprecatingly. “Knowing
the precarious state of your health--”
“Oh, don’t stop to talk!” she cried, half rising from her chair. “Where
is she? She must be sent for this instant! As if I could wait, and my
sister’s child within reach! Mary must run down and order the carriage
at once.”
“Softly, softly, my dear Madame,” he said soothingly. “I have
anticipated your wishes so far as to make arrangements for the
young lady to be here within an hour from this time,” consulting
his watch, “and in the mean while I must lay before you the proofs
of her identity, and have your opinion as to their being altogether
satisfactory and convincing.”
“Oh, if you have decided that they are, it’s quite sufficient,” she
answered with a sort of weary impatience; “you would be less easily
deceived than I.”
“But we may as well fill up the time with the examination; and you
will be glad to learn something of your sister’s history after your
separation?” he remarked persuasively, taking from his pocket the
papers Floy had given him.
“Ah, yes, yes!” she cried with eagerness. “I did not understand that
you had that to communicate to me. Ah, Pansy, Pansy! my poor little
Pansy!” and covering her face with her handkerchief, she sobbed
convulsively.
“Come, my dear Madame, cheer up!” he said, “she is still living--”
“Oh, is she? is she?” she again interrupted him, starting up wildly.
“But why don’t you go on? why will you keep me in this torturing
suspense?”
“I am trying to go on as fast as I can,” he said a little impatiently.
“I was about to correct my last statement by saying we have at least
reason to hope that your sister still lives, and that we shall yet find
her.”
“But the girl--the daughter--have you seen her? and doesn’t she know
all about her mother?”
“No, Madame; but if you want to hear the facts, as far as I have been
able to gather them, your best plan will be to listen quietly to what
I have to say. There is quite a little story to be told, and one that
cannot fail to be of interest to you.”
Of interest! The Madame almost held her breath lest she should lose a
syllable of the narrative as he went on to describe the scenes enacted
in the shanty inn and depot at Clearfield Station, in which her sister
had borne so conspicuous a part.
Then he showed her the deed of gift.
“Yes, yes,” she said, pointing to the signature, “that is my poor
Ethel’s handwriting. I should recognize it anywhere. It was always
peculiar. Oh, where is the child?”
“Downstairs in the parlor. Shall I call her? shall I bring her to you?”
She was too much moved to speak. She nodded assent.
In a moment more Floy stood before her.
The Madame gave a cry of mingled joy and surprise, and held out her
arms.
“Is it you--_you_? oh, I am glad! I am the happiest woman alive!”
Floy knelt down by her side and suffered herself to be enfolded by the
stout arms, pressed against the broad breast, kissed and cried over.
She had meditated upon Madame’s sufferings from loneliness and disease
till her heart was melted with pity. She had thought upon the fact
that the same blood flowed in their veins--that this was the sister,
the only, and probably dearly loved, sister of the unknown yet beloved
mother of whom she was in quest--till a feeling akin to affection had
sprung up within her.
“My poor dear aunt,” she whispered, twining her arms about the Madame’s
neck and imprinting a kiss upon her lips, “what a dreary, lonely life
you have had! God helping me, I will make it happier than it has been.”
“Ah, yes, child!” returned her new-found relative, repeating her caress
with added tenderness; “and you, you poor darling! shall never have
to toil for your bread any more. Ah, what a delight it will be to me
to lavish on you every desirable thing that money can buy! It is Miss
Kemper, but it is my little Pansy too; did I not see the likeness from
the first?” and the tears coursed down the Madame’s swarthy cheeks.
“Why do you call me that?” asked Floy.
“It was my pet name for my sister. She was so sweet and pretty, so
modest, gentle, and retiring. And she called me Tulip, because, as she
said, my beauty was gorgeous, like that of the flower. You would not
think it now; there’s not a trace of it left,” she added, with a heavy
sigh and a rueful glance into a pier-glass opposite.
It was all quite true. Nannette Gramont (that was the Madame’s maiden
name) had a sylph-like form, a rich brunette complexion, sparkling
eyes, ruby lips, a countenance and manners full of vivacity and mirth.
Now she was dull and spiritless; her eye had lost its brightness; the
once smiling mouth wore a fretful expression; the smooth, clear skin
had grown sallow and disfigured by pimples and blotches not to be
concealed by the most liberal use of powder and rouge, poor substitute
for the natural bloom which had disappeared forever under the combined
influence of high living, indulged temper, remorse and consequent
ill-health, far more than advancing years.
“You were not alike then?” Floy said, with a secret sense of relief.
“No, no! never in the least, in looks or disposition. I was always
quick-tempered and imperious, Ethel so gentle and yielding that we
never quarrelled--never till--ah, I cannot endure the thought of it!”
And burying her face in her handkerchief, the Madame wept bitterly.
For a moment there was no sound in the room but her heavy sobbing, Floy
feeling quite at a loss for words of consolation; but at last she said
softly:
“One so gentle and sweet would never harbor resentment, especially
toward a dear, only sister.”
“No, no; but it has parted us forever--this unkindness of mine! And it
may be that she--my sweet one, my dear one--has perished with want,
while I rolled in wealth. Ah, me! what shall I do?”
“I believe she is living still, and that we shall yet find her!” cried
Floy, starting up in excitement and pacing to and fro, her hands
clasped over her beating heart, her eyes shining with hope.
“It may be so,” said the Madame, wiping away her tears. “Child, would
you like to see your mother’s face?” She drew out of her bosom the
little gold locket which of late she had worn almost constantly, and
opening it, held it out to Floy.
In an instant the young girl was again on her knees at her aunt’s
side, bending over that pretty child-face, one strangely like it in
feature and coloring, yet unlike in its eager curiosity, its tremulous
agitation, the yearning tenderness in the great, dark, lustrous eyes.
“How sweet! how lovely!” she said, raising her eyes to her aunt’s face
again. “But ah, if I could see her as she was when grown up!”
“Look in the glass and you will,” said the Madame.
Floy’s face flushed with pleasure.
The Madame opened the other side of the locket.
“This was of me, taken at the same time,” she said, displaying the
likeness of a girl some six or eight years older in appearance than the
first; bright and handsome too, but with a darker beauty, and a proud,
wilful expression in place of the sweet gentleness of the other. “Our
mother had them painted for herself. After her death I claimed the
locket as mine by right of priority of birth, and though Pansy wished
very much to have it, she yielded to me for peace’s sake, as usual.”
“You, too, were a very pretty child, Mad--” Floy broke off in confusion.
“Aunt Nannette,” corrected the Madame, with a slight smile, passing her
hand caressingly over the soft, shining hair of her newly-found niece.
“Aunt Nannette, or simply auntie, as you like, my little Pansy.”
There was an earnest, unspoken entreaty in Floy’s eyes as she glanced
from the locket to her aunt’s face.
“There is hardly anything I would refuse you, little one,” the Madame
said in answer, “but this I cannot part with. I will have them copied
for you, though; and the locket itself shall be enough handsomer
to more than compensate for the pictures being only copies of the
original.”