THE MADAME’S CONFESSION.
“Can wealth give happiness? look round and see
What gay distress! what splendid misery!”--YOUNG.
Ethel had never betrayed the slightest curiosity in regard to her
aunt’s crippled condition, not only refraining from asking questions,
but with delicate tact seeming utterly unconscious of it; but the
Madame’s words to-night, and the slight accompanying gesture, so
plainly indicating that the loss of her hand was in some way connected
with that past which so filled her with remorse, kindled in the young
girl’s breast a strong desire to learn the whole truth; and since her
aunt had voluntarily promised to tell her all, she did not feel called
upon to repress the wish.
Mary’s entrance with a light, and the announcement that tea was ready,
prevented a reply to the remark with which the Madame supplemented her
promise, and the subject was not broached again during the hour or two
that they remained together after the conclusion of the meal.
But having withdrawn to the privacy of her own apartments, Ethel sat
long over the fire in her boudoir lost in thought, vainly trying to
conjecture what cruelty her aunt could have been guilty of toward the
sister she seemed to remember with such tender affection.
“Hate her!” she exclaimed half aloud, thinking of the Madame’s
sadly-spoken words. “No, no, I could not do that, whatever she has
done! I should be an ingrate if I could,” she added, sending a sweeping
glance about the elegantly-appointed room, and as she did so catching
the reflection in an opposite mirror of a slight, graceful, girlish
figure richly and tastefully attired, reclining at ease on the most
comfortable of softly-cushioned chairs in front of a glowing, beautiful
fire.
Without the storm was raging with increased violence; it seemed to have
culminated in a furious tempest.
Absorbed in her own musings, Ethel had hardly been conscious of it
before; but now the howling of the wind, the dashing of the waves on
the shore, and the rattling of the sleet against the windows made her
shiver and sigh as she thought of the homeless on land and the sailors
on the water alike exposed to this wild war of the elements.
Ah, were Espy and her dear unknown mother among the number? What a
throb of fear and pain came with that thought!
But she put it resolutely aside. She would hope for the best,
and--there was One who knew where each of these loved ones was, and who
was able to take care of them. To His kind keeping she would commit
both them and herself, and go to her rest with the peaceful, confiding
trust of a little child.
“Ah, little one, how did you rest?” was Madame Le Conte’s morning
salutation.
“Delightfully, auntie; dropped asleep the instant my head touched the
pillow, and knew no more till I woke to find the sun shining in at the
windows. And you? how did you rest?”
“Very little,” the Madame sighed, shaking her head sadly; “my asthma
was worse than usual, and would scarcely allow me to lie down.”
“I am so sorry! But you are better?”
“Yes; the attack has passed.”
The tempest was over, the day still, calm, and bright, but intensely
cold, and the streets were so blocked up by a heavy fall of snow that
going out was not to be thought of; nor were they likely to be troubled
with callers.
“We shall have the day to ourselves,” the Madame remarked as they left
the breakfast-table, “and if you will invite me into your boudoir,
Pansy, we will pass the morning there for variety.”
“I shall be delighted to entertain and wait upon you, Aunt Nannette,”
Ethel answered, with a smile.
She was looking very lovely in a pretty morning dress of crimson
cashmere, edged at neck and sleeves with ruches of soft, rich lace.
Having seen her aunt comfortably established in an easy chair, Ethel
took possession of a low rocker near her side, and employing her busy
fingers with some fancy work--a shawl of soft white zephyr which she
was crocheting for Hetty--waited with outward composure, but inward
impatience, for the fulfilment of yesterday’s promise.
The Madame sat with her hands folded in her lap, her eyes gazing into
vacancy, her breathing somewhat labored, her thoughts evidently far
away. To Ethel’s eager expectance it seemed a long time that she sat
thus, but at length she began, in a low, even tone, much as if she
were reading aloud, and with eyes still looking straight before her:
“I was eight years older than my sister Ethel, my little Pansy. There
had been others, but they all died in infancy, and we two were the only
ones left when our parents were taken. That was when Ethel was fourteen
and I twenty-two.
“I tried to be a mother to her. I was very fond of her, yet now I can
see that I always cared more for my own happiness than for hers--always
wanted to be first, and to rule her.
“We lived in Jefferson, Indiana, a mere village, to which the family
had removed shortly before the death of our father; he and mother went
very near together, both dying of congestive chills. We were left with
a little home of our own and a modest competence, and we continued to
keep house, a middle-aged woman who had been in the family from the
time of my birth matronizing us and taking the oversight of domestic
affairs.”
Madame Le Conte paused for breath, and Ethel said softly, “Aunt, you
have never told me the family name; it seems odd enough that I should
never have heard it--my own mother’s maiden name.”
“Gramont--Nannette and Ethel Gramont we were called, and I have always
thought them very pretty names.”
Again the Madame paused for a moment. Her voice trembled slightly as
she resumed:
“It was something more than a year after we were left alone in the
world that Rolfe Heywood came to Jefferson and opened a dry-goods
store. He was a fine-looking, gentlemanly fellow, some twenty three or
four years old, I should think, well educated, of agreeable manners,
and rather fond of ladies’ society.
“I was pleased with him, and the liking seemed to be mutual. He became
a frequent visitor at our house, and soon the girls began to tease me
about him. He was said to be paying attention to me, and indeed I think
he was at first, and I gave him some little encouragement--not much,
for I had several suitors, and was naturally inclined to coquetry; but
I liked Rolfe Heywood best of all. I think partly because I was less
sure of him than of the others, and that piqued my vanity and pride.
“He did not offer himself, but kept on coming to the house and making
himself very much at home there. And so things went on for nearly two
years, when all at once I discovered that it was Ethel he admired and
wanted. She was seventeen now, and a sweeter, prettier creature you
never saw. Ah, my darling little Pansy!”
Tears rolled down the Madame’s cheeks. She hastily wiped them away.
“How did you make the discovery, aunt?” her niece asked in low but
eager tones.
“By a look I saw him give her, and which she did not see. It made me
furious at him, and I vowed he should never have her. I thought she did
not care for him. I kept her out of his way as much as I could, and she
made no resistance. But the more obstacles I threw in his way the more
eager after her he became.
“At length we learned that he had sold out his business and was going
to California, and now my eyes were opened to the fact that Pansy did
care for him, she turned so white when she heard the news.
“But I said to myself that it was only a passing fancy, and she would
soon forget him. I watched her constantly, and contrived never to allow
them to be alone together.
“But one day--the day he was to leave--he called, and found her alone
in the parlor. He had not been there ten minutes, though, before I
hurried in, pretending to think his call was meant as much for me as
for her, and was just in time to prevent a declaration of love which I
saw he was beginning.
“It was his last opportunity, and he went away without telling her his
feelings or learning hers. He held her hand lingeringly in parting, but
I gave him no chance to speak.
“Poor thing! she drooped sadly when he was gone, but I took no notice,
saying to myself, ‘She’ll get over it in time.’
“I thought he would write, and he did. I took his letter from the
office, deliberately broke the seal, read it (’twas full of passionate
love, and would have been a cordial to the poor darling’s fainting
heart), and answered with a cold rejection of his suit, imitating my
sister’s hand so perfectly that even she could hardly have recognized
it as a counterfeit, and signing her name.
“Monsieur Le Conte was paying me attention at this time, having come to
the place some months before. He was a handsome, middle-aged man, of
courtly manners and considerable wealth. I found his company agreeable,
and before we had been acquainted a year we were married.
“He had an intimate friend, a distant relative, Adrian Farnese, who
came to see us shortly after our marriage, and who took a violent fancy
to Ethel from the first moment he set eyes on her.
“He courted her assiduously, but she turned coldly from him and
rejected his addresses again and again, much to my husband’s annoyance
and mine, for we both liked Adrian and desired the match.
“I undertook to reason with Ethel, saying everything I could think of
in Adrian’s favor. She heard me in sad silence, and when at last I
insisted upon her giving me a reason for her persistent rejection, she
burst into tears, crying out, ‘Oh, how can I marry him when my heart is
another’s?’
“Then I twitted her with giving her heart unasked, said I knew it was
to Rolfe Heywood she had lost it, but he didn’t care for her now, if he
ever had; that was plain enough from his silence. No doubt he had found
a new sweetheart by this time--perhaps was already married.
“My poor little Pansy never answered back a word, but cried as if her
heart would break.”
The Madame’s voice broke. She stopped, buried her face in her
handkerchief, and sobbed aloud. Tears were stealing down the cheeks of
her listener also, and for a moment neither spoke.
Then the Madame resumed her narrative:
“As I said before, Ethel and I were very different--she so gentle and
yielding, so ready to think others wiser than herself; I proud and
wilful, always made more determined by opposition. I resolved that she
should marry Adrian Farnese.”
“Oh, how could you be so cruel?” cried her listener.
“Ah, try not to hate me! I have suffered terribly for my fault, as you
shall learn presently,” said the Madame in piteous tones. “But how
shall I tell of all my wicked unkindness to that poor child! I wrote
a notice of the marriage of Rolfe Heywood, giving a fictitious name
to the bride, and sent it to a paper published in New York. I was a
subscriber, and when the number with the notice came I showed it to
Ethel, saying, ‘You see I was right. Rolfe Heywood cared nothing for
you, and is already united to another.’”
“She turned deathly white, seemed about to faint, but recovering
herself a little, hastily left the room.
“‘Now,’ I thought, ‘she will presently give up and marry Adrian.’ But
she would not hear of it, and avoided him whenever she could without
absolute rudeness.
“‘No, she’ll never give up while she knows Rolfe Heywood is alive,’ I
said to my husband one day.
“‘Then we must make her believe him dead,’ he answered.
“I was afraid to publish a false report of his death, but we got one
printed on a slip of paper that had the appearance of having been cut
from a newspaper, and I gave it to my sister. She swooned, and looked
so deathlike, seemed so utterly crushed for days and weeks afterward,
that I could scarcely refrain from telling her the whole truth. But the
fear of my husband’s displeasure, and the thought that if I did Rolfe
Heywood would get her after all, restrained me. So I kept my secret,
and tried to make all other amends in my power by being very kind and
sympathizing.
“Ah, her gratitude for it was quite touching--almost harder to
withstand than her grief!
“She seemed gradually to recover from the shock, but was never again
the light-hearted, merry creature she had been before Rolfe Heywood
went away.”
“And she learned at last to love--?” Ethel broke off without
pronouncing the name.
“She finally gave up to us and married him,” sighed the Madame. “How
much she loved him, if at all, I do not know. I tried to believe her
not unhappy, and she made no complaint.
“However, they had not been married many months when a fierce quarrel
arose between our husbands. It was about some money matters. I never
fully understood it, but I then learned for the first time that it
was more Pansy’s little fortune Adrian wanted than herself, and that
Monsieur Le Conte’s influence was used in his favor because they had
agreed that in that way he should cancel a debt owed to Adrian. Had I
known this I would never have let them use me as their tool.”
“And he was my father!” murmured Ethel in a pained tone.
“Yes, child, and you might justly hate me for giving you such a one!”
exclaimed the Madame almost passionately. “I’m afraid he was a bad man.
I fear he was unkind to my sister; but she was loyal to him, poor thing.
“When the quarrel arose between him and Monsieur Le Conte I sided with
my husband, and went to Ethel with his version of the affair; but she
would not listen to me.
“‘I am his wife now,’ she said; ‘I will hear nothing against him. And
you, Nannette, who brought about the match, should be the last to tempt
me to do so.’
“I was very angry, and heaped bitter reproaches upon her,” pursued the
Madame, almost overcome by emotion. “She heard them in grieved silence,
which somehow only exasperated me the more, and I said still harder and
more cruel words. And so I left her.”
For some minutes the room was filled with the sound of the Madame’s
sobs, and Ethel wept with her.
“It was our last interview,” she began again in a broken voice. “A
few days later her husband spirited her away no one knew whither, and
from that day to this I have never heard a word from her or about her,
except what I have learned through you--her child.
“I have now told you of my crime; I have yet to tell of its punishment.
In spite of all my unkindness, I loved my sister; how dearly I never
guessed till she was gone. I was nearly frantic at her loss, and at the
thought of my last words to her.
“The world went prosperously with us so far as money was concerned. My
husband invested my little fortune and his own partly in an oil-well,
partly in a gold-mine in California, and we were wonderfully successful
in both. But we were not happy. Remorse and anxiety about Pansy made me
wretched and robbed me of my vivacity and my bloom. I grew dull and
spiritless, and my husband began to neglect me and to seek the society
of other women, whom, as he said, he found more entertaining.
“I sought forgetfulness in dress and all sorts of dissipation. I could
not bear to be alone; but sometimes Monsieur Le Conte’s business would
call him away for days and weeks together. I had no child, and I could
not always go out or contrive to have company in the house; and so at
times I would try to drown my misery in the wine-cup.
“I did not become a drunkard, but two or three times I drank to
intoxication.”
She paused, and, with a downward glance at her mutilated limb, sighed
heavily.
“One wild, stormy night I was quite alone,” she continued. “The wind
howled round the house like a legion of devils, as it seemed to me,
and the air was full of eerie sounds. I had been more than usually
depressed all day, and grew worse and worse as the hours crept slowly
by. My husband I knew would not be home before morning; one servant was
away, and the other had gone to bed in a distant part of the house.
“I wasn’t exactly afraid, but I kept thinking of Ethel, and how I had
ill-used her, and that I should probably never see her again, till I
was half crazed with remorse. At last I could not endure it any longer.
I kept wine in a closet in my dressing-room; I went to it, poured out
and drank one glass after another till I was quite stupefied.
“The last thing I remember is dropping into a chair beside the fire--a
low-down grate filled with glowing coals; the next I knew I awoke in my
bed, roused to consciousness by a sharp pain in my right arm.
“My husband, the servant-woman--who was crying bitterly--and two or
three doctors were in the room. They were talking in low tones, and
kept glancing at me.
“‘What is the matter?’ I asked; ‘what have you been doing to my hand
that it pains me so?’ It was the surgeon nearest me who answered.
“‘Madame,’ he said in a compassionate tone, ‘it was so badly burned
that we were obliged to take it off.’
“‘Off! burned!’ I shrieked, wild with terror and despair.
“‘Yes,’ he said, ‘your husband found you lying insensible on the floor,
with your right hand in the grate and burnt almost to a cinder.’”
Ethel sprang up, threw her arms about the Madame’s neck, and sobbed
aloud.
“My poor, poor aunt!” she said when she could speak. “What a dreadful,
dreadful thing it was! My heart aches for you! oh, how could you bear
it?”
Madame Le Conte returned the caress, then Ethel resumed her seat.
“I could not escape it!” she sighed, “and I felt that it was a just
punishment that deprived me of the hand I had used to forge the notices
which robbed my sister of her lover.
“Remorse has tortured me horribly many a time since, but I never have
resorted to the intoxicating cup to escape its stings.
“I gave up society from the time of my accident. I could not bear
the thought of exposing myself to the curious gaze and questioning of
common acquaintances or of strangers.
“My husband pitied me very much, and never once said to me, ‘It is your
own fault,’ as well he might. Finding how I shrank from meeting any
one I knew, he proposed removing to this city, where we were entirely
unknown, and I was glad to come. It is now ten years since he died,
leaving me everything he possessed.”