As for Madelon, she went home with her mind diverted from her own
unhappiness by Burr's, and, in spite of his assurance, might have
gone to visit her righteous anger upon Dorothy had she not heard that
very night that Burr and Parson Fair's daughter were to be married in
a month's time.
The next day Lot sent again for her, and she obeyed, with her proud
sense of duty to her future husband, although every step she took
towards him carried her farther away. His conduct began to puzzle her
more than ever. Again he sent her to the desk drawer, and this time
for a roll of precious rose-colored satin stuff, fit for a queen's
gown; but she would have none of that either, although he pleaded
with her to take it. When she started to go away he called her back,
and called her back, and when she came had nothing to say, until she
lost patience and went home.
And the day after that he sent again, and there was a great carved
comb for her in the desk drawer, and some rose-colored satin shoes;
but she thrust them back indignantly. "Understand once for all, Lot
Gordon," said she, "you I will take, as I would take my death,
because I have pledged my word; but your presents I will not take."
"I have been buying them and treasuring them, against the time you
would have them, for years," pleaded Lot.
"I tell you I will not have them," said she.
That day, as the day before, he called her back again and again, and
looked at her as if he had something on his mind which he would and
could not say; and she went home at last resolved not to go again
until she was obliged to for the marriage ceremony.
The next day was Sunday, and Madelon went to meeting and sang, as
usual. Burr was not there, but pretty Dorothy was, and looked up at
Madelon with a kind of wondering alarm when she sang. Madelon had the
heart of one who sings her death-song, and there was something of it
in her face that morning. Unconsciously people looked past her, when
her voice rang out, to see some dead wall of horror at her back to
account for the strange tones in it and the look in her face. She had
never looked handsomer, however, than she did that day. Her cheeks
had the bloom of roses, and her black eyes seemed to give out their
own light, like stars.
She held up her head like a queen as she sang, and her wonderful
voice sounded through and beyond the viols and violins, and all the
other singing voices. The agony within her was great to penetrate the
consciousness of others through this fair triumphant mask.
Madelon looked better than her rival that morning. Dorothy sat, as
usual, daintily clad in her Sabbath silks and swan's-downs, with a
sweet atmosphere as of a flower around her; but her delicate color
had faded, and her blue eyes looked as if she had been weeping and
had not slept. She never glanced once at Eugene Hautville up in the
singing-seats; but sometimes he looked at her, and then her face
quivered under his eyes.
That noon Lot Gordon sent again for Madelon, but this time she
refused to go. "Tell him I am busy and can't come," she told Margaret
Bean's husband, who had brought the note. The old man went off,
muttering over her message to himself lest he forget it. She heard
him repeating it in a childish sing-song--"Tell him I'm busy and
can't come; tell him I'm busy and can't come"--as he went out of the
yard, slanting his old body before the south wind. The wind blew from
the south that day in great gusts as warm as summer; the air was full
of the sounds of running water, of sweet, interrupted tinkles and
sudden gurgles and steady outpourings as from a thousand pitchers.
The snow was going fast; here and there were bare patches that showed
a green shimmer across the wind. Sometimes spring comes with a rush
to New England on the 1st of April.
That afternoon Madelon went to meeting and sang again, and when she
got home Margaret Bean was waiting for her, sitting, a motionless,
swaddled figure, beside a window. The Hautvilles never locked their
doors while away from home, and she had walked in and waited at her
ease until Madelon should return.
Madelon came in alone; her father, Abner, and Eugene had stopped in
the barn to look after the roan, who had gone somewhat lame in one
foot, and Louis and Richard had lagged. Margaret Bean stood up when
Madelon entered.
"You'd better come over," said she.
"Didn't I tell your husband I couldn't?" returned Madelon, harshly.
"You'd better, I guess."
"I've got my father's and brothers' supper to get, and other things
to see to. Tell him he must leave me in peace to-day, or I'll never
come." Madelon's voice rose high and strident. She unfastened her
cloak as if it choked her. Margaret looked at her, her small black
eyes peering out wrathfully from her swathing woollens. She was as
much wrapped up on this mild day as she had been when the cold was
intense. A certain dogged attitude towards the weather Margaret Bean
always took. On Thanksgiving Day she donned her winter garments; on
May Day she exchanged them for her summer ones, regardless of the
temperature. She never made any compromises or concessions. She
sweltered in her full regalia of wools on mild spring days; she
weathered the early November blasts in her straw bonnet and silk
shawl, without an extra kerchief around her stiff old neck. To-day
she would not loosen her wraps as she sat waiting for Madelon in the
warm room, but remained all securely pinned and tied as when she
entered.
However, her discomfort, although she would not yield to it, aroused
her temper. "You'd better come," said she, "or you'll be sorry."
Madelon made no reply.
"He's sick," said Margaret Bean; "he's took considerable worse." She
nodded her head angrily at Madelon.
"Is his cough worse?"
"He can scarcely sit up," said Margaret Bean, with severe emphasis.
She rose up stiffly, as if she had but one joint, so girt about was
she. "If a woman's going to marry a man, I calculate it's her place
to go to him when he's sick and wants her," she added.
"Is his cough worse?"
"Ain't his cough bad all the time? Well, I'm going. If folks 'ain't
got any feelings, they 'ain't. I've got to make some porridge for
him."
Madelon opened the door for her. "I'll come over after supper," said
she; "you can tell him so."
After supper Madelon went over to Lot's in the early twilight. The
tinkles and gurgles and plashes of water came mysteriously from all
sides through the dusk. The hill-sides were flowing with shallow
cascades, and the woods were threaded with brooks. The wind blew
strongly as ever from the south; it had lost the warmth of the sun,
but was still soft. The earth was full of a strange commotion and
stir--of disorder changing into order, as if creation had come again.
It might have been the very birthnight of the spring. Madelon, as she
hurried along, felt that memory of old, joyous anticipation which
enhances melancholy when the chance of realization is over. The
spring might come, radiant as ever, with its fulfilment of love for
flowers and birds and all living things, but the spring would never
come in its full meaning, with its old prophecies, for her again.
Just before she reached Lot's home, Burr passed her swiftly with a
muttered "good-evening." He was on his way to Dorothy Fair's.
"Good-evening," Madelon returned, quite clearly.
She found Lot sitting up, but she could see that he looked worse than
usual. He was paler, and there was an odd, nervous contraction about
his whole face, as if a frown of anxiety and perplexity had extended.
He held out his hand, but she took no notice of it.
"I have come," said she; "what is it?"
"Won't you shake hands, Madelon?"
Madelon held out her hand, with her face averted, but Lot did not
take it, after all.
"My hand is too cold," he muttered; "never mind--" He continued to
look at her, and the anxious lines on his face deepened.
"Are you feeling worse than usual?" Madelon asked; and a little
kindness came into her voice, for Lot Gordon looked again like a sick
child who had lost his way in the world.
Lot shook his head, with his wistful eyes still upon her face. A
little light-stand, with his medicines and a candle, stood on his
left. Presently he reached out and took a little box from off it, and
extended it to Madelon. She shrank back.
"Take it, Madelon."
"No, I don't want it."
"Oh, Madelon, take it and open it at least, and let me see you."
Madelon took the box, with an impatient gesture, and opened it, and a
ring set with a great pearl gleamed on its red velvet cushion. She
closed the box and held it out towards Lot. "I want no presents,
Lot," she said, but almost gently.
"Oh, Madelon, keep it!"
She reached across him, and laid the little box back on the table.
"There's another ring I've got for you you'll have to wear, Madelon."
"I will wear what I must, for the sake of my promise, when the time
comes, but that is all I will do," returned Madelon; and she seemed
to feel, as she spoke, the wedding-ring close around her finger like
a snake.
"Can nothing I can give you please you, Madelon?"
"No, Lot," she said, but not ungently. She began to move away.
"Madelon," said Lot.
"Well?" Madelon waited, but Lot said not another word. She went on
towards the door.
"Madelon," he whispered, and she stopped again; but this time also
there was a long silence, which he did not break.
Madelon opened the door, and his piteous cry came for the third time,
and she waited on the threshold; but again he said nothing more.
"Good-night," said she, shortly, and was out, and the door shut. Then
she heard a cry from him, as if he were dying. "Madelon, Madelon!"
She opened the door with a jerk, and went back. "Lot," said she,
sternly, "this is the last time I will come back. Once for all, what
is it you want of me?"
Lot looked up at her, his face working. He strove to speak and could
not. He strove again, and his voice was weak and gasping as if the
breath of life had almost left him. "We--had better not be
married--to-morrow," he said, with his piteous eyes upon Madelon's
face.
She started, and stared at him as if she feared she did not hear
rightly.
"I--have been--thinking it over," Lot went on, panting; "I am not as
well--we had better wait--until--May. My cough--the doctor--we will
wait--Madelon!" Lot's broken speech ended in a pitiful cry of her
name.
"Why do you do this?" she asked, looking at him with her white, stern
face, through which an expression of joy, which she tried to keep
back, was struggling.
"I am not as well, Madelon," Lot answered, with sudden readiness and
sad dignity. "If you do not object to the change of time we had best
defer it."
Madelon looked away. "There is no need of any pretence between us,"
she said; "I am sorry you are not as well."
"But not sorry that our wedded bliss must be deferred?"
"No," said she. Then she went away, and that time Lot did not call
her back. She heard him coughing hard as she went through the entry.
When she came out of the house into the tumultuous darkness of the
spring night, and went down the road with the south wind smiting her
with broadsides of soft air, and the living sounds of water ahead and
on either hand of her, she was happy--in spite of Burr, in spite of
everything--with the happiness of one to whom is granted a respite
from death.