A CONTEST.
When Mrs. Gilmer took her leave, Madeleine returned to the seclusion of
her own boudoir, having first given orders that she should be apprised
when Madame de Fleury made her appearance.
Madeleine was unnerved by the agitating incidents of the morning. There
are days into which emotions which might fill years are crowded. It was
long since she had felt oppressed by such a sense of lassitude and
melancholy. Her interview with Maurice had stirred all the tenderest
chords of her spirit, yet left them vibrating sadly. The mysterious
visit of Count Tristan had perplexed her mind with ominous forebodings.
She could scarcely be said to have seen through his machinations, yet
she had an instinctive disbelief in his sincerity, and the uprightness
of his motives,--a disbelief which she vainly tried to conceal from
herself. More painful still had been her conversation with Lord Linden;
she could not fail to perceive that he assumed the attitude of a lover,
and she felt humbled at having _apparently allowed_, or rather
_ignored_, such a position. Lastly, her late _bargaining scene_ with
Mrs. Gilmer had disturbed Madeleine's sense of delicacy; and a similar
scene remained to be enacted with Madame de Fleury.
Madeleine involuntarily rubbed her eyes, as though she were trying to
wake from a confused dream. She could not believe that she had really
entangled herself in this web of plotting, and at the bidding of Count
Tristan! She feared that she had acted too impulsively,--that she had
made unwarrantable use of her power. Then she remembered the look of
deep distress upon Count Tristan's face as he made his half confidences;
she recalled his assurances that without her interposition Maurice would
not only be ruined, but that disgrace must attach itself to his father's
name. She had promised her aid, had half gained the victory, and must
not retreat now when the only portion of her work which remained to be
accomplished consisted in compelling a fashionable puppet to send an
invitation to a rival whom she detested. There was nothing objectionable
in the act itself; yet Madeleine, during these calm reflections, shrank
from the part she was playing, and revolted against being mingled up
with stratagems, however innocent.
This revery was broken by the announcement that Madame de Fleury had
arrived, and was at that moment trying on her dress.
When Madeleine entered the apartment, Madame de Fleury was standing
before a mirror, evidently admiring her new costume, and in great
good-humor. She turned to Madeleine gayly, and said,--
"Mademoiselle Melanie, this dress is perfection! This corsage sets off
my figure beautifully! And what exquisite apologies for sleeves you have
invented! My arm is one of my best points, and the tinier the sleeve
the better. Then the looping of this lace dress through these miniature
chaplets of wild roses is very original; the whole effect is wonderfully
airy and poetic. This is one of your great triumphs; you have really
surpassed yourself."
As she spoke, she turned around and around, complacently contemplating
her reflected image from various points of view.
"I am particularly gratified at having pleased you, madam," said
Madeleine, with more gravity than was usual to her when she accosted her
light-brained customers.
Madame de Fleury, without noticing her serious mien, commenced
disrobing. Victorine folded up the dress and placed it in a _carton_.
"I mean to take the dress with me," said the marchioness. "Mademoiselle
Victorine, have the goodness to desire my servant to place that _carton_
in the carriage."
As Victorine prepared to obey, Madeleine motioned her to desist, and
said, "Not yet; leave the dress for a few moments. You may retire."
The forewoman reluctantly left the room, looking puzzled, curious, and
indignant.
"What? Is some alteration needful?" asked Madame de Fleury. "Have you
some fresh inspiration? Has a new idea that will improve the dress
suddenly struck you?"
Without replying to these questions, Madeleine looked earnestly at the
marchioness, who was now resuming her bonnet, and asked,--
"You are, then, satisfied with my work, madame?"
"Satisfied? that is a cold word. I am transported!"
"And if," continued Madeleine, "for that dress I should require a
price"--
"Oh, whatever you please," replied the marchioness, lightly. "Take me
prisoner, gag me, plunder me, what you will, I shall not complain: the
dress is worth it; and we have never had any discussion in regard to
prices."
"But the price in question is not one that can be paid with money; the
price I place upon this dress is the granting of a favor,--a favor most
precious to me."
"A favor? you have only to speak. Do you want an office for a friend? A
recommendation for some ambitious compatriot to the emperor? A pardon
for some exiled transgressor? Anything possible to the wife of the
French ambassador is at your service; you have but to speak."
"My petition is somewhat easier to grant; for I only ask a few words
from you in writing."
As she said this, Madeleine opened a desk, and placed upon it a sheet of
note-paper, a gold pen, and an inkstand. Then she paused, and said,
hesitatingly,--
"Yet, though I ask but these few written words, in full compensation for
that dress, the materials of which as well as the work being mine, I
fear to make my petition known, for I feel that it will cost you much to
comply with my wishes."
"Nonsense! speak plainly," said Madame de Fleury, smoothing her ribbons
with caressing touches.
"I would solicit an invitation to your ball for one of your
acquaintances who, as yet, has received none, and who chances to be one
of my customers."
"Is that all? We are enacting much ado about nothing," said the
marchioness, seating herself smilingly at the desk. "You shall have the
invitation, modest and mysterious petitioner. What name shall I write?"
"Mrs."--Madeleine faltered.
"Go on," cried the marchioness, who had commenced her note with the
usual formula.
"Mrs. Gilmer!" responded Madeleine.
Madame de Fleury threw down the pen and started up.
"Mrs. Gilmer! Invite Mrs. Gilmer to a ball from which I have purposely
excluded her? Invite her when I have the satisfaction of knowing that
she is dying of mortification because she cannot get an
invitation?--when I have steeled myself against the solicitations of
Madame Orlowski? Never! I would rather bear the weight of all the years
which she impertinently added to my age."
Madeleine, who was fully prepared for this burst, said, very quietly,
and approaching the marchioness,--
"Madame, it is not long since you assured me that it would be a positive
happiness to be able to render me a service."
"And I mean it. I would gladly serve you, but not by inviting Mrs.
Gilmer to my ball: that is a little too much to demand."
"But this is the service I most need; a service for which I would be
deeply grateful,--for which I could never sufficiently thank you,--which
would attach me to you as nothing in the past has ever done."
"The offer of your gratitude and the promise of your attachment are,
certainly, very touching," said Madame de Fleury, with a scornful
petulance which she had never before evinced toward Madeleine; "but I
beg leave to decline the indebtedness. You have forced me to remember,
for the first time, that when a lady in my station deals with a person
in your sphere, it is possible to be _too_ kind, _too_ condescending,
_too_ ready to forget necessary distinctions, and thus to draw upon
one's self the consequences of that forgetfulness. You have given me a
lesson, mademoiselle, by which I shall profit: in future I shall
remember the distance between us."
She walked toward the work-room and called Victorine, who immediately
responded to the summons.
Pointing to the _carton_, the indignant lady gave the order, "Have that
dress placed in my carriage."
"No!" said Madeleine, addressing Victorine, commandingly. "Let the dress
remain where it is."
"What do you mean, mademoiselle?" asked the marchioness, in angry
astonishment.
"That dress is still mine!" answered Madeleine.
"Yours?"
"It is mine, and we will each keep that which belongs to us,--_you_ the
privilege of your rank; I, the results of my labor, however humble."
"Do I understand you rightly? Have you the hardihood to say"--
Madeleine interrupted her,--
"That I refuse to part with that dress for gold, or for any compensation
you can offer, except the one already named,--an invitation for Mrs.
Gilmer to your ball."
"She shall never have one! I have said it, and nothing can change my
resolution."
"Nor mine! We are in the same position, madame, in spite of the
_difference of our stations_," answered Madeleine, with cold sarcasm.
"Nothing can change my resolution."
"But the dress is mine!" cried Madame de Fleury. "I will prove that it
is mine; but we will settle that question afterward. Meantime, I order
you, Mademoiselle Victorine, to have that dress placed in my carriage."
"I order you not to touch it!" said Madeleine.
Madame de Fleury now became so much exasperated that she seemed to be on
the point of seizing the dress and carrying it off in her arms.
Madeleine perceived her intention, and, suddenly lifting the dress out
of the _carton_, rolled it up rapidly, for the materials were light.
"I prove to whom the dress belongs, madame, by disposing of it _thus_!"
And with the most perfect tranquillity, she flung the disputed prize
into the fire! It was burning brightly, for the day was cool, though
spring had commenced.
The marchioness, for a moment, was stunned; but, as the flames caught
the lace, she cried out, "Save it! save it! It is burning! What an
infamous action! What a crime! It has killed me!"
She dropped upon the sofa, and was seized with one of those hysterical
paroxysms which French women designate as an _attaque de nerfs_.
Victorine, with a great display of distress, flew to the sufferer,
loosened the strings of the bonnet which she was recklessly
crushing,--held a bottle of sal volatile to her nose (for the
Frenchwoman was always prepared for similar pleasant excitements, and
carried a vial in her pocket), and commenced rubbing the lady's hand
with great energy.
"Save,--save the dress! Do not let it burn!" Madame de Fleury gasped out
between her sobs.
"The dress is beyond saving, madame," replied Madeleine; "it no longer
exists."
At this moment the marchioness suddenly recovered.
"And you have destroyed it? You have destroyed a toilet which would have
made me talked of for a week! It is abominable,--it is disgraceful,--it
is _criminal_!"
Madame de Fleury always used the strongest terms where matters of the
toilet, the most important interests of her life, were in question.
"What am I to wear this evening? What is to become of me?"
The marchioness wrung her hands, and wept in genuine tribulation. She
sunk back again upon the sofa, as though prostrated by her crushing
sorrow.
Madeleine allowed the grief of the fine lady to expend itself in
incoherent lamentations, and then said, in an icy tone,--
"Madame, do you desire to appear to-night in a dress which far surpasses
the one I have destroyed?"
The marchioness was sobbing so violently that she could only answer by a
movement of the head.
"Do you desire to wear a dress which has been refused to others?--a
dress which Mrs. Gilmer used every argument to induce me to finish for
her, but in vain?--a dress which I would even have refused _you_, with
whose wishes I have ever been ready to comply?"
"What--what dress? What do you mean?"
"I refer to the dress the design of which you so much admired this
morning,--the dress which is to be sent to New Orleans for Madame la
Motte."
"But that dress is not finished; it is hardly commenced; only the
embroidery is completed. Mademoiselle Victorine told me it could not be
done under three days."
"It shall be finished for _you_, if you so please, before it is time for
you to dress for this evening's assembly."
"But that cannot be; it is not possible; it is four o'clock now; it
would be a miracle!"
"Not quite," returned Madeleine, quietly. "In past days I was said to
have the fingers of a fairy, and you shall admit that magical power
remains to me. I repeat, the dress shall be completed, if you desire it,
to-night."
"But you have sent the design to Madame la Motte, who has approved of
it, and, I hear, you are bound not to furnish a duplicate to any one."
"True, I must run the risk of losing the confidence of a patron for the
first time in my life. I will tell Madame la Motte the truth, and
furnish her with another equally elaborate dress,--not a very easy
matter, as it must leave here in three days by express, and a new design
must not only be planned, but executed, within that time. I may lose
Madame de la Motte's patronage,--her esteem; but that will be the price
I pay for the favor I seek at your hands."
"The favor!" repeated the marchioness, abstractedly.
In her bewilderment and grief caused by the destruction of the dress,
she had forgotten, for the moment, all that had just taken place.
Madeleine pointed to the note which the marchioness had commenced, and
said,--
"The invitation for Mrs. Gilmer."
"Ah! Mrs. Gilmer!" cried Madame de Fleury, as though she had been stung
by the name.
"As you remarked, it is four o'clock," continued Madeleine; "the dress
ought to be at your house by half past nine; there is scarcely time for
any one who only _pretends_ to be a fairy to accomplish the work. Four
o'clock: it _is_ just possible that I have promised too much,--that is,
if we lose many minutes. Have you decided to write me the invitation?"
"You do not give me time for reflection," said Madame de Fleury,
hesitating.
"You scarcely give _me_ time," returned Madeleine, "to perform what I
have promised; the moments are precious."
"You are sure the dress can be completed if--if I give you this
invitation?"
"Yes, madame, if it be given _at once_. See," pointing to the clock,
"five minutes have flown already, and in every moment we are to do the
work of an hour. There is the pen."
Madame de Fleury took it reluctantly.
"That detestable Mrs. Gilmer will triumph so much!"
"You triumph in having obtained the dress that was refused to her, and
has been refused to many others. But time flies, and I shall not be
able, with all the magical aid for which I am given credit, to keep my
word. Victorine, while Madame de Fleury is writing, apprise the young
ladies to put by, as rapidly as possible, all other work, and be ready
to take in hand that which I will give them directly. We want our whole
force; let me find every one prepared to aid."
Victorine left the room to execute these orders.
Madame de Fleury seated herself and dipped the pen in ink.
"If you knew what it costs me to consent," she began.
"If I did _not_ know," rejoined Madeleine, "I should not have offered to
make a sacrifice of so much importance. A few moments more and it will
be too late to decide,--your consent will be of no avail."
"Ah, that is true," cried Madame de Fleury, writing rapidly.
She left the note unfolded on the desk, and, as she rose, said in a tone
of ludicrously mingled petulance and elation, "You have conquered! But I
shall have my dress!"
"Be sure of it!" answered Madeleine.
Victorine now announced that all other work had been laid aside, and the
young ladies awaited Mademoiselle Melanie's commands.
"Go--go--go! or you will be too late!" urged Madame de Fleury, hurrying
away.
Madeleine hastened to the work-room, and distributed portions of the
dress to different needle-women. After giving a number of minute
directions, and making known that she would return in a couple of hours
to see what progress was made, she retired to write to Mrs. Gilmer.