Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

“ A great rapture of faith in her lover and his love came over Madelon. She said to herself that they had lied—they had all lied! Burr had never courted Dorothy Fair. She believed, with her whole heart and soul, that he loved her and her alone. And, indeed, she was at that time, at that minute, right and not deceived; for Burr Gordon was one of those who can encompass love in one tense only, and that the present; and they who love only in the present, hampered by no memories and no dreams, yield out love's sweetness fully. ”

“ When Madelon Hautville stopped singing not one in the meeting-house had seen Burr Gordon stir, but the soul in him had surely turned and faced about with a great rending as of swathing wills that bound it.
Parson Fair preached that morning. Great had been the speculation as to whether he would or not. When he stood up in his pulpit and faced the crowded pews and the steely glances of curious eyes through the shifting flutter of fans, he was as austerely composed as ever; but a buzzing whisper went through the audience like a veritable bee of gossip. ”

“ Then his eyes fell before the sudden shame and distress in Dorothy's.
“You do not know what do counsel me!” she cried. “Then you do not—care—” Tears rolled over her cheeks, and Eugene gathered her into his arms again, and laid his cheek against her fair head, and soothed her as he would have soothed a child. “There, there,” he whispered, “it is not that, it is not that, sweet. I would die for you, I love you so! It is not that, but you are the promised wife of another man. How can I turn a thief even for you, Dorothy? How can I bid you be false, and forswear yourself? ”

“ No knowledge of her body at all had Madelon Hautville, no knowledge of anything on earth except her one aim—to save her lover's life. She was nothing but a purpose concentrated upon one end; there was in her that great impetus of the human will which is above all the swift forces of the world when once it is aroused.
She unharnessed the horse quickly from the parson's sleigh, and led him, restive again at the near prospect of his stall and feed, back to the tavern stable, paid for him, and struck out on the homeward road, straight and swift as one of her Indian ancestors. ”

“ Nobody heard nor saw Lot Gordon when he crept like a fox round the house, and came under a window and rested his chin on the sill and remained there looking at Madelon. She wore that night a soft gown of crimson wool, which clung about her limbs and her bosom, and showed her bare throat swelling with song into new curves which were indeed those of music itself. Lot, as he looked at her, saw her with the full meaning of her beauty as never Burr could, and as she could never see herself, for there is no looking-glass on earth like a vain love when it rises above the slight of its own desire. ”

“ That night Richard would not go to his chamber, which he shared with his brother Louis, lest he wake and spy his face flushed with tears, but crept stealthily back down-stairs, and, all unbeknown to any one, lay all night on the settle in the living-room. He slept little, and often waked and wept in the darkness like a child rather than one of the fiery Hautville brothers.
When wrath with a beloved one is stilled in the human heart and love takes its place, it is with a threefold increase, a great rending of spirit, and a cruel turning of weapons against one's self. ”

“ Will you have them now, for your wedding-gift?”
“No, Lot,” said Madelon, quickly. “I thank you, but I cannot take them; I have enough.”
“Why not?”
“I have enough.”
“There is no need for you to tell me why,” said Lot. “A woman like you would almost veil herself from her own eyes for the sake of a lover, so great is her jealousy. The thoughts and the dreams with which I bought the gewgaws profane them in your eyes while I am alive.”
“I do not need them, and I cannot take them, Lot,” said Madelon, steadily. ”

“ The future has your face, and the past. My whole world is made up of you and my vain hunger. Oh, love, and not toil, is the curse of man!”
“You knew about Burr,” Madelon said, in a quiet, agitated voice. “Why—did you?”
Lot gave a sharp cry, as if he had been wounded anew. “Oh,” he cried, “you are blind, blind, blind—a woman is born blind to love! If I had had the face and the body of him it would have been me you would have turned to, Madelon. Don't you know? can't you see? He has been false to you, he cares no more for you. ”

“ David, when the tobacco was well packed in his pipe-bowl, turned his eyes mechanically upon the glowing coals on the hearth, but made no motion to light it. He looked slowly and furtively about presently at Madelon's wedding-silk, which lay heaped in a chair with a green and gold shimmer, as of leaves and flowers. All unmoved by, and oblivious of, the splendor of woman's gear was David Hautville usually, but this silk, radiant with the weaving of party-lights, affected him with a memory of old happiness, so vague that it was scarce more than a memory of a memory. ”

“ There came a blast of northwest wind which buffeted them about their faces and chests like an icy flail, and they scattered before it, some to their duties in the stable, some into the warm tavern for a mug of something hot to do away with the chill. It was too cold a day to gossip in a doorway. It was not long past noon, but the cold had seemed to strengthen as the sun rode higher. The wind blew from the icy northwest more frequently in fiercer gusts. Madelon Hautville sped along before it, her red cloak flying out like a flag, and took no thought of it at all. ”

“ Madelon saw, without seeming to look, that Burr's handsome face was white as death and haggard.
“Are you sick?” she asked, suddenly. “Why do you look so? What is the matter with you?” and she put a half-bitter, half-anxiously compassionate weight upon the you.
“I believe I am going mad,” Burr groaned, with the quick grasp of a man at the pity of the woman he loves. “Oh, Madelon!” He held out his hands towards her like a child, but she stood back from him, and looked straight at him with sharp questioning in her eyes. ”

“ Their eyes were slyly keen upon Dorothy Fair, softly wrapped in her blue wadded silk and swan's-down, holding up her head with gentle state in the parson's pew; upon Burr Gordon, somewhat pale and moody in his smart Sunday coat; and Madelon, up in the singing-seats. They never, in those days, saw Madelon elsewhere. She went to meeting every Sabbath day and sang as usual, but between the hymns she sat with her beautiful face as irresponsive to all around her as a painted portrait, and more so, for the eyes of a portrait will often seem to follow an ardent gazer. ”

“ All the neighbors knew when Dorothy Fair first stepped her foot out of doors, and told one another suspiciously that she did not look very sick, and that they guessed she might have come out sooner, and gone to meeting, had she been so minded.
And in truth the girl, beyond slight deflections in the curves of her soft cheeks, and a wistful enlarging and brightening of her blue eyes, as in thoughtful shadows, was not much changed. The first Sunday when she appeared in the meeting-house she wore, to the delight and scandal of the women, one of the new gowns and hats of her bridal outfit. ”

“ The maples strike out stiff like dead men's arms, and the elms lash like live snakes, and the pines stir all together like women. I can tell the trees no matter how dark 'tis by the way they move, and I can tell a Gordon by the swing of his shoulders, no matter how fast he slinks by on the other side in the shadow. You don't set much by me, Burr, and I don't set any too much by you, but we've got to swing our shoulders one way, whether we will or no, because our father and our grandfather did before us. Good Lord, aren't men in leading-strings, no matter how high they kick! ”

“ Madelon Hautville, opposite her, in her snow-powdered cloak, with her face like a flash of white fire in her snow-powdered silk hood, seemed in comparison a female of another and an older race. She might well, from the look of her, have come a nearer and straighter road from the inmost heart of things, from the unpruned tangle of woods and undammed course of streams, from all primitive and untempered love and passion and religion, than this gentlewoman formed upon the models of creeds and scholars. ”

“ That night he lingered behind the others when they dispersed for the night, and went up to Madelon and threw an arm around her, and laid his cheek against hers. “Oh, Madelon, I wish—” he began, and then he caught his breath, and his cheek against hers was wet, and Madelon turned and comforted him, as a woman will turn and comfort a man for even his pity for her sorrow.
“There is no need for you to fret,” she said, with a sort of gentle authority, as if she had been his mother. “I've got my life to live, and I've got strength enough to live it. I shall do well enough.” ”

“ Then Madelon sat alone, sewing, setting nice stitches in her green-and-gold silk. Like other women, heretofore when she had sewn a new gown she had builded for herself air-castles of innocent vanity and love when she should be dressed in it. Now she builded no more, but sat and sewed among the ruins of all her happy maiden fancies. She had given herself no care concerning any other arrangements for her wedding than this gown—she felt even no curiosity concerning it. ”

“ That black atmosphere of suspicion and hatred, which gathers nowhere more easily than in a New England town, was thick around Burr and Madelon. They breathed, though as yet it was in less degree, the same noxious air as did the persecuted Quakers and witches of bygone times. The gases which lie at the bottom of human souls, which gossip and suspicious imaginations upstir, are deadlier than those at the bottoms of old wells. Still Madelon and Burr knew nothing of it, nor Burr's mother, nor Lot, nor any of the Hautville men. ”

“ Lot Gordon had been only half right in his analysis of his cousin's wooing. When Burr sat with his arm around this maiden's waist, with his face bent tenderly down towards the soft, pink cheek on his shoulder, this sweetness near at hand was wellnigh sufficient for him, and Dorothy's shy murmur of love in his ear overcame largely the memory of the other's wonderful song. A bee cares only for the honey and not for the flower, therefore one flower is as dear to him as another; and so it is with many a lover when he gets fairly to tasting love. ”

“ They followed Alvin Mead down the icy, dark corridor to Burr's cell door. He unlocked it, and bade Dorothy enter. He cast a forbidding look at Madelon. “I will stand here,” she said with a strange meekness, almost as if her heart were broken; but when the jailer prepared to follow Dorothy into Burr's cell she caught him by the arm and tried to force him back, and cried out sharply that he should let her see him alone. “She is the girl he is going to marry, I tell you!” she said. “Let them see each other alone. You cannot come between two like that when they are in such trouble.” ”

“ A long garland of flowers after her own design had she wrought in bright-colored silks around the petticoat, and there were knots of red ribbon to fasten the loopings here and there. And she wore another red rose in her lace tucker against her soft brown bosom. Madelon wore, too, trim black-silk stockings with red clocks over her slender ankles, and little black-satin shoes with steel buckles and red rosettes. Every one of her brothers, except the youngest, Richard, must needs compare her in his own heart, to her disparagement, with some maid not his sister, but they all viewed her with pride. ”

“ His soul waits outside and strives to taste the sweet when he swallows it, and smell the balm and the spices when he breathes them in, but cannot; and that is only good for a man which is good for his soul.”
“I don't know what you mean,” said Madelon, shortly.
“I mean that I am outside all the good of this world, since the one good which I crave and cannot have is the gate to all the rest,” said Lot. Then suddenly he cried out passionately, lifting up his face to the sky, “O God, why need it be so? Why need a man be a bond-slave to one hunger? ”

“ Go and court Dorothy Fair, and in spite of yourself you'll kiss the other girl when you're kissing her. Well, I sha'n't cheat Madelon Hautville that way.”
“You know—she will not—you know Madelon Hautville never—” stammered Burr Gordon, furiously.
Lot laughed again. “You think she sets so much by you she'll never kiss me,” said he. “Don't be too sure, Burr. Nature's nature, and the best of us come under it. Madelon Hautville's got her place, like all the rest. There isn't a rose that's too good to take a bee in. Go do your own courting, and trust me to do mine. ”

“ That night, indeed, the tide of rancorous gossip swelled high. The spirit of persecution and righteous retribution which finds easy birth in New England villages was fast getting to itself feet and hands and tongue and a whole body of active powers.
A stormy bridal night had Burr and Madelon known had they been at home; and had Lot Gordon died during the next three days, in which he lay in imminent danger, there had been fleet horses on the track of the swift Morgan, and the wedding-journey had come to a close. ”

“ That have I found and found through you, and bless you for it, though death be needful to its keeping. There is another birth than that of the flesh, through this so great love, which can upon itself beget immortality of love unto the understanding of all which is above. A greater end of love than the life of worlds there is, which is love itself. That end have I attained through this great love in my own soul which you have shown me, else should I have never known it there, and died so, having lived to myself alone, and been no true lover.
“Lot Gordon.” ”