Madeleine

“ At the mention of Madeleine’s name, she pricked up her ears. “Oho!” she said, when lie had finished his story. “So Madeleine pays you visits, does she?—the sainted Madeleine! You have her there, and me here.—A pretty state of things!”
“Hold your tongue! I’m not in the mood to-night to stand your gibes.”
“But I’m in the mood to make them. And how is one to help it when one hears that that ineffable creature is no better than she ought to be?” ”

“ And when he saw Madeleine standing in the sunlight, pleased and proud and glorious, with a smile in her eyes and trembling on her lips, with a strand or so of her beautiful hair and a streamer or so of delightful blue fluttering in the wind about her gracious form, it seemed to him for the moment that leaving the manœuvres and coming back to England was quite a right and almost a magnificent thing to do. ”

“ Then Madeleine shook hands with Kendall and Bert with Andree. Everybody must shake hands before matters could proceed. Once disposed of, formality relaxed; the girls chattered in French, Madeleine with laughing vivacity and many gestures, Andree rather as if she were a bit embarrassed, always searching Madeleine with her eyes as she studied every new-comer into her acquaintance. ”

“ When you have company, is it not Madeleine who sees that everything is in order? If you give a dinner, is it not Madeleine who not only superintends all the preparations, but invents the most beautiful decorations for the table,—and out of nothing—out of leaves and flowers so common that no one would have thought of culling them, yet so wonderfully arranged that every one exclaims at their picturesque effect? When you have dull guests,—guests that put me to sleep, or out of patience,—is it not Madeleine who amuses them? ”

“ Maurice forgot everything but the insulting epithets applied to Madeleine, and said, with a dignity as imposing as Madame de Gramont's own had ever been,—
"My grandmother, never shall such language be applied to Madeleine again in my presence, by you or any one! Madeleine is not merely my cousin, she is the woman I love best and honor most in the world;—the woman who, if I ever marry, will become my wife."
"Never! never!" cried the countess, fiercely. "That shall never be, come what may!" ”

“ You have never repented that you loved him?"
"Never!" answered Madeleine, with fervor.
"And you believe that he loves you?"
Madeleine bowed her head.
"And you have loved him long? Perhaps you loved him early in your girlhood; perhaps you loved him from the time you first met?"
Madeleine bowed her head again.
"Even as he did you?"
"I do not know," she answered, in a low voice.
"That is strange; men are apt to boast of the length as well as of the strength of their passion," remarked Maurice. "Your lover must be an exception. But perhaps he is unaware that he is blest by your love?" ”

“ Ah, Madeleine, I have not forgotten, I cannot forget the sad revelation you made to me in Brittany. He whom you love,—it is he,—he who has protected you, who has enjoyed the exquisite happiness of aiding you by his advice, and by his own means perhaps"—
Maurice uttered these words excitedly and almost in a tone of reproach.
"No, Maurice," returned Madeleine, growing ghastly pale, and speaking with an effort which gave her voice a hollow, unnatural sound. "He whom I love has never aided me,—I have received no assistance from him,—I have given him no right to offer any." ”

“ Madeleine only answered with a look which besought Maurice to forbear.
"Is your rhapsody finished at last?" asked Count Tristan, scornfully. "Is any one else to be permitted to speak?"
"It seems there is but one person whose voice is of any importance to your son," sneered the countess, "and that is Madeleine. It is for her to speak; it is for her to accomplish her work of base ingratitude; it is for her to give the last finishing stroke to the fabric she has secretly been laboring to build up for the last three years." ”

“ Madeleine’s features were not so regular as those of Gabrielle, but there was far more animation in her face. The deep hazel eyes of the peasant-girl were steady, the dark orbs of the Parisian flower-girl sparkled and danced, without a moment’s constancy. A woman’s character is written on her brow. ”

“ She had lovely golden hair for one thing, and then, although she looked no older than Madeleine herself, who was about seven at the time, she was dressed in a velvet bodice covered with Genoese point, and—infinitely grander—she was actually wearing what to Madeline had always seemed one of the attributes of magnificent eld, to wit, a real stomacher, all stiff with busks and embroidered in brightly coloured silks with flowers and enchanting beasts—a thing as lovely and magical as the armour of Achilles in the woodcut that hung in the parlour at home. ”

“ There existed in Madeleine, as in so many women of those days, the queerest contradiction. Fearing daily and desperately the very worst—death to their loved man—they never could believe in it happening, often even when it did actually happen, as was usual in those years. Relieved, respited at least from the major anxiety—for Georges must be in hospital or depot somewhere, and out of the fighting, Madeleine began to be a prey to a lesser—to know what had happened to him? which led her curiosity to explore the unknown at least once a day. ”

“ Ah, if he had but read aright the secret of that childish trusting heart! Madeleine, his love, his life, his wife! Madeleine, with all the advantages of her own birth, the wealth which had now accrued to him, and the respect which his position had gained for him!--could anything be better? He had seen how men in society were courted, and flattered and made much of for their wealth alone,--dolts, coarse, ignorant, brainless, mannerless savages; and he--now he could rival them in wealth, and excel them--ah, how far excel them!--in all other desirable qualities! ”

“ Madeleine could not at once command her voice.
The countess, arguing the worst from her silence, cried, with culminating wrath, "Speak, viper! Dart your fangs into the bosom that has sheltered you: it is bared to receive the deadly stroke; it is ready to die of your venom! Nothing remains but for you to strike!"
[Pg 75]
"Take courage, dearest Madeleine," whispered Bertha. "They will not be angry long. Speak and tell them that you love Maurice as he loves you, and that you will be the happiest of women if you become his wife."
"Well, your answer, Mademoiselle de Gramont?" urged the countess. ”

“ On the morning of the third day the sound of clumsily clattering hoofs in the deserted street brought Madeleine rushing downstairs to the door of the pharmacy. An old farmer, mounted on a sweating plow horse, drew rein for an instant in the sun and, breathing hard, gave the news to the little cluster of white-faced women and old men who gathered about him. Madeleine pressed in beside her poorer neighbors, closer to them than at any time in her life, straining up to the messenger, like them, to hear the stroke of fate. ”

“ Good heavens, Madeleine! when will you lay aside those intolerable airs and graces which you invariably assume, and which would be very charming in a young girl of sixteen,—a girl like Bertha; but, in a woman who has arrived at your years,—a woman of twenty-one,—become ridiculous affectation? ”

“ Oh, aye, if I were as other women I should smile and take your compliments, and pose as the martyr and as the self-sacrificing devoted sister. But I will not. It was nothing to me how Madeleine got in or out of her love scrapes. I would not have gone one step to help her break her promise to you, or even to save your life, but that it pleased me so to do. Madeleine has never chosen to make me her confidant. I would have let her manage her own affairs gaily, had I had better things to occupy my mind—but I had not, Captain Smith. Life at Pulwick is monotonous. ”

“ When Madeleine saw this, her high spirit returned. She took him by the hands and arms, and shaking him, forced him to listen to her.
"If you have no more resignation and strength of will than a child," said she, "you do not deserve my love, and you will shame me for bringing you up as my son. Get up. You are a man in years, and a man should not roll on the ground, as you are doing. Listen, François, and tell me whether you love me enough to go without seeing me for a time. Look, my child, it is for my peace and good name, for otherwise my husband will subject me to annoyance and humiliation. ”

“ And yet, how she did weep when she left the convent. Madeleine would have made a good nun after all; she does so hate anything ugly or coarse. She grows quite white if she hears people fighting; if there is a "row" or a "shindy," as they say here. Whereas Tanty and I think it all the fun in the world, and would enjoy joining in the fray ourselves, I believe, if we dared. I know I should; it sets my blood tingling. But Madeleine is a real princess, a sort of Ermine; and yet she enjoys her new life, too, the beauty of it, the refinement, being waited upon and delicately fed and clothed. ”

“ Madeleine only partially rose when Count Tristan entered.
"My dear niece,—my dearest Madeleine,—I hope you are not ill?"
Although the count spoke with an air of exaggerated affection, his manner was far more self-possessed than when he left the hotel. The fresh air had revived him. Madeleine was not struck by any singularity in his deportment.
"Not exactly ill, yet not quite well," she answered, without pretending to respond to his oppressive tenderness; "and I was trying to forget myself."
"That was always your way, Madeleine; you are always forgetting yourself and remembering others. ”

“ True, he found her frankness delightfully "refreshing," and when he spoke of her, it was as of an "awfully good sort," "a first-class girl"; for Madeleine was invariably lively, kind and helpful. At the same time, she was without doubt a trifle too composed, too sure of herself; she had too keen an eye for human foibles; she came towards you with a perfectly natural openness, and she came all the way—there was nothing left for you to explore. ”

“ And its owner, the beautiful Madeleine Van Norman, was the most envied as well as the most admired young woman in the town.
Magnificent Madeleine, as she was sometimes called, was of the haughty, imperious type which inspires admiration and respect rather than love. An orphan and an heiress, she had lived all of her twenty-two years of life in the old house, and since the death of her uncle, two years before, had continued as mistress of the place, ably assisted by a pleasant, motherly chaperon, a clever social secretary, and a corps of capable servants. ”

“ Then making a great effort to rally his expiring energies, he continued, "Mother, love Madeleine! We need angels about us to lift us up when we fall. Keep her near you if you would be comforted when the hour that has come to me comes to you!"
The countess did not reply, but the hand she held had grown so clammy, she could no longer refuse to believe that her son might be dying. Still she was not softened; she could not turn to Madeleine and embrace her, as the dying man so obviously desired.
"Maurice," said his father. ”

“ She must be in her twenty-eighth year, I should say. Courage, you have yet many years in which to overtake her,’ and she looked at Madeleine with considerable amusement. With the intuitive insight, which from time to time flashed across her habitual abstractedness, she had divined the motive of Madeleine’s question.
‘When she was twelve years old,’ she went on, ‘she was smitten by the smallpox, which shore her of all her comeliness. ”

“ The countess felt that a shaft had fallen and struck her, indeed, but not the one Madeleine meant. She stretched out her hand and clasped that of her niece as she said,—
"I am uninjured, Madeleine; it is you who received the blow. God grant that this may be the last that will fall upon you through me! It is in vain to struggle against His will. It was His hand,—I feel it! I resist no longer!"
She looked toward Maurice, who exclaimed joyfully, "My dear, dear grandmother, have I regained Madeleine doubly to-day? ”

“ And then, too, Madeleine, you’ll laugh, I daresay, but I’ve always thought of you as different from other women—strong and independent, and quite sure of yourself. The kind of girl that makes others seem little and stupid. No one here was good enough for you.”
Madeleine’s amazement was so great that she did not reply immediately. Then she laughed. “You have far too high an opinion of me. Do you really think I like standing alone? That I do it by preference?—You were never more mistaken, if you do. It has always been a case of necessity with me, no one ever having asked me to try the other way. ”

“ She felt a need for space and fresh air, and hastily put on her pattens, mask, and cloak. As she came out of her room, her mother appeared from the parlour.
‘Madeleine—dear life—whither in the name of madness, are you bound? You cannot be contemplating walking alone? Why, ’twill soon be dusk! Jacques should shortly return, and he’ll accompany you!’
This was unbearable. In a perfect frenzy, lest the spell should be broken, Madeleine gathered up her petticoats and made a dash for the staircase.
‘Madeleine! Madeleine! Is the child demented? Come back! ”

“ Madeleine, you are a good wife, and I think that you were made expressly for me. If I had married a coquette, such as so many women are, I should kill her, or I should drown myself under my own mill-wheel. But I know that you are well-behaved and industrious, and that you are worth your weight in gold. ”