Fairy Fingers Part 15

"Never? Does he not love you, then? But I know he does,--he must. Every one loves you; no one can help it,--you win all hearts!"

"_Count Tristan's, for instance_," remarked Madeleine, bitterly.

"Ah, not _his_, that is true. How wickedly he looked at you when Maurice pictured how dear you were to him! I noticed Cousin Tristan's eyes, and they frightened me. He looked positively fiendish; and when Maurice said"--

To hear those precious words Maurice had spoken,--those words which she could never more forget,--repeated, was beyond Madeleine's powers of endurance: she sprang up, exclaiming, "Do not let us talk of these matters any more to-day, Bertha. It is growing late,--almost six o'clock. It is time for you to dress for dinner. And you have not forgotten the ball to-night?"

"I could not bear to go now. I am sure Maurice will not go; and you,--would you go, even if we did?"

"You will not refuse me a favor, Bertha, though it may cost you some pain to grant it? Go to this ball, and persuade, entreat Maurice to go.

If you do not, you will draw down my aunt's displeasure upon me anew, for she will know why you remain at home,--especially as it will be impossible for me to appear in public to-night."

"I would do anything rather than have my aunt displeased with you again; and then there is the beautiful dress you have taken such pains to make."

"I should be very much disappointed if you did not wear it this evening.

Now let us prepare for dinner."

As she spoke, Madeleine commenced her own toilet. Bertha stood looking at her as she unbound her long silken hair, and, after smoothing it as carefully as was her wont, rapidly formed the coronal braid, and wound the rich tress about the regal head.

"I cannot comprehend you, Madeleine: you are a marvel to me. A couple of hours ago you were almost frantic with grief,--I never saw any one weep so immoderately; and now you are as serene as though nothing had happened. If your lips were not so very, very white, and your eyes had not such a fixed, unnatural look, I could almost think you had forgotten that anything unusual had occurred."

"Forget it yourself, dear, and make ready for dinner."

Bertha obeyed at least part of the injunction, still wondering over Madeleine's incomprehensible placidity.

The young maidens entered the dining-room together. Maurice came in late. The meal pa.s.sed almost in silence, though the Countess and Count Tristan made unusual efforts to keep up a conversation.

Bertha was right in imagining Maurice had lost all inclination to appear at the ball. When she brought up the subject, he answered impatiently that he did not intend to go. His grandmother heard the remark, and made an especial request that he would change that decision and accompany them. Bertha added her entreaties; but Maurice seemed inclined to rebel, until she whispered,--

"If you stay at home, my aunt will say it is Madeleine's fault, and she will be vexed with her again. Madeleine begged you would spare her this new trial, and bade me entreat you to go."

Maurice looked across the table, for the first time during dinner, and found Madeleine's eyes turned anxiously upon him.

"I will go," he murmured.

His words were addressed rather to her than to Bertha. A scarcely perceptible smile on the lips of the former was his reward.

No comment was made upon Madeleine's determination to remain at home.

But the tone of the countess to her niece, when she was officiating as usual at her aunt's toilet, was gentler than she had ever before used.

Not the faintest allusion to the events of the morning dropped from the lips of either.

At last the carriage drove from the door, and Madeleine was left alone with her own thoughts. The mask of composure was no longer needed, yet there was no return of the morning's turbulent emotion.

Are not great trials sent to incite us to great exertions, which we might not have the energy, the wit, perhaps the _humility_, to undertake, but for the spurring sting of that especial grief? Madeleine had resolutely looked her affliction full in the face; had grown familiar with its sternest, saddest features; had bowed before them, and dashed the tears from her eyes, to see more clearly as that sorrow pointed out a path which all her firmness would be taxed in treading,--a path which she had never dreamed existed for her, until it had been opened, hewn through the rocks of circ.u.mstance by that day's heavy blows, that hour's piercing anguish.

Her greatest difficulty lay in the necessity of concealing the step she was about to take from her aunt, whose violent opposition would throw a fearful obstacle in the way. It was easier to avoid than to surmount such a barrier; but if it could not be avoided, it _must_ be surmounted.

In that decision she could not waver.

CHAPTER VIII.

FLIGHT.

Can there be a more dreary solitude, to a mind writhing under the throes of some new and hidden sorrow, than a brilliant ballroom? The stirring music jars like harshest discord upon the unattuned ear; the glaring lights dazzle the pained vision until utter darkness would seem grateful; the merry voices and careless laughter catch a tone of bitter mockery; the gayly apparelled forms, the faces decked with soulless smiles, are more oppressive than all the apparitions with which a fevered imagination can people the gloomiest seclusion. Maurice soon found the festive scene at the Chateau de Tremazan intolerable, and took refuge in the illuminated conservatory, the doors of which were thrown invitingly open. It was mid-summer, but the flowers had been restored to brighten their winter shelter during the fete. He had thought to find himself alone; but yonder, bending over richly-tinted cl.u.s.ters of azaleas and odorous heliotropes, a group of youthful heads unconcernedly thrust their lifeless chaplets in challenging contrast with nature's living loveliness, while flowing robes recklessly swept their floral imitations against her shrinking originals. In a different state of mind Maurice might not have been struck by the incongruous contact of the painted semblance with the blushing reality; but now it reminded him too keenly that the sphere within which he was bound, a social Ixion upon the petty wheel of conventionalism, was one grand combination of artificial trivialities and senseless shams. Goaded beyond endurance by the reflection, he impatiently made his escape into the open air.

Bertha had never mingled with a gay crowd in so joyless a mood. The presence of the heiress created no little sensation; but good-breeding kept its manifestation within such delicate limits that she was unconscious of its existence. She was not even aware that it was a sign of her own importance when the Marchioness de Fleury glided up to Count Tristan, on whose arm Bertha was leaning, and, in a softly cadenced voice, asked if she had not the pleasure of seeing Mademoiselle de Merrivale. In reply, the count presented Bertha. As she returned the courtesy of the marchioness, she could not help remembering the declaration of Maurice, that he had never perused the countenance of the distinguished belle, because his attention was irresistibly riveted upon the wondrous details of her toilet: for Bertha found her own eyes involuntarily wandering over the graceful folds of the amethyst velvet, and the exquisite disposition of the _point de Venise_ by which it was elaborately ornamented; the artistic head-dress in perfect accordance with the costly robe, and the Cleopatra-like drops of pearls which seemed to have been showered over the wearer from brow to foot.

Bertha's eyes were too ingenuous not to betray their occupation; but those of the marchioness seemed only to be looking, with the most complimentary expression of interest, into the face of her new acquaintance, while, in reality, she was scanning Bertha's picturesque attire, and longing to discover by what tasteful fingers it had been contrived; examining the polished ivy intertwined among her bright ringlets, and the half-blown roses just bursting their sheaths in a glossy covert of amber tresses; and wondering that a coiffure with such poetic taste could have existed unknown in Brittany. As the marchioness stood, dropping sweet, meaningless words from her dewy lips, Bertha's hand was claimed by the Duke de Montauban, and she was led to the dance.

She was moving through the quadrille with a languid, unelastic motion, very unlike her usual springing step, when she caught sight of M. de Bois, standing at a short distance, with his face turned toward her. The smile that accompanied her bow of greeting drew him nearer. As the dance ended, and her partner was reconducting her to the countess, M. de Bois overcame his timidity sufficiently to join her.

"Where is Mademoiselle Mad--ad--adeleine?" he inquired. "I have not seen her."

"She is not here. She would not come," sighed Bertha, stopping abruptly, though they had not quite reached her chaperone's side.

"Is she ill? She told me this morning that she would certainly be here.

Has anything happened?" asked M. de Bois, speaking as distinctly as though he had never stammered in his life, and throwing off, in his growing excitement, all the awkwardness of his const.i.tutional diffidence.

Bertha could not but remark his anxious expression, and a suspicion, which she had essayed to banish, once more took possession of her mind.

But she loved Madeleine with such absolute devotion, that this vague, uncomfortable sensation was quickly displaced by a purer emotion.

Glancing at the countess to see that she was not within hearing distance, she disengaged her arm from that of the duke, with a bow which he interpreted into a dismissal, and then, turning eagerly to M. de Bois, recounted to him, in a low, hurried tone, the occurrences of the morning. She fancied she heard words which sounded very like muttered imprecations. He was perhaps putting into practice his new method of loosening his tongue, and doubtless imagined that the emphatic utterances were inaudible.

Bertha went on. "It was a terrible blow to Maurice! He felt so sure until then that Madeleine loved him; so did I. But we were both mistaken. It is plain enough now that she does _not_."

"What makes it plain? How can you be sure?" asked M. de Bois, becoming more and more disturbed.

"Her own declaration has placed the fact beyond doubt. She even confessed that she loved another."

Her listener did not attempt to conceal his consternation at these words.

"Mademoiselle Madeleine said she loved another! She, who would not stoop to breathe a word which was not the strictest truth,--_she told you so?_ You heard it yourself? You are _certain, very certain_, Mademoiselle Bertha?"

"I dare say that I ought not to have repeated this to you," replied Bertha, who now experienced some self-reproach at betraying her friend's secret to one whom it, perhaps, so deeply concerned; "but I am very certain that Madeleine distinctly rejected Maurice, and, when he attributed her refusal to his grandmother's and his father's disapproval of his suit, she denied that she was influenced by them, and confessed that her heart was not free,--that she had bestowed it upon another."

"By all that is heroic, she is a n.o.ble woman!" exclaimed M. de Bois, fervently. "She has the grandest nature! She is incom-com-com"--

"Incomparable," said Bertha, finishing his sentence, and checking a sigh. "Yes, I never knew any one like her. She has no equal."

"I don't exactly say _that_. I don't mean _that_. She is not su-su-superior--to"--

Bertha did not a.s.sist him by completing _this_ disjointed phrase, even if she suspected what he desired to say.

At that moment Count Damoreau approached, accompanied by a gaunt, overdressed lady, with harsh and forbidding features.

"Lady Vivian is looking for Mademoiselle de Gramont. Did she not accompany you?" inquired the count.