Fairy Fingers Part 74

Madeleine wept no more; she bathed her face and smoothed her disordered hair, and then collected all the articles scattered about, placed them carefully in the trunk, shut it and locked it, looked about to see that nothing was forgotten, ordered her carriage, and with a composed mien entered the little boudoir.

Maurice must have used some potent argument with his father which reconciled him to his change of habitation, or made him comprehend that resistance was useless, for when Robert announced that the carriage was at the door, and Madeleine brought the count's coat to exchange for his dressing-gown, he allowed her to a.s.sist him, only repeating the term of affection so often on his lips.

The count was ready, and Madeleine signed to Maurice not to linger. He gave his arm to his father, and they pa.s.sed through the entry. Madeleine preceded them; she opened the street door herself; father and son pa.s.sed out, but without bidding her adieu. The steps of the carriage were let down; just as Maurice was a.s.sisting his father to ascend them, the count drew back with native politeness and said,--

"Madeleine first."

Madeleine was still standing in the doorway ready to wave her handkerchief as the carriage drove off.

"Come, Madeleine, come! come! We are waiting for you!" cried the count.

Maurice expostulated in vain; his father insisted that Madeleine should go with them.

"Only get into the carriage, my dear father, while I speak with her."

"Get in before a lady? No--no! We are not backwoodsmen,--are we? Come, Madeleine, come!"

Madeleine saw that argument would not avail with the count; his mind was not sufficiently clear; it only had glimpses of reason which allowed him to comprehend by fits and starts.

Ever quick of decision, she said cheerfully, "Yes, in one moment," and withdrew; but before Maurice had divined her intention, returned, wearing her bonnet and shawl, and sprang into the carriage.

"Drive into the country," was Madeleine's order to the coachman.

Maurice looked at her with inquiring surprise.

"Dr. Bayard said a drive would do your father good. We can first take a short drive, then return, and go to the hotel."

Count Tristan looked happy. The motion of the carriage was agreeable to him, and the fresh air revived him; he gazed eagerly out of the window as though the commonest objects had caught the charm of novelty. His pleasure was of brief duration; for when they had driven about a mile, prudence suggested to Madeleine that it would be well to return before the patient became fatigued. She pulled the check-cord, and herself gave the order, "To Brown's hotel."

Count Tristan paid no attention to the command. The hotel was quickly reached; the carriage stopped; Maurice descended and handed out his father.

"Let me hear good news of you," said Madeleine to Count Tristan, encouragingly, and kept her seat.

Leaning heavily on his son's arm, the count mounted the hotel steps, but he did not comprehend Madeleine's words as an adieu, and turned to speak to her, thinking she was beside him. The coachman was closing the carriage-door preparatory to driving away.

"Madeleine! Madeleine!" cried out the count, stretching his hand imploringly toward her. "Madeleine, come! come!"

Madeleine perceived that Maurice was remonstrating with his father, and trying to lead him on, but that the count would not move, and still cried out, "Come! come!" in a voice of piteous entreaty.

Curious strangers began to collect; Madeleine knew that if the scene continued even a few moments, a crowd would gather, and all manner of inquiries be made of her coachman, the hotel-keepers, the servants. She leaped out of the carriage, hastened to the count's side, and said,--

"I will go upstairs with you; the a.s.sistance of Maurice may not be sufficient; lean on my arm also."

And Count Tristan did lean upon her, for his limbs were too feeble to ascend a long flight without difficulty.

The door of the countess's _salon_ was but a few paces from the top of the stair. Madeleine paused, took the count's hand affectionately in hers, and pressed it several times to her lips, saying,--

"Now I must bid you adieu. It would not be agreeable to the countess to see me. She would think my coming with you impertinent. You will not force me to bear the pain of seeing her displeasure? Bid me adieu and let me go!"

The count, easily swayed by her persuasive voice, and inspired with a vague dread of his mother's anger, kissed her forehead, and did not remonstrate, but stood still and watched her gliding swiftly down the stairs.

Maurice had whispered to her, "I will be with you as soon as possible, Madeleine. Be brave, for my sake!"

The countess had only betrayed her anxious expectancy by changing her usual seat to one where she could watch the door, and by looking up eagerly every time it opened. When, at last, Maurice entered, supporting Count Tristan, there was a gleam of mingled joy and triumph in his mother's eye. It was doubtful whether the triumph of having compelled obedience to her commands, and of having wrested her son from Madeleine, did not surpa.s.s the joy she experienced in beholding that son once again.

From her greeting, a stranger would hardly have imagined that when she saw him last his life was in imminent peril, and that she had rushed from his presence overcome by grief and mortification. She now received him as though she had cheated herself into the belief that she was doing the honors in her ancestral chateau, and that his brief absence had no graver origin than some ordinary pleasure party.

"Welcome, my son, welcome!" said she, kissing him on either cheek. "We have missed you greatly; you are thrice welcome for this brief separation."

Count Tristan returned her salutation, but looked strangely uncomfortable, as though the atmosphere oppressed and chilled him.

"Dear cousin Tristan, I am so glad to see you better; you will soon be quite well again," said Bertha, embracing him far more warmly than his mother had done.

The countess made no allusion to his illness; she preferred wholly to forget the past.

Maurice led his father to an arm-chair, and asked Bertha to bring a pillow. Under Madeleine's tuition Maurice had become quite expert in promoting an invalid's comfort, and yet he now failed to arrange the pillow satisfactorily. Perhaps his father's chair was not easy, or the one to which he was accustomed was more commodious, or Maurice was more clumsy than usual; for though Bertha also lent her aid, the count kept repeating, fretfully,--

"It's not right,--it does not support my shoulders! You can't do it!

Leave it alone! Leave it alone!"

They desisted, and sat down beside him.

The countess had no faculty of starting conversation, and Bertha's merry tongue had of late lost its volubility; she had so often irritated her aunt by her remarks that she had become afraid to speak. Maurice was too sad to be otherwise than taciturn. Thus the reunited little family sat in solemn silence. Count Tristan looked around him drearily for a while, and then having for a moment lost recollection of what had just taken place, exclaimed disconsolately,--

"Where is Madeleine?"

These unfortunate words roused the countess. She rose up as loftily as in her proudest, most unchastened days, and approaching him, asked, in a rebuking voice,--

"For _whom_ do you inquire, my son? Am I to understand that a mother's presence is not all-sufficient for her own child? Is not hers the place by his side? If that place has been, for a season, usurped, should he not rejoice that she to whom it legitimately belongs occupies it once more?"

The count looked awed, and did not attempt to reply. Maurice perceived that he must exert himself to shield his father from as much discomfort as could be warded off, and inquired, without directly addressing either the countess or Bertha,--

"Is my father's room prepared for him? But I suppose that it is. His drive must have fatigued him, and I think he would like to retire."

The countess disclaimed any knowledge of the state of the apartment, signifying that she was not in the habit of occupying herself with matters of this nature. Bertha was equally ignorant, but said she would go and see. Maurice prevented her by going himself.

The room looked as though it had not been entered since the day when he had packed up his father's clothes to move them to Madeleine's, and that was more than a fortnight ago. There was some delay in getting a chambermaid; servants are always busy, yet never to be had in an American hotel; after several ineffectual attempts, he obtained the services of an Irish girl; and he induced Adolphine to lend her aid, that the room might be aired, swept, and put in order more rapidly.

Adolphine was rather a hinderance to the bustling Irish help, for a Parisian lady's-maid knows one especial business, and knows nothing else, however simple; she is an instrument that plays but one tune, and she boasts of her _speciality_ as a virtue. In something more than an hour Adolphine announced that the apartment of _M. le Comte_ was in readiness.

Count Tristan was very willing to retire, and after Maurice had played the valet without a.s.sistance, his father seemed disposed to sleep, and Maurice closed the blinds and sat down quietly until he perceived that the invalid had fallen into a deep slumber. Henceforth he was to watch beside him, when watching was needed, alone! Those blessed nights, shorter and sweeter than the happiest dreams, when he had sat in the pale light, with that beautiful face beaming opposite to him,--that soft voice sounding melodiously in his ears,--they were gone, never to return!

At that very moment Madeleine herself was haunted by the same reflections. When she drove home alone, and reentered her house, how desolate and dreary it appeared! How empty and lonely seemed those apartments so lately occupied by the ones nearest of kin and dearest to her heart! She wandered through the rooms, up and down, up and down, with restless feet, pondering upon the singular events of the last few weeks; she had not before had leisure to dwell upon them. Was it indeed true that her roof had sheltered Count Tristan de Gramont?--Count Tristan de Gramont, whose persecutions in other days, had driven her from his own roof, and whose hatred had embittered and blighted her life? And had he learned to depend upon her? to love her? To talk to her, even when his mind wandered, of _grat.i.tude_, as though that emotion was ever uppermost in her presence? And Maurice, her dear cousin,--Maurice, the beloved of her soul, who must never know that he was all in all to her,--had he been her guest for more than two weeks?

And had she been permitted the joy of promoting his comfort in a thousand little, unnoted, womanly ways? Had he sat at her table? Had they watched together, night and day, by his father's bed?--talking through the night hours, unwearied when the morning broke, unwilling to welcome the first rays of the sun, because their sweet, inexhaustible converse came to an end? Had they shared the happiness of ameliorating Count Tristan's melancholy state, and seeing him daily improve? And now it was all over: she must resume her old course of life, her temporarily laid aside labors! To muse too long upon departed happiness would unfit her for those. Even the sad joy of recollection was denied her.

She sent for Mrs. Lawkins and directed everything to be restored to its usual order. The draperies in the entry were to be taken down;--no, let them remain; Madeleine had been accustomed to see that portion of the house divided from the rest; let them stay. In pa.s.sing through the drawing-room she noticed Maurice's trunk, which he had not thought of packing. Though it gave her many a pang, because she was forced to realize more keenly that he was surely gone, it was also with a sense of pleasure that she collected together the articles belonging to him and packed them carefully. Hers was a nature peculiarly susceptible to the pure delight of serving, aiding, sparing trouble to those whom she loved. The meanest household drudgery, the severest labor, the most prosaic making and mending, would have gained a charm and been idealized into pleasures, if they contributed to the well-being of those dear to her; but, when performed for the one more precious than all others, they became positive joys.

She left Mrs. Lawkins busied in the arrangement of the apartments, and went upstairs to the workroom, which she had not entered for nearly three weeks. She had not seen any of her _employees_, except Ruth, and Mademoiselle Victorine, since they all had learned her rank. Her unexpected appearance created a great commotion. No one but Ruth had expected to behold her in that apartment again. The women all rose respectfully; but an unwonted restraint checked the expression of gratification which her presence ever imparted. Madeleine smilingly bade them to be seated; then pa.s.sed around the table and spoke to every needle-woman in turn, inquiring after the personal health of each, or asking questions about her family,--for she knew the histories of all; and then learning particulars concerning the work that had been done, and the work in hand.