Fairy Fingers Part 92

Not a few persuasions were needed before M. de Bois could obtain Bertha's promise to inform her aunt that she could not accompany her except upon the conditions Maurice had made. Bertha looked like a culprit awaiting sentence, rather than a person who came to dictate, when she entered Madame de Gramont's apartment. The countess had been highly incensed by her conversation with Maurice, and was wrought up to such a pitch that she seemed to have gained sudden strength, and almost to be restored to health. Bertha stole to her side, but the young girl's good intentions were oozing away every moment. The probability is that that she would not have had the courage to introduce the subject at all had not the countess asked,--

"Have you heard of the unnatural conduct of Maurice? Do you know that my own grandson abandons me?"

"I have heard," replied Bertha, hesitatingly. "Oh! what are we to do?

How could you ever travel to Brittany alone?"

"Alone?" cried the countess, catching hold of the blue silk curtains that draped her bed, and raising herself by clinging to them. "Alone? Do _you_, too, forsake me? But what else could I expect when my grandson, my only child left, has abandoned me?"

Bertha's determination was put to flight by her aunt's woful look as she spoke these words with despairing fierceness, while she grasped the curtains more tightly and bore heavily upon them for support.

These draperies were suspended over the centre of the bed from a ma.s.sive gilded ornament, shaped to represent a huge arrow, and the countess in her agitation gathered the folds around her, and hung upon them in her efforts to sit up.

"Oh, no, aunt, I have not forsaken you," returned Bertha. "I will go with you; but what shall we do alone? M. de Bois refuses to go unless Maurice and Madeleine go."

"Does M. de Bois expect to dictate to _me_?" demanded Madame de Gramont, haughtily. "Let him remain; you will go with me, Bertha, and I shall hire a courier."

"I am afraid we will not be able to find a courier in America," Bertha ventured to suggest.

"Then we will go without one! We will go the instant I am able; and I feel so much stronger at this moment that I could start at once. It is settled that we go, and I defy Maurice or any one else to keep me."

Madeleine had been visiting the working-room, and, without being aware of what had just taken place, she now entered her aunt's chamber. Madame de Gramont's convulsed features, and her singular att.i.tude as she sat up in the centre of the bed, tightly grasping the curtains, which had been drawn from their usual position, impressed Madeleine so painfully, that she was running toward her; when the countess, raising herself up, with sudden strength, exclaimed,--"Madeleine de Gramont, keep from me!--do not come near me! All my sorrow has come through you!--Go! go!"

She gave such a violent strain upon the curtains, as she pa.s.sionately uttered these words, that Madeleine's quick ears caught a sound as of some fastening giving way. With a cry of horror, she sprang to the bed, flung her arms around the countess, and dragged her from it just as the heavy ornament fell!

Madeleine's piercing cry, and Bertha's shriek summoned not only Mrs.

Lawkins, who was sitting in the adjoining chamber, but Maurice and Gaston. The curtains partially concealed the bed and the two who lay prostrate beside it; the white, haggard, terrified countenance of Madame de Gramont was alone visible. As Mrs. Lawkins endeavored to extricate her from the folds of the curtain, Maurice and Gaston removed the fallen arrow to which the drapery was still attached. Afterwards Gaston, who was nearest to Mrs. Lawkins, a.s.sisted her in raising the helpless countess and placing her upon the bed. Then the form of Madeleine became visible. She was stretched upon the ground motionless and senseless; her beautiful hair, loosened by her fall, enveloped her like a veil, and wholly concealed her face. What a groan of agony burst from Maurice as he knelt beside her and swept away the shrouding tresses! They were wet, and the hands that touched them became scarlet. The outermost edge of the arrow had struck Madeleine's head, inflicting a deep gash, and, as it fell, tore her dress the whole length of her left shoulder and arm, making another wound which bled profusely.

Maurice was so completely stupefied with horror that he had scarcely power to lift her light form.

"Here! here! place her here!" cried Mrs. Lawkins; "don't stir her any more than possible."

Maurice mechanically obeyed and laid Madeleine upon the same bed which bore the countess.

The nurse was the only one whose presence of mind had not completely departed, and she hurried from the room to send for medical a.s.sistance.

Maurice, as he clasped Madeleine in his arms, groaned out, "She is killed! she is dead! Oh, my Madeleine, my Madeleine! are you gone?

Madeleine! Madeleine!"

Madeleine gave no sign of life, though the blood still flowed.

Mrs. Lawkins, who had returned, tried to force him away--entreated him to let her approach Madeleine, that she might bind up her head and stanch the blood; but he did not hear, or heed,--he was lost in grief.

M. de Bois also appealed to him, but in vain; then Gaston attempted to use force to recall him to reason, and, seizing both of Maurice's arms, essayed to unclasp them from their hold of the inanimate form, saying as he did so:

"For the love of Heaven, Maurice, collect yourself; she may bleed to death if you prevent Mrs. Lawkins from doing what is needful to stop the blood."

Maurice struggled with him, as he exclaimed, hopelessly, "She is dead!

she is dead!"

"She is _not_ dead, but you may kill her if you refuse to let Mrs.

Lawkins bind up her wounds."

Maurice no longer resisted, and Mrs. Lawkins wiped away the blood, and commenced bandaging the fair, wounded head. The pale features had been stained with the crimson flood, and, as Mrs. Lawkins bathed them, their marble whiteness and stillness were appalling.

Bertha had not ceased to sob, though Gaston, the instant he could safely relinquish his hold of Maurice, essayed by every means in his power to soothe her.

The countess was gazing upon Madeleine with an air of stupefied grief.

Bertha, who had no control over her pa.s.sionate sorrow, as her eyes fell upon Madame de Gramont, cried out, reproachfully,--

"Aunt, but for her, you would have been killed! You who never loved her!

She has lost her life in trying to save yours!"

The countess did not appear to heed the cruel words, though they were the echo of her own thoughts.

Mrs. Lawkins' skilful ministry had stanched the blood and Madeleine's head and arm were bound up; but still she lay like some lovely statue, her lips apart and hueless,--her eyes closed, and the dark lashes sweeping her alabaster cheeks; while her long hair, still dripping with its crimson moisture, was lifted over the pillow. As Mrs. Lawkins, having accomplished her sad task, drew back, Maurice pressed into her place, and Bertha crowded in beside him, loading the senseless Madeleine with caresses and tender epithets; then, as she turned to her aunt, who had raised herself on her elbow, and was also bending over the lifeless figure, exclaimed impetuously,--

"Oh! how could you help loving her? We all loved her so much! Cousin Tristan said she was his good angel, and she has been the good angel of all our family; but our good angel is gone! We have lost her through you!"

Bertha's overwhelming sorrow had swept away all her former dread of her aunt, whom her reproaches deeply stung. They were the first Madame de Gramont had ever heard from those timid lips. At that moment the conscience-stricken woman would have made any sacrifice, even of her pride, to have seen Madeleine restored to life. While contemplating that angelic face, now so still and white, torturing fiends recalled all the harsh words she had used to pain this defenceless being,--all the cruel wrong she had done her,--all the misery she had caused her; and now she inwardly prayed that Madeleine might live; but with that prayer arose the thought that the supplication of such a one as she would remain unheard in heaven.

Mrs. Lawkins, aided by Maurice, was applying restoratives. With his arm beneath Madeleine's head, he was holding a spoon to her lips, and, with gentle force, pouring its contents into her mouth, watching her with the most thrilling anxiety. He thought a slight movement of the lips was perceptible; then they quivered more certainly, and she made an effort to swallow.

The countess was the first one that spoke: "She is not dead! I am spared that!"

She sank back upon her pillow and wept.

No one present had ever seen her weep; but now she did not try to hide her tears; they gushed forth in fierce torrents, like a stream that breaks forth through severed icebergs; for in her soul the ice that had gathered to mountain heights was melting at last.

Maurice had echoed the words, "She is not dead," pressing his own burning lips upon those pale, feebly-stirring, cold ones, and catching the first returning breath that Madeleine drew. At that long, fervent kiss her eyes unclosed; they saw his face and nothing beside.

"Madeleine, my beloved, you are spared to me! My life returns now that you are given back."

Madeleine faintly murmured "Maurice," and then her eyes wandered from his face to those around her, and she added, "What is it?"

Bertha's transition from grief to joy was so clamorous that no one could answer. If Gaston had not restrained her, Madeleine's bandage would have been endangered by the young girl's vehement embraces, which were mingled with incoherent exclamations of rapture.

"What is it?" again questioned Madeleine; but, as she spoke her eye caught sight of the fallen curtain, thrown in a heap, and remembering the recent danger, she turned quickly to the countess, and said, feebly,--

"You are not hurt, aunt,--madame? The shaft did not strike you,--did it?"

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. G.o.d 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? Do you mean"--

The countess finished his sentence solemnly, "That it shall be as my son said."

Madeleine, overcome with joy and grat.i.tude, tried to raise herself up that she might reach the countess, but sank back powerless, and the effort again started the crimson current which trickled through the bandage and ran down her face.