My Little Lady Part 28

"Yes?" said Jeanne-Marie, without any apparent emotion, "and where are you going?"

"I am going to Spa. Ah! Jeanne-Marie, do not ask me what I am going to do; it is my secret, I cannot tell any one, but you shall know some day."

Jeanne-Marie was silent for a moment, then, "Look here, _ma pet.i.te_," she said; "I don't want to know what you are going to do; it is no concern of mine, and I cannot keep you if you want to go away; but who are you going to in Spa? I cannot let you go off without knowing where you are, and whether you are safe. You might have the fever again, or some one might try to take you back to the convent, and I should know nothing about it. Where are you going? Have you any friends at Spa?"

"There is only Madame Bertrand at the Hotel de Madrid,"

replied Madelon, rather disconsolately; "I would not mind going to her again, she is so kind; she wanted me to stay with her the last time I was there--but then there is Mademoiselle Henriette--it was she who wished to send me back to the convent; if she were not there, I should not be afraid."

"And is there no other hotel you could go to?"

"I should not like to go to another," said Madelon, "they would be all strange; I would rather go to Madame Bertrand, and I should not have to stay there long."

"And then what are you going to do?"

"I don't know--I am not sure," answered Madelon, rather embarra.s.sed. "I shall write to a friend I have--Monsieur Horace, you know--and he will tell me what to do."

"And why do you not write to him at once, _mon enfant?_"

"I cannot," was all Madelon's answer, nor could Jeanne-Marie ever extract any further explanation on that point. The next day Jeanne-Marie was missing from the restaurant for some hours; but she reappeared in the afternoon, and presently came out into the garden, where Madelon, seated in her favourite corner, was nursing a big cat, and sorting out herbs for drying.

"What a long time you have been away!" she said, as Jeanne- Marie came up to her. "See, I have done all these; I think there are enough to last you all the winter."

"Not quite," answered the woman; "bur never mind them now. Do you want to know where I have been? I have been to Spa, and seen Madame Bertrand."

"Have you?" cried Madelon; "did you tell her about me? Was Mademoiselle Henriette there?"

"Mademoiselle Henriette is gone; she and her aunt had a grand quarrel, and she left, and so Madame Bertrand is alone again.

I told her all about you: she said she was glad you had not gone back to the convent, and that you could go to her whenever you wished, for she would take care of you. So as your work is done," Jeanne-Marie added with a sigh, "there is nothing to keep you, and you may go as soon as you like."

"May I" cried Madelon; "to-morrow, next day? Ah! Jeanne-Marie, how happy you have made me; you will know why, you will understand some day--tell me when I shall go."

"We will say the day after to-morrow. I will get your things ready," answered Jeanne-Marie. She stood gazing at the child for a moment, as if she would have said something more, then turned away quickly and entered the house.

Madelon never thought of connecting Jeanne-Marie's sad looks and ways with her own departure; and indeed, hardly noticed them, in her joy at having accomplished her task, and earned the longed-for thirty francs. She did not understand nor suspect the woman's pa.s.sionate longing for her affection; no child can comprehend that strange, pathetic yearning that older people have for a child's love--a love so pure, and fresh, and ingenuous, that when it is freely and frankly given, it is surely the most flattering and precious in the world. Madelon gave Jeanne-Marie all the love she had to bestow, but the first place in her heart was already taken; and perhaps the woman had discovered that it was so, and was half jealous of this unknown Monsieur Horace, whom she divined to be at the bottom of all Madelon's plans and ideas. But if it were so, she never spoke of it, nor of any of the half- formed hopes and projects she may have had; and Madelon never could have guessed them, as her kind, sad hostess silently made up her small wardrobe into a bundle, and patched the old black silk frock once more, sighing over it the while. And had Madelon then no regrets at leaving the little cottage, where she had been tended with such motherly care? Some, perhaps; for as she sat that last evening watching Jeanne-Marie at her work, she, too, sighed a little; and at last, clasping her arms round the woman's neck, she cried, "Jeanne-Marie, I will love you always--always!--I will never forget you!"

"That is as may be," says melancholy Jeanne-Marie, disengaging herself.

"Ah! you will not believe me," said Madelon; "but I tell you I never forget, and you have been so good, so kind to me!

Sometimes I think I should like to stay with you always--would you let me?"

"Would I let you?" said Jeanne-Marie, dropping her work suddenly, and looking at the child. "No, I would not let you,"

she said, after a moment's pause, "unless you had nowhere else to go; but you have other friends, it appears, and it is well for you. No, I would not let you, for it would be as bad a thing for you as could be. Ask any of the neighbours what they would think of it--ask them if they think you would get good or bad from me, and see what they would say!" She gave a little scornful laugh.

"I don't know what you mean," said Madelon, fixing her great eyes on her with a puzzled look--"I don't care what they would say. You are one of the best people I ever knew, and I love you with all my heart; but I _must_ go away."

"Why must you?" asks Jeanne-Marie, st.i.tching away at the black frock.

"That is what I cannot tell you," said Madelon. "No, I will not tell any one, though I should like to tell you, too,"

added the poor child, gazing wistfully at almost the only friend she had in the world.

"Well, well," said Jeanne-Marie, "I do not want to hear your secrets, as you know, unless you like to tell them; but I am not going to lose sight of you altogether till I hear you are safe with your friends. You must write me a letter from Spa, and if I do not hear or see anything of you in a week's time, I shall come and look after you."

"Yes, I will write," said Madelon; "and I wish--I wish I was not going away; I have been so happy here." And then she hid her face on Jeanne-Marie's shoulder, while the sky was all rosy with the sunset of the last of these peaceful summer days that our Madelon was to spend at Le Trooz.

Jeanne-Marie could not spare time to go again to Spa the next day, but she went with Madelon to the station, and waited till the train that bore her away was out of sight, and then, all lonely, she walked back to her empty house.

CHAPTER XVI.

How Madelon kept her Promise.

Madelon was standing in a little upper bedroom of the Hotel de Madrid, a room so high up that from the window one looked over the tops of the trees in the Place Royale below, to the opposite hills. It was already dusk, but there was sufficient light to enable her to count over the little piles of gold that lay on the table before her, and which, as she counted, she put into a small canvas bag. It was the third evening after her arrival in Spa; she was preparing for her third visit to the Redoute, and this was what her capital of thirty francs had already produced.

The last ten-franc piece disappeared within the bag, and Madelon, taking her hat and cloak, began to put them on slowly, pausing as she did so to reflect.

"If I have the same luck this evening," she thinks, "to-morrow I shall be able to write to Monsieur Horace--if only I have--and why not? I have scarcely lost once these last two nights.

Certainly it is better to play in the evening than in the daytime. I remember now that papa once said so, and to-night I feel certain--yes, I feel certain that I shall win--and then to- morrow----"

She clasped her hands in ecstasy; she looked up at the evening sky. It was a raw, grey September evening, with gusts of wind and showers of rain at intervals. But Madelon cared nothing for the weather; her heart was all glowing with hope, and joy, and exultation. She put on her hat and veil, took up her money, and locking her door after her, ran downstairs. She hung the key up in Madame Bertrand's room, but Madame Bertrand was not there. On Madelon's arrival at the hotel she had found the excellent old woman ill, and unable to leave her room, and it was in her bed that she had given the child the warmest of welcomes, and from thence that she had issued various orders for her comfort and welfare. Her attack still kept her confined to her room, and thus it happened that our Madelon, quite independent, found herself at liberty to come and go just as she pleased.

She hung up her key, in the deserted little parlour, and, unchallenged, left the hotel, and went out into the tree- planted Place, where the band was playing, and people walking up and down under the chill grey skies. She felt very hopeful and joyous, so different from the first time she had started on the same errand, and the fact inspired her with ever- increasing confidence. She had failed then, and yet here she was, successful in her last attempts, ready to make another crowning trial, and with how many more chances in her favour!

Surely she could not fail now!--and yet if she should! She was turning towards the Redoute, when an idea suddenly occurred to her--an idea most natural, arising, as it did, from that instinctive cry for more than human help, that awakes in every heart on great emergencies, and appealing, moreover, to that particular cla.s.s of religious sentiment which in our little orphaned Madelon had most readily responded to convent teaching. What if it had been the Holy Virgin Mother who had been her protector in all these troubles, who had raised her up friends, and had brought her from death, as it were, to life again, to fulfil her promise? And if it were so,--which seemed most probable to Madelon,--would it not be well to invite her further protection, and even by some small offering to give emphasis to her prayers? Madelon's notions, it will be perceived, were not in strict accordance with convent orthodoxy, which would scarcely have been willing to recognize the Virgin's help in a successful escape from the convent itself; but orthodox notions were the last things with which it was to be expected our Madelon would trouble herself.

Without other thought than that here might be another and sure way of furthering her one object, she made her way into a church, and expending two sous in a lighted taper, carried it to a little side chapel, where, above a flower-decorated altar, a beneficent Madonna seemed to welcome all sad orphans in the world to her all-protecting embrace.

To me there is something infinitely touching in these shrines to the Virgin, with all their a.s.sociations of suffering and prayer, in their little ex-voto pictures, and flowers, and lighted tapers. I do not envy those who can see in them nothing but the expression of a pitiable superst.i.tion; to my mind they appeal to far wider sympathies, as one thinks of the sick and weary hearts who have come there to seek consolation and help. Everywhere one comes across these shrines--in the gloom of some great Cathedral, in some homely village church, in some humble wayside chapel, where, amidst sunny fields and pastures, amidst mountains, streams, and lakes, one reads the little heart-broken scrawls affixed to the grating, praying an Ave-Maria or Paternoster from the pa.s.ser-by, for a sick person, for a mother watching beside her dying child, for a woman forsaken of the world. A whole atmosphere of consecrated suffering seems to float round these spots sacred to sorrow, the sorrow that humbly appeals, as it best knows how, to the love, wide enough to embrace and comfort all desolate, and yearning, and heavy-laden souls.

One can fancy Madelon as she walks along the dim church; one or two lights twinkle here and there in the darkness, the taper she holds shines on her little pale face, and her brown eyes are lighted up with a sudden glow of enthusiasm, devotion, supplication, as she kneels for a moment before the Virgin's altar, with an Ave-Maria on her lips, and an unspoken prayer in her heart.

Half an hour later, Madelon, in the midst of the blaze of light in the big gambling salon of the Redoute, is thinking of nothing in the world but rouge-et-noir and the chances of the game before her. For the first time she has ventured to push her way through the crowd and take a seat at the table; and for the moment she has forgotten her object, forgotten why she is there even, in the excitement of watching whether black or red will win. It matters little, it seems; whatever she stakes on, comes up; her small capital is being doubled an trebled.

She had taken off her veil, which hitherto she had carefully kept down, and the little flushed face, with the eager eyes that sparkle with impatience at every pause in the game, is noticed by several people round the table. Her invariable luck, too, is remarked upon. "Stake for me, _mon enfant_,"

whispered a voice in her ear, and a little pile of five-franc pieces was put in front of her. Madelon, hardly thinking of what she did, staked the stranger's money along with her own on the red. It won. "Thank you, my child; it is the first time I have won to-night," said the voice again, as a long hand covered with rings swept up the money. Madelon turned round quickly: behind her stood a woman with rouged cheeks, a low evening dress half concealed by a black lace shawl, beads and bracelets on her neck and arms--a common figure enough--there were half-a-dozen more such in the room--and she took no more notice of Madelon, but went on p.r.i.c.king her card without speaking to her again. But to the child there came a quick revulsion of feeling, that she could not have explained, as she shrank away from her gaudily-attired neighbour. All at once the game seemed somehow to have lost its interest and excitement; the crowds, the heat, the light, suddenly oppressed her; for the first time her heart gave way. She felt scared, friendless, lonely. There came to her mind a thought of the peaceful faces of the black-robed sisters, a sound as of the tinkling bell ringing above the old cabbage-ground, a breath sweet with the scent of fresh roses in Jeanne-Marie's little garden; she had a momentary impulse to go, to fly somewhere, anywhere--ah! but whither? Whither in all the wide world could she go? Back to the convent to be made a nun? Back to Jeanne-Marie with her promise unfulfilled? "I will keep my promise, I will not be frightened," thinks the poor child, bravely; "I will fancy that papa is in the room, and that he will take care of me." And all these thoughts pa.s.s through he head while the croupier is crying, "_Faites votre jeu, Messieurs, faites votre jeu!_" and in, and on she goes again.

And while she is intent on making Monsieur Horace's fortune, Monsieur Horace himself, not five hundred yards off, is walking up and down the Place Royale, listening to the band, and troubling his head not at all about fortune-making, but very much about Madelon. On his recovery from his illness, he had come to Spa to drink the waters, and had been there nearly a month, during which time he had twice been over to Liege to make inquiries about Madelon. His dismay had been great, when, on his first visit to the convent, he had learnt that Mademoiselle Linders was dead, that her little niece had disappeared three or four months before, and that nothing had been heard of her since, with the exception of the vague, anonymous letter from Paris. He wrote off at once to Madame Lavaux, the only person with whom he could imagine Madeleine to have taken refuge; but, as we know, Madame Lavaux had neither seen her nor heard anything about her. He had then, in his perplexity, written to her old friends in Florence, thinking it just possible they might be able to give him some information, but with no more success. He received an answer from the American artist, in which he mentioned the death of the old violinist, lamented Madelon's disappearance, but, as may be supposed, gave no news of her.

Graham was greatly annoyed and perplexed. What could have become of the child? To whom could she have gone? She had had no friend but himself when he had last parted from her, and she could hardly, he imagined, have made any outside the convent walls. And why had she run away? Had she been unkindly treated? Why had she not written to him if she were in trouble? These and a hundred other questions he asked himself, reproaching himself the while for not having kept up some kind of communication with her, or with Mademoiselle Linders. He had a real interest in, and affection for, the child, whom he had befriended in her hour of need; and held himself besides in some sort responsible for her welfare, after the promise he had made to her father on his death-bed. What was he to do if all traces of her were indeed lost? This very day he had again been over to Liege, had paid a second visit to the convent, and had made inquiries of every person who probably or improbably might have had news of her, but with no more result than before; and now, as he walked up and down the Place Royale, he was debating in his own mind whether he could take any further steps in the matter, or whether it must not rather now be left to time and chance to discover her hiding-place.

A shower of rain came on, dispersing the few people who had cared to linger in the open air in this raw, chilly evening; and Horace, leaving the Place, went up the street, which, with its lights and shops, looked cheerfully by comparison, and, like the rest of the world, turned into the Redoute, more than usually full, for it was the race-week, and numbers of strangers had come into the town. The ball-room, where dancing was going on, was crowded; and Graham, who, attracted by the music, had looked in, had soon had enough of the heat and noise. In a few minutes he had made his way into the gambling salon, and had joined one of the silent groups standing round the tables.

Meanwhile, Madelon, once more absorbed in the game, is meditating her grand _coup_. Hitherto she has been playing cautiously, her capital acc.u.mulating gradually, but surely, till she has quite a heap of gold and notes before her. It is already a fortune in her eyes, and she thinks, if she could only double this all at once, then indeed would the great task be accomplished; she might go then, she might write to Monsieur Horace, she would see him again--ah! what joy, what happiness! Should she venture? Surely it would be very rash to risk all that at once--and yet if she were to win--and she has been so lucky this evening-- her heart leaps up again--she hesitates a moment, then pushes the whole on to the black, reserving only one ten-franc piece, and sits pale, breathless, incapable of moving, during what seemed to her the longest minute in her life. It was only a minute--the croupier dealt the cards--"_Rouge perd, et couleur_," he cried, paid the smaller stakes, and then, counting out gold and notes, pushed over to her what was, in fact, a sufficiently large sum, and which, to her inexperienced eyes, seemed enormous. "Who is she?" asked one or two of the bystanders of each other. "She has been winning all the evening." They shrugged their shoulders; n.o.body knew. As for Madelon, she heard none of their remarks-- she had won, she might go now, go and find Monsieur Horace; and as this thought crossed her mind, she gathered up her winnings, thrust them into her bag, and rose to depart. As she turned round, she faced Monsieur Horace himself, who had been standing behind her chair, little dreaming whose play it was he had been watching.

She recognised him in a moment, though he had grown thinner and browner since she had last seen him. "Monsieur Horace!-- Monsieur Horace!" she cried.

He was still watching the game, but turned at the sound of her voice, and looked down on the excited little face before him.

"Madelon!" he exclaimed--"Madelon here!--no, impossible!

Madelon!"

"Yes, yes," she said, half laughing, half crying at the same time, "I am Madelon. Ah! come this way--let me show you. I have something to show you this time--you will see, you will see!"