My Little Lady Part 38

"I daresay you are right," he said. "Don't be afraid, Georgie, I shall not vex myself too much, but at present the whole thing appears hateful to me, as far as I am concerned."

The next morning he was gone before any one of the family was stirring.

CHAPTER V.

Er, der Herrlischste von Allen.

"Ashurst, July, 186--,

"Dear Uncle Horace,--Mamma has a bad headache, and says I am to write and ask you whether you have quite forgotten us, and if you are never coming to see us again. She says, cannot you come next week, because Lady Lorrimer's great ball is on the 31st. She and cousin Madelon are going, and she would be very glad if you could escort them, as papa says he will not go.

Cousin Madelon is here still, and Aunt Barbara is coming on Monday to stay with us for a little while before she goes back with her to Cornwall. Cousin Madelon has been reading French with me, and giving me music-lessons. We had a pic-nic in the woods last week, and my holidays begin to-morrow. I wish you would come back, Uncle Horace, and then we could have some fun before Cousin Madelon goes away. I wish she would never go, but stay here always, as Maria used. I have been reading some of your book; mamma said I might, and I like it very much.

Mamma sends her love, and I am

"Your affectionate niece,

"Madge Vavasour."

"Mamma says that she received yesterday the note that I enclose, and that she sends it to you to read."

The note was from Maria Leslie, and was dated from a country- town whither she had gone to stay with some friends, shortly after Graham's departure from Ashurst.

"Dearest Georgie,

"I feel that you are the first person to whom I should write the news that I am engaged to be married to Mr. Norris. He has just had the offer of a living in the north, and lost no time in coming to tell me of his prospects, and to invite me to share them. To you, who know him so well, I need say nothing of my own great happiness. I only fear that, after all that has pa.s.sed, you may think I have been a little precipitate; but I could not but feel that something was due to Mr. Morris, and that it would be wrong to keep him in suspense. Send me you good wishes and congratulations, dear Georgie, for I cannot feel that my happiness is complete without them.

"Ever your affectionate,

"Maria Leslie."

Graham arrived by the last available train on the evening of the 31st, and was told by Madge, who came running into the hall to meet him, that Mamma and Cousin Madelon were dressing, and would Uncle Horace have some dinner, or go and dress too?

Uncle Horace said he had dined already, and would dress at once, and so disappeared upstairs with his portmanteau.

When he came down to the drawing-room, he found Mrs. Treherne sitting alone in the summer twilight at the open window.

"Is that you, Horace?" she said, putting out her hand; "you are quite a stranger here, I understand. Georgie says she has been jealous of my seeing so much of you in London."

"I think Georgie has no right to complain of me," he answered; "if there is a thing on earth I hate it's a ball--are you going, too, Aunt Barbara?"

"Indeed, no--I think you will have enough to do with two ladies; here comes one of them."

A tall, slender figure, moving through the dusk with her soft trailing draperies, and water-lilies in her brown hair. Graham had not seen her since that evening, more than three months ago, when she had looked up at him, and escaped in the midst of her unfinished song. They took each other's hands in silence now; a sudden consciousness and embarra.s.sment seemed to oppress them both, and make the utterance of a word impossible.

Madelon was the first to speak; she went up to Mrs. Treherne.

"Can you see my flowers, Aunt Barbara?" she said; "are they not pretty? Madge walked three miles to-day to the sedge ponds, on purpose to get them for me."

"Is Madge still your devoted friend?" Horace asked.

"Oh! yes, Madge and I are always great friends. I must not expect all her attentions though, now that you are come back, Monsieur Horace."

The old childish name seemed to break the spell, and to bring back the old familiarity.

"And so you are going to a ball at last, Madelon," Graham said. "For the first time in my life I am sorry I cannot dance, for I shall be deprived of the pleasure of having you for a partner."

"Thank you," she said, "I should have liked to have danced with you very much; but, after all, it is in the intention that is the greatest compliment, so I will not mind too much.

I think I will be very happy even if I do not dance at all."

She looked up at him for the first time, and even in the dusk he seemed to see the light in her eyes, the smile on her lips, the colour flushing in her cheeks. It was not of the ball she was thinking--it was of him; she had felt the grasp of his kind hand, his voice was sounding in her hears, he has come back at last--at last.

"You have been away a long time, Monsieur Horace," she said softly, "but we have heard of you often; we have read your book, and the critiques upon it; it has been a great success, has it not? And then we have seen your name in the papers--at dinners, at scientific meetings----"

"Yes," said Graham, "I have been doing plenty of hard work lately; but I have come down into the country to be idle, and have some fun, as Madge would say. We will take our holidays together, will we not, Madge?" he added, as the child, followed by her mother, came into the room.

Lady Lorrimer's ball was the culminating point of a series of festivities given in honour of the coming of age of an eldest son. To ordinary eyes, I suppose, it was very like any other ball, to insure whose success no accessory is wanting that wealth and good taste can supply; but to our Madelon there was something almost bewildering in this scene at once familiar and so strange; in these big, lighted, crowded rooms; in this music, whose every beat seemed to rouse a thousand memories and a.s.sociations, liking the present with the so remote past.

As for Madelon herself, she made a success, ideal almost, as if she had indeed been the enchanted Princess of little Madge's fairy tale. Something rare in the style of her beauty-- something in her foreign air and appearance, distinguished her at once in the crowd of girls; she was sought after from the moment she entered the room, and the biggest personages present begged for an introduction to Miss Linders. The girl was not insensible to her triumphs; her cheeks flushed, her eyes brightened with excitement and pleasure. Once, in a pause of the waltz, she was standing with her partner close to where Graham was leaning against a wall. He had an air of being horribly bored, as indeed he was; but Madelon's eye caught his, and he was obliged to smile in answer to her look of radiant pleasure.

"You are enjoying yourself, I see, Madelon," he said.

"I never was so happy!" she cried. "Ah! if you knew how I love dancing!--and it is so many years since I have had a waltz!"

Later on in the evening, Lady Lorrimer, the fashionable, gay, kind-hearted hostess, came up to her.

"Miss Linders," she said, "I have a favour to ask of you. My aunt, Lady Adelaide Spencer, is pa.s.sionately fond of music, and Mrs. Vavasour has been telling us how beautifully you sing. Would it be too much to ask you for one song? It is not fair, I know, in the midst of a ball, but the next dance is only a quadrille, I see----"

"I shall be most happy," says Madelon, blushing up, and following Lady Lorrimer down a long corridor into a music- room. There were not above a dozen people present when she began to sing, but the room was quite full before she rose from the piano. She sang one song after another, as it was asked for--French, German, English. The excitement of the moment, the sense of triumph and success, seemed to fill her with a sort of exaltation; never had her voice been so true and powerful, her accent so pure, her expression so grand and pathetic; she sang as if inspired by the very genius of song.

"We must not be unconscionable, and deprive Miss Linders of all her dancing," said Lady Lorrimer at last--"you would like to go back to the ball-room now, would you not? But first let me introduce you to my aunt; she will thank you better than I can for your singing."

Lady Adelaide Spencer, the great lady of the neighbourhood, a short, stout, good-natured old woman in black velvet, and a grizzled front, gave Madelon a most flattering reception.

"Sit down and talk to me a little," she said. "I want to thank you again for your lovely voice and singing. It is not every young lady who would give up her dancing just for an old woman's caprice."

"Indeed I like singing as much as dancing," says Madelon.

"And you do both equally well, my dear; you may believe me when I tell you so, for I know what good dancing is, and I have been watching you all the evening. You must come and see me and sing to me again. You live with your aunt, Mrs.

Treherne, Mrs. Vavasour tells me."

"Yes," replied Madelon.

"I knew Mrs. Treherne well years ago; tell her from me when you go home, that an old woman has fallen in love with her pretty niece, and ask her to bring you to see me. She is staying at Ashurst, I believe?"

"Yes," said Madelon, "we are both at Dr. Vavasour's house. I have been there all the spring and summer, and Aunt Barbara has come for a few weeks before we go home to Cornwall."