Fairy Fingers. Anna Cora Ogden Mowatt Ritchie
no shadow might fall upon your birthday happiness; besides, I clung to the hope that I might yet convince them of the propriety, the policy, the actual necessity of the step I propose to take. My father, yesterday, stunned me with a piece of intelligence which renders me wretched, yet forces me to act. I have given him my promise; there is no retreat. I must bring this matter to a climax, be the sequence what it may; and yet I dread to make the very first movement."
"I am too dull to read the riddle of the sphinx, and your words are as enigmatical. I have not begun to find their clew," replied Madeleine, pausing in the garland she was forming, and letting the ivy drop unnoticed around her.
The first impulse of Maurice was to gather the fallen leaves; the second prompted him gently to force the dress, she was so tastefully adorning, out of her hands, and toss it upon the table.
"I see your task is nearly completed, and Bertha's toilet for the ball will be sufficiently picturesque to cause the Marchioness de Fleury to die of envy; can you not, therefore, rest from your labors, good fairy dressmaker, and talk awhile with me? I need consolation—I need advice—and you alone can give me both."
"I?" Madeleine spoke that single word tremulously, and a faint flush passed over her soft, pale face.
"You, Madeleine, you, and you only!"
"There is Bertha, at last," she exclaimed, rising hastily, and approaching the door. "Do you not see her blue dress yonder through the trees? Bertha! Bertha!" and, leaving Maurice, she went forth to meet Bertha.
"Where have you hidden yourself all the morning, little truant? Why! what has happened to distress you? Your eyes look as though you had been weeping. Dear Bertha! what ails you?"
"I could not bear it any longer," almost sobbed Bertha, laying her head upon her cousin's shoulder. "I could not help coming to you, though I wanted to act entirely upon my own responsibility, and I had determined not even to consult you, for I am always fearful of getting you into trouble with my aunt."
Madeleine was so completely mystified that she could only murmur half to herself, "More enigmas! What can they mean?"
Then, passing her arm around Bertha's slender waist, they walked to the summer-house. The position of Bertha's head caused her bright ringlets completely to veil her face, and it was not until after she entered the châlet, and shook the blinding locks from before her eyes, that she saw Maurice. She drew back with a movement of vexation and confusion never before evinced at his presence—clung to Madeleine as though for protection, and seemed on the point of bursting into tears.
"Maurice came here expecting to find you with me," observed Madeleine. "He wanted to speak to you."
"Did he?—yes, I know he did. I know what he is going to say; I kept out of his way on purpose, until I could make up my mind about it all; I mean, I thought it best to postpone; but it does not matter—I would rather have it over; no—I don't mean that—I mean"—
Bertha's perturbation rendered any clearer expression of her meaning out of the question.
Madeleine took up the dress, which Maurice had flung upon the table, and said, "When you return to the house, Bertha, will you not come to my room and try on your dress? It is just completed."
"Stay, stay, Madeleine!" exclaimed Bertha and Maurice together.
"You see, we both desire you to stay," added Maurice; "therefore you cannot refuse. We have no secrets from you—have we, Bertha?"
"I had none until yesterday; but my aunt is inclined to be so severe with Madeleine, that I feared I might make mischief by taking her into my confidence. Do not go, Madeleine. Sit down, for you must stay. If you go, I will go with you; and Maurice wants to speak to me—I mean, I want to speak to him—that is to say, he intends to"—
Madeleine resumed her seat.
"Since you so tyrannically insist upon my remaining, I will finish this garland while you are having your mysterious explanation."
Maurice approached Bertha with a hesitation which had some slight touch of awkwardness. Feeling that it was easier to induce her to break the ice than to take the first step upon this delicate ground himself, he remarked, "You wanted to speak to me; what did you desire to say, my dear little cousin?"
Bertha looked up innocently into his face, as though she was scanning his features for the first time.
"What my aunt says is all very true. You are exceedingly handsome; I never denied it, except in jest; and you are decidedly agreeable, except now and then; and you have a noble heart—I never doubted it; and a fine intellect—though I do not know much about that; and any woman might be proud of you—that is, I dare say most women would."
"And I have a little cousin who is an adroit flatterer, and who is herself beautiful enough for a Hebe, and whose fascinations are sufficiently potent to captivate any reasonable or unreasonable man."
"Oh! but that is not to the point. I did not mean that we should exchange compliments. What I want to say is that such an attractive and agreeable young man as you are will naturally find hosts of young girls, who would any of them be proud to be chosen as his wife."
"And you, with your grace and beauty, your lovable character, and your large fortune, will have suitors innumerable, from among whom you may readily select one who will be worthy of you."
"But that is not to the point either! I told my aunt that I was not insensible to all your claims to admiration. I assure you I did you ample justice!"
"You were very kind and complimentary, little cousin; but I said as much of you to my father. I gave him to understand that I acknowledged you to be one of the most charming beings in the world, and that I thought the man to whom you gave your hand would be the happiest of mortals, and that I did not believe that man could value you more as a wife than I should as a sister."
"A sister! A sister! Oh! I am so glad!—a sister? You do not really love me, then?"
"Have I said that?"
"You have said the same thing, and I am overjoyed! I can never thank you half enough!"
"You do not love me then?" asked Maurice.
"I love you with all my heart! I never loved you half as well as at this moment!—that is as—as—a brother; for you love me as a sister, while my aunt declared you hoped to make me your wife—that you were crazily in love with me, and that if I refused you, I should ruin all your future prospects, for the blow would almost kill you. I cannot tell you how chagrined I was at the deplorable prospect. And it's all a mistake—is it not?"
"My father assured me that you had formed the most flattering attachment for me. Is that a mistake also?" inquired Maurice, skilfully avoiding the rudeness of a direct reply to her question.
"Oh! I never cared a straw for you except as the dearest cousin in the world!"
"But why," asked Maurice, resuming his usual gay tone of raillery, "why, if I am the incomparable being you pretend to think me, why are you so particularly averse to becoming my wife? What do you say to that? I should like to have an explanatory answer, little cousin; or else you must take back all your compliments."
"Not one of them!" replied Bertha, merrily. "I am so charmed with you at this moment that I feel inclined to double their number. Yet there is a reason why I should have refused you, even if you had offered yourself to me."
"Is it because you like somebody else better?"
"No, no," answered Bertha, hastily; "how can you suggest such an idea? But I suppose you do so because that is your reason for desiring to refuse my hand?"
"I shall be obliged to think my suggestion correct, unless you tell me why you are so glad to escape becoming my wife."
"It was because," said Bertha, approaching her rosy mouth to his ear, and speaking in a low tone,