Fairy Fingers. Anna Cora Ogden Mowatt Ritchie
remarked the countess, in a somewhat softer tone.
She deemed it politic to conciliate Madeleine for the present, fearing that she might be driven to take some humiliating step which would cast a reflection upon her kindred.
"I regret that my son has acted hastily. If you conduct yourself with the propriety which I have the right to demand, you will still find a home in the Château de Gramont, and in myself the mother I have ever been to you."
"Mother!" at that word Madeleine's glacial composure melted. "A mother!—oh, my aunt, thank you for that word! You do not know how much good it does me to hear it from your lips! But the Château de Gramont can never more be my home. That is settled: I came to tell you so."
"What do you mean?" asked the count, with a gleam of ill-disguised satisfaction.
"I mean that I purpose shortly to quit this mansion, never to return!"
"Then you do intend to accompany Lady Vivian to Scotland?" he inquired.
"You—my niece—a de Gramont—become the humble companion of Lady Vivian!" exclaimed the countess, in wrathful astonishment. "Can you even contemplate such an alternative?"
"No, madame," returned Madeleine, with an emphasis which might have been interpreted into a tone of pride. "I shall not become the humble companion of any lady."
"With whom do you expect to live?" demanded the count.
"I shall live alone."
"Live alone, at your age—without fortune, without friends? It is impracticable—impossible!" replied her aunt, decisively.
"I have reached my majority. I shall try to deserve friends. I have some small possession: the family diamonds of my mother still remain to me."
"But your noble name."
"Rest assured that it will never be disgraced by me!"
"I tell you that your project is impossible," maintained the countess, resolutely. "I forbid you to even attempt to put it into execution. I forbid you by the gratitude you owe me. I forbid you in the name of all the kindnesses I have lavished upon you!"
"And do you not see, my aunt, it is because I would still be grateful for these kindnesses that I would go hence? From the moment I learned I was a burden to you, that my presence here was unwelcome, this was no longer my home. If I leave you now, the memory of your goodness only, will dwell in my heart. If I were to remain longer, each day my presence would become more intolerable to you; each day your words and looks would grow colder and harsher; each day I should feel more degraded in my own eyes. You would spoil your own benefactions: I perhaps, might forget them, and be stained with the crime of ingratitude. No, let us now part—now, while I may still dare to hope that you will think of me with tenderness and regret—now, while I can yet cherish the recollection of the happy days I have passed beneath your roof. My resolution is taken: it is unalterable. I could not rest here. You will, perhaps, accord me a few days to make needful preparations; then I must bid you farewell."
She turned to quit the room, but encountered Maurice and Bertha, who had entered in time to hear the last sentence.
Bertha, on leaving her cousin, had sought Maurice and told him of Madeleine's prostrating sorrow. They hastened back to the châlet together, but she had disappeared. They were in search of her when they entered the library.
"Bid us farewell, Madeleine?" cried Bertha. "What do you mean? Where are you going? Surely you will never leave us?"
"I must."
"But my aunt will not let you; Cousin Tristan will not let you; Maurice will not let you. Speak to her, some of you, and say that she shall not go."
"Bertha," answered the count, "you do not know all the circumstances which have caused Madeleine to form this resolution; and, if my mother will pardon me for differing with her, I must say, frankly, that I approve of the course Madeleine has chosen. I honor her for it. I think she acts wisely in remaining here no longer!"
Then Maurice came forward boldly, and placing himself beside Madeleine, with an air of manly protection, spoke out—
"And I agree with you, my father. I honor Madeleine for her resolution. I think she acts wisely in remaining here no longer."
"O Maurice, Maurice! how can you speak so? Don't let her go, unless you want to make me miserable!" pleaded Bertha.
Madeleine's hueless face was overspread with a brilliant glow as she cast upon Maurice one hasty look of gratitude.
"I speak what I mean. Madeleine cannot, without sacrificing her self-respect, accept hospitality which is not freely given—protection which is unwillingly accorded. She cannot remain here as an inferior—a dependent; one who is under daily obligation—who is merely tolerated because she has no other place of refuge. My father, there is only one position in which she can remain in the Château de Gramont, and that is as an equal; as its future mistress; as your daughter; as my wife!"
The countess was stricken dumb with rage; and a sudden revulsion of feeling toward the shrinking girl, whose deep blushes she interpreted into a token of exultation, made her almost as willing to drive her forth, no matter whither, as her son himself.
Bertha, with an exclamation of delight, flung her arms joyfully about Madeleine's neck.
"Maurice, are you mad? Do you forget that you are my son?" was all that the count could gasp out, in his indignant amazement.
"It is as your son that I speak; it is as the inheritor of your name—that name which Madeleine also bears."
"You seem to have forgotten"—began his father.
Maurice interrupted him—
"I have not forgotten that I have not reached my majority, and that your consent is necessary to render Madeleine my wife."
(Our readers are doubtless aware that the law in France fixes the majority of a young man at twenty-five, and that he has no power to contract marriage or to control property until that period.)
"But, believe me, my father, even if this were not the case, I should not desire to act without your approval, and I know I could never induce Madeleine to forego your consent to our union. But what valid objections can you have? You desired that Bertha should become my wife. Is not Madeleine precisely the same kin to me as Bertha? Is she not as good, as beautiful?"
"Oh, a thousand times better and lovelier!" exclaimed Bertha, with affectionate enthusiasm.
"There is but one difference: she is poor and Bertha is rich. Think you Bertha's fortune could have one feather's weight in deciding my choice? I thank Heaven for teaching me to account it more noble, more honorable, to ask what the woman I would marry is, than to inquire what she has."
His father made a vain attempt to speak. Maurice went on without noticing the futile effort.
"But this is not all: I dare to hope that Madeleine's heart is mine, while Bertha's is not. My father, you requested that Bertha and I should have an understanding with each other; and we have had one. Bertha has told me that she does not love me. Is it not so, Bertha?"
"I told you that I loved you with all my heart, as the dearest, most delightful cousin in the world!" answered Bertha, naïvely.
"Just as I love you!" replied Maurice, smiling upon her tenderly. "But, as a lover, you definitely rejected me—did you not?"
"Oh, yes; just as you refused me. We are perfectly agreed upon that point," she rejoined, with childlike frankness and simplicity.
"For shame, Maurice!" said the countess, in a tone of angry rebuke.
"Grandmother, hear me out. For once my heart must speak, even though it may be silent forever after. I feel that my whole future destiny hangs upon the events of this moment. You love me as a de Gramont should