The Martyrdom of Madeline. Robert Williams Buchanan
tantrums, and they’re gone as soon as come. And she’s clever, Master White. I’ve heerd schoolmaster say that she can spell like a good ’un, and her writin’s as clear as print. I see her write out the Lord’s Prayer on a piece of paper, and she guv it to her Uncle Mark, and if he’d ha’ lived, he was a-going to get it framed like a pictur’ and hung up on the cabin of the barge.’
This special pleading had little or no effect on White. He was puzzling his brain what to do. Once or twice he thought of repudiating the responsibility altogether, but he was far too good-natured for that. Then he suggested that Luke should take the child back and leave him to think it over, but he soon discovered that such a delay was impracticable.
‘Mother said,’ explained Uncle Luke, firmly (his sister-in-law, it will be remembered, had always been addressed as ‘mother’ by her husband, and by all the house)—‘mother said I was to leave her along o’ you, cause you was her best friend; and mother said you’d never grudge her the wittles what she eat, for you were a gentleman born. Them were her own words. You’d never grudge her the wittles what she eat, for you was a gentleman born.’
‘How old is she?’ asked White, desperately, not that he had any special reason for asking, but because, in his perplexity, he hardly knew what to say.
Uncle Luke cocked his eye, calculating, and after due deliberation replied—
‘Mother says it be just eight year come Whit-Monday since you brung her to us. She remembers the year well, mother does, ’cause ’twas the year when her cousin Jim he was drowned off Woolwich Pier, after he had deserted and was running away for his precious life; and they held a ’quest upon him, and said he was drownded accidental, and had hisself to blame.’
‘Between eight and nine years old,’ muttered White, pursuing his own feeble reflections. ‘Is there no place where she could be put? No person who, for a small consideration, would take her in?’
Uncle Luke shook his head dolefully. He had never questioned for a moment but that White would give the child a welcome, and he was quite incapable of conceiving the manifold objections there might be to her immediate adoption.
Things were at this juncture when Madame de Bemy, who occupied the adjoining house, and from whom White rented the studio, came in smiling. She was a stout little old lady, with a very profound respect for her tenant, who had been useful to her in many ways, as indeed he was almost invariably to everybody with whom he came in close contact. To his surprise she cut the Gordian knot by offering to take care of the child on White’s behalf.
All this time Madeline had been listening with growing suspicion. At last the whole truth dawned upon her, and she burst into lamentation. Clinging to Uncle Luke, she cried that she would never leave him, and that she would return to Grayfleet in his company.
It was an exciting scene, over which we have no intention to linger.
Uncle Luke did not depart that night. They made him up a bed in the corner of the studio, where he lay awake till morning, weeping and wondering, but still firm in his desire to see Madeline made into a little lady. The child herself was taken care of by Madame de Berny. But she would not depart from the studio until Uncle Luke had avowed positively that he would be there, waiting for her, in the morning. His simple promise satisfied her, for never in all her life had she known him to break his word.
CHAPTER IX.—MADELINE FINDS NEW FRIENDS.
The next day Uncle Luke went away.
Words would fail us to describe the parting. The little man wept like a child, and Madeline threw herself, again and again, into his arms, in a perfect frenzy of passion. It was terrible to see so fierce a storm shaking the fragile form of so young a child. Madame de Berny led her, sobbing, into the house, and tried in vain to give her consolation; but for hours upon hours she wept wildly, and her little heart seemed broken.
Poor Marmaduke White was utterly at a loss how to act; but he had resolved, come what might, to accept his burthen and bear it as well as he could. Every look, every gesture of the child, especially during her fierce access of sorrow, reminded him more and more of his dead friend. Her weird and elf-like beauty, moreover, appealed to his strong artistic sense. Yes, he would do what he could for her, and trust to that Providence which feeds the literary raven to find him ways and means.
During his perplexity he found an excellent adviser in Madame de Berny. The good woman, who had a large heart for children, entered cordially into his wishes, and at the end of a long consultation readily undertook the charge of Madeline for the time being. She had plenty of leisure on her hands, the Chevalier de Berny, her husband, a professor of music, being from home, teaching, all day, while her only daughter, an actress at the Pall Mall Theatre, was engaged every evening, and nearly every day, in the pursuit of the business and the pleasures of her profession.
So it was speedily settled, and Madeline was soon installed, as an informal boarder, in the De Berny household, having a little room upstairs next to the gorgeous chamber occupied by Mademoiselle Mathilde.
The grief of childhood heals quickly, and with childhood’s inquisitiveness Madeline was soon busy observing the manners and customs of her new friends. Though her heart was still wild and weary, and though every night she sobbed as she thought of her happy home at Grayfleet, hers was too quick and keen a nature to be quite deadened by its sorrow.
And Madame de Berny was very kind; even Aunt Jane could not have been kinder. As to the Chevalier, who came in late at night and departed very early in the morning, she found him a fat, fretful, overworked, but naturally good-hearted little Frenchman, who spent the whole of his one leisure day, Sunday, in smoking a big pipe and reading the French journals. But the queen of the dwelling was Mathilde, a tall, thin blonde, with golden hair, very fine eyes, and a very hard mouth. She dressed very loudly and used a great deal of paint and powder; her whole style, indeed, was ‘fast,’ and, though she was a Frenchman’s daughter, her conversation and all her ideas were vulgarly suggestive of Cockaigne.
Her character, however, was unimpeachable; she was far too calculating and worldly wise to commit herself in any way. Her parents adored her. She had the best room in the house, a little study also where she conned her parts, and these were as the sanctuary of a saint. The Chevalier was firmly convinced that she was only prevented by the malice and wickedness of the world from becoming recognised as a great actress.
‘My daughter is too good,’ he would say to his friends; ‘it is her virtue which keeps her back. If she vere like de rest of de vomen on your stage, it would be different—ah ciel, yes I De managers are in a conspiracy to give her bad parts and to break her leetel heart.’
And Mathilde herself was of the same opinion. Her face was quite worn and haggard with brooding over her professional wrongs, her heart torn daily by the success of her rivals and the real or fancied neglect of the public. Once or twice a week she had violent fits of hysteria, during which she would think and talk of suicide. Recovering from these, she would eat a hearty dinner and drink large quantities of bottled stout—to which she was very partial, chiefly because it was said to be fattening, and her enemies in the stalls considered her too lean.
In the eyes of Madeline, who had hitherto only known the coarse beauties of Grayfleet, Mathilde was a vision of loveliness. The child loved colour and splendour and beauty, and Mathilde seemed to represent all these. The actress’s bedroom, too, was like a palace of enchantment, with its delicate rose-coloured curtains, its white French bed and bedding, its bright carpet, and its delicious perfumes.
Mathilde was not particularly fond of children, but homage from any one pleased her, and thus it happened that Madeline became a constant visitor in the sanctuary. When, one day, Mathilde opened her wardrobe and showed all her magnificent costumes, both those she used in private life and those she reserved for the theatre, the bliss of the sight was almost too much