Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - Madelon

M >> Mary E. Wilkins Freeman >> Madelon

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

When daylight was fully in the room he blew out the candle, and went
over to the window and looked out across the road at the house
opposite, which had always been called the "new house" to distinguish
it from the old Gordon homestead. It was not so solid and noble as
the other, but it had sundry little touches of later times, which his
father had always characterized as wasteful follies. For one thing,
it was elevated ostentatiously far above the road-level upon terraces
surmounted by a flight of stone steps. It fairly looked down, like
any spirit of a younger age, upon the older house, which might have
been regarded in a way as its progenitor.

The smoke was coming out of the kitchen chimney in the ell. Lot
Gordon looked across. Burr was clearing the snow from the stone steps
over the terraces. There had never been any lack of energy and
industry in Burr to account for his flagging fortunes. He arose
betimes every morning. Lot, standing well behind the dimity curtain,
watched him flinging the snow aside like spray, his handsome face
glowing like a rose.

"I suppose he is going to the party at the tavern to-night," Lot
murmured. Suddenly his face took on a piteous, wistful look like a
woman's; tears stood in his blue eyes. He doubled over with a violent
fit of coughing, then went back to his chair and his book.

This party had been the talk of the village for several weeks. It was
to be an unusually large one. People were coming from all the towns
roundabout. Burr Gordon had been one of the ringleaders of the
enterprise. All day long he worked over the preparations, dragging
out evergreen garlands from under the snow in the woods, cutting
hemlock boughs, and trimming the ball-room in the tavern. Towards
night he heard a piece of news which threatened to bring everything
to a standstill. The dusk was thickening fast; Burr and the two young
men who were working with him were hurrying to finish the decorations
before candlelight when Richard Hautville came in. Burr started when
he saw him. He looked so like his sister in the dim light that he
thought for a moment she was there.

Richard did not notice him at all. He hustled by him roughly and
approached the other two young men. "Louis can't fiddle to-night," he
announced, curtly. The young men stared at him in dismay.

"What's the trouble?" asked Burr.

"He's hurt his arm," replied Richard; but he still addressed the
other two, and made as if he were not answering Burr.

"Broke it?" asked one of the others.

"No; sprained it. He was clearing the snow off the barn roof and the
ladder fell. It's all black-and-blue, and he can't lift it enough to
fiddle to-night."

The three young men looked at each other.

"What's going to be done?" said one.

"I don't know," said Burr. "There's Davy Barrett, over to the Four
Corners--I suppose we might get him if we sent right over."

"You can't get him," said Richard Hautville, still addressing the
other two, as if they had spoken. "Louis said you couldn't. His
wife's got the typhus-fever, and he's up nights watching with
her--won't let anybody else. You can't get him."

"We can't have a ball without a fiddler," one young man said,
soberly.

"Maybe Madelon would lilt for the dancing," Burr Gordon said; and
then he colored furiously, as if he had startled himself in saying
it.

The boy turned on him. "Maybe you think my sister will lilt for you
to dance, Burr Gordon!" cried he, and his face blazed white in Burr's
eyes, and he shook his slender brown fist.

"Nobody wants your sister to lilt if she isn't willing to," Burr
returned, in a hard voice; and he snatched up a hemlock bough, and
went away with it to the other side of the ball-room.

"My sister won't lilt for you, and you can have your ball the best
way you can!" shouted the boy, his angry eyes following Burr. Then he
went out of the ball-room with a leap, and slammed the door so that
the tavern trembled.

The young men chuckled. "Injun blood is up," said one.

"You'll be scalped, Burr," called the other.

Burr came over to them with an angry stride. "Oh, quit fooling!" said
he, impatiently. "What's going to be done?"

"Nothing can be done; we shall have to give the ball up for to-night
unless you can get Madelon Hautville to lilt for the dancing,"
returned one, and the other nodded assent. "That's the state of the
case," said he.

Burr scraped a foot impatiently on the waxed floor. "Go and ask her
yourself, Daniel Plympton," said he. "I don't see why it has all got
to come on to me."

"Can't," replied Daniel Plympton, with a laugh. "Remember the falling
out Eugene and I had at the house-raising? I ain't going to his house
to ask his sister to lilt for my dancing."

"You, then, Abner Little," said Burr, peremptorily, to the other
young man. He had a fair, nervous face, and he was screwing his
forehead anxiously over the situation.

"Can't nohow, Burr," said he. "I've got to drive four miles home, and
milk, and take care of the horses, and shave, and get dressed, and
then drive another three miles for my girl. I'm going to take one of
the Morse girls, over at Summer Falls. I haven't got time to go down
to the Hautvilles', and that's the truth, Burr."

"You'll have to go yourself, Burr," said Daniel Plympton, with a
half-laugh.

"I can't," said Burr, "and I won't, if we give the ball up."

"What will all the out-of-town folks say?"

"I don't care what they say--they can play forfeits."

"Forfeits!" returned Daniel Plympton with scorn. "What's kissing to
dancing?" Daniel Plympton was somewhat stout but curiously light of
foot, and accounted the best dancer in town. As he spoke he sprang up
on his toes as if he had winged heels. "Forfeits!" repeated he,
jerking his great flaxen head.

"Well, you can go yourself, then, and ask Madelon Hautville to lilt,"
said Burr.

"I tell you I can't, Burr--I ain't mean enough."

"Well, I won't, and that's flat."

"I've got to go home, anyway," said Abner Little. "What I want to
know is--is there going to be any ball?"

"Oh, get your girl anyhow, Ab," returned Daniel, with a great laugh;
"there'll be something. If there ain't dancing, there'll be kissing,
and that'll suit her just as well. And if she can't get enough here,
why there's the ride home. Lord, I'd get a girl nearer home! You've
got to drive six miles out of your way to Summer Falls and back. As
for me, the quicker I get a girl off my hands the better. I'm going
to take Nancy Blake because she lives next door to the tavern. Go
along with ye, Ab; Burr and I will settle it some way."

But it looked for some time after Abner Little left as if there would
be no ball that night. They could not have any dance unless Madelon
Hautville would sing for it, and both Daniel Plympton and Burr Gordon
were determined not to ask her.

At half-past seven Madelon was all dressed for the ball, and neither
of them had come to see her about it. She and all her brothers except
Louis were going. They wondered who would play for the dancing, but
supposed some arrangements would be made. "Burr Gordon will put it
through somehow," said Louis. "Maybe he'll ride over to Farnham
Hollow and get Luke Corliss to fiddle." Louis sat discontentedly by
the fire, with his arm soaking in cider-brandy and wormwood.

"Farnham Hollow is ten miles away," said Richard.

"His horse is fast; he'd get him here by eight o'clock," returned
Louis.

Madelon was radiant. In spite of herself, she was full of hope in
going to the ball. She knew Dorothy Fair would not be present, since
her father was the orthodox parson, and she had seen her own face in
her glass. With her rival away, what could not a face like that do
with a heart that leaned towards it of its own nature? Madelon dimly
felt that Burr Gordon had to resist himself as well as her in this
matter. She had tended a monthly rose in the south window all winter,
and she wore two red roses in her black braids. Her cheeks and her
lips were fuller of warm red life than the roses. She lowered her
black eyes before her father and her brothers, for there was a light
in them which she could not subdue, which belonged to Burr Gordon
only. No costly finery had Madelon Hautville, but she had done some
cunning needle-work on an old black-satin gown of her mother's, and
it was fitted as softly over her sweet curves as a leaf over a bud. A
long garland of flowers after her own design had she wrought in
bright-colored silks around the petticoat, and there were knots of
red ribbon to fasten the loopings here and there. And she wore
another red rose in her lace tucker against her soft brown bosom.
Madelon wore, too, trim black-silk stockings with red clocks over her
slender ankles, and little black-satin shoes with steel buckles and
red rosettes. Every one of her brothers, except the youngest,
Richard, must needs compare her in his own heart, to her
disparagement, with some maid not his sister, but they all viewed her
with pride. Old David Hautville's eyes, under his thick, white brows,
followed her and dwelt upon her as she moved around the kitchen.

Madelon had got out her red cloak and her silk hood, and it was
nearly time to start when there was a knock on the door. Madelon's
face was pale in a second, then red again. She pushed Richard aside.
"I'll go to the door," said she.

She knew somehow that it was Burr Gordon, and when she opened the
door he stood there. He looked curiously embarrassed, but she did not
notice that. His mere presence for the moment seemed to fill all her
comprehension. She had no eye for shades of expression.

"Come in," said she, all blushing and trembling before him, and yet
with a certain dignity which never quite deserted her.

"Can I see you a minute?" Burr said, awkwardly.

"Come this way."

Madelon led the way into the best room, where there was no fire. It
had not been warmed all winter, except on nights when Burr had come
courting her. In the midst of it the great curtained bedstead reared
itself, holding its feather-bed like a drift of snow. The floor was
sanded in a fine, small pattern, there were white tasselled curtains
at the windows, and there was a tall chest of drawers that reached
the ceiling. The room was just as Madelon's mother, who had been one
of the village girls, had left it.

Madelon glanced at the hearth, where she had laid the wood
symmetrically--all ready to be kindled at a moment's notice should
Burr come. "I'll light the fire," said she, in a trembling voice.

"No, I can't stop," returned the young man. "I've got to go right up
to the tavern. Look here, Madelon--"

"Well?" she murmured, trembling.

"I want to know if--look here, won't you lilt for the dancing
to-night, Madelon?"

Madelon's face changed. "That's all he came for," she thought. She
turned away from him. "You'd better get Luke Corliss to fiddle," she
said, coldly.

"We can't. I started to go over there, and I met a man that lives
next door to him, and he said it was no use, for Luke had gone down
to Winfield to fiddle at a ball there."

"I don't feel like lilting to-night," said Madelon.

The young man colored. "Well," said he, in a stiff, embarrassed
voice, and he turned towards the door, "we won't have any ball
to-night, that's all," he added.

"Well, you can go visiting instead," returned Madelon, suddenly.

"I'd rather go a-visiting--here!" cried Burr, with a quick fervor,
and he turned back and came close to her.

Madelon looked at him sharply, steeling her heart against his tender
tone, but he met her gaze with passionate eyes.

"Oh, Madelon, you look so beautiful to-night!" he whispered,
hoarsely. Her eyes fell before his. She made, whether she would or
not, a motion towards him, and he put his arms around her. They
kissed again and again, lingering upon each kiss as if it were a
foothold in heaven. A great rapture of faith in her lover and his
love came over Madelon. She said to herself that they had lied--they
had all lied! Burr had never courted Dorothy Fair. She believed, with
her whole heart and soul, that he loved her and her alone. And,
indeed, she was at that time, at that minute, right and not deceived;
for Burr Gordon was one of those who can encompass love in one tense
only, and that the present; and they who love only in the present,
hampered by no memories and no dreams, yield out love's sweetness
fully. All Burr Gordon's soul was in his kisses and his fond eyes,
and her own crept out to meet it with perfect faith.

"I will lilt for the dancing," she whispered.

The Hautvilles were going to the ball on their wood-sled, drawn by
oxen. David was to drive them, and take the team home. It was already
before the door when Burr came out, and Madelon asked him to ride
with them, but he refused. "I've got to go home first," he said, and
plunged off quickly down the old road, the short-cut to his house.

Madelon Hautville, in her red cloak and her great silk hood, stood in
the midst of her brothers on the wood-sled, and the oxen drew them
ponderously to the ball. The tavern was all alight. Many other sleds
were drawn up before the door; indeed, certain of the young men who
had not their especial sweethearts took their ox-sleds and went from
door to door collecting the young women. Many a jingling load slipped
along the snowy road to the tavern that night, and the ball-room
filled rapidly.

At eight o'clock the ball opened. Madelon stood up in the little
gallery allotted to the violins and lilted, and the march began. Two
and two, the young men and the girls swung around the room. Madelon
lilted with her eyes upon the moving throng, gay as a garden in a
wind; and suddenly her heart stood still, although she lilted on.
Down on the floor below Burr Gordon led the march, with Dorothy Fair
on his arm. Dorothy Fair, waving a great painted fan with the
tremulous motion of a butterfly's wing, with her blue brocade
petticoat tilting airily as she moved, like an inverted bell-flower,
with a locket set in brilliants flashing on her white neck, with her
pink-and-white face smiling out with gentle gayety from her fair
curls, stepped delicately, pointing out her blue satin toes, around
the ball-room, with one little white hand on Burr Gordon's arm.

Chapter III

Suddenly all Madelon's beauty was cheapened in her own eyes. She saw
herself swart and harsh-faced as some old savage squaw beside this
fair angel. She turned on herself as well as on her recreant lover
with rage and disdain--and all the time she lilted without one break.

The ball swung on and on, and Madelon, up in the musicians' gallery,
sang the old country-dances in the curious dissyllabic fashion termed
lilting. It never occurred to her to wonder how it was that Dorothy
Fair, the daughter of the orthodox minister, should be at the
ball--she who had been brought up to believe in the sinful and
hellward tendencies of the dance. Madelon only grasped the fact that
she was there with Burr; but others wondered, and the surprise had
been great when Dorothy in her blue brocade had appeared in the
ball-room.

This had been largely of late years a liberal and Unitarian village,
but Parson Fair had always held stanchly to his stern orthodox
tenets, and promulgated them undiluted before his thinning
congregations and in his own household. Dorothy could not only not
play cards or dance, but she could not be present at a party where
the cards were produced or the fiddle played. There was, indeed, a
rumor that she had learned to dance when she was in Boston at school,
but no one knew for certain.

Dorothy Fair was advancing daintily between the two long lines,
holding up her blue brocade to clear her blue-satin shoes, to meet
the young man from the opposite corner, flinging out gayly towards
her, when suddenly, with no warning whatever, a great dark woman sped
after her through the dance, like a wild animal of her native woods.
She reached out her black hand and caught Dorothy by the white,
lace-draped arm, and she whispered loud in her ear.

The people near, finding it hard to understand the African woman's
thick tongue, could not exactly vouch for the words, but the purport
of her hurried speech they did not mistake. Parson Fair had
discovered Mistress Dorothy's absence, and home she must hasten at
once. It was evident enough to everybody that staid and decorous
Dorothy had run away to the ball with Burr Gordon, and a smothered
titter ran down the files of the Virginia reel.

Burr Gordon cast a fierce glance around; then he sprang to Dorothy's
side, and she looked palely and piteously up at him.

He pulled her hand through his arm and led her out of the ball-room,
with the black woman following sulkily, muttering to herself. Burr
bent closely down over Dorothy's drooping head as they passed out of
the door. "Don't be frightened, sweetheart," whispered he. Madelon
saw him as she lilted, and it seemed to her that she heard what he
said.

It was not long after when she felt a touch on her shoulder as she
sat resting between the dances, gazing with her proud, bright eyes
down at the merry, chattering throng below. She turned, and her
brother Richard stood there with a strange young man, and Richard
held Louis's fiddle on his shoulder.

"This is Mr. Otis, Madelon," said Richard, "and he came up from
Kingston to the ball, and he can fiddle as well as Louis, and he said
'twas a shame you should lilt all night and not have a chance to
dance yourself; and so I ran home and got Louis's fiddle, and there
are plenty down there to jump at the chance of you for a
partner--and--" the boy leaned forward and whispered in his sister's
ear: "Burr Gordon's gone--and Dorothy Fair."

Madelon turned her beautiful, proud face towards the stranger, and
did not notice Richard at all. "Thank you, sir," said she, inclining
her long neck; "but I care not to dance--I'd as lief lilt."

"But," said the strange young man, pressing forward impetuously and
gazing into her black eyes, "you look tired; 'tis a shame to work you
so."

"I rest between the dances, and I am not tired," said Madelon,
coldly.

"I beg you to let me fiddle for the rest of the ball," pleaded the
young man. "Let me fiddle while you dance; you may be sure I'll
fiddle my best for you."

A tender note came into his voice, and, curiously enough, Madelon did
not resent it, although she had never seen him before and he had no
right. She looked up in his bright fair face with sudden hesitation,
and his blue eyes bent half humorously, half lovingly upon her. She
had a fierce desire to get away from this place, out into the night,
and home. "I do not care to dance," said she, falteringly; "but I
could go home, if you felt disposed to fiddle."

"Then go home and rest," cried the stranger, brightly. "'Tis a strain
on the throat to lilt so long, and you cannot put in a new string as
you can in a fiddle."

With that the young man came forward to the front of the little
gallery, and Madelon yielded up her place hesitatingly.

"But you cannot dance yourself, sir," said she.

"I have danced all I want to to-night," he replied, and began tuning
the fiddle.

"I'm sure I'm much obliged to you, sir," Madelon said, and got her
hood and cloak from the back of the gallery with no more parley.

The young man cast admiring glances after her as she went out, with
her young brother at her heels.

"I'm going home with you," Richard said to her as they went down the
gallery stairs.

"Not a step," said she. "You've just been after the fiddle, and
they're going to dance the Fisher's Hornpipe next."

"You'll be afraid in that lonesome stretch after you leave the
village."

"Afraid!" There was a ring of despairing scorn in the girl's voice,
as if she faced already such woe that the supposition of new terror
was an absurdity.

They had come down to the ball-room floor, and were standing directly
in front of the musicians' gallery. The young fiddler, Jim Otis,
leaned over and looked at them.

"I don't care," said Richard, "I won't let you go alone unless you
take my knife."

Madelon laughed. "What nonsense!" said she, and tried to pass her
brother.

But Richard held her by the arm while he rummaged in his pocket for
the great clasp-knife which he had earned himself by the sale of some
rabbit-skins, and which was the pride of his heart and his dearest
treasure, and opened it. "Here," said he, and he forced the
clasp-knife into his sister's hand. Otis, leaning over the gallery,
saw it all. Many of the dancers had gone to supper; there was no
other person very near them. "If you should meet a _bear_, you could
kill him with that knife--it's so strong," said the boy. "If you
don't take it I'll go home with you, and it's so late father won't
let me come out again to-night."

"Well, I'll take it," Madelon said, wearily, and she passed out of
the ball-room with the knife in her hand, under her cloak.

When she got out in the cold night air she sped along fast over the
creaking snow, still holding the knife clutched fast in her hand. She
began to lilt again as she went, and again Burr and Dorothy danced
together before her eyes. She passed Parson Fair's house, and the
best-room windows were lighted. She thought that Burr was there, and
she lilted more loudly the Virginia reel.

After Parson Fair's house was some time left behind, and she had come
into the lengthy stretch of road, she saw a shadowy figure ahead. She
could not at first tell whether it was moving towards or from
her--whether it was a man or a woman; or, indeed, whether it were not
a forest tree encroaching on the road and moving in the wind. She
kept on swiftly, holding her knife under her cloak. She had stopped
singing.

Presently she saw that the figure was a man, and coming her way; and
then her heart stood still, for she knew by the swing of his
shoulders that it was Burr Gordon. She threw back her proud head and
sped along towards him, grasping her knife under her cloak and
looking neither to the right nor left. She swerved not her eyes a
hair's-breadth when she came close to him--so close that their
shoulders almost touched in passing in the narrow path.

Suddenly there was a quick sigh in her ear--"Oh, Madelon!" Then an
arm was flung around her waist and hot lips were pressed to her own.

The mixed blood of two races, in which action is quick to follow
impulse, surged up to Madelon's head. She drew the hand which held
the knife from under her cloak and struck. "Kiss me again, Burr
Gordon, if you dare!" she cried out, and her cry was met by a groan
as he fell away from her into the snow.

Chapter IV

Madelon stood for a second looking at the dark, prostrate form as one
of her Iroquois ancestors might have looked at a fallen foe before he
drew his scalping-knife; then suddenly the surging of the savage
blood in her ears grew faint. She fell down on her knees beside him.
"Have I killed you, Burr?" she said, and bent her face down to
his--and it was not Burr, but Lot Gordon!

The white, peaked face smiled up at her out of the snow. "You haven't
killed me if I die, since you took me for Burr," whispered Lot
Gordon.

"Are you much hurt?"

"I--don't know. The knife has gone a little way into my side. It has
not reached my heart, but that was hurt unto death already by life,
so this matters not."

Madelon felt along his side and hit the handle of the clasp-knife,
firmly fixed.

"Don't try to draw it out--you cannot," said Lot, and his pain forced
a groan from him. "I'll live, if I can, till the wound is healed for
the sake of your peace. I'd be content to die of it, since you gave
it in vengeance for another man's kiss, if it were not for you. But
they shall never know--they shall never--know." Lot's voice died
away in a faint murmur between his parted lips; his eyes stared up
with no meaning in them at the wintry stars.

Madelon ran back on the road to the village, taking great leaps
through the snow, straining her eyes ahead. Now and then she cried
out hoarsely, as if she really saw some one, "Hullo! hullo!" At the
curve of the road she turned a headlong corner and ran roughly
against a man who was hurrying towards her; and this time it was Burr
Gordon.

Burr reeled back with the shock; then his face peered into hers with
fear and wonder. "Is it you?" he stammered out. "What is the matter?"

But Madelon caught his arm in a hard grip. "Come, quick!" she gasped,
and pulled him along the road after her.

"What is the matter?" Burr demanded, half yielding and half
resisting.

Madelon faced him suddenly as they sped along. "I met your cousin Lot
just below here and he kissed me, and I took him for you and stabbed
him, if you must know," she sobbed out, dryly.

Burr gave a choking cry of horror.

"I think I--have killed him," said she, and pulled him on faster.

"And you meant to kill me?"

"Yes, I did."

"I wish to God you had!" Burr cried out, with a sudden fierce anger
at himself and her; and now he hurried on faster than she.

Lot was quite motionless when they reached him. Burr threw himself
down in the snow and leaned his ear to his cousin's heart. Madelon
stood over them, panting. Suddenly a merry roulade of whistling broke
the awful stillness. Two men were coming down the road whistling
"Roy's Wife of Alidivalloch" as clearly soft and sweet as flutes,
accented with human gayety and mirth.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19