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Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - Madelon

M >> Mary E. Wilkins Freeman >> Madelon




"She is ill in her chamber," the Parson said again, with a kind of
forbidding helplessness.

"I would see her only for a minute. I beg you to let me, sir. It is
life and death, I tell you--it is life and death!"

Whether Parson Fair motioned her to ascend, or whether he simply
stood aside to allow her to pass, he never knew, but Madelon was up
the winding stairs with a swirl of her cloak, as if the wind had
caught it. Parson Fair followed her, and motioned her to the south
front chamber, and was about to rap on the door when it was flung
open violently, and the great black princess stood there, scowling at
them.

"I have a guest here for your mistress," said Parson Fair; but the
black woman blocked his way, speaking fast in her wrathful gibberish.

However, at a stately gesture from her master she stood aside, and he
held the door open, and Madelon entered. "You had better not remain
long, to tire her," said the parson, and closed the door. Immediately
the uncouth savage voice was raised high again, and quelled by the
parson's calm tone. Then there was a great settling of a heavy body
close to the threshold. The black woman had thrown herself at the
sill of her darling's door, to keep watch, like a faithful dog.

Madelon Hautville, when she entered Dorothy Fair's room, had her mind
not been fixed upon its one end, which was above all such petty
details of existence, might well have looked about her. No such
dainty maiden bower was there in the whole village as this. Madelon's
own chamber, carpetless and freezing cold, with its sparse furniture
and scanty sweep of white curtains across the furred windows which
filled the room with the blue-white light of frost, was desolation to
it.

A great fire blazed on Dorothy Fair's chamber hearth. The red glow of
it was over the whole room, and the frost on the windows was melting.
Curtains of a soft blue-and-white stuff, said to have been brought
from overseas, hung at Dorothy's windows and between the high posts
of her bed. She had also her little rocking-chair and footstool
frilled and cushioned with it. There was a fine white matting on her
floor, and a thick rug with a basket of flowers wrought on it beside
her bed. The high white panel-work around Dorothy's mantel was carved
with curving garlands and festoons of ribbon and flowers, and on the
shelf stood tall china vases and bright candlesticks. Dorothy's
dressing-table had a petticoat of finest dimity, trimmed with tiny
tassels. Above it hung her fine oval mirror, in a carved gilt frame.
Upon the table were scattered silver and ivory things and glass
bottles, the like of which Madelon had never seen. The room was full
of that mingled perfume of roses and lavender which was always about
Dorothy herself.

The counterpane on Dorothy's bed was all white and blue, and quilted
in a curious fashion, and her pillows were edged with lace. In the
midst of this white-and-blue nest, her slender little body half
buried in her great feather-bed, her lovely yellow locks spreading
over her pillow, lay Dorothy Fair when Madelon entered. She half
raised herself, and stared at her with blue, dilated eyes, and shrank
back with a little whimper of terror when she came impetuously to her
bedside.

"You don't believe it," Madelon said, with no preface.

Dorothy stared at her, trembling. "You mean--"

"I mean you don't believe he killed him! You don't believe Burr
Gordon killed his cousin Lot!"

Dorothy sank weakly back on her pillows. Great tears welled up in her
blue eyes and rolled down her soft cheeks. "They _saw_ him there,"
she sobbed out, "and they found his knife. Oh, I didn't think he was
so wicked!"

Madelon caught her by one slender arm hard, as if she would have
shaken her. "_You_ believe it!" she cried out. "You believe that Burr
did it--_you!_"

"They--saw--him--there," moaned Dorothy, with a terrified roll of her
tearful eyes at Madelon's face.

"_Saw him there!_ What if they did see him there? What if the whole
town saw him? What if you saw him? What if you saw him strike the
blow with your own eyes? Wouldn't you tear them out of your own head
before you believed it? Wouldn't you cut your own tongue out before
you'd bear witness against him?"

Dorothy sobbed convulsively.

"I would," said Madelon.

Dorothy hid her face away from her in the pillow.

Madelon laid her hand on her fair head, and turned it with no gentle
hand. "Listen to me now," she said. "You've got to listen. You've got
to hear what I say. You ought to believe without being told, without
knowing anything about it, that he's innocent, if you're a woman and
love him; but I'm going to tell you. Burr Gordon didn't kill his
cousin Lot. I did!"

Dorothy gave a faint scream and shrank away from her.

"I did!" repeated Madelon. "Now do you believe he's innocent, when
somebody else has told you?"

Dorothy's face was white as her pillows, her eyes big with terror.
There was a soft thud against her door. The black woman was keeping
arduous watch.

"You couldn't!" Dorothy gasped out.

"I could! Look at my hands; they are as strong as a man's."

"You--couldn't!"

"I could, and I did."

Dorothy shook her head in hysterical doubt.

"Listen," said Madelon--"listen. I'll tell you why I did it, Dorothy
Fair. Burr Gordon had been with me a little before he went with you.
Perhaps you knew it. If you did, I am not blaming you--he's got
taking ways, you couldn't help it; and I am not blaming him--he's a
man, and you're fairer complexioned than I am. But I was fool enough
to be mad without any good reason--you understand I am not saying
anything against him, Dorothy Fair--when I saw him with you at the
ball. He had a right to take anybody to the ball that he chose. It
was naught to me, but I was mad. I have a quick temper. And I started
home when that young man from Kingston offered to fiddle for the
dancing after you and Burr went out; and my brother Richard made me
take his knife for fear I might meet stragglers, and I had it open
under my cloak. And when I got to that lonely part of the road, after
the turn, I saw somebody coming, and I thought it was Burr. He walked
like him. And I looked away--I did not want to see his face; and when
I came up to him the first thing I knew he threw his arm around me
and kissed me, and--something seemed to leap up in me and I struck
with Richard's knife. And--then he fell down, and I looked and it was
not Burr--it was his cousin Lot. And--then Burr came, and we heard
whistling, and others were coming, and he made me run, and the others
came up and found him; and now they say he did it and not I. It was I
who stabbed Lot Gordon, Dorothy Fair!"

"It was Burr's knife, with his initials cut in the handle, that they
found," said Dorothy, with a kind of piteous doggedness. There was in
this fair little maiden the same power of adherence to a mental
attitude which her father had shown in his religious tenets. Wherever
the men and women of this family stood they were fixed beyond their
own capability of motion.

Madelon gave a bewildered sigh. "I know not how that was," said she,
"unless--" a red flush mounted over her whole face. "No, he would not
have done that for me," she said, as if to herself.

A red flush on Dorothy's face seemed to respond to that on Madelon's.
"You think he put his knife there to take suspicion from you?" she
cried out, quickly.

Madelon shook her head. "I don't know about the knife," she said,
"but I know I stabbed Lot Gordon."

"He would not have done that," said Dorothy, with troubled, angry
blue eyes on her face. "He would have thought of--others. He never
changed the knife, Madelon Hautville!"

"I know nothing about the knife," repeated Madelon, "but Burr Gordon
did not kill his cousin."

"He was there, and it was his knife," said Dorothy. There was now a
curious indignation in her manner. It was almost as if she preferred
to believe her lover guilty of murder rather than unduly solicitous
for her rival.

Madelon Hautville turned upon her with a kind of fierce solemnity.
"Dorothy Fair," said she, "look at me!" and the soft, blue-eyed face,
full of that gentle unyielding which is the firmest of all, looked up
at her from the pillows--"Dorothy Fair, did that man, who's locked up
over there in jail in New Salem, for a crime he's innocent of, ever
kiss you?"

Madelon's face seemed to wax stiff and white. She looked like one who
bared her breast for a mortal hurt as she spoke. Dorothy went pink to
the roots of her yellow hair and the frill on her nightgown. She made
an angry shamed motion of her head, which might have signified
anything.

"And you can believe this thing of him after that!" said Madelon,
with a look of despairing scorn. "He has kissed you, Dorothy Fair,
and you can think he has committed a murder!"

Dorothy gasped. "They said--" she began again.

"_They said!_ Are you a woman, Dorothy Fair, and don't you know that
the man you love enough to let him kiss you should do no wrong in
your eyes, or else it's a shame to you, and you should kill him to
wipe it out?" Dorothy shrank away from her in the bed, her
frightened blue eyes staring at her over her shoulder. "My God! don't
you know," said Madelon, "the man you love is yourself? When you
believe in his guilt you believe in your own; when you strike him for
it you strike yourself. Don't you know that, Dorothy Fair?"

Dorothy looked at her, all white and trembling. She gave a half-sob.
Suddenly Madelon's tone changed. "Don't be afraid," said she. "I'm
different from you. I don't wonder he liked you better. It's no blame
to him. I know you care about him. You don't believe he did it."

"I don't know," sobbed Dorothy. The door opened a crack, and the
black woman's watchful eyes appeared.

"Oh, you do know, you do know! I tell you, I did it--I! Can't you
believe me? I'm a wicked woman, and I love anybody I love in a
different way from any that a woman as good as you are can. I did it,
Dorothy, and not Burr! He mustn't suffer for it. We must see him, you
and I together! Don't you believe me?"

"I don't--know," sobbed Dorothy. The dark face appeared quite fully
in the door. Madelon cast a quick glance about the room. Dorothy's
pretty Bible, with a blue-silk-ribbon marker hanging from it, lay on
her dimity dressing-table. Madelon sprang across and got it. The
black woman stood in the doorway, muttering to herself. She looked
all ready to spring to Dorothy's defence. Madelon did not notice her
at all. She went close to Dorothy, put the Bible on the bed, and laid
her right hand upon it.

"I swear upon this Holy Book," said she, "that this hand of mine is
the one that stabbed Lot Gordon. I swear, and I call God to witness,
and may I be struck dead as I speak if what I say is not true. Now do
you believe what I say, Dorothy Fair?"

Dorothy looked at her and the Bible in bewildered terror. She nodded.




Chapter VIII


Something like joy came into Madelon's face. "Then we will save him,
you and I!" she cried out. "We will save him together! He shall not
be hung! He shall be set free! They shall let him out of jail to-day,
and put me there instead. We will save him! He would not own that I
was guilty and he innocent; Lot would not own it, nor my brother
Richard, but now--we will save him--now!"

"How?" asked Dorothy, feebly.

"He will own it to you. Burr will own it to you if you go and plead
with him. He can't help owning it to you. And then you shall go to
Lot, and when you ask him for your sake, that you may marry Burr, if
he knows Burr has told you, and does not care about me, he will
speak. He will be sure to speak for you. Come!"

Dorothy raised herself on one elbow and stared at Madelon, her yellow
hair falling about her fair startled face. "Where?" said she.

"With me to New Salem."

"To New Salem?"

"Yes, to New Salem--to see Burr."

"But I am ill, and the doctor has bid me stay in bed. I have been ill
ever since the ball with a headache and fever."

"You talk about headache and fever when Burr is there in prison! I
tell you if my two feet were cut off I would walk to him on the
stumps to set him free!"

"How can I go?" said Dorothy. Her blue eyes kindled a little under
Madelon's fiery zeal.

"We will take your father's horse and sleigh."

"But the horse is gone lame, and has not been used for a month."

"I will get one from Dexter Beers at the tavern," said Madelon,
promptly. "I will lead him over here and harness him into the
sleigh."

"My father will not let me go," said Dorothy.

"He is a minister of the gospel--he will let his daughter go to save
a life."

"I tell you he will not," said Dorothy. "I know my father better than
you. He will not let me go out when I am ill. It is freezing cold,
too. If I go I must go without his knowledge and consent."

"I am going without my father's," said Madelon, shortly, "and I go at
a greater cost than that, too."

"It's the second time I have deceived and disobeyed my father in a
week's time," Dorothy said.

"You talk about your father when it is Burr--Burr--that's at stake!"
Madelon cried out. "What is your father to Burr if you love him? That
ought to go before anything else. It says so in your Bible--it says
so in your Bible, Dorothy Fair!"

Dorothy, with her innocent, frightened eyes fixed upon the other
girl's passionate face, as if she were being led by her into unknown
paths, put back the coverlet and thrust one little white foot out of
bed. Then swiftly the black woman, who had entered the room, backed
against the door as stiffly as a sentinel, darted forward, and would
have thrust her mistress into bed again, making uncouth protests the
while, had not Dorothy motioned her away with a gentle dignity, which
was hers for use when she chose.

"Go down-stairs, if you please," said she, "and see if my father is
in his study. If he is in there, and busy over his sermon, go to the
barn, and drag out the sleigh for us."

Dorothy, white and fair as an angel, in her straight linen nightgown,
stood out on the floor, in front of her great black guardian, who
made again as though she would seize her and force her back, and
pleaded with her in a thick drone, like an anxious bee, not to go.

"Do as I bid you!" said Dorothy, and glided past her to her dimity
dressing-table, and began combing out her yellow hair.

The black woman went out, muttering.

"If my father is in his study on the north side of the house, and
busy over his sermon, we can get away; otherwise we cannot," said
Dorothy, combing the thick tress over her shoulder.

Madelon went to a south window of the room and looked out. She could
see the barn, and across the road, farther down, the tavern. She
watched while Dorothy bound up her hair, and soon she saw the black
woman run, with a low crouch of her great body like a stealthy
animal, across the yard.

"Your father is in his study," Madelon said, quickly. "I will go over
to the tavern for a horse if yours is too lame."

"He can scarce stand," said Dorothy. Her soft voice trembled; she
trembled all over--then was still with nervous rigors. Bright pink
spots were on her cheeks. A certain girlish daring was there in this
gentle maiden for youthful love and pleasure, else she had not stolen
away that night to the ball, but very little for tragic enterprise.
And, moreover, her fine sense of decorum and womanly pride had always
served her mainly in the place of courage, which she lacked.

Sorely afraid was Dorothy Fair, if the truth were told, to go with
this passionate girl, who had declared to her face she had done
murder, to visit a man who she still half believed, with her helpless
tenacity of thought, was a murderer also. The love she had hitherto
felt for him was eclipsed by terror at the new image of him which her
fearful fancy had conjured up and could not yet dismiss, in spite of
Madelon's assurances. She was, too, really ill, and her delicate
nerves were still awry from the shock they had received the night of
the ball. Parson Fair had been sternly indignant, and his daughter
had quailed before him, and then had come the news concerning Burr.
Sage tea, and hot foot-baths, and the doctor's nostrums had not cured
her yet. Her very spirit trembled and fluttered at this undertaking;
but she could not withstand this fierce and ardent girl who upbraided
her with the cowardice and distrust of her love. Instinctively she
tried to raise her sentiment to the standard of the other's and
believe in Burr.

Madelon paused a second as she went out, and gave a strange,
scrutinizing glance at her.

"Why do you not wear your blue-silk quilted hood with the swan's-down
trimming?" said she. "It becomes you, and it is warm over your ears."

"Yes, I will," said Dorothy, looking at her wonderingly.

Madelon went softly out of the house, and ran across and down the
road to the tavern. Dexter Beers, the landlord, was just going around
the wide sweep of drive to the stable with a meal-sack over his
shoulder. No one else was in sight; it was so cold there were no
loafers about. Madelon ran after him, and overtook him before he
reached the stable door.

"Can you let me take a horse?" said she, abruptly.

Dexter Beers looked slowly around at her with a quick roll of a black
eye in a massive face. He had an enormous bulk, which he moved about
with painful sidewise motions. His voice was husky.

"What d'ye want a horse for?" said he.

"I want it to put in Parson Fair's sleigh."

"What for?"

"To take Dorothy to ride."

"Parson's horse lame yet?"

Madelon nodded.

"Where's yours?"

"I can't have him."

Dexter Beers still moved on with curious lateral twirls of his
shoulders and heaves of his great chest, with its row of shining
waistcoat buttons.

"Pooty cold day for a sleigh-ride," he observed, with a great steam
of breath.

"I'll pay you well for the horse," said Madelon, in a hard voice. She
followed him into the stable. He heaved the meal-sack from his
shoulder to the floor with a grunt. Another man came forward with a
peck measure in his hand. He was young, with a frosty yellow
mustache. He had gone to school with Madelon and knew her well, but
he looked at her with uncouth shyness without speaking. Then he began
unfastening the mouth of the sack.

Madelon stepped forward impatiently towards the horse-stalls. There
were the relay of coach-horses, great grays and bays, champing their
feed, getting ready for their sure-footed rushes over the mountain
roads when the coaches came in. She passed them by with sharp
glances.

A man whose face was purplish red with cold was out in the rear of
the stable, rubbing down a restive bay with loud "whoas," and now and
then a stronger word and a hard twitch at the halter. He looked
curiously at Madelon as she walked up to one of the stalls.

"Better look out for them heels!" he called out, as she drew nearer.
She paid no heed, but went straight into the stall, untied the horse,
and began to back him out. "Hi, there!" the man shouted, and Dexter
Beers and the young man came hurrying up. "Better look out for that
gal--I believe she's gone crazy!" he called out. "I can't leave this
darned beast--she'll get kicked to death if she don't look out. That
old white won't stan' a woman in the stall. Whoa, there! whoa, darn
ye! Stan' still!"

"Hullo, what ye doin' of?" demanded Dexter Beers, coming up.

Madelon calmly backed the horse out of his stall. "I want to hire
this horse," said she, holding his halter with a firm hand.

"That horse?"

"Yes. I'll pay you whatever you ask."

Dexter Beers stared at her and the horse dubiously. "Jest as soon set
a woman to drivin' the devil as that old white," volunteered the man
who was cleaning the bay. The young man stood gaping with wonder.

"Can I have this horse or not?" demanded Madelon. Her black eyes
flashed imperiously at Dexter Beers. Her small brown hand held the
halter of the old white with a grasp like steel.

"Dunno 'bout your drivin' that horse," said Dexter Beers. "'Fraid
you'll get run away with. Better take another."

"Isn't this horse the fastest you've got on a short stretch?"

"S'pose he is, but I dunno 'bout a woman's drivin' of him."

Madelon looked as if she were half minded to spring upon the back of
the old white and settle the matter summarily. She fairly quivered
with impatience.

"A woman who can drive David Hautville's roan can drive this horse,
and you know it," said she. She moved forward as she spoke, leading
the high-stepping old white, and Dexter Beers stood aside.

"Well, David Hautville's roan is nigh a match for this one," he
grunted, hesitatingly, "but then ye know your own better. Hadn't ye
better--"

But the old white was out of the stable at a trot, with Madelon
running alongside.

"Don't ye want a man to hitch him up?" Dexter Beers called after her;
but she was out of hearing.

"If the gal's ekal to drivin' that horse, she's ekal to hitchin' of
him up," said the man who was cleaning the bay. "If a gal wants to
drive, let her hitch. Ye'd better let a woman go the whole figger
when she gits started, just as ye'd better give an ugly cuss of a
horse his head up hill an' down. It takes the mischief out of 'em
quicker'n anything. Let her go it, Dexter--don't ye fret."

"I don't want her breakin' any of the parson's daughter's bones with
none of my horses," said Dexter Beers, uneasily. "Wonder where the
parson is?"

"Let 'em go it! They won't git smashed up, I guess," said the other.
"I've seen that gal of Hautville's with that mare of his'n. She kin
drive most anythin' short of the devil, an' old white's got sense
enough to know when he's well driv, ugly's he is. He wa'n't on the
track for nothin'. He ain't no wuss, if he's as bad, as that roan
mare. Let 'em _go_ it!"

"Wonder what's to pay?" said the young man, who had not spoken
before.

"Dunno," said Dexter Beers. "Somethin's to pay--that girl acted
queer."

"S'pose she takes it hard 'bout Burr Gordon. He used to fool 'round
her, I've heerd, afore he went courtin' the parson's gal."

"Dunno--queer she's so thick with the parson's gal all of a sudden."

"Lord, I wouldn't tech a gal that could git the upperhand of a horse
like that roan mare with a ten-foot pole," half soliloquized the man
at work over the bay. "Wouldn't have her if she owned half the
township, an' went down on her knees to me--darned if I would. Don't
want no woman that kin make horse-flesh like that knuckle under.
Guess a man wouldn't have much show; hev to take his porridge 'bout
the way she wanted to make it. Whoa, there! stan' still, can't ye?
Darned if I want nothin' to do with sech woman folks or sech horses
as ye be."

Dexter Beers moved laboriously out to the stable door and peered
after Madelon, but she had disappeared in Parson Fair's yard. The
white horse had gone up the road at a brisk trot, but she had easily
kept pace with him. She also harnessed him into the sleigh with no
difficulty. The animal seemed docile, and as if he were to belie his
hard reputation. There was, however, a proud and nervous cant to his
old white head, and he set his jaw stiffly against his bit.

Dorothy came out in her quilted silk pelisse and her blue hood edged
with swan's-down, and got into the sleigh. The black woman was
keeping watch at the parson's study door the while, but he never
swerved from his hard application of the doctrines. The sleigh
slipped noiselessly out of the yard and up the road, for Madelon had
not put on the bells. The old white went rather stiffly and steadily
for the first quarter-mile; then he made a leap forward with a great
lift of his lean white flanks, and they flew.

Dorothy gave a terrified gasp. "Don't be frightened," Madelon said.
"It's the horse that used to beat everything in the county. He's old
now, but when he gets warmed up he's the fastest horse around for a
short stretch. He can't hold out long, but while he does he goes; and
I want to get a good start. I want to strike the New Salem road as
soon as I can."

Madelon had a growing fear lest Eugene might have freed himself, and
might ride the roan across by a shorter cut, and so intercept her at
the turn into the New Salem road. He might easily suspect her of
attempting to see Burr again. If she passed the turn first she could
probably escape him if her horse held out; and, indeed, he might not
think she had gone that way if he did not see her.

Dorothy held fast to the side of the sleigh, which seemed to rise
from the track as they sped on. "Don't be frightened," Madelon said
again. "This is the only horse in town that can beat my father's on a
short stretch, and I don't know that he can always, but I don't think
he has been used, and father's was ridden hard yesterday. I can
manage this one in harness better than I can father's. Don't be
frightened." But Dorothy's face grew pale as the swan's-down around
it, and her great blue eyes were fixed fearfully upon the bounding
heels and flanks of the old white race-horse.

Madelon strained her eyes ahead as they neared the turn of the New
Salem road. There was nobody in sight. Then she glanced across the
fields at the right. Suddenly she swung out the reins over the back
of the old white, and hallooed, and stood up in the sleigh.

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