Chapter 10

Madelon's Promise.

A week later, and Madelon was again, as on the day of her father's death, standing at a long open window, looking out on the fading glories of another evening sky. But instead of the narrow Paris street, with its noisy rattle of vehicles, and high white houses limiting the view of earth and heaven, before her lay the small garden of a Liége hotel, and beyond, the steep slope of a hill, where, mingled with trees, roof rose above roof, to where two churches crowning the ridge, showed their grey masses outlined against the clear pale blue.

Madelon had left Paris with Horace Graham the day before, and they had arrived at Liége that afternoon. The young doctor, bent on fulfilling the promise he had made to M. Linders, had altered all his plans, remaining in Paris till his little charge's affairs were settled, and then bringing her to Liége, with the intention of leaving her in her aunt's hands, and then proceeding to Switzerland for the accomplishment of as much of his proposed tour as should still be practicable. He willingly forfeited these days out of his brief holiday, for he had come to regard the child so unexpectedly thrown upon his care, with a very sincere interest, an affection not unmixed with wonder. Madelon was not at all like any other little girl he had ever had anything to do with, or rather--for his experience on this point was limited--unlike his preconceived notions of little girls in general. We, who know what Madelon's education had been, cannot feel surprised at her total ignorance of all sorts of elementary matters, her perfect unconsciousness of the most ordinary modes of thought current in the world, and of the most generally received standards of right and wrong, combined with a detailed experience in a variety of subjects with which children in general have no acquaintance. But for Graham, there was much that could only be matter for conjecture, much that he could only learn from inference, and to him there was something at once strange and pitiable in the simplicity with which she talked to him of her past life, dwelling on little episodes that only served to exhibit more and more clearly the real character of M. Linders and his associates. Not for the world would he have touched the child's innocent faith, or revealed to our simple Madelon that her father was not the perfection she dreamed him; but he began to understand better the meaning of M. Linders' last words in his letter to his sister, and they gained a pathetic significance and force as he learnt to appreciate the affection that had subsisted between the father and child, and foresaw too plainly that the time must come when some rude shock would shatter all Madelon's early beliefs, and desecrate, as it were, her tenderest memories. There was something so sad in this certain retribution that must fall upon her innocent head, as the child of such a father, something so touching in her anomalous position, left all friendless and lonely in the midst of such a hard, relentless world, that Horace felt all his tenderest feelings stirred with compassion, and he could have wished to have shielded her for ever from what, he could not but fear, too surely awaited her sooner or later.

What he could do, he did, and it was more than he thought. Madelon's sudden devotion to him, of which indeed he knew and suspected nothing, was of infinite service to her in her first bitterness of her grief, by giving a new current to her ideas, whilst it did away with the sense of lonely desolation that had nearly overpowered her in that first dark hour. In her ardent little nature there was a necessity for loving, even stronger perhaps than for being loved, a certain enthusiasm, a capacity for devotion that had opportunely found an object in the time of extreme need. For a short hour it had seemed to her as if life itself had come to an end with her father's death; the darkness and vagueness of the future had crushed her down, all the more that she had scarcely comprehended what was the weight that so oppressed her--and then a moment had changed it all; a kind word spoken, a kind face looking down upon her, a friendly hand stretched out, and the vague terrors had vanished. From that time Horace Graham's presence was bliss to our Madelon; when she was unhappy, she dried her tears if he consoled her; if he was out, she sat listening for his returning footsteps; if he was busy, she was content to remain for hours with her book on her knee, her chin propped on her hands, her wistful eyes following his every movement. Monsieur Horace, as it pleased Madelon to call him, knew nothing of all this, we may be sure; but he was very good and tender to the little girl, and did all he could to cheer and console her in the sudden overpowering fits of grief that came upon her from time to time. Finding that she liked to talk of the past, he encouraged her to do so, being anxious, indeed, to learn all he could of her former life, and to ascertain, if, after all, there were indeed no friends to whom he could apply, in the event of his mission to her Aunt Thérèse proving, from any cause, unsuccessful. But as before, on this point he obtained no sort of satisfaction. Madelon never got much beyond the Florence artists, and her German countess, and Russian princess. M. Linders, it was evident, had had no friends beyond the acquaintance he had made at the different places at which he had been wont to tarry from time to time; and these, for the most part, Graham inferred to have been of so doubtful a character that he could only rejoice for Madelon's sake that all further chance of connection was broken off. Madelon dwelt at great length on their last winter at Florence; she loved Italy, she said; she liked it better than France or Belgium, and Florence was such a beautiful place; had Monsieur Horace ever been there? There were such splendid churches, and palaces and galleries, with such grand pictures and statues; the American used to take her to see them. Papa had several friends there who knew a great deal about pictures, who were artists indeed; she used to go to their studios sometimes, and she liked hearing them talk. And then there were the fêtes and processions, and the country people in such gay dresses, and all with such a blue sky and such bright sunshine; and then the Sundays! very often she and papa would go out into the country to some inn where they would breakfast and dine; ah! it had been so pleasant. "I shall never be so happy again," sighs Madelon.

The warm, glowing, picturesque Italian life had, as we know, forcibly seized her imagination, her eyes shone with delight as she recalled it, and, almost involuntarily in describing it, she made use of the soft words and phrases of the Italian tongue, which with the ready talent she possessed for languages, she had caught up, and spoke fluently.

"Where did you go when you left Florence?" asked Graham.

"We came north across the Alps and through Switzerland to Baden, and then we stayed a little while at Homburg, and then we were at Wiesbaden for six weeks: do you know Wiesbaden, Monsieur Horace?"

"I was there once for two days," answered Graham; "were you happy there too?"

"Ah yes, I was always happy with papa, but I like Wiesbaden very much. It is so pretty and gay; do you remember the Kursaal gardens? I used to walk there and listen to the band, and sometimes we sat and had coffee at the little round tables, and looked at all the people passing. And then in the evening there were the balls; last summer I used sometimes to go to them with the Russian Princess."

"And who was the Russian Princess?" Graham inquired.

"She was a Russian lady papa knew there, and she was very kind to me; I used to walk with her, and sit by her at the tables, and prick her cards for her; she said I brought her luck."

"Prick her cards!" cried Graham.

"Yes--don't you know? at rouge-et-noir," says Madelon in explanation, "one has little cards to prick, and then one remembers how many times each colour has won; otherwise one would not know at all what to do."

"I see," said Graham; "and so your Russian Princess played at rouge-et-noir--did she win much?"

"Yes, a great deal," cried Madelon, spreading out her hands, "she always had _chance_ and was very rich; she wore such beautiful toilettes at the balls; she knew a great many gentlemen, and when I went with her they all danced with me."

And so on, _da capo_; it was always the same story, and Graham soon found that he had reached the limits of Madelon's experiences in that direction. As a last resource, he wrote to her American and German friends at Florence, the most respectable apparently of M. Linders' many doubtful acquaintance, and indeed the only ones with whose address Madelon could furnish him. From the old German he received a prompt reply. The American was absent from Florence, he said on a visit to his own country, which was to be regretted, as it was he who had been M. Linders' friend, and who could have given more information concerning him than it was in his power to do. Indeed, for himself, he knew little about him; he had spent the last winter at Florence, but his society and associates were not such as he, the German, affected. M. Linders had once been an artist, he believed; he had spent much of his time in painting, but he knew nothing of his early life. That he was a notorious gambler he was well aware, and had heard more than one story about him that certainly placed his character in no very favourable light; more than this he could not say. Of Madelon he spoke with the warmest affection, and there was a little note enclosed to her in Graham's letter, which she placed, and carefully preserved, we may be sure, amongst her most precious treasures.

These letters written, and M. Linders' few papers, which were of little interest or importance, examined, Graham had exhausted his sources of possible information, and could only trust no obstacle would intervene to prevent his little charge being at once received at the convent, and placed under her aunt's guardianship and care. So, with as little delay as possible, they had packed up, and set off on their journey: and now, as Madelon stands at the window of the little hotel salon, Paris lies many a league behind them, beyond the great northern levels, across which they have been speeding for so many hours. And behind her, too, already separated from her by a distance more impassable than that which can be counted by leagues, lies Madelon's old life, to which many and many a time, with passionate outcries, perhaps, with tender unspeakable yearnings, she will look back across an ever- widening space, only to see it recede more hopelessly into a remoter past.

She does not understand all this yet, however, with the new life scarcely a week old. She is thinking of Monsieur Horace, as she stands there looking out at the sunset sky; they have just dined, and behind her a deft waiter is removing the cloth; and in a minute she turns round gladly, as Monsieur Horace himself comes into the room.

"Shall we take a walk, Madelon?" he says, "or are you too tired?"

"I am not at all tired," Madelon answered. "I should like to have a walk; may we go and look at the convent where Aunt Thérèse lives? I should like to see it."

"That is a good idea," said Horace. "I will inquire whereabouts it is, and we will go and have a look at it."

The convent, they were told, stood on the outskirts of Liége, about a quarter of a mile outside the town, and a little off the great highroad leading through Chaudfontaine and its adjacent villages to Pepinster and Spa. It was at some distance from the hotel; but Madelon repeated that she was not at all tired, and would like a long walk, so they set off together in the mild September evening. To their left lay the old town with its picturesque churches, its quaint old Bishop's palace, its tall chimneys and busy quays, and wharves, and warehouses, stretching along the river banks; but all this they left on one side as they went along the wide, tree-planted boulevards, where carriages were rolling, and lamps lighting, and people walking about in the ruddy glow; and presently these too were passed by, and they came out on the dusty high-road. A few scattered houses were still to their right hand and to their left; but the city, with its cloud of smoke, its kindling lights and ceaseless movement, was behind them now. Of all its restless stir no sound reached them through the soft twilight but the chime of bells from its many towers, which rang out the evening angelus just as they saw, standing on the summit of a gentle slope to their left, a building with steep grey slate roofs and belfry, rising above low white surrounding walls, and knew that they had reached their destination.

The carriage-road up to the convent made a circuit, and swept round to the other side of the little declivity: but in front, separated from the highroad by a hedge, there was only the slope of a ploughed field, with a gate at the lower end, opening on to a narrow path that led straight through it up the hill; and this path Graham and Madelon followed, to where it joined a weed-grown footway skirting the outer wall of the building. There was a garden inside apparently, for trees were waving their topmost branches overhead, and vines, and westeria, and Virginia creeper hung down in long, many- coloured tangled shoots and tendrils over the angle of the wall outside. A little beyond was a side-door, with a bench placed beside it; and above, surmounted by a crucifix under a little pent-house, a narrow shelf on which stood an empty bowl and spoon, just placed there probably by some wandering pensioner, who had come there, not in vain, to seek his evening meal.

"Shall we sit down for a minute and rest?" said Graham.

Madelon seated herself at his side without speaking; she had been talking fast enough, and not without cheerfulness, during the early part of her walk; but since they had come within sight of the convent, her chatter had died away into silence. Perhaps she was tired, for she sat quite still now, and showed no wish to resume the conversation. The sound of the city chimes died away; the little bell in the belfry close by kept up its sharp monotone for a minute longer, and then it too was hushed; the trees whispered and rustled, the grasshoppers chirped shrilly all around, but a great stillness seemed to fall upon the darkling earth as the grey evening came down, and enfolded it in its soft mists. Grey fields stretched away on either hand, grey clouds that had been rosy-red half an hour ago, floated overhead; only the trees looked dark against the tender grey sky, the encircling hills of Liége against the lingering twilight glow.

The silent influence of the hour made itself felt on these two also, perhaps, for neither of them spoke at first; indeed, Graham's thoughts had wandered far beyond the horizon before him, when he was aroused by the sound of a little sob, and turning round, he saw that Madelon was crying.

"What is it, Madelon?" he said; "are you tired? What is the matter?"

She did not answer at once, she was struggling with her tears; at last out came the grief.

"It--it all looks so sad, and gloomy, and _triste_," she said. "I do not want to come here and be shut up in the convent; oh, take me away, take me away!"

She clung to Graham as if she were to be parted from him that moment, whilst he soothed her as best he could.

"We will go away at once if you like," he said; "I think we did wrong to come at this time of the evening; everything looks grey and cheerless now--you will see to-morrow how much brighter it will all appear."

"It is not only that," said Madelon, striving to check her sobs; "but just now, when we were sitting here, somehow I had forgotten all about where I was, and everything; and I thought I was out walking with papa, as I used to be, and I was planning what we would do to-morrow--and then all at once I remembered--and to-morrow I shall be in there, and I shall never see him again, and you will be gone too--oh, papa, papa----"

She was shaking all over with one of her sudden bursts of passionate crying. What could he do to console her? What could he say to comfort her? Not much, perhaps, but then much was not needed; only a few words commonplace enough, I daresay--but then, as we have said, Monsieur Horace's voice and words always had a wonderful influence with our little Madelon. How is it, indeed, that amidst a hundred tones that fret and jar on our ears, there is one kind voice that has power to calm and soothe us--amid a hundred alien forms, one hand to which we cling for help and support? Graham did not say much, and yet, as Madelon listened, her sobs grew less violent, her tears ceased, she began to control herself again. "Listen," said Graham, presently, "is not that singing that we hear? I think it must be the nuns."

Madelon raised her head and held her breath to listen; and sure enough, from within the convent came the sound of the voices of the nuns at their evening prayers. She listened breathlessly, a change came over her face, a light into her eyes, and she tightened her grasp of Graham's hand. The melancholy voices rising and falling in unison, seemed a pathetic, melodious interpretation of the inarticulate harmonies of the evening hour.

"I like that," said Madelon, relaxing her hold as they ceased at last; "do you think they sing like that every evening, Monsieur Horace?"

"I have no doubt of it," he answered, "it is their evening service; see, that must be the chapel where the windows are lighted up."

"Perhaps they will let me sing too," said Madelon. "Ah, I shall like that--I love singing so much; do you think they will?"

"I think it very likely," said Horace; "but now, Madelon, we must be going towards home; it is almost quite dark, and we have a long walk before us."

Madelon was almost cheerful again now. She so readily seized the brighter side of any prospect, that it was only when the dark side was too forcibly presented to her that she would consent to dwell on it; and now the sound of the nuns singing had, unconsciously to herself, idealised the life that had appeared so dull and cheerless when viewed in connexion with the grey twilight, and had changed its whole aspect. When they reached the boulevards, where the lamps were all lighted now, and the people still walking up and down, it was she who proposed that they should sit down on one of the benches for a while.

"This is the last walk I shall have with you," she said, "for such a long, long time."

"Not so very long," said Graham, "you know I am to come and see you on my way back from Germany, and then if I can manage it, we will have another walk together."

"That will be very nice," said Madelon; and then, after a pause, she added, "Monsieur Horace, supposing Aunt Thérèse says she will not have me, what shall I do then?"

This very same question had, as we know, presented itself to Graham before now, and he had felt the full force of the possible difficulty that had now occurred to our unthinking Madelon for the first time.

"Indeed I do not know, Madelon," he answered, half laughing, "but I don't think we need be afraid; your aunt is not likely to turn you away."

"But if she did," persisted Madelon, "what should I do? Would you take me away to live with you?"

"With me?" said Graham, smiling, "I don't think that would quite do, Madelon; you know I am a soldiers' doctor, and have to go where they go, and could not have you following the regiment."

"Then you cannot come and go about as you please," said Madelon; "I thought you always went where you liked; you are not with the regiment now."

"No, I have a holiday just now; but that will come to an end in two or three weeks, and then I must do as I am bid, and go where I am told."

"And you have no home then? Ah, take me with you, Monsieur Horace, I should like to see the world--let me go with you."

"Would you like to put on a little red coat, and shoulder a musket and stand to be shot at?" says Graham, laughing at her. "I hope to see more of the world than you would quite like, I fancy, Madelon, that is, if we have any luck and get ordered out to the Crimea."

For indeed it was just the moment of the Crimean war, and while the events recorded in this little story were going on, the world was all astir with the great game in which kingdoms are staked, and a nation's destinies decided; treaties were being torn, alliances formed, armies marching, all Europe arming and standing at arms to prepare for the mighty struggle, and Graham, like many another young fellow, was watching anxiously to see whether, in the great tide rolling eastward, some wave would not reach to where he stood, and sweep him away to the scene of action.

Madelon had not heard much about the Crimea, and did not very well know what Horace meant; but she understood the first part of his speech, and she, too, laughed at this picture of herself in a little red coat. Presently, however, she recurred to her original question.

"If you were not marching about, would you let me come and live with you?" she asked again.

"Indeed, I do not say that I would," said Graham, laughing, "and I don't mean to settle down for a long time yet; I have to make my fortune, you know."

"To make your fortune!" cries Madelon, pricking up her ears at the sound of the words, for indeed they had a most familiar ring in them; "why, I could do that for you," she added after a moment's pause.

"Could you?" said Graham absently; he did not follow out her thought in the least, and, in fact, hardly heard what she said, for the words were suggestive to him also, and carried with them their own train of ideas.

"Yes, and I will too," says Madelon, in one brief moment conceiving, weighing, and forming a great resolution. "Ah, I know how to do it--I know, and I will; I promise you, and I always keep my promises, you know. I promised papa that I would never become a nun, and I never will."

"Indeed, I cannot fancy you a nun at all," said Graham, rousing himself, and getting up. "Don't you think we had better be going back to the hotel now? It is getting quite late."

"And when your fortune is made, may I come and live with you?" said Madelon, without moving.

"We shall see about that afterwards," he answered, smiling, "there is time enough to think about it, you may be sure. Come, Madelon, we must be going."

"Ah, you do not know, and I will not tell you," said Madelon, jumping up as she spoke.

"What do I not know?" asked Graham, taking her hand in his, as they walked off together.

"What I will do--it is my secret, but you will see--yes, you will see, I promise you that."

She almost danced with glee as she walked along at Graham's side. He did not understand what she was talking about; he had missed the first sentence that might have given him the clue, and merely supposed that it was some childish mystery with which she was amusing herself.

But Madelon understood full well, and her busy little brain was full of plans and projects as she walked along. Make a fortune! how many fortunes had she not seen made in a day--in an hour! "Give me only ten francs, _et je ferai fortune!_" The old speech that she had quoted years ago to Horace Graham-- though, indeed, she had no remembrance of having done so--was familiar to her now as then. Ah! she knew how fortunes were made, and Monsieur Horace did not--that was strange, but it was evident to her--and she would not tell him. Her superior knowledge on this point was a hidden treasure, for a great ambition had suddenly fired our ten-year-old Madelon. Not only in maturer years are great plans laid, great campaigns imagined, great victories fought for; within the narrow walls of many a nursery, on the green lawns of many a garden, the mimic fort is raised, the siege-train laid, the fortress stormed; and in many a tiny head the germs of the passions and ambitions and virtues of later years are already working out for themselves such paths as surrounding circumstances will allow them to find. But Madelon's childhood had known neither nursery nor sheltered home-garden. Her earliest experiences had been amidst the larger ventures of life, the deeper interests that gather round advancing years; her playground had been the salons of the gayest watering-places in Europe, her playthings the roulette-board and the little gold and silver pieces that had passed so freely backwards and forwards on the long green tables where desperate stakes were ventured, and fortunes won and lost in a night; and it was amongst these that she now proposed to try her own little game of enterprise, and prepare this grand surprise for Monsieur Horace. The idea was an inspiration to her. Her whole soul was bound up in Horace Graham; I think she would willingly have laid down her life for him, and have thought little of the offering; a sort of _furore_ of gratitude and devotion possessed her, and here at length was an opportunity for doing something for him--something he did not know how to do for himself, great and wise though he was, and this idea added not a little zest to the plan, in Madelon's opinion, one may be sure. Ah, yes, she knew what to do, she would go to the gambling-tables, as she had seen her father and his associates go scores of times; she would win money for him, she would make his fortune!

So Madelon schemed as she walked along by Graham's side, whilst he, for his part, had already forgotten her little speech, if indeed he had ever heard it.

So it is often--a few careless words between two people, quickly spoken, soon forgotten, by at least one of them--and yet, perhaps, destined to alter the course of two lives. Before they had reached the hotel Madelon had arranged not only the outline, but the details of her scheme. Spa was, as she well knew, but a short distance from Liége; she would at once beg her aunt to allow her to go over there for a day, or two days, if one were not enough, and then--why, once there, everything would be easy, and perhaps, even before Monsieur Horace came back from Germany, as he had said he would, all might be done, the promise redeemed, the fortune made! A most childish and childlike plan, founded so entirely on deductions drawn from experiences in the past, so wholly without reference to the probabilities of the future, and yet not the less the result of a fixed resolution in Madelon's mind, which no subsequent change in the mere details of carrying it out could affect. For, in her small undeveloped character lay latent an integrity and strength of will, a tenacity of purpose, which were already beginning to work, unconsciously, and by instinct as it were, for she could assuredly never have learnt from her father, who regarded honesty and integrity as merely inconvenient weaknesses incidental to human nature under certain conditions. But to Madelon they were precisely those sacred truths which lie hidden in our inmost hearts, and which, when once revealed to us, we cling to as our most steadfast law, and which to deny were to denounce our best and purest self. Not to every one are the same truths revealed with the same force; for the most part it is only through a searching experience that we can come clearly to understand one or another, which is to our neighbour as his most unerring instinct; and such must have been this integrity of purpose in Madelon, who, in affirming that she always kept her promises, had uttered no idle vaunt, nor even the proved result of such experience as her short life had afforded, but had simply given expression to what she instinctively knew to be the strongest truth in her nature.

That evening, after Madelon had gone up to bed, she stood long at her open window looking out into the night. Her bedroom was high up in the hotel, and overlooked a large public place; just opposite was a big, lighted theatre, and from where she stood she could catch the sound of the music, and could fancy the bright interior, the gay dresses, the balcony, the great chandeliers, the actors, the stage. It was her farewell for many a long day to the scenes and pleasures of her past life, but she did not know it. The sound of the music stirred within her a sort of vague excitement, an indefinite longing, and she was busy peopling the future--a child's future, it is true, not extending beyond two or three weeks, but yet sufficient to make her forget the past for the moment. She must have stood there for nearly an hour; any one looking up might have wondered to see the little head popped out of window, the little figure so still and motionless. Up above the stars twinkled unheeded; down below other stars seemed to be dancing across the wide Place, but they were only the lamps of the carriages as they drove to and fro from the theatre. And yonder, on the outskirts of this busy town, with its lights and crowds and gay bustle, sleeping under the silent, slow- moving constellations, surrounded by the dark rustling trees, stands the still convent, where a narrow room awaits this dreaming eager little watcher. Our poor little Madelon! Not more difference between this gay, familiar music to which all her life has been set hitherto, and the melancholy chant of the nuns, whose echoes have already passed from her memory, than between the future she is picturing to herself and the one preparing for her--but she does not know it.