Chapter 17

The Countess G----.

No one was yet stirring in the little village, which, scarcely emerged from the early twilight, lay still and silent, except for the ceaseless, monotonous clang of the forges. Madelon was tired out; she knew it was too early for any train to start for Spa, and nothing better occurred to her than to sit down and rest once more in a sheltered corner amongst some bushes under a big hawthorn-tree growing on the bank of the river; and in a few minutes she was again sound asleep, whilst the mass of snowy blossoms above her head grew rosy in the sunlight.

It was broad daylight when she awoke again, and sat up rubbing her eyes, and feeling very chilly, and stiff, and sleepy, but with a quickly succeeding delight in the bright May morning, a joyous sense of escape and freedom, of all that she had accomplished already, and was going to accomplish on this day to which she had looked forward so long. Everything looked gold and blue in the early sunlight; the river danced and sparkled, the poplar-trees were now green, now silvery-grey, as they waved about in the breeze; the country people were passing along the road, laughing and chattering gaily in their queer _patois_. The dark night seemed to have vanished into indefinite remoteness, like some incongruous dream, which, on waking, one recalls with difficulty and wonder, in the midst of bright familiar surroundings. The two years of convent life, too, seemed to be slipping out of little Madelon's existence, as if they had never been; she could almost fancy she had been sleeping all these months, and had awakened to find all the same--ah! no, not quite the same. Madelon had a sharp little pang of grief as she thought of her father, and then a glad throb of joy as she thought of Monsieur Horace--and then she suddenly discovered that she was horribly hungry, and, jumping up, she began to walk towards the village.

Not fifty yards from where she had been sleeping stood the hotel where she had so often stayed, and where she had first met Horace Graham. There, too, everything was stirring and awakening into activity--shutters being thrown back, windows opened, the sunny courtyard swept out. Madelon stood still for a moment looking on. She wondered whether her old friend, Mademoiselle Cécile, was still there; she thought it would be very pleasant to go in and see her, and have some breakfast in the big _salle-à-manger_, with the pink and yellow paper roses, and long rows of windows looking out into the courtyard and garden. But then, she further reflected, breakfasting at an hotel might probably cost a great deal of money, and she had so little money to spare; so that on the whole it might be better to see what she could find in a shop, and she walked quickly up the village street. Chaudfontaine contains none of the luxuries, and as few as possible of the necessaries of life, which are for the most part supplied from Liége; but sour bread is not unknown there, and Madelon having procured a great, dark tough hunch for her sous, turned back towards the hotel. She stood outside the iron railing, eating her bread, and watching what was going on inside; the stir and small bustle had a positive fascination for her, after her months of seclusion in the convent. It brought back her old life with the strangest vividness, joining on the present with the past which had been so happy; it was as if she had been suddenly brought back into air and light after long years of darkness and silence. Through the open door of the hotel she could see the shadowy green of the garden beyond. Was the swing in which she had so often sat for hours still there? The windows of the salon were open too, and there were the old pictures on the wall, the piano just where it used to stand, and a short, stout figure, in skirt and camisole, moving about, who might be Mademoiselle Cécile herself. Presently some children came running out into the courtyard, with shining hair and faces, and clean white pinafores, fresh out of the nurse's hands. Madelon looked at them with a sudden sense of having grown much older than she used to be--almost grown up, compared to these small things. She had been no bigger than that when she had first seen Monsieur Horace. She tried to recall their first meeting, but in truth she could not remember much about it; it was so long ago, and succeeding visits had so nearly effaced the remembrance of that early time, that it was rather the shadowy memory of a memory, than the reality itself, that came back to her mind.

Madelon had long finished her breakfast, but, busy with these recollections, was still lingering outside the courtyard, when a gentleman and lady came out of the hotel and walked down towards the gate. The gentleman was stout, black-haired, red- faced, and good-humoured-looking; the lady elderly, thin, and freckled, with a much tumbled silk gown, and frizzy, sandy hair, under a black net bonnet, adorned with many artificial flowers. In all our Madelon's reminiscences of the past, these two figures assuredly had no place, and yet this was by no means the first time they had met at this very hotel. The lady was the Countess G----, with whom one memorable evening Madelon had had a grand fight over a roulette board; the gentleman was Horace Graham's _quondam_ fellow-traveller, the Countess's old admirer, and now her husband.

They were talking as they came together down the courtyard, and Madelon caught the last words of their conversation.

"Adieu, _mon ami_," cried the lady, as they approached the gate; "I shall rejoin you this afternoon at Liége."

"And by the earliest train possible, I beg of you," answered the other. "I may find it necessary to go on to Brussels this evening."

"By the earliest train possible, _mon ami_. Adieu, then,--_au revoir_."

"_Au revoir, ma chérie_," answered the gentleman, turning back to the hotel, but pausing before he had taken a dozen steps.

_"Ma chérie_, you will not forget my business at Madame Bertrand's?"

"But no, _mon ami_, it shall be attended to without fail."

"_Ma chérie_----"

"_Mon ami_----"

"You must hasten, or you will miss the train."

"I go, I go," cried the Countess, waving her parasol in token of farewell, and hurrying out of the gateway. These last words aroused Madelon also. In hearing strange voices talking what seemed some familiar, half-forgotten tongue, she had almost forgotten the train; but she started up now from where she had been half standing, half leaning, and followed the Countess across the bridge into the railway station. Indeed she had only just time to take her ticket, before the train for Spa came rushing up with slackening speed into the station. There were few passengers either coming or going at this early hour, but Madelon's heart gave a great jump as she saw two black- robed figures get out of one of the carriages and come towards her. In another moment she saw they were Soeurs de Charité, with a dress quite different from that worn by the nuns; but the imaginary alarm suggested very real causes of fear, which somehow had almost slipped from her mind since the first hours of her escape from the convent. In her new, glad sense of freedom, she had quite forgotten that the hour had long since arrived when her flight must most certainly be discovered, and that there were, after all, still only six miles of road between her and her old life; and it was with quite a newly awakened dread that even now unfriendly eyes might be watching her from some one of the carriage-windows, that she jumped hastily into the nearest compartment she could find. It was not empty, however, for the Countess, who had preceded her across the bridge had already taken her place, and was arranging her flounces in one corner. She looked up, astounded at Madelon's somewhat precipitate entrance; and as the train moved off, she treated her small companion to a most unceremonious stare, which took in every detail of her personal appearance.

"Are you travelling alone?" she asked, at length, abruptly.

"Yes, madame," said Madelon, getting rather red. She had resented the stare, and did not want to be talked to; her one idea now was to get to Spa unnoticed. But she had ill-chosen her travelling companion--the Countess was a lady whose impertinent curiosity was rarely baffled.

"What! quite alone? Is there nobody at all with you?"

"No, madame."

"But that is very extraordinary, and not at all the thing for a young person of your age. What makes you go about all by yourself?"

"I--I have no one to go with me," faltered Madelon, getting more and more hot and uncomfortable.

"But that is very strange, and, as one may say, very improper; have you no friends?"

"Yes,--no," began Madelon; but at that moment, with a shriek, the train entered a tunnel, and the sudden noise and darkness put a stop to the conversation for a time. The Countess began again presently, however, as they went speeding across the next valley.

"Do you live at Chaudfontaine?" was her next inquiry.

"No," says poor Madelon, looking around despairingly, as for some means of escape; but that was hopeless, and she could only shrink further into her corner.

"And where are you going now, then?"

"I am going to Spa."

"To Spa? Ah, indeed--and what are you going to do there? Perhaps," said the Countess, more graciously, and with another glance at the shabby frock and poor little bundle, "perhaps you are going into some situation there?"

"Situation?" repeated Madelon, bewildered.

"Yes--you would make a very nice little nursery-maid, I dare say," said the Countess, with much condescension; "and, indeed, if you should be wanting any assistance in that way, you have only to apply to me; and if you can produce good credentials, I shall be most happy to assist you. I am always ready to help deserving young people."

Madelon grew red as fire. "I am not a nursery-maid," she said, with much indignation; "I don't know what you mean, and you have no right to ask me so many questions--I will not answer any more."

Another shriek and another tunnel; when they once more emerged into daylight, Madelon had retreated into that corner of the carriage remotest from the Countess, who, for her part, showed some wisdom, perhaps, in making no attempt to resume the conversation.

At Pepinster, they changed trains; and here Madelon found an empty carriage, where, without disturbance, she might sit and congratulate herself on having accomplished this first step in her journey. Indeed, this seemed to her so great a success, that she felt nothing but hope as she sat curled up in a corner, only wishing vaguely, from time to time, that her head would not ache so much, and that she did not feel so very, very tired. She had a great confidence in the swiftness of the train, which was every moment increasing the distance between herself and Liége, and so, as she thought, lessening the chances of her being discovered in case of pursuit; and yet, when it stopped at length at the well-remembered Spa station, she lingered a moment in the carriage, feeling as if it were a friendly place of refuge she was leaving, to face unknown dangers in the outer world.

No one noticed her, however, as she slowly alighted and looked about her. There were, as we have said, but few passengers at this early hour, and the platform was already nearly deserted. At a little distance she could see Madame la Comtesse and her flounces walking briskly away; on one side was an English family of the received type, wrangling with porters and omnibus-drivers in the midst of their luggage; on the other, an invalid Russian wrapped to the nose in furs, leaning on his valet's arm; in the foreground, a party of gay Liégeois, come over for a day's amusement. No one looked at our poor little Madelon, as, half-bewildered, she stood for a moment on the platform, her bundle on her arm, her veil pulled down over her face; one after the other they vanished, and then she too followed, out into the tree-bordered road, with the familiar hills on either side, sheltering the little gay white town. The day had changed within the last hour, the sunshine was gone, and in its place was a grey, lowering sky. Madelon shivered as she walked along; her head ached more and more; she wondered what it was that made her feel so tired and weak, and then she remembered that she had been ill for a long time, and that she had been up all night. "I will ask Madame Bertrand to let me lie down and go to sleep," she thought, "before I go to the Redoute, and then I shall be all right." She walked on as fast as she could, so as to arrive sooner at the hotel; she remembered its situation perfectly, in the Place Royale, not far from the stand where the band used to play every evening; and there its was at last, all unchanged since she had last seen it three years ago, and with "Hôtel de Madrid" shining in big gold letters above the door.

Every one who knows Spa, knows the Place Royale, with its broad walks and rows of trees, leading from the shady avenues of the Promenade à Sept Heures at the one end, to the winding street with its gay shops at the other. The Hôtel de Madrid was situated about half-way down the Place, and, as compared with the great hotels of Spa, it was small, mean, and third- rate, little frequented therefore by the better class of visitors, and with no particular recommendation beyond its situation on the Place Royale, its cheap terms, and its excellent landlady. M. Linders, whose means did not always admit of reckless expenditure, and whose credit was not wholly unlimited, had gone there two or three times, when visiting Spa to retrieve fallen fortunes; and the first time he had taken Madelon with him, she and Madame Bertrand had become such fast friends, that, for his child's sake, he never afterwards went anywhere else. Madelon had the most lively, pleasant recollections of the stout motherly landlady, whose store of bonbons and confitures had been absolutely endless. Of all her friends in this class, Madame Bertrand had been the one to whom she had most attached herself, and now it was almost with the feeling of finding herself at home that she saw the hotel before her.

The door stood open, and she went into the small hall, or rather passage, which ran through the house, ending in another door, which, also open, afforded a green view of many currant and gooseberry bushes in Madame Bertrand's garden. To the right was the staircase, to the left the _salle-à-manger_, a low room with two windows looking on to the Place, and furnished with half-a-dozen small round tables, for the hotel was of too unpretentious a nature to aspire to a _table d'hôte_; the floor lacked polish, and the furniture was shabby, yet the room had a friendly look to our homeless Madelon, as a frequent resting-place in such wanderings to and fro as had been hers in former years. She went in. A man was sitting at one of the tables, a tall bottle of red wine at his side, and a dish of cutlets before him, eating his late _déjeuner_, and reading a newspaper; whilst a waiter moved about, arranging knives and forks, table-napkins, and _pistolets_, with occasional pauses for such glimpses of the outer world as could be obtained through the muslin curtains hanging before the somewhat dingy windows.

"Is Madame Bertrand at home?" asked Madelon, coming up to him.

The man stared down at the shabbily dressed little figure before him, glanced at the bundle hanging on her arm, and then answered civilly enough that Madame Bertrand was not at home. Did Mademoiselle want anything?

"I wanted to speak to Madame Bertrand," answered Madelon rather piteously; "will she be back soon, do you think? When can I see her?"

"_Eh, je n'en sais rien_," said the man. "If Mademoiselle wants to see her, she had better call again--or she can leave a message," and he went on laying the tables.

Madelon sat down despondingly on a chair near the door, hardly knowing what to do next. It was the first check in the carrying out of her little programme, a programme so neatly arranged, but with this defect, mainly arising from inexperience, that it had made no sort of allowance for unforeseen circumstances--and yet of such so many were likely to arise. She had quite settled in her own mind what she was going to say to Madame Bertrand, and also what Madame Bertrand would say to her, but she had not provided for this other contingency of not finding her at all. She sat and considered for a minute. Two or three men came in laughing and talking, and stared in her face as they passed by and called for what they wanted. She began to feel uncomfortable; she could not stay there till Madame Bertrand returned; what if she were to go to the Redoute first, and then return to the hotel? Yes, that would be the best plan; if only she had not felt so very tired, with such aching limbs and head; the sight and smell of the meat and wine made her feel almost faint. However, that could not be helped, she must do the best she could. She went up to the waiter again. "I must go now," she said, "but I will come back presently to see Madame Bertrand; may I leave these things here?" and she held up her bundle.

"Mademoiselle wants a room--or is it something for Madame?" said the man, perplexed at this strange little visitor, who was wholly out of the range of his experience.

"No, no, it is mine," said Madelon; "if I might leave it here----"

The waiter set down the tray he was holding, and left the room followed by Madelon. "Mademoiselle Henriette!" he cried.

"Mademoiselle Henriette is in the garden," answered a shrill voice from above; and at the same moment a trim little figure appeared from amongst the currant and gooseberry bushes, and came in at the open door leading into the passage.

"Does any one want me?" she cried.

"Pardon, Madame," said Madelon, coming forward to tell her little story, whilst the waiter returned to his plates and dishes, "I wanted to see Madame Bertrand, but they say she is out, and that I must return later; might I leave my things here for a little while till I come back?"

"Do you want a room, Mademoiselle?" said the other; "I regret to say that the hotel is quite full; we have not a single bed at your disposal."

"Ah, what shall I do? what do you think would be best?" said poor Madelon, piteously, suddenly breaking down in the grown- up part she had been half unconsciously acting, and ready to burst into tears. Things were not turning out at all as she had wished or intended. "I did want a room, but I thought I should have found Madame Bertrand, and she would have helped me; I don't know what to do now."

"Do you know my aunt? I am Madame Bertrand's niece," says Mademoiselle Henriette in explanation. "She will not be in just yet, but if you like to wait in here a little while, you can do so, or you can return by-and-by."

She opened the door of a small parlour as she spoke, and stood aside for Madelon to enter. A little faded room, with a high desk standing in the window, gaudy ornaments on the mantelpiece, a worn Utrecht velvet sofa, and a semicircle of worsted-work chairs--not much in it all to awaken enthusiasm, one would think, and yet, as Madelon came in, she forgot disappointment, and fatigue, and everything else for a moment, in a glad recognition of well-remembered objects.

"It is not a bit altered," she cried, quite joyfully, turning to Mademoiselle Henriette as she spoke.

"You have been here before then," says Mademoiselle, looking curiously at the child, and seeing for the first time, in the clearer light of the room, what a child she was.

"Yes," answered Madelon, "I used to come here very often; we liked coming, because Madame Bertrand was so kind. I know she will be glad to see me again--ah!" she cried, breaking off in the middle of her sentence, "there is the little china dog I used to play with, and the bonbonnière with the flowers painted on the top--ah, and my little glass--do you know, Madame used always let me drink out of that glass when I had supper with her--but you were not here, then, Mademoiselle."

"That is true, I have only been with my aunt about six months; she is growing old, and wants some one to help her," answered Mademoiselle Henriette, a most brisk, capable-looking little personage, "but I daresay she will recollect you. Are you all alone? Have you come far to-day?"

"Not very far," said Madelon, colouring up, and suddenly recalled to the present. "I think, please, I will leave my things here now, and come back presently."

"I think you had better stay here quietly and rest; you look very tired," said Mademoiselle kindly; and indeed as the glow faded from her cheeks, Madelon showed a most colourless little face, with heavy eyelids, that seemed as if they could hardly open.

"No, I would rather go out now," she answered; "I can rest afterwards."

Indeed, tired as she felt, she had changed her mind, thinking that if she stayed now, it would be hard to set off again by- and-by, and she was determined to get her business done to- day--she had a morbid dread, too, of questions from strangers, after her experience with the Countess.

"I _must_ go out," she repeated; "but I will come back again, and then perhaps Madame Bertrand will have come in, and will tell me where I can sleep to-night."

Mademoiselle Henriette had neither time nor sufficient interest in the child to contest the point further; and Madelon, having safely deposited her bundle in a corner of the sofa, departed on her errand.