Fairy Fingers Part 29

Vainly might we attempt to convey even a faint idea of her tumultuous rapture,--of the tears of ecstasy, the hysterical laughter, the dancing delight, with which she greeted her uncle and Maurice, who entered a few moments after the package was received. She kissed the handkerchief moistened with her tears, waved it exultingly over her head, kissed it again, and wept over it again, while the marquis and her cousin stood looking at her in speechless astonishment.

"Madeleine! Madeleine! it is from Madeleine!" at last she found voice to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e. "See, that is her handwriting," pointing to the paper cover; "and this is her work; her 'fairy fingers' send me a token on my birthday. I am seventeen to-day, and no one has remembered it but Madeleine. She thinks of me still; she never forgets any one; she has not forgotten me!"

Maurice caught up the paper in which the handkerchief had been enveloped, and with throbbing pulses eagerly examined the handwriting.

"See, Maurice," Bertha continued, joyfully, "in the corner she has embroidered my name, surrounded by a wreath of forget-me-nots,--for _she_ does not forget. The crest of the de Merrivales is in the opposite corner; and this,--why this looks like the bracelet I gave her on her last birthday. How wonderfully she has imitated the knot of pearls that fastened the golden band! And this corner, Maurice, look,--this is in remembrance of you,--of your birthday token to her. Do you not see the design is a brooch, and the device a dove carrying an olive-branch in its mouth, and the word 'Pax' embroidered beneath?"

Maurice looked, struggling to repress the emotion that almost unmanned him. Pointing to the stamp upon the envelope which had contained the handkerchief, he said,--

"It is postmarked Dresden."

"Dresden? Dresden? Can Madeleine be in Dresden?" returned Bertha. "Ah, uncle, can we not go there at once? We shall certainly find her.

Yes,--we must go. I am tired of Paris,--let us start to-morrow."

"Dresden, my dear!" cried her uncle, in a tone of unmitigated disgust.

"Why, the barbarians would feed us upon _sour kraut_, and give us pudding before meat! Go to Dresden? Impossible! Not to be thought of!

Paris was a wise move,--we have enjoyed the living amazingly; but trust ourselves to those tasteless German cooks? We should be poisoned in a couple of days. Keep cool, my dear, or you will make yourself ill by getting into such a violent state of excitement just after breakfast.

How do you suppose the important process of digestion can progress favorably if your blood is agitated in this turbulent manner?"

Bertha was about to answer almost wrathfully, but Maurice interrupted her.

"_I_ will go, Bertha. Madeleine must be in Dresden. At last she has sent us a token of her existence, a token of remembrance, thank Heaven!"

"Go! go! go at once!" was Bertha's energetic injunction.

Maurice pressed her hand tightly, and bowing to the marquis, without attempting to utter another syllable, took his leave, carrying with him the envelope which bore Madeleine's handwriting.

After having his pa.s.sport _vised_, he returned to his apartment to make rapid preparations for starting that evening. Very soon Gaston de Bois entered, evidently in a state of ill-concealed perturbation.

"Mademoiselle Bertha tells me you are going to Dresden."

"Yes, to seek my cousin. Look at the post-stamp upon that envelope.

Madeleine is in Dresden."

"How can you be sure of that?" asked Gaston.

"She writes from Dresden; can anything be clearer?" returned Maurice, confidently.

"It is not clear to me that she is there. I wish I could persuade you against taking this jour--our--ourney."

"That is out of the question, Gaston; so spare yourself the trouble of the attempt."

"But the journey will be use--use--useless," persisted M. de Bois.

"How can you know that?" inquired Maurice, quickly.

"I think so; it is my impression, my conviction."

"It is not mine, and nothing can prevent my making the experiment,"

answered Maurice, decidedly.

Gaston looked as thoroughly vexed as though he were responsible for the rash actions of his friend; but he knew that Maurice was inflexible where Madeleine was concerned, and that all entreaties would be thrown away unless he could sustain them by some potent reason; and _that_ it was not in his power to proffer. He made no further opposition, but remained fidgeting about the room in the most distracting manner, hindering the preparations of Maurice, stumbling over articles scattered on the floor, now and then stammering out a broken, unintelligible phrase, and altogether seeming wretchedly uncomfortable, yet unwilling to leave until he saw the obstinate traveller in the _fiacre_ which drove him to the railway station.

CHAPTER XVI.

A VOICE FROM THE LOST ONE.

A few days after the departure of Maurice for Dresden, the Duke de Montauban made a formal proposal for the hand of Mademoiselle de Merrivale. French etiquette not allowing a suitor the privilege of addressing the lady of his love, except through some kindred or friendly medium, his pretensions were of course made known to Bertha by her uncle. She received the communication with a fretful tapping of her little foot, and a toss of her gamboling, golden ringlets, which bore witness to her undisguised vexation and saucy disdain. The uncompromising manner in which she declined the proposed honor, threw her guardian, who had strengthened himself to enact the part of Cupid's messenger, by a somewhat liberal repast, into a state of astonishment which threatened alarming disturbance to his laboring digestive functions.

"Really, my dear, you speak so abruptly that you make me feel quite dyspeptic. What possible objection can you have to the young duke?"

"A very slight one, according to the creed which governs matrimonial alliances in our enlightened land," returned Bertha, pouting through her sarcasm. "My objection is simply that he is not an object of the slightest interest to me."

"But the match is such a suitable one that interest will come after it is consummated," answered her uncle.

"I do not intend to marry upon _faith_," retorted Bertha; then she broke out petulantly, "In a word, uncle, I do not intend to marry a man who is so insipid that I could not even quarrel with him; whom I could not think of seriously enough to take the trouble to dislike; to whom I am so thoroughly indifferent that for me he has no existence out of my immediate sight."

"There, there; keep cool, my dear. n.o.body intends to force you to marry him. I did not know that it was necessary to be able to dislike a man, and to have a capacity for quarrelling with him, to fit him for the position of a husband. A very unwholesome doctrine. Emotion is particularly prejudicial to the animal economy. I thought the cultivated taste which the de Fleurys so evidently possess might have some weight with you. That dinner they gave us was unsurpa.s.sable, and"--

"If I am to marry to secure myself superlatively good dinners, I had better unite myself to an accomplished cook at once," replied Bertha, demurely.

"That's very tart, my dear. All acids disagree with me, and your acidulated observations are giving me unpleasant premonitory symptoms."

Bertha noticed that the _bon vivant_ had in reality began to puff and pant as though he were suffering from an incipient nightmare. Being so thoroughly habituated to his idiosyncrasy that she had learned to regard it leniently, she made an effort to recover her good humor, and answered,--

"I know my kind uncle will not render me uncomfortable by pressing this subject; but, in the most courteous manner, will let the Duke de Montauban understand that I do not intend to marry at present."

"Make you uncomfortable," rejoined the marquis, struggling for breath; "of course, I would not for the world! Do you take me for an old brute?

And I have just made arrangements to drive you to the _Bois de Boulogne_ and dine at Madrid's this evening. A pretty state you would be in to do justice to a dinner which promises to place in jeopardy the laurels even of M. de Fleury's cook."

"We will strike a bargain," returned Bertha, with her wonted gayety. "If you will agree not to mention the Duke de Montauban, I will agree to do justice to the dinner at Madrid's."

"I am content; we will drop the duke and discuss the dinner."

The attentions of Madame de Fleury's brother to the heiress had been too marked and open for his suit and its rejection to remain a secret.

Gaston de Bois heard Bertha's refusal commented upon, and there was a buzz in his ears of idle speculations concerning the origin of her caprice. Was it some blissful, internal suggestion, which diffused such a glow of happiness over his expressive countenance when he next saw Bertha? Was it some hitherto uncertain ground of encouragement made sure beneath his feet, which so wondrously loosened his tongue from its dire bondage? Was it some aerial hope, taking tangible shape, which imparted such an air of ease and elation to his demeanor? Gaston stammered less every day,--his impediment disappearing as his self-possession increased. On this occasion he was only conscious of a slight difficulty in utterance to rejoice at its existence, for it rendered delightfully apparent Bertha's thoughtfulness in catching up words upon which he hesitated, and concluding sentences he commenced, as though she read their meaning in his eyes. Gaston had not seen her in so buoyant a mood since they parted at the Chateau de Gramont. But the tide of her exuberant gayety suddenly ebbed when she noticed the look of pain with which he involuntarily responded to one of her chance questions. She had asked if he thought it probable Maurice would find Madeleine in Dresden.

Again that singular expression on his countenance; again that sudden change of color at Madeleine's name; again that involuntary starting from his seat, with a return of the olden habit which placed fragile furniture in danger! Was it the remembrance that Madeleine was lost to them which occasioned M. de Bois's sudden depression? Was it an overwhelming sense of doubt concerning the result of Maurice's mission, which made his response to Bertha's inquiry so vague, his sentences so disjointed? Once more Bertha asked herself whether he were not, after all, the lover Madeleine had refused to mention. Yet, if this were the case, how could Gaston have appeared so much less anxious and less concerned at her flight than Maurice, who loved her with unquestionable ardor? Why had M. de Bois aided so little in the search for her present habitation? The young girl could not reconcile such apparent contradictions, and while she sat perplexing herself by futile efforts to unravel these mysteries, M. de Bois was equally puzzled to rightly interpret her silence and abstraction.

The interview which, at its opening, had been as bright as a spring morning, closed with sudden April shadows; and there was an April mingling of smiles and tears upon Bertha's countenance when she retired to her chamber, after M. de Bois's departure, and pondered over his strange expression when her cousin was mentioned. Why, if Madeleine was his choice, was his manner toward herself so full of tenderness? Why was it that she never glanced at him without finding his eyes fastened upon her face? Why had he so much power to draw her irresistibly towards him?

Why did his step set her heart throbbing so tumultuously? Why did his coming cause her such a thrill of delight, and his departure leave such a sense of solitude?--a void that no one else filled, a pain that no other presence soothed.

Meantime Maurice had reached Dresden and was searching for Madeleine, almost in the same vague, unreasonable manner that he had sought her in Paris. But the mad course upon which he had again started, and which might have once more unbalanced his mind, met with a sudden check. The day after his arrival in Dresden he received a note, which ran thus:--

"Madeleine is not in Dresden. She entreats Maurice to discontinue a search which must prove fruitless. Should the day ever come, as she prays it may, when her place of refuge can become known to him, no effort of his will be required for its discovery. Will not Maurice accept the pains of the inevitable present and wait for the consolations the future may bring forth with the hope and patience which must sustain her until that blessed period shall arrive?"