Madelon: A Novel

by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

Richard's clenched hand hung by his side. He shook his head sullenly.

“Take it!” said Madelon; but he made no motion to do so.

“Then I shall let it fall on the floor,” said Madelon.

“Let it,” returned Richard, and forthwith the little gold pencil rolled on the floor under the settle, and Madelon turned away with a white face. But before she had reached the door Richard was at her side and his hand on her arm. “Oh, Madelon!” he said, striving to keep the sobs back. Then Madelon turned and laid a hand on each of his shoulders, and held him away, looking at him.

“Why did you speak to me like that?” said she; and then, without waiting for an answer, drew the boy's head down to her bosom, and held it there a moment, stroking his hair. “If ever you are sick after I am gone,” said she, “I will come and take care of you; and if you don't get good things to eat I will see to that, too;” and then she kissed Richard's dark head, and put him away gently, bidding him with a tender laugh “not to be a baby,” and went over to the settle and picked up the little gold pencil, and praised it and said she would treasure it all her life.

And then she bade Richard follow her into the best room, and opened the carved oak chest and displayed six beautiful shirts made of linen, which she had herself spun and woven and wrought with finest needlework in bands and bosoms, for a parting gift to him, because he was the nearest of all her brothers, though she must not say so. “The others have shirts enough,” said she; “I have seen to that, for I have meant to do my duty to you all, but none of the others have bosoms and wristbands stitched like these, and the linen is extra fine.”

That night Richard would not go to his chamber, which he shared with his brother Louis, lest he wake and spy his face flushed with tears, but crept stealthily back down-stairs, and, all unbeknown to any one, lay all night on the settle in the living-room. He slept little, and often waked and wept in the darkness like a child rather than one of the fiery Hautville brothers.

When wrath with a beloved one is stilled in the human heart and love takes its place, it is with a threefold increase, a great rending of spirit, and a cruel turning of weapons against one's self. Richard was one who would always deal with entireties, being capable of no divisions nor subtleties of praise or blame. Whereas his anger had been fierce against his sister that she should love and marry the man who had flouted her, now it was turned wholly against himself for his injustice and ill-treatment of her. He racked himself with the memory of his surly words and looks; and those six shirts of fine linen, with the cunning needlework in band and bosom, seemed the veritable scriptural coals of fire on his head. Also good and simple reasons for his sister's course came to him as he lay there and influenced him still more. “She had it in her mind to kill him, though 'twas the other she struck,” he said to himself; “'tis only fit that she should make amends to him for that and keep his house for him, and bake and brew and spin and weave for him.” Richard in the darkness nodded his head in agreement with his own argument, and yet he hated Burr as well as ever, and the next morning when he saw him stand beside his sister before Parson Fair, he clenched his slender brown hands until the sinews stood out, and his black eyes still flashed hostility at him. Yet when he looked at Madelon's face his own softened, and he set his mouth hard to keep back the quiver in it. Madelon wore not the silk of green and gold in which she had planned to be wedded to Lot; that she could not bring her mind to do, since the old wretched dreams and imaginations seemed to cling to the garment and desecrate it for this. She wore instead a sober gown of a satin sheen with the rich purplish-red hue of a plum, which set off the dark bloom of her face by suggestion rather than contrast; but all the boy Richard noted of her costume was his little gold pencil slung on the long gold chain around her neck.

Madelon and Burr were married quite early in the morning, in the best room of the Hautville house, and nobody outside the two families was bidden to the wedding. After the marriage the bride tied on a white-muslin apron and passed cake and currant wine; and the great Hautvilles sitting in sober state around the room, Elvira Gordon in her black satin and pearls, pretty Dorothy, and Parson Fair partook.

Then the bride went up to her chamber and put on a pelisse of stuff like her gown, lined with canary-colored satin, and a little cap of otter and a great muff which she had fashioned herself out of skins which her brothers had brought home, and took over her arm, since the day was frosty, a long tippet of otter which she could wind round her throat, if need be, and came down all equipped for her wedding-journey.