Madelon Part 11

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 G.o.d! 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sionate 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 pa.s.sionate 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 a.s.surances. 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 tr.i.m.m.i.n.g?" 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.