Signing the Contract and What it Cost

CHAPTER XXIX

A THORNY ROSE

“Your aunt is an invalid, I regret to say,” Mr. Tredick remarked as they drove rapidly through the streets, “and we must not come upon her too suddenly with this good news. I shall have to ask you, Miss Farnese, to take a seat in the parlor below while I seek a private interview with her in her boudoir.”

Our heroine bowed in acquiescence, and he went on:

“It will not take long to break the matter to her, and you are not likely to be kept waiting many minutes.”

“Please do not concern yourself about that,” she said; “I should prefer to be kept waiting for hours rather than run the slightest risk of injury to the only relative I am certain of possessing in all the world.”

The girl seemed composed – the lawyer thought her so, and rather wondered at such an amount of self-control in one so young – but inwardly she was full of agitation and excitement.

Her lonely heart yearned for the love and companionship of kindred, yet dreaded to find in this unknown relative one who might prove wholly uncongenial and even repulsive. She remembered that she was not yet of age, and was about to place herself under authority of which she knew nothing. There might be conflict of tastes and opinions on very vital subjects. Yet she had no thought of drawing back. She had weighed the matter carefully, viewed it in all its aspects, had decided that this was her wisest and best course, and was ready to pursue it unfalteringly to the end.

So wholly absorbed in these thoughts and emotions was she that she took no note of the direction in which they were moving, nor what streets they traversed.

The carriage stopped. Mr. Tredick threw open the door, sprang out, and, turning, assisted her to alight.

He led her up the steps of a large and handsome dwelling, and rang the bell. She glanced about her, and started with surprise. The street, the house, everything within range of her vision, had a strangely familiar look.

They had reached the suburbs of the city, and before them – as they stood on the threshold, looking out toward the east – lay the great lake, quiet as a sleeping child, under the fervid rays of the sun of that still summer day, one of the calmest and most sultry of the season. A second glance around, and Floy – as we must still call her – turned to her conductor with an eager question on her lips.

But the door opened, a smiling face appeared, and a cheery voice exclaimed:

“Is it you, Misther Tredick, sir? Will ye plaze to walk in, and I’ll run up an’ tell the Madame. She’s dressed and ready to resave ye, by good luck.

“An’ the lady too,” added Kathleen, catching a sight of Floy, but without recognizing her, her face being partially concealed by her veil.

“Step intil the parlor, both o’ yees, plaze, an’ who shall I say wishes to see the Madame?” she asked, with another and curious glance at the veiled lady.

“Mr. Tredick,” said that gentleman, giving her his card; “don’t mention the lady at all. She will wait here till I come down again. Just tell the Madame that Mr. Tredick wishes to see her a moment on business.”

But Mary’s voice spoke from the stairhead, “Katty, the Madame says ask the gentleman to walk right up,” and Mr. Tredick, hearing, awaited no second invitation.

Floy’s brain was in a whirl.

“The Madame? the Madame?” she repeated in low, agitated tones, dropping into a chair in the luxuriously-furnished parlor, but with no thought of its richly-carved, costly wood and velvet cushions. “My aunt must be visiting here. But ’twas for the Madame he asked, ’twas the Madame he wished to see! Can it be that she – she is – Yes, it must – it is!”

She hid her face in her hands, with a slight shudder and something between a groan and a sigh.

The poor Madame had never been an attractive person to Floy; she was not one whom she could greatly respect or look up to for comfort in sorrow, for guidance in times of doubt and perplexity.

In finding her she had not found one who would at all fill the place of the parents she mourned, and whose loss had left her without an earthly counsellor, an earthly prop.

In the bitterness of her disappointment she learned how much she had been half unconsciously hoping for. The pressure of poverty had been sorely felt by the young girl during these past months, but was as nothing to the yearning for the tender love and care and happy trustfulness that had been the crowning blessing of earlier days.

CHAPTER XXX

PANSY

Madame Le Conte received her legal adviser that morning in her boudoir, rising from her easy chair in her eager haste to learn if he were the bearer of tidings, and coming forward to meet him as he entered.

“What news, Mr. Tredick? I see in your face that you have some for me!” she cried, almost breathless with excitement and the exertion, slight as it was.

“Ah! are you so skilled in reading faces?” he returned playfully. “Well, I own that I have a bit of news for you – good news as far as it goes. But let me beg you to be seated and calm yourself before I proceed further.”

“Oh, go on, go on! don’t keep me in suspense!” she cried in increasing agitation, sinking into her chair again and pointing him to a seat as she spoke.

“Remember it is good news,” he repeated, taking up a large feather fan and beginning to fan her flushed cheeks, while Mary brought her smelling-salts and asked if she would have a glass of water.

She made a gesture of refusal, and pointed to the door opening into her dressing-room.

The girl at once obeyed the hint and went out, closing the door after her.

“Now, Mr. Tredick, speak, speak!” exclaimed the Madame imperatively. “Have you heard anything of – of – ”

“Your sister? No – yes; that is, nothing recent, but I have just learned that she has a daughter living at no great distance from this. Shall I send for the girl?”

“Send for her? How could you wait to ask? Why did you delay a moment when you know that I’m dying with longing for the sight of somebody who has a drop of my blood in her veins?” she interrupted in great excitement and anger.

“Only for your own sake, Madame,” he answered deprecatingly. “Knowing the precarious state of your health – ”

“Oh, don’t stop to talk!” she cried, half rising from her chair. “Where is she? She must be sent for this instant! As if I could wait, and my sister’s child within reach! Mary must run down and order the carriage at once.”

“Softly, softly, my dear Madame,” he said soothingly. “I have anticipated your wishes so far as to make arrangements for the young lady to be here within an hour from this time,” consulting his watch, “and in the mean while I must lay before you the proofs of her identity, and have your opinion as to their being altogether satisfactory and convincing.”

“Oh, if you have decided that they are, it’s quite sufficient,” she answered with a sort of weary impatience; “you would be less easily deceived than I.”

“But we may as well fill up the time with the examination; and you will be glad to learn something of your sister’s history after your separation?” he remarked persuasively, taking from his pocket the papers Floy had given him.

“Ah, yes, yes!” she cried with eagerness. “I did not understand that you had that to communicate to me. Ah, Pansy, Pansy! my poor little Pansy!” and covering her face with her handkerchief, she sobbed convulsively.

“Come, my dear Madame, cheer up!” he said, “she is still living – ”

“Oh, is she? is she?” she again interrupted him, starting up wildly. “But why don’t you go on? why will you keep me in this torturing suspense?”

“I am trying to go on as fast as I can,” he said a little impatiently. “I was about to correct my last statement by saying we have at least reason to hope that your sister still lives, and that we shall yet find her.”

“But the girl – the daughter – have you seen her? and doesn’t she know all about her mother?”

“No, Madame; but if you want to hear the facts, as far as I have been able to gather them, your best plan will be to listen quietly to what I have to say. There is quite a little story to be told, and one that cannot fail to be of interest to you.”

Of interest! The Madame almost held her breath lest she should lose a syllable of the narrative as he went on to describe the scenes enacted in the shanty inn and depot at Clearfield Station, in which her sister had borne so conspicuous a part.

Then he showed her the deed of gift.

“Yes, yes,” she said, pointing to the signature, “that is my poor Ethel’s handwriting. I should recognize it anywhere. It was always peculiar. Oh, where is the child?”

“Downstairs in the parlor. Shall I call her? shall I bring her to you?”

She was too much moved to speak. She nodded assent.

In a moment more Floy stood before her.

The Madame gave a cry of mingled joy and surprise, and held out her arms.

“Is it you —you? oh, I am glad! I am the happiest woman alive!”

Floy knelt down by her side and suffered herself to be enfolded by the stout arms, pressed against the broad breast, kissed and cried over.

She had meditated upon Madame’s sufferings from loneliness and disease till her heart was melted with pity. She had thought upon the fact that the same blood flowed in their veins – that this was the sister, the only, and probably dearly loved, sister of the unknown yet beloved mother of whom she was in quest – till a feeling akin to affection had sprung up within her.

“My poor dear aunt,” she whispered, twining her arms about the Madame’s neck and imprinting a kiss upon her lips, “what a dreary, lonely life you have had! God helping me, I will make it happier than it has been.”

“Ah, yes, child!” returned her new-found relative, repeating her caress with added tenderness; “and you, you poor darling! shall never have to toil for your bread any more. Ah, what a delight it will be to me to lavish on you every desirable thing that money can buy! It is Miss Kemper, but it is my little Pansy too; did I not see the likeness from the first?” and the tears coursed down the Madame’s swarthy cheeks.

“Why do you call me that?” asked Floy.

“It was my pet name for my sister. She was so sweet and pretty, so modest, gentle, and retiring. And she called me Tulip, because, as she said, my beauty was gorgeous, like that of the flower. You would not think it now; there’s not a trace of it left,” she added, with a heavy sigh and a rueful glance into a pier-glass opposite.

It was all quite true. Nannette Gramont (that was the Madame’s maiden name) had a sylph-like form, a rich brunette complexion, sparkling eyes, ruby lips, a countenance and manners full of vivacity and mirth.

Now she was dull and spiritless; her eye had lost its brightness; the once smiling mouth wore a fretful expression; the smooth, clear skin had grown sallow and disfigured by pimples and blotches not to be concealed by the most liberal use of powder and rouge, poor substitute for the natural bloom which had disappeared forever under the combined influence of high living, indulged temper, remorse and consequent ill-health, far more than advancing years.

“You were not alike then?” Floy said, with a secret sense of relief.

“No, no! never in the least, in looks or disposition. I was always quick-tempered and imperious, Ethel so gentle and yielding that we never quarrelled – never till – ah, I cannot endure the thought of it!” And burying her face in her handkerchief, the Madame wept bitterly.

For a moment there was no sound in the room but her heavy sobbing, Floy feeling quite at a loss for words of consolation; but at last she said softly:

“One so gentle and sweet would never harbor resentment, especially toward a dear, only sister.”

“No, no; but it has parted us forever – this unkindness of mine! And it may be that she – my sweet one, my dear one – has perished with want, while I rolled in wealth. Ah, me! what shall I do?”

“I believe she is living still, and that we shall yet find her!” cried Floy, starting up in excitement and pacing to and fro, her hands clasped over her beating heart, her eyes shining with hope.

“It may be so,” said the Madame, wiping away her tears. “Child, would you like to see your mother’s face?” She drew out of her bosom the little gold locket which of late she had worn almost constantly, and opening it, held it out to Floy.

In an instant the young girl was again on her knees at her aunt’s side, bending over that pretty child-face, one strangely like it in feature and coloring, yet unlike in its eager curiosity, its tremulous agitation, the yearning tenderness in the great, dark, lustrous eyes.

“How sweet! how lovely!” she said, raising her eyes to her aunt’s face again. “But ah, if I could see her as she was when grown up!”

“Look in the glass and you will,” said the Madame.

Floy’s face flushed with pleasure.

The Madame opened the other side of the locket.

“This was of me, taken at the same time,” she said, displaying the likeness of a girl some six or eight years older in appearance than the first; bright and handsome too, but with a darker beauty, and a proud, wilful expression in place of the sweet gentleness of the other. “Our mother had them painted for herself. After her death I claimed the locket as mine by right of priority of birth, and though Pansy wished very much to have it, she yielded to me for peace’s sake, as usual.”

“You, too, were a very pretty child, Mad – ” Floy broke off in confusion.

“Aunt Nannette,” corrected the Madame, with a slight smile, passing her hand caressingly over the soft, shining hair of her newly-found niece. “Aunt Nannette, or simply auntie, as you like, my little Pansy.”

There was an earnest, unspoken entreaty in Floy’s eyes as she glanced from the locket to her aunt’s face.

“There is hardly anything I would refuse you, little one,” the Madame said in answer, “but this I cannot part with. I will have them copied for you, though; and the locket itself shall be enough handsomer to more than compensate for the pictures being only copies of the original.”