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Madelon: A Novel, a novel by Mary E Wilkins Freeman |
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Chapter 3 |
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_ Chapter III Suddenly all Madelon's beauty was cheapened in her own eyes. She saw herself swart and harsh-faced as some old savage squaw beside this fair angel. She turned on herself as well as on her recreant lover with rage and disdain--and all the time she lilted without one break. The ball swung on and on, and Madelon, up in the musicians' gallery, sang the old country-dances in the curious dissyllabic fashion termed lilting. It never occurred to her to wonder how it was that Dorothy Fair, the daughter of the orthodox minister, should be at the ball--she who had been brought up to believe in the sinful and hellward tendencies of the dance. Madelon only grasped the fact that she was there with Burr; but others wondered, and the surprise had been great when Dorothy in her blue brocade had appeared in the ball-room. This had been largely of late years a liberal and Unitarian village, but Parson Fair had always held stanchly to his stern orthodox tenets, and promulgated them undiluted before his thinning congregations and in his own household. Dorothy could not only not play cards or dance, but she could not be present at a party where the cards were produced or the fiddle played. There was, indeed, a rumor that she had learned to dance when she was in Boston at school, but no one knew for certain. Dorothy Fair was advancing daintily between the two long lines, holding up her blue brocade to clear her blue-satin shoes, to meet the young man from the opposite corner, flinging out gayly towards her, when suddenly, with no warning whatever, a great dark woman sped after her through the dance, like a wild animal of her native woods. She reached out her black hand and caught Dorothy by the white, lace-draped arm, and she whispered loud in her ear. The people near, finding it hard to understand the African woman's thick tongue, could not exactly vouch for the words, but the purport of her hurried speech they did not mistake. Parson Fair had discovered Mistress Dorothy's absence, and home she must hasten at once. It was evident enough to everybody that staid and decorous Dorothy had run away to the ball with Burr Gordon, and a smothered titter ran down the files of the Virginia reel. Burr Gordon cast a fierce glance around; then he sprang to Dorothy's side, and she looked palely and piteously up at him. He pulled her hand through his arm and led her out of the ball-room, with the black woman following sulkily, muttering to herself. Burr bent closely down over Dorothy's drooping head as they passed out of the door. "Don't be frightened, sweetheart," whispered he. Madelon saw him as she lilted, and it seemed to her that she heard what he said. It was not long after when she felt a touch on her shoulder as she sat resting between the dances, gazing with her proud, bright eyes down at the merry, chattering throng below. She turned, and her brother Richard stood there with a strange young man, and Richard held Louis's fiddle on his shoulder. "This is Mr. Otis, Madelon," said Richard, "and he came up from Kingston to the ball, and he can fiddle as well as Louis, and he said 'twas a shame you should lilt all night and not have a chance to dance yourself; and so I ran home and got Louis's fiddle, and there are plenty down there to jump at the chance of you for a partner--and--" the boy leaned forward and whispered in his sister's ear: "Burr Gordon's gone--and Dorothy Fair." Madelon turned her beautiful, proud face towards the stranger, and did not notice Richard at all. "Thank you, sir," said she, inclining her long neck; "but I care not to dance--I'd as lief lilt." "But," said the strange young man, pressing forward impetuously and gazing into her black eyes, "you look tired; 'tis a shame to work you so." "I rest between the dances, and I am not tired," said Madelon, coldly. "I beg you to let me fiddle for the rest of the ball," pleaded the young man. "Let me fiddle while you dance; you may be sure I'll fiddle my best for you." A tender note came into his voice, and, curiously enough, Madelon did not resent it, although she had never seen him before and he had no right. She looked up in his bright fair face with sudden hesitation, and his blue eyes bent half humorously, half lovingly upon her. She had a fierce desire to get away from this place, out into the night, and home. "I do not care to dance," said she, falteringly; "but I could go home, if you felt disposed to fiddle." "Then go home and rest," cried the stranger, brightly. "'Tis a strain on the throat to lilt so long, and you cannot put in a new string as you can in a fiddle." With that the young man came forward to the front of the little gallery, and Madelon yielded up her place hesitatingly. "But you cannot dance yourself, sir," said she. "I have danced all I want to to-night," he replied, and began tuning the fiddle. "I'm sure I'm much obliged to you, sir," Madelon said, and got her hood and cloak from the back of the gallery with no more parley. The young man cast admiring glances after her as she went out, with her young brother at her heels. "I'm going home with you," Richard said to her as they went down the gallery stairs. "Not a step," said she. "You've just been after the fiddle, and they're going to dance the Fisher's Hornpipe next." "You'll be afraid in that lonesome stretch after you leave the village." "Afraid!" There was a ring of despairing scorn in the girl's voice, as if she faced already such woe that the supposition of new terror was an absurdity. They had come down to the ball-room floor, and were standing directly in front of the musicians' gallery. The young fiddler, Jim Otis, leaned over and looked at them. "I don't care," said Richard, "I won't let you go alone unless you take my knife." Madelon laughed. "What nonsense!" said she, and tried to pass her brother. But Richard held her by the arm while he rummaged in his pocket for the great clasp-knife which he had earned himself by the sale of some rabbit-skins, and which was the pride of his heart and his dearest treasure, and opened it. "Here," said he, and he forced the clasp-knife into his sister's hand. Otis, leaning over the gallery, saw it all. Many of the dancers had gone to supper; there was no other person very near them. "If you should meet a _bear_, you could kill him with that knife--it's so strong," said the boy. "If you don't take it I'll go home with you, and it's so late father won't let me come out again to-night." "Well, I'll take it," Madelon said, wearily, and she passed out of the ball-room with the knife in her hand, under her cloak. When she got out in the cold night air she sped along fast over the creaking snow, still holding the knife clutched fast in her hand. She began to lilt again as she went, and again Burr and Dorothy danced together before her eyes. She passed Parson Fair's house, and the best-room windows were lighted. She thought that Burr was there, and she lilted more loudly the Virginia reel. After Parson Fair's house was some time left behind, and she had come into the lengthy stretch of road, she saw a shadowy figure ahead. She could not at first tell whether it was moving towards or from her--whether it was a man or a woman; or, indeed, whether it were not a forest tree encroaching on the road and moving in the wind. She kept on swiftly, holding her knife under her cloak. She had stopped singing. Presently she saw that the figure was a man, and coming her way; and then her heart stood still, for she knew by the swing of his shoulders that it was Burr Gordon. She threw back her proud head and sped along towards him, grasping her knife under her cloak and looking neither to the right nor left. She swerved not her eyes a hair's-breadth when she came close to him--so close that their shoulders almost touched in passing in the narrow path. Suddenly there was a quick sigh in her ear--"Oh, Madelon!" Then an arm was flung around her waist and hot lips were pressed to her own. The mixed blood of two races, in which action is quick to follow impulse, surged up to Madelon's head. She drew the hand which held the knife from under her cloak and struck. "Kiss me again, Burr Gordon, if you dare!" she cried out, and her cry was met by a groan as he fell away from her into the snow. _ |
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