ND you like your future home, my dear one? You think you can be happy here?”
“Oh, Arthur! it is beautiful, beautiful! I think I never knew before quite how exquisite everything was! I am only afraid of being too happy!”
“That is an ailment we do not often suffer from in this world, Madge,” he answered smilingly; “but I intend my wife to be the happiest woman in the country. She shall not know an ungratified wish if I can help it.”
“What a selfish creature she will become!” cried Madge with a soft laugh, and an arch upward glance into her lover’s face; “I wonder how soon you will grow tired of your bargain!”
“Try me,” he replied, taking her two hands in his; “I am ready to be put to the proof as quickly as you will.”
The colour flooded her face, for she knew that he meant he wanted her as soon as she could be persuaded to come to him, and so far she had not actually fixed the date of the wedding, although she had said it should be “soon.”
She had been a month in the neighbourhood of Brooklands now, and Eva Clayton was much better, and was to be taken by Cora to the sea to complete her restoration. Madge had intended to be one of the party, but Lady Brook had persuaded her to come and be her guest at the fine old baronial hall, as she was anxious to make more intimate acquaintance with the betrothed wife of her idolised son. She had known Madge for several years, but not very intimately. Now she was anxious to become the friend and mother of the bright, loving girl. She did not grudge the love her son lavished upon the woman of his choice; she only desired that Madge should learn to love her too, and be willing to be a daughter to her and her husband.
Madge was a warm-hearted girl, and was ready to love and be loved. She had consented to the proposed arrangement, after a little hesitation about leaving Cora before the time. But Cora said it would be right for her to accept the invitation, and had said that she must learn to do without her sister’s constant presence, and the matter was now settled to Arthur’s satisfaction.
“We shall have so much to think of and to plan,” continued Arthur, “for you know what they have set their hearts upon—my father and mother? That we shall live at Brooklands, using the great west wing as our very own, having our own servants and establishment, but being all under one roof. My mother spoke of it to you, did she not, Madge? You will not think that a difficult arrangement?”
“Oh, no,” answered the girl eagerly; “I think Brooklands is charming, and the west wing has lovely rooms, and I have never cared for being shut up alone. People said that when Bertram was married Cora and I would find it so difficult to go on living with him, but we never did. If your father and mother will let me, I want to be a daughter to them; and your mother will tell me how to do everything, for I never lived in a grand house before, and I don’t know the ways of country people,” and Madge made a little whimsical grimace.
“My Madge’s ways will be good enough for me,” answered Arthur with a smile, as he took her willing hands in his; “only tell me how soon you will come to me, Madge. I don’t want to wait long. What have we to wait for?”
“There is the trousseau,” said Madge, blushing and laughing; but her lover swept away all such trivial objections with masculine logic. In the end Madge promised that early in September she would come to him for good and all. As May was now well advanced, and another week would see June upon them, the young man could not complain that she was keeping him over long.
But the idea that the thing was definitely settled turned Madge’s mood into something graver. The lovers were walking through a shady woodland glade, carpeted with wild flowers, and full of sweet sounds and scents. Madge suddenly paused and exclaimed—
“But we must not be selfish, Arthur, we must not be selfish! We must try and do some good in the world. If we are happy ourselves, we must make other people happy too.”
“With all my heart,” he answered gaily: “you shall be as philanthropic as you like, Madge, and I will learn of you.”
“I wonder what we could do,” mused Madge, looking round her. “Arthur, shall we be rich?”
“Well, sweetheart, that depends upon what you call riches. We shall not be millionaires, but I have an income sufficient for all our needs, and a margin over. I suppose that will do?”
“Oh, yes; I am not thinking about ourselves. Arthur, you know I have a little money myself. I have three hundred a year of my own. Do you think we shall want that when we are living at Brooklands?”
He smiled an amused, indulgent smile.
“I think we can do without it. Do you want to keep your private fortune to yourself? You know married women have no property. I shall be able to despoil you of your fortune, unless you tie it up very tightly!”
“Don’t tease, Arthur,” she answered; “do be serious, for I am really in earnest. I don’t want the money for myself. I would rather take everything from you. But I want to do some good with it. I should like to use it for some special purpose.”
“What sort of purpose, dearest?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I must think. I want to make people happy. Some have such sad lives always. It hardly seems fair. Oh, I know what I should like best!—to take a dear little cottage, and have a nice woman there to look after things, and to bring poor children down from London for a month at a time, to give them a real holiday and outing. Oh, yes, that would be lovely! and little Allumette should be the first. Do you remember that pretty little model Cora had for her picture? She was a dear little thing, and I told her she should come into the country one day. I would have her for the first of the children. Don’t you think it would be a delightful plan?”
“It might; but some of those delightful plans sound better than they work out. No, no, don’t look so crestfallen, my Madge; I am not throwing cold water. On the contrary, I will help you all I can. And, by-the-by, not far from here is a very pleasant and roomy old farmhouse, which is going to be empty at Michaelmas. It is only a small one for a farm, but it might serve your purpose, and I daresay you could coax my father to let you have it rent free. He wants to take the land and throw it into the home farm which it adjoins, as small farms don’t pay now, and the tenant is giving up. The house might do very well for some purpose of that sort. Would you like to go and see it?”
Madge was eager to do so, and was delighted with the place when she got there. It was a small farmstead, picturesque and overgrown with creepers, with a tumble-down old barn that would make an ideal playroom for children on wet days, and a tangled orchard full of gnarled old apple trees just going out of bloom, a duck pond, a nut walk, and fields and copses all round.
The house was quaint and fairly roomy, and Madge was enchanted with the flagged kitchen, the dormer windows, and the little odd stairs up and down at every turn.
“Oh, Arthur!—it would be a sweet place for them to come to—poor little darlings! I should like to see little Allumette’s face when she was set down at the gate. Michaelmas, did you say? That will be after we are married, and if I had arranged about a woman, we could have a few little things down in October, could we not? The nuts would be ripe then, and you know how lovely the trees are through October. And on wet days there would be the old barn. It would be delightful, would it not, Arthur? And for little children from London no doing up of the house would be needed. It would be better not too spick and span. Just a few beds and chairs and tables. Oh, I could see to everything like that, and tell little Allumette that she should be the first visitor. Perhaps I would let her introduce me to some friends of hers, and bring them all down together.”
Madge was so full of delight with her new scheme that she could talk of nothing else all the evening with Eva and Cora.
They were both quite pleased and interested in the plan.
“But I thought you half promised little Allumette a country holiday this summer,” said Cora. “Won’t she get rather tired of waiting if you put it off till the autumn?”
“Oh, but this will be worth waiting for; and I haven’t had time to think about the other. I did speak to one or two women in the cottages, but they had children of their own, and didn’t seem to like the idea of a strange London child. One can’t wonder at it. People fancy London children bring dirt and disease and other unpleasantnesses. It will be far better to work it oneself on a regular footing.”
“Yes, in some ways it will be better. I was only thinking that the child might be disappointed.”
“Ah, well, she shall have it made up to her if she is; and she had a nice long happy time at Hampstead which seemed to her quite like a country holiday. I didn’t forget her, but things aren’t just as easy to arrange as one thinks they will be. Besides, I shouldn’t have time here to look after her as I should like. Arthur wants so much of me, and he might not quite care for me to be running off to see little Allumette in a cottage. Men don’t understand that sort of thing!”
So Madge dismissed the thought of any immediate summons of the little match-seller, and busied herself with eager plans as to the management of her little institution when it should be organised. Sir John and Lady Brook were quite ready to interest themselves in it. The house was to be given rent free for the purpose, and Lady Brook said that she should pay the salary of a capable matron. Madge’s little fortune could go to the working of the scheme, paying the fares to and fro, and the keep of the little inmates. The girl made numerous calculations, and amused her lover not a little by the results thereof at different times. But in spite of blunders, Madge had plenty of shrewdness, and Lady Brook was pleased to note her interest in domestic details, as well as her desire after a sphere of usefulness.
“You are quite right, my dear, to resolve not to live too much for yourself alone, or even for that joint life which you will lead with Arthur. We are not put here in the world just to pass our lives as pleasantly as we can. We shall have one day to give an account, and it often seems to me that to us, to whom God’s gifts have been lavishly furnished, He will look to give a good account of the use we have made of them.”
Madge’s face was full of eager assent.
“That is just how I feel about it. I have had such a happy life! Except the death of our parents, Cora and I have had no troubles, and we lost our father before we were either of us old enough to feel it very keenly. I think I should not really enjoy my happiness if I could not do things for other people. At home I often felt that I wanted to do more, but I seemed to have no work there. I did try one or two things, but somehow they did not succeed. I daresay it was my fault, but I do like the idea of a thing like this. It will be always there, and even if I have not quite as much time myself as I should like, it will always be going on.”
Madge had plenty to think of just now besides her scheme of benevolence. She had innumerable preparations to make for her coming marriage, involving a great deal of correspondence with dressmaker and milliner, the selection and discussion of patterns, and a great deal of correspondence with private friends, whose congratulations still continued to arrive, and whose presents began to follow.
Cora and Eva betook themselves off to the sea, but Madge remained at Brooklands week after week. The house at Hampstead was let, the tenant wanted to keep it on. Bertram was well off, in comfortable rooms, running down each week to spend Sunday with his wife. London was said to be unbearably hot and stuffy, and none too healthy this season. The Brooks urged Madge to stay on with them, and she was nothing loth. It was most interesting to see how her new home was being transmogrified to receive her. It seemed to her that she had only to express a wish to see it instantly gratified. Again and again she had to remonstrate with Arthur for “spoiling her so dreadfully.” But it was a very delightful experience and she was as happy as the day was long.
Her brother wrote to her from time to time, sometimes on business matters, sometimes just a little brotherly note. There was a letter from him one morning which contained a sentence which puzzled Madge a good deal.
“I am glad you have remembered your promise to little Allumette at last. The poor little child has been looking very white and thin of late, but the country air will pull her up again. How happy she will be when she sees all the beautiful things about her. I have been sometimes afraid that those weeks at Hampstead rather unfitted her for the sharper battle of life she has to fight at home.”
“What can he mean?” said Madge, half aloud. And when she read the passage in the letter aloud, Lady Brook said—
“I suppose somebody else has given the child an outing, and your brother thinks it is you.”
“Oh, I suppose that is it,” answered Madge; “but I will ask Bertram when I write.”
Nevertheless, the letter was never written. For a moment Madge’s conscience had been uneasy, but the press of things crowding into her life quickly drove all thoughts of little Allumette out of it.
