CHAPTER XIV.
PAINFUL CONSEQUENCES.
“Madeline.”
Mrs. Dainty looked up, a slight expression of annoyance coming into her face: Uncle John stood before her.
“Well? What is it?” She did not speak with an air of encouragement; nor did she by look or motion give the old gentleman an invitation to sit down. He had entered the library, where she was reading.
“I want to have a talk with you about the children,” said Mr. Fleetwood. He was altogether self-possessed, and his tone and manner were earnest.
A deeper shade of annoyance passed over the countenance of Mrs. Dainty.
“You still purpose having a governess?”
“I don’t know that I purpose any thing,” replied Mrs. Dainty. “I’ve had such wretched luck, so far, with governesses, that I shall hardly feel safe in trying another.”
“Why not recall Miss Harper?” said Mr. Fleetwood.
“Uncle John!” Mrs. Dainty turned upon the old gentleman a look of indignant surprise.
“The children are all attached to her; and she is pure-minded, true-hearted, and——”
“She’s insolent and upstart!” retorted Mrs. Dainty, with passion; “and I will never have her back in her old place.”
“You have altogether misapprehended Florence,” urged Mr. Fleetwood, with unusual earnestness of manner.
“I am not apt to misapprehend people,” said Mrs. Dainty, drawing her head up a little proudly.
“Have you noticed Madeline particularly, during the last few days?” inquired Mr. Fleetwood, after a pause.
“Particularly? How?” Mrs. Dainty looked curiously at the old gentleman.
“Do you see no change in her since that remarkable experience with Mrs. Jeckyl?”
“No,” was answered, without hesitation.
“I have.”
“Indeed! you are sharp-sighted, Uncle John!” Mrs. Dainty spoke lightly.
“Love is always sharp-sighted when danger is about,” was sententiously answered.
“You are fanciful.”
“No, Madeline!” The countenance of Mr. Fleetwood became still more serious. “No, Madeline; I am not a dealer in light fancies, but a man of sober thoughts and direct purposes, as you have reason to know. There is a change in our little pet, and one boding, I fear, unhappy consequences, unless she is at once surrounded by counteracting influences. The spirit of that bad woman, in overshadowing her, left something of its darkness on her young spirit.”
Mrs. Dainty sighed unconsciously.
“What is the change you have observed, Uncle John?” she said, her repellant manner subsiding.
“Do you remember to have heard her merry laugh ringing through the house as of old?”
Mrs. Dainty thought for a moment or two, and then replied,—
“I do not.”
“Do you know where she is now?”
“No.”
“Come with me.”
The old gentleman arose, and moved toward the library-door. His niece followed him, with a look of questioning interest on her countenance.
“Where is she?” The mother spoke in a whisper.
“Step softly,” said Mr. Fleetwood.
From the library they went noiselessly up to the nursery.
“See!” And the old gentleman directed the attention of his niece to Madeline, who was sitting there alone, her back to the door, silent and motionless.
“She is reading,” whispered the mother.
Uncle John shook his head.
“Madeline!” Mrs. Dainty could not repress the impulse to speak.
The child started up and turned with something of a frightened look toward the door.
“What are you doing here all alone?” asked Mrs. Dainty.
“Nothing,” answered the child, looking confused.
“Nothing?”
“No, ma’am.”
“How long have you been here alone?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come down with me to the library.”
“I’d rather stay here,” replied Madeline.
“And I’d rather have you in the library,” said Mrs. Dainty, with an air of impatience.
“I wasn’t doing any thing,” urged Madeline.
“I didn’t say that you were. But that doesn’t signify. Come down into the library.”
“I don’t want to go down into the library.”
“Come! Do you hear me?”
But Madeline stirred not.
Mrs. Dainty was about starting forward to grasp the child’s arm and constrain obedience, when Uncle John held her back, whispering,—
“Patience! patience! Remember that you are now dealing with a diseased mind instead of a healthy one. There is something wrong about the child, and, if you love her, be prudent.”
“You deal in riddles,” said Mrs. Dainty, yielding to the constraining force of Uncle John. “Disobedience, it strikes me, is a disease that should be dealt with promptly.” She spoke in a whisper.
“Madeline!” There was a winning tenderness in the old man’s voice that found its way to the child’s heart, for she moved toward Uncle John and grasped his outstretched hand. The moment she felt its warm pressure, she shrunk close to his side, while a pleasant change in her young face revealed the change which had come over her spirit.
“I want you in the library,” said Mrs. Dainty, firmly. She did not think it right to let the child have her own way.
“Come,” Uncle John spoke, cheerfully; and moving away, Madeline followed without resistance.
But Mrs. Dainty failed altogether in awakening an interest in the child’s mind. Uncle John, thinking it best to leave them alone for a time, withdrew from the library. The mother, on whose mind a pressure of concern had fallen, took down a large volume of natural history, filled with costly engravings, and, opening it on a table, drew Madeline’s attention to the pictures.
“Isn’t this beautiful?” she said, pausing over a group of exquisitely-colored birds.
“Yes, ma’am,” replied the child, in a tone that betrayed an entire lack of interest.
“Humming-birds! Oh, how beautiful!” The tones of Mrs. Dainty’s voice were animated. “This one with golden wings and emerald-green bosom is like the darling wee bird we saw this spring, fluttering among the honeysuckle-leaves in the garden. Isn’t it sweet?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
There was not a ripple of interest in Madeline’s voice.
“Don’t you like birds?” inquired the disappointed mother.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Here are two beautiful doves. How lifelike! It seems every moment as if they would fly away! A’n’t they lovely, dear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mrs. Dainty bent down and looked into the child’s face. Her eyes were not on the book, but cast dreamily to the floor, and there was in her countenance a sad expression.
“Madeline!” Mrs. Dainty spoke with a suddenness that caused her child to start and the varying color to dance over her face.
“What do you mean by this? I don’t understand you!” Mrs. Dainty’s mind was growing confused through impatience.
For an instant Madeline looked frightened, and then burst into tears.
“What are you crying about, silly child? What ails you?”
Madeline answered nothing, but wept more violently.
“Are you sick?”
“No, ma’am,” sobbed the unhappy child.
“What’s the matter with you, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Crying like a baby, and don’t know for what? Shame on you!”
Madeline moved away from her mother’s side, as if a hand had been suddenly pressed against her.
“Come, now! There’s been enough of this! Dry up your tears at once, and be a good girl! Here! Let me wipe them all away.”
And she caught Madeline with one hand, while with the other she held a handkerchief to her eyes. But the fountain of tears was not so easily dried up. Madeline wept on, sobbing in a wild, convulsed manner.
“I’m out of all patience!” exclaimed Mrs. Dainty. Her mind, instead of getting clearer, was becoming more and more clouded by passion. “If you don’t stop this crying for nothing, I’ll punish you! Hush, I say!”
There was an instant of strong agitation, as if the will of the child were contending vigorously with an almost overpowering flood of emotion; and then all was still as death. Madeline stood motionless, and silent as a statue.
“Very well,” said Mrs. Dainty, coldly; “I’m glad to see that you can obey if you will, and I look to having no more annoyances of this kind. Go and sit down, or amuse yourself in some way.”
But Madeline did not stir.
“Do you hear me?” Mrs. Dainty spoke sharply.
Still the child stood motionless.
“Madeline!”
No response.
“Don’t trifle with me, child!”
The stern, threatening voice uttered its injunction in vain.
“Madeline! Answer me, or I will punish you severely.”
The mother had raised her hand to strike a blow, when Mr. Fleetwood, who remained near the library-door, came in hastily, and with a look and gesture warned her against that extremity.
“Uncle John!” exclaimed the excited woman, losing all patience, “I wish you would mind your own business, and not interfere with me. You only encourage this self-willed child in her spirit of disobedience!”
And before Mr. Fleetwood had time to reply she caught Madeline by the arm, and dragged her from the library, and through the passages to her own apartment, the door of which she closed and locked.
“You’ll find that I’m in earnest!” she exclaimed, in a husky but determined voice, as she hurried Madeline across the room. Seating herself, she drew the child close in front of her, and, looking steadily into her face, said,—
“Speak! What do you mean by this conduct?”
The aspect of Madeline’s face, as it now appeared in the eyes of Mrs. Dainty, was so strange that alarm took the place of anger. All life seemed to have receded therefrom. The blue lips stood apart, the eyes were wide open, almost staring, the skin was of an ashen hue. Lifting her quickly from the floor, the mother laid her child upon a bed, and, after bending over her a few moments anxiously, went to the door and called Mr. Fleetwood.
“I warned you,” said the old gentleman, in a reproving voice, as he saw the child’s condition. “I told you that you were dealing with a diseased mind!”
“What can ail her? Oh, Uncle John, send at once for the doctor!” Mrs. Dainty wrung her hands, and stood glancing from Madeline to Mr. Fleetwood, her countenance pale with fear.
The old gentleman bent down over the child, laying his hand upon her forehead and breast, and then searching along her wrists with his fingers. Her flesh was cold, and damp with perspiration, and there was so feeble a motion in the heart that scarcely a wave of life could be felt along the arteries.
“Oh, send for the doctor! She may die!” Mrs. Dainty was overwhelmed with distress.
“Be patient. Control yourself, Madeline.” Uncle John spoke with unusual calmness. “Get cold water and bathe her forehead and temples.”
This was done, and signs of more active life followed. A warmer color returned to her cheeks; respiration became deeper; the half-opened eyes closed, giving the look of sleep, instead of death, to her childish face.
“What is the meaning of this? What has come over the child?” said Mrs. Dainty, breathing more freely as she saw that a new and healthier action had supervened: “I don’t understand it, Uncle John.”
“There is disease of the mind, Madeline, as I have been trying for the last hour to make you understand. Its exact nature cannot at once be determined. Neither anger nor force will avail any thing: of that be fully assured.”
“But, Uncle John, she must not be permitted to have her own will entirely. That leads to ruin.”
“Of course not. The government of love, wise and gentle in all its ministrations,—not the government of angry force,—must have rule. See into what a mental paralysis your efforts to compel submission have thrown her. If her mind’s condition had been a healthy one, this would never have occurred. Deal with her, then, wisely and gently, as you would deal with the sick.”
Mrs. Dainty sighed deeply, and looked troubled.
“What does it mean, Uncle John? What is the cause of this strange affection?”
“It was not so before Mrs. Jeckyl came into the house.”
Mrs. Dainty gave an unwilling assent.
“Something has been done to her by that woman. If I were a believer in witchcraft I would say that she had laid a spell upon the child; that Madeline was under the influence of an evil eye.”
“There is something wrong,” murmured Mrs. Dainty, speaking partly to herself,—“something wrong! I wish I had never seen that dreadful woman.” A low shudder pervaded her nerves.
“Yes, something very wrong,” said Mr. Fleetwood; “and it will require the wisest care on our part to restore the harmonious action of her life, so suddenly and so strangely disturbed.”
For nearly two hours Madeline lay in a deep sleep; and during all that time Mrs. Dainty sat by the bedside. When she awoke at last, her mind was in a tranquil state, like one coming out of a refreshing slumber. But she exhibited none of her old lightness of spirit,—was quiet, yet cheerful, rather than of pensive mood. She did not seem inclined to join, as of old, her little brother George, Master “Don’t Care,” in any of his sports, but rather shrunk away into unobserved places, sitting quiet and idle.