Signing the Contract and What it Cost

“Because you write to no one, is it not, auntie?” the girl asked playfully. “But will you excuse me if I open and read it?”

“Certainly, little one; who knows but you may find something entertaining? Ah, what is it? may I hear?” as she saw the girl’s cheek flush and her eye brighten, though her lip curled with a half-smile of contempt.

Ethel read the letter aloud.

Madame Le Conte was all interest and attention.

“What! a lover, my little Pansy!” she cried, “and you never to tell me of him! Fie! did you think I had grown too old to feel sympathy in affairs of the heart?”

“Oh no, Aunt Nannette! but – you have troubles enough of your own, and I did not think – ”

“Ah, well, tell me now; a story, and above all a love-story – especially of your love – will be the very thing to while away these weary hours. And who knows but I may have the happiness of being able to help these poor divided lovers?” she added, touching Ethel’s cheek caressingly with the fingers of her left hand, as she had a habit of doing.

“Ah, have you not helped us already?” said the young girl, smiling through gathering tears; “for I think he will come back some day and be glad to learn that there is no longer anything to keep us apart.”

“Yes, I am sure of it. And now for the story.”

“You shall have it if you wish, aunt,” said Ethel earnestly, a slight tremulousness and a sound of tears in her voice; “but to give you the whole I must also tell the story of my childhood’s days.”

“Let me hear it, child! let me have the whole!” the Madame answered almost impatiently; and Ethel at once complied.

She began with the first meeting between Espy and herself when they were mere babies; drew a lovely picture of her life in infancy and early youth; described the terrible scenes connected with the death of her adopted parents and the circumstances that followed, including her formal betrothal, the search for the missing papers, the quarrels and estrangements, her visit to Clearfield, interview with Mrs. Dobbs, arrival in Chicago, the conversation in Miss Lea’s boudoir, the sight of Espy in the church the next Sunday, her interview with him in Mr. Lea’s library; and, lastly, the manner in which she had learned the fact of his sudden departure from the city the very day that she first entered the Madame’s house, coming there in pursuit of her calling as a dressmaker’s apprentice.

It was a long story, but the Madame’s interest never flagged.

“Ah,” she said, drawing a long breath at its conclusion, and feeling for her niece’s hand that she might press it affectionately, for it was growing dark in the room, “my poor child, what you have suffered! How did you endure it all? how did you have courage to give up the property and go to work for your living?”

“It was God who helped me,” said Ethel low and reverently, “else I should have sunk under the repeated blows that took all my earthly treasures from me. But He was left me; the joy of the Lord was my strength; and, dear aunt, there is no other strength like that.”

Madame Le Conte sighed. “I wish I was as good as you are, my little Pansy,” she said, stroking the young girl’s hair caressingly. “But I intend to get religion before I die. I shall need it when it comes to that,” she added, with a shudder.

“I need it to live by,” remarked Ethel very gently.

“‘Oh, who could bear life’s stormy doom,
Did not Thy wing of love
Come sweetly wafting, through the gloom,
Our peace-branch from above!’

“But, dear aunt, don’t tell me I am good; I am not, and my only hope is in trusting solely in God’s offered pardon through the atoning blood and imputed righteousness of Christ.”

“You never harmed anybody, Pansy, and so I’m sure you are safe enough.”

“That would not save me, aunt. ‘Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven,’ Jesus said, and His own is the only righteousness that does that.”

“And you’ve suffered so much!” the Madame went on maunderingly, “and I too – enough, I hope, to atone for all the evil I have done. Yes,” moving the artificial hand slightly and bending upon it a look of aversion and pain, while her voice sank almost to a whisper, “I am sure my little Pansy would say so, cruel though it was.”

“What was?” The words burst half unconsciously from Ethel’s lips.

Madame Le Conte turned a startled look upon her.

“Not to-night, not to-night!” she said hurriedly. “To-morrow, perhaps. Yes, yes, you have confided in me, and I will not be less generous toward you. You shall hear all; and if you hate and despise me, I must even bear it as best I may.”

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE MADAME’S CONFESSION

“Can wealth give happiness? look round and see
What gay distress! what splendid misery!” —

    Young.
Ethel had never betrayed the slightest curiosity in regard to her aunt’s crippled condition, not only refraining from asking questions, but with delicate tact seeming utterly unconscious of it; but the Madame’s words to-night, and the slight accompanying gesture, so plainly indicating that the loss of her hand was in some way connected with that past which so filled her with remorse, kindled in the young girl’s breast a strong desire to learn the whole truth; and since her aunt had voluntarily promised to tell her all, she did not feel called upon to repress the wish.

Mary’s entrance with a light, and the announcement that tea was ready, prevented a reply to the remark with which the Madame supplemented her promise, and the subject was not broached again during the hour or two that they remained together after the conclusion of the meal.

But having withdrawn to the privacy of her own apartments, Ethel sat long over the fire in her boudoir lost in thought, vainly trying to conjecture what cruelty her aunt could have been guilty of toward the sister she seemed to remember with such tender affection.

“Hate her!” she exclaimed half aloud, thinking of the Madame’s sadly-spoken words. “No, no, I could not do that, whatever she has done! I should be an ingrate if I could,” she added, sending a sweeping glance about the elegantly-appointed room, and as she did so catching the reflection in an opposite mirror of a slight, graceful, girlish figure richly and tastefully attired, reclining at ease on the most comfortable of softly-cushioned chairs in front of a glowing, beautiful fire.

Without the storm was raging with increased violence; it seemed to have culminated in a furious tempest.

Absorbed in her own musings, Ethel had hardly been conscious of it before; but now the howling of the wind, the dashing of the waves on the shore, and the rattling of the sleet against the windows made her shiver and sigh as she thought of the homeless on land and the sailors on the water alike exposed to this wild war of the elements.

Ah, were Espy and her dear unknown mother among the number? What a throb of fear and pain came with that thought!

But she put it resolutely aside. She would hope for the best, and – there was One who knew where each of these loved ones was, and who was able to take care of them. To His kind keeping she would commit both them and herself, and go to her rest with the peaceful, confiding trust of a little child.

“Ah, little one, how did you rest?” was Madame Le Conte’s morning salutation.

“Delightfully, auntie; dropped asleep the instant my head touched the pillow, and knew no more till I woke to find the sun shining in at the windows. And you? how did you rest?”

“Very little,” the Madame sighed, shaking her head sadly; “my asthma was worse than usual, and would scarcely allow me to lie down.”

“I am so sorry! But you are better?”

“Yes; the attack has passed.”

The tempest was over, the day still, calm, and bright, but intensely cold, and the streets were so blocked up by a heavy fall of snow that going out was not to be thought of; nor were they likely to be troubled with callers.

“We shall have the day to ourselves,” the Madame remarked as they left the breakfast-table, “and if you will invite me into your boudoir, Pansy, we will pass the morning there for variety.”

“I shall be delighted to entertain and wait upon you, Aunt Nannette,” Ethel answered, with a smile.

She was looking very lovely in a pretty morning dress of crimson cashmere, edged at neck and sleeves with ruches of soft, rich lace.

Having seen her aunt comfortably established in an easy chair, Ethel took possession of a low rocker near her side, and employing her busy fingers with some fancy work – a shawl of soft white zephyr which she was crocheting for Hetty – waited with outward composure, but inward impatience, for the fulfilment of yesterday’s promise.

The Madame sat with her hands folded in her lap, her eyes gazing into vacancy, her breathing somewhat labored, her thoughts evidently far away. To Ethel’s eager expectance it seemed a long time that she sat thus, but at length she began, in a low, even tone, much as if she were reading aloud, and with eyes still looking straight before her:

“I was eight years older than my sister Ethel, my little Pansy. There had been others, but they all died in infancy, and we two were the only ones left when our parents were taken. That was when Ethel was fourteen and I twenty-two.