but only a few days later, as white sat alone in the studio working at the scenario of a new play, the door was thrown open and in rushed madeline. her hair was dishevelled, her dress disordered, her whole face distorted with passion. before he had time to speak she threw herself on a sofa and burst into an agony of tears.
‘madeline!’ he cried, bending over her, ‘what is the matter? why are you not at school?’
for a time there was no answer, but at last, between the sobs, the girl spoke—
‘oh! take me home; let me go back to grayfleet!’
white took her hand softly, and spoke to her soothingly, but his gentleness only made her worse. at last he yielded to his irritation and insisted on an explanation.
drying her eyes she sat up and looked at him, and he was startled by the white determination in her delicate face.
‘why are you not at school?’ he repeated.
‘because i’ve left, and i’ll never go back to school again.’
‘madeline!’
‘it’s true, and i want to go home, i won’t stay here, and i won’t go back to school.’
‘but what has happened?7
madeline gave a wild hysterical laugh, and her face assumed an expression of exultation.
‘i struck her in the face, mr. white, and i pulled down her hair, and when she saw i was angry she was frightened and screamed. if i had been stronger, i would have killed her—i would! i would!’
completely perplexed by this enigmatical tirade, white quietly took his hat and walked off to the young ladies’ seminary, which was only a few streets away. arrived there, he found everything in commotion and the lady superintendent highly indignant.
it appeared, on explanation, that madeline, for some reason unexplained, had, during the midday play hour, made a savage attack upon a young lady of sixteen, a parlour boarder excellently connected; had sprung upon her with fury, scratched her face, and had clung to her until torn away by force. the superintendent’s mind was made up: madeline must not return to the school.
‘she is a very violent child. i have again and again had to rebuke her for fits of passion. i have now discovered, moreover, that her connections are not what i should wish in members of my seminary. miss de castro, whom she assaulted, is a sweet girl, incapable of provocation. her papa is in the india office. she is niece of sir michael de castro, late governor of chickerabad, and i cannot have her assaulted by a common child.’
white stared silently at the lady, and without a word strode back to the studio. there, with a severity unusual to him, he demanded a full explanation. he thus learned that the fons et origo of all the mischief was uncle luke’s letter. by some accident it had fallen from madeline’s bosom and been picked up by miss de castro. that ‘sweet girl’ had read it through to a group of the elder pupils, doing full justice to the orthography, and mimicking, as far as she could imagine them, the living manners of the writer. in the midst of her amusement, madeline had appeared and demanded her property, which miss de castro immediately thrust behind her back, while she indulged in a series of witticisms at the expense of madeline and all her relations, especially the country correspondent. this was enough. almost before she herself knew it madeline was at her throat, and in a white heat of passion. the sweet girl screamed. madeline was torn away and thrust violently out of the school-yard gate, but not before she had recovered her uncle’s letter and thrust it into her bosom. then she had flown home.
white was greatly perplexed how to act. in his secret heart he sided with the child, and cursed the cruelty of ignorance and caste; but he nevertheless perceived that fits of passion and violence were not to be encouraged. so he frowned terribly, and read madeline a long and stern lecture on the wickedness of giving up to wrath.
she heard him out with great attention, and with her great eyes fixed pathetically on his. at the conclusion of the harangue, she took out uncle luke’s letter and quietly kissed it—then smiled faintly through her tears at the thought of her wrongs. it was clear that she was quite impenitent.
madeline did not go back to school. for some months she remained at home with the de bernys; white, in his indolent way, postponing the question of where she was to go next.
he was a good deal occupied at this time with the adaptation of a new play which was being acted with great success at the porte st. martin, and, as it was necessary to see the play represented by the french actors, he spent some weeks in paris. he discovered that by carefully lopping the leading idea, making the chief female virtuous instead of vicious, altering the scenes, and turning the moral upside down, he could make the great drama pure enough for the sight of the british playgoer. his english manager approved, sent him a small cheque on account, and begged him ‘to do the trick’ as quickly as possible.
at this period, therefore, madeline was thrown more and more into the society of mademoiselle mathilde. that vision of loveliness found the child useful, sent her on endless errands, made of her a sort of companion in miniature, and extempore lady’s maid. madeline was only too delighted to serve and worship, and great was her joy when any of the cast-off splendour fell to her share. one evening madame de berny took her to the theatre, on the occasion of her daughter’s ‘benefit.’ there was a serio-comedy in which mathilde played the leading part, and a burlesque to follow, in which (for that occasion only, for she generally despised burlesque) she enacted a fairy prince. madeline was entranced; the spell of the footlights came upon her once and for ever.
that night, after they had returned home, and the vision had supped well on oysters and bottled stout, madeline proffered a request which had lately become a very common one with her,
‘oh, mamzelle, let me brush your hair!’
mathilde took a sleepy sensuous pleasure in that part of her toilette, and would sit by the hour together under the soothing manipulation of the brush. so she let down her golden locks, and placed herself, with her eyes half closed, before the mirror, while madeline began her task, prattling between whiles of the theatre, of all the wonders she had seen, and of the longing that would possess her until she saw them again.
‘i used to feel like you once,’ yawned mathilde, ‘when i was a dear little thing, with my hair growing down to my waist, and little satin shoes on my feet, and pa used to take me to the pantomimes. ah, dear, that’s over and done. i hate the theatre.’
‘you hate it, mamzelle?’
‘yes, and sometimes i hate pa for ever letting me go nigh to it. i suppose it all comes of ma marrying a frenchman; for pa used to teach me to say those long speeches in rhyme out of the french plays, and then i got a taste for recitation. but i hate french now, and i hate the theatre. it’s nothing but worry and vexation. there was only five pounds ten in the stalls to-night besides the tickets pa and ma sold, and the dress circle was not half full. did you notice a dark fat man in a private box, who threw a bouquet to miss harlington?’
‘do you mean a gentleman with a hook nose, mamzelle, and his fingers all over big rings?’
‘yes. well, that was isaacs, proprietor of the “evening scrutator.” a nasty beast, always smelling of cigars and rum-and-water. he hates me because i keep myself respectable, and he never suffers any one of his critics to say a good word about me.’
‘who are they, mamzelle?’
‘the critics? tomfools who write in the papers, and don’t know good acting from bad, and if they did daren’t say so. why, they praise miss harlington—who played “princess pretty pet” in the burlesque!’
‘oh, yes,’ cried madeline, in rapture. ‘her in the pink dress with the spangles and the flowers in her hair. oh, wasn’t she lovely, mamzelle?’
mathilde tossed her head under the brush, and flushed with virtuous contempt.
‘a bandy-legged thing with a voice like a goat. did you hear the creature sing? i wonder they don’t hiss her off the stage. but the men run after her, and she’s kept by an earl; and there she is every day in her victoria, driving in the row among real ladies, while i must go down to rehearsal in the bus. it’s disgusting—that’s what it is. do take care. madeline—you’re brushing it all the wrong way.’
she added as an afterthought, less in real consideration for her hearer than as a parade of her own wrongs—
‘never you be an actress, child. sweep a crossing first, or serve behind a counter, or do anything dreadful. the stage isn’t fit for any decent person, and so i’ve told pa and ma a thousand times.’
from this and from many other similar conversations, and from several subsequent visits to the theatre, both before and behind the scenes, madeline began to acquire a precocious insight into some of the mysteries of life in london. she was clever and quick, and soon understood as much as was comprehensible to so pure a child. mathilde de berny, like many of her class, talked freely about things which might well have been nameless, and never seemed to reflect that the listener was so young. fortunately, madeline’s perfect innocence and simplicity, combined with her real strength of character, kept her pure from taint; but by slow degrees the glory was beginning to depart from the great world of which she knew so little.
not at all too soon white saw that madeline was in danger of degeneration. he was a shrewd fellow, and understood that mathilde de berny, though a perfectly virtuous young woman, was not really the best companion she could have found. it irritated him too, at last, to see the child sinking into a mere appendage of the actress and general drudge of the house.
‘i must get her away,’ he said to himself, ‘before they spoil her altogether. they neglect her and impose upon her, and teach her things she ought not to know. i don’t want fred’s child to grow into a little slattern, with the education, and perhaps the moral instinct, of a ballet-girl. they make a small parasite of her, and she goes errands; they’ve even got in the habit of sending her for the beer. i’ll put a stop to it at once.’
the only way of putting a stop to it was to send madeline to a boarding-school; and this he ultimately determined to do. he had begun to feel quite a paternal interest in her, and he was more and more struck by her physical beauty and strong natural affection.
after seeking about for some time, and studying the advertising columns of the daily newspapers, he discovered a quiet school at merton, in surrey, under the superintendence of a very superior french lady. hither it was arranged that madeline should go.
so, after a fond parting with white, madeline repaired to the seminary at merton.
for a long time after her departure white was melancholy.
he missed her bright face and her loving ways; and so, in a less degree, did his companion of the studio. but white was a busy man, part of a busy world, and he had no time to be heartbroken about a little girl. every month or so he received a formal account of her doings, signed by the superintendent, and still oftener a very effusive and loving letter from madeline herself. she appeared to have become resigned very rapidly to the new conditions of her life; to be sanguine and full of promise; and the official notes of her educational progress were flattering in the extreme.
at this point, our business with madeline’s childhood ceases. we take the dramatist’s licence, and at one leap pass over a period of several years.
the school was in connection with a similar one in normandy, and the pupils had the advantage of being transferred, at a certain stage of their progress, and at little additional expense, to the french establishment. the superintendent was a sensible woman, and so white told her the whole story.
it was presently decided that it would be for madeline’s advantage to go to france for a year, without seeing anything of white or any of her new friends. she was still only a very rough diamond, and needed very considerable polishing to make her approach perfection. a long period spent in pleasant discipline, and with only the most refined surroundings, was absolutely essential to her moral development. so at least thought the lady superintendent; and white agreed.
on receiving the information that she was to be again transplanted, madeline was in high grief and dudgeon, for she had been thoroughly happy with the de bernys, and desired no better than to become again a kind of cinderella to the fair mathilde.
during her residence at merton marmaduke white has been fairly well satisfied with his ward. beyond complaints of certain erratic habits, and of her general disposition to act from passionate impulse, he had heard little to her detriment, much to her credit.
he had seen her from time to time, and she had spent many of her holidays at willowtree road.
from the tone of her letters, and from her words when they met, he gathered that she was happy. she had gained the wish of her heart; had learnt ‘french and music,’ as well as the other elegances which constitute a good education.
so madeline was sent to normandy, with a contingent of young girls from the school at merton.
one day, when nearly eighteen months had elapsed since their last meeting, white received a photograph from france. it represented a fair maiden, with great wistful eyes, and a face of singular beauty.
at first he scarcely knew it; then he turned it over, and read in a bold handwriting:—
madeline hasleere, taken at rouen on her 17th birthday.
‘little madeline!’ he exclaimed. ‘why, she looks quite a woman!’
about a week after this event, judas (now grown into a disjointed being of seventeen or eighteen) entered with a telegram. white opened it, and saw with astonishment that it was from madame brock, the lady superintendent of the school at merton.
then he read as follows:—
please come down at once. i have had terrible news from millefleurs.
your ward, madeline haslemere, has run away. i fear it is an elopement.
