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Show MADGE'S COUSIN. <br><br> MADGE WAS SITTING UPON the hearth rug, pulling to pieces a white camellia and excusing herself to her old guardian by saying it was "only Jack's." <br><br> "My dear," said Mr. Selwyn, walking up and down and stroking his gray beard in perplexity, "I want to talk to you about Jack." <br><br> "Oh please, not now, Papa Selwyn." She called him Papa Selwyn when she meant to be coaxing, and that was nearly always. <br><br> "But, my dear, that is all nonsense. I must talk about Jack sometime. Yesterday it was ‘Oh, don't please-my head is aching,' and the day before, ‘Oh, please not now, I want to go out with Gerty.' Come, let us face the affair." And sitting in the easy chair behind her hassock he drew upon his knees the hand that held the broken flower, and proceeded to lecture his unmanageable charge on the endless subject of "Jack." <br><br> Madge was a charming charge for any kind old man's heart to have. No one could look into her large gray eyes without seeing the great warm heart, whose tale they told every moment; and yet the [unreadable] and the saucy set of lips showed that Madge had a will of her own and with and cleverness enough to carry it out. <br><br> This lecture on Jack was the same as many others had been. It consisted of two parts, the first being devoted to proving that she ought to throw her own whims and pleasures aside, and as a dutiful girl fulfill her dying father's request and marry her cousin - and the second was eulogium on the many good qualities of Jack Hawkesbury. <br><br> "Do, Mr. Selwyn," laughed Madge, after he had been making out that even Jack's awkwardness came from an over plus of good nature; "do throw him at Gerty's head as you have thrown him at mine; hand him over to her, and they will be happy for life." <br><br> Gerty was Mr. Selwyn's own daughter, and at the mention of her name a strange expression crossed his face, which Madge could not read. <br><br> "Throw him at Gerty's head what words you use, child!" he exclaimed; his annoyance for a moment escaping his control. "I wish you had half Gertrude's good sense. You fancy Jack thinks of her - is that it? He is the soul of honor, and as far as it depends on him your father's word will be kept." <br><br> "Oh, Papa Selwyn, don't be vexed with me, I am so sorry!" and her face was hidden on his large hand in a burst of sorrow quite childish in its passing intensity. <br><br> "Cheer up, my darling," he said, "you made a mistake - that's all. Why, one of these days you will forget poor Papa Selwyn, altogether, when you fall in love with your cousin," <br><br> "That I won't!" cried Madge, with all the strength of her hot heart. <br><br> All her life, even as far back as her childhood, she had dreaded the fate that bound her to marry her cousin. When Jack Hawkesbury came on the scene and stayed on visits at the house, she disliked and ridiculed him without mercy. Another, one like fair haired Gertrude for instance, might have accepted the inevitable and been happy, but Madge's active and independent nature made her run against fate. And now there was only one month left between her twenty first birthday and the betrothal. Often she told Gertrude she wished he would go home and stay there, and Gertrude would only laugh, with a deepened tinge of color in her fair, handsome face. <br><br> The girls went out but little, an arrangement against which they rebelled, believing it was in some way concocted with the safe management of the marriage with her cousin. But there were two pleasures in prospect now - an afternoon's boating with Jack and a friend of his and Gertrude, and a party that the Ponsonby Jones's were going to give, to which the Selwyn family were sure to be invited. <br><br> First came boating. Ah! that ever memorable day - how many years it would take to make Madge forget it. There were four in the boat that passed with the measured beat and ripple of Jack's pair of sculls, along by the reedy shallows and green wooded banks of the Upper Thames. The girls shared the cushioned seat at the stern, their white woolen shawls guarding them from the chill of the autumn wind. <br><br> Gertrude was watching the shore and the running ripples, thinking in her quiet, easy-going way. And Madge, bright with excitement, was talking, not with Jack, but with the dark bearded, travel-bronzed man, who was resting from his turn as the scull. He was charmed with the way she chatted and listened to his tales of half of the world, with a refreshing absence of self-consciousness. What would he have said if he had known the thought that strove for entrance into her heart? Oh, if Jack, awkward, blundering, good-natured Jack, could be changed into this stranger that she called timidly Mr. Fitzallan, and Jack and her guardian had greeted at the house as Herbert! <br><br> At last there was a pause in the talk. She gave a deep sigh, prompted by a longing to do right, a vague fear, a ???? suspicion of the change that was coming over her impetuous heart. <br><br> "Are you cold, Madge?" inquired Jack, pulling away and bending to his strong stroke. "Keep your shawl well around your shoulders. And, my dear girl, look at your steering. You have been sending the boat into curves like a cork-screw - only I did not what to disturb your tete a-tete." <br><br> Poor Cousin Jack! She drew the white shawl closely around her, chilled not by the wind but by a sudden pang of remorse, the foundation of which was very small, but enough to trouble her peace of mind. <br><br> What need to tell the inner history of Madge's life during the next few weeks? More and more she longed for freedom. Fitzallan was staying in the neighborhood and was frequently at the house, and in the thousand little incidents of everyday life she knew he cared for her, and honest Jack grew yet more distasteful in her sight. <br><br> In due time came the second promised pleasure. The family that distinguished the name of Jones by the prefix of Ponsonby gave their party. Madge was in her glory that night. One looker-on called her charming, another, the mother of fair daughters, admitted her expression was charming, but voted her features plain. Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones, weighed down with bright-colored silk and jewelry, said in her finest tone that Mr. Selwyn's ward would be quite a femme d'esprit. <br><br> Madge had no lack of society, but she kept a place in the conversation for Jack Hawkesbury, and her love of mischief was gratified to the full by his making of it what her called a "???? muddle." But the trivial triumph and pleasures of the night were long forgotten by Madge before she lost one remembrance of a scene that passed in the conservatory, where the music was hushed by heavy curtains, and there was only the soft light of a few dim lamps among the masses of blossoms and dark green leaves. She had lost the flower from her hair - one of her favorite camellias - as she said, "with a darling bud," and Fitzallan had promised, with Ponsonby-Jones's permission, to get her another, with a darling bud, too. She had placed his gift in her hair, and had sat near the dewy glass, saying it was cool there and she would rest. Fitzallan stood at a little distance, penknife in hand still, swinging carelessly the fan like-leaf, of a dwarf palm. <br><br> "If this were nearer, I would fan you," he smilingly said. <br><br> "Thank you; I am tired rather than hot." <br><br> Never in her life before had Madge been so serious or so troubled as she was now, in the soft light among the cool plants, within the sound of the half-hushed music. After a pause she said, <br><br> "Will you do me a favor, Mr. Fitzallan?" raising the gray eyes that shone for a moment with liquid brightness. <br><br> "You have only to name it; I am at your service," he replied. <br><br> His manner, unromantic to a studied degree, made her feel all the more safe taking heart to speak, while she gave him at the same time in generous measure that most precious offering to which every noble hearted man entitles himself - a woman's respect. <br><br> "I have seemed very happy to-night, Mr. Fitzallan," she began, in a quiet, low tone, the torn leaf trembling in her hand and the color dying out of her face, "but I am in great trouble." <br><br> "Indeed! I am sorry!" <br><br> He drew a little nearer, listening attentively and helping her now and again by a word of encouragement. <br><br> Her story was a simple one. She was to be married next month to her cousin, Mr. Hawkesbury. She had dreaded it all her life, but it was her fate. And then, taking courage from the respectful and almost paternal demeanor of her listener, she made the frank confession that she disliked her cousin just because she was forced to marry him; and to this she added such a childlike entreaty not to be thought too bad, that it must have required more than ordinary self-control for Fitzallan not to say something that would have allowed the scene to become a tender one, but this he seemed determined to avoid, and so in her simple way was the sadly perplexed girl that was pouring out her heart's trouble and pain to him. <br><br> "Will you speak for me to Mr. Selwyn," she said, "as you are an old friend of his? I cannot reason as men do, but I want you to try if there is no way of release for me. Pray forgive me if I am wrong in asking your interference, but I am very wretched" - here came a burst of tears that must have tried the listener sorely - "and I myself have so often spoken to Mr. Selwyn, and it is no use. He always says my father's will must be carried out; and oh, how I wish I could do it!" <br><br> "It must be done, if possible," Fitzallan answered. "But it would not be your father's will to mar the happiness of your life or to put you in bondage." <br><br> "Oh, if Mr. Selwyn would only speak like that!" said the girl, sadly. <br><br> "Well, I shall have a talk with him," said Fitzallan, "and do my best for your happiness, though I would be sorry to injure Hawkesbury's prospects. Let us go back now; there is a new piece beginning. That is one of Rubenstein's [Rubinstein's], is it not? I need not say you have done me a favor in granting me your confidence." <br><br> After that night Madge waited in anxiety to hear the result of Fitzallan's parley with her guardian. Three days passed, and a note came from him, only a few words, saying that he had succeeded at least so far as to win a promise that the matter should be considered. But Madge saw little good coming from Mr. Selwyn's "considering" what seemed to be decided irrevocably long ago. <br><br> At last it was the eve of her birthday; to-morrow would be the dreaded day, and that very morning Mr. Selwyn had said to her gravely, but tenderly. <br><br> "My child, it has been the work of many years for me to see to the fulfillment of you father's last wish. He was my best and dearest friend, and his life was a sad one. At least his dying will must be done. But I promise you happiness - I do indeed." <br><br> But beyond that day Madge was unable to bear her heart's burden. <br><br> "I must tell him everything," she thought. <br><br> In the afternoon twilight, some time after Mr. Selwyn had returned home, she found him asleep in his arm-chair in the dark dining-room. But little daylight came in between the red curtains, and it was only the glow of the fire that showed her his white hair and long beard. She knelt beside him, as she often did for a talk when he was in that chair, and she woke him by stealing her hand into his. <br><br> "Who is it? Gerty? No, Madge - my little Madge that is to be so patriarchal to-morrow." <br><br> "Papa Selwyn," she began, not giving him time to joke any, lest she might not be able to disclose all her troubles, "I want to tell you something, and you won't be angry, will you, no matter what it may be?" <br><br> He took her face between his hands, and the fire flashed up and showed him how earnest it was. <br><br> "I am quite sure," he said, "nothing can make me anything but as deeply in love with my second daughter as a poor old fellow like me can be. Why, child, I am under a cloud all day because to morrow - as soon as to-morrow - I can be Papa Selwyn no more, and Madge will be thinking about no one but her cousin." <br><br> "No, indeed!" cried Madge, impetuously; "you will be Papa Selwyn always - always; and I don't care for my cousin a bit." <br><br> But her guardian shook his head gravely. [Unreadable line] cousin." <br><br> The firelight had died down low, and Madge had courage enough to blurt out with an effort. <br><br> "I cannot marry Jack, because I ought to love my husband, and I can never care enough for him. Or, if I must be engaged to him to-morrow" - her there was a great sob - Mr. Fitzallan is very good and kind, and I don't want to hurt him - but - but - he must go away." <br><br> Her head sank upon his knees with the great effort of that request. <br><br> "My poor child," he said, "I know your secret. Bravely said, my little Madge, my bonny girl! You have let the truth out and done nobly. You are worthy of the man that is to have you, and that is saying a good deal." Then raising her head gently, he bade her listen, for he was going to tell a secret in return for hers. When she heard it she waited with wide, wondering eyes, while he told it a second time, for she could not believe in her joy. "As you know, Madge," he began, "most people in this world have more cousins than one." And then he went on to explain to her that Herbert Fitzallan was a distant cousin, and that it was to him that her father wished her to be married. Fitzallan's father had been the companion of his labors, and Herbert himself had been loved by the dying man as a son, for Herbert was twenty when little Madge was an orphaned baby of four. "You ask what about Jack, then?" said the old man. "That was my clever trick, Madge. I never said you were to marry Jack. I told you of your father's wish. I brought Jack here, the only cousin you knew, and praised his good qualities - which are true enough, I can tell you, and appreciated by a young lady not far from here. I knew that wayward heart of yours, and I knew that a woman should not marry without love and a great store of it too. So I left my darling open to the idea that Jack was to be the lucky fellow; and she did just what I and all sensible people expected - almost hated Jack and her doom. Then I took care that the young man you were meant for - who, my dear, has the best and truest heart in the world - should come in the way just at the right time and show an interest in you. So, have I not succeeded, and made my Madge choose her father's choice with her own free heart and will? As for Fitzillan, he is all impatience for to-morrow, and he would have told you the secret at that ball the other night, when he says he was put to a desperate trial, but he had promised never to disclose it till we were quite sure of success. Well, are you happy, now, Madge?" <br><br> "My dear, good second father! How can I love you enough?" was all she could say when she felt his arms round her in that moment of fulfilled desires, and his lips pressed to her forehead in fatherly affection now that his long solicitude was at an end and his hard task well done. <br><br> That very night Madge, scarcely able to realize her joy was betrothed to Herbert Fitzallan, who, when once the secret was disclosed, would not wait another hour. <br><br> "Have I not waited years?" he said. "All my time abroad I was waiting, and then I came back and found my Madge more than ever I had dared to hope." <br><br> But Madge in her new freedom did not forget poor Jack. Indeed, she was almost in trouble about her unkindness to him when she heard that he had only been playing a part, bearing all her teasing, and being purposely ungracious whenever she grew kind. But Gertrude consoled her effectually on that score by telling another secret after her kiss of congratulation. <br><br> "Jack was indeed doing his best to carry out the plan," she said; "and he was often grieved about you; but, dear Madge, you must congratulate us now - not me, but us. Jack and I made it up between us months ago, and we had many a quiet laugh about you." <br><br> So Madge herself accepted the ring and wore her golden fetters by her own free will after all; nor was there ever a happier or more willing captive. As for Fitzallan, if he was not another Arthur, as the girl's fancy had prompted her to call him, he was "blameless" as the prince of the "Idyls [Idylls]," and far more blest; and if he reigned over no realm, he was at least king of one brave and tender heart - a kingdom wide enough to satisfy his desires, and a prize which time proved well worth his years of waiting. - Waverley. |