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CHAPTER XXIX
A THORNY ROSE

 
“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Roughhew them how we will.” —
 

Shakespeare.

“Your aunt is an invalid, I regret to say,” Mr. Tredick remarked as they drove rapidly through the streets, “and we must not come upon her too suddenly with this good news. I shall have to ask you, Miss Farnese, to take a seat in the parlor below while I seek a private interview with her in her boudoir.”

Our heroine bowed in acquiescence, and he went on:

“It will not take long to break the matter to her, and you are not likely to be kept waiting many minutes.”

“Please do not concern yourself about that,” she said; “I should prefer to be kept waiting for hours rather than run the slightest risk of injury to the only relative I am certain of possessing in all the world.”

The girl seemed composed – the lawyer thought her so, and rather wondered at such an amount of self-control in one so young – but inwardly she was full of agitation and excitement.

Her lonely heart yearned for the love and companionship of kindred, yet dreaded to find in this unknown relative one who might prove wholly uncongenial and even repulsive. She remembered that she was not yet of age, and was about to place herself under authority of which she knew nothing. There might be conflict of tastes and opinions on very vital subjects. Yet she had no thought of drawing back. She had weighed the matter carefully, viewed it in all its aspects, had decided that this was her wisest and best course, and was ready to pursue it unfalteringly to the end.

So wholly absorbed in these thoughts and emotions was she that she took no note of the direction in which they were moving, nor what streets they traversed.

The carriage stopped. Mr. Tredick threw open the door, sprang out, and, turning, assisted her to alight.

He led her up the steps of a large and handsome dwelling, and rang the bell. She glanced about her, and started with surprise. The street, the house, everything within range of her vision, had a strangely familiar look.

They had reached the suburbs of the city, and before them – as they stood on the threshold, looking out toward the east – lay the great lake, quiet as a sleeping child, under the fervid rays of the sun of that still summer day, one of the calmest and most sultry of the season. A second glance around, and Floy – as we must still call her – turned to her conductor with an eager question on her lips.

But the door opened, a smiling face appeared, and a cheery voice exclaimed:

“Is it you, Misther Tredick, sir? Will ye plaze to walk in, and I’ll run up an’ tell the Madame. She’s dressed and ready to resave ye, by good luck.

“An’ the lady too,” added Kathleen, catching a sight of Floy, but without recognizing her, her face being partially concealed by her veil.

“Step intil the parlor, both o’ yees, plaze, an’ who shall I say wishes to see the Madame?” she asked, with another and curious glance at the veiled lady.

“Mr. Tredick,” said that gentleman, giving her his card; “don’t mention the lady at all. She will wait here till I come down again. Just tell the Madame that Mr. Tredick wishes to see her a moment on business.”

But Mary’s voice spoke from the stairhead, “Katty, the Madame says ask the gentleman to walk right up,” and Mr. Tredick, hearing, awaited no second invitation.

Floy’s brain was in a whirl.

“The Madame? the Madame?” she repeated in low, agitated tones, dropping into a chair in the luxuriously-furnished parlor, but with no thought of its richly-carved, costly wood and velvet cushions. “My aunt must be visiting here. But ’twas for the Madame he asked, ’twas the Madame he wished to see! Can it be that she – she is – Yes, it must – it is!”

She hid her face in her hands, with a slight shudder and something between a groan and a sigh.

The poor Madame had never been an attractive person to Floy; she was not one whom she could greatly respect or look up to for comfort in sorrow, for guidance in times of doubt and perplexity.

In finding her she had not found one who would at all fill the place of the parents she mourned, and whose loss had left her without an earthly counsellor, an earthly prop.

In the bitterness of her disappointment she learned how much she had been half unconsciously hoping for. The pressure of poverty had been sorely felt by the young girl during these past months, but was as nothing to the yearning for the tender love and care and happy trustfulness that had been the crowning blessing of earlier days.

CHAPTER XXX
PANSY

 
“A hundred thousand welcomes: I could weep,
And I could laugh; I am light and heavy: welcome!”
 

Shakespeare.

Madame Le Conte received her legal adviser that morning in her boudoir, rising from her easy chair in her eager haste to learn if he were the bearer of tidings, and coming forward to meet him as he entered.

“What news, Mr. Tredick? I see in your face that you have some for me!” she cried, almost breathless with excitement and the exertion, slight as it was.

“Ah! are you so skilled in reading faces?” he returned playfully. “Well, I own that I have a bit of news for you – good news as far as it goes. But let me beg you to be seated and calm yourself before I proceed further.”

“Oh, go on, go on! don’t keep me in suspense!” she cried in increasing agitation, sinking into her chair again and pointing him to a seat as she spoke.

“Remember it is good news,” he repeated, taking up a large feather fan and beginning to fan her flushed cheeks, while Mary brought her smelling-salts and asked if she would have a glass of water.

She made a gesture of refusal, and pointed to the door opening into her dressing-room.

The girl at once obeyed the hint and went out, closing the door after her.

“Now, Mr. Tredick, speak, speak!” exclaimed the Madame imperatively. “Have you heard anything of – of – ”

“Your sister? No – yes; that is, nothing recent, but I have just learned that she has a daughter living at no great distance from this. Shall I send for the girl?”

“Send for her? How could you wait to ask? Why did you delay a moment when you know that I’m dying with longing for the sight of somebody who has a drop of my blood in her veins?” she interrupted in great excitement and anger.

“Only for your own sake, Madame,” he answered deprecatingly. “Knowing the precarious state of your health – ”

“Oh, don’t stop to talk!” she cried, half rising from her chair. “Where is she? She must be sent for this instant! As if I could wait, and my sister’s child within reach! Mary must run down and order the carriage at once.”

“Softly, softly, my dear Madame,” he said soothingly. “I have anticipated your wishes so far as to make arrangements for the young lady to be here within an hour from this time,” consulting his watch, “and in the mean while I must lay before you the proofs of her identity, and have your opinion as to their being altogether satisfactory and convincing.”

“Oh, if you have decided that they are, it’s quite sufficient,” she answered with a sort of weary impatience; “you would be less easily deceived than I.”

“But we may as well fill up the time with the examination; and you will be glad to learn something of your sister’s history after your separation?” he remarked persuasively, taking from his pocket the papers Floy had given him.

“Ah, yes, yes!” she cried with eagerness. “I did not understand that you had that to communicate to me. Ah, Pansy, Pansy! my poor little Pansy!” and covering her face with her handkerchief, she sobbed convulsively.

“Come, my dear Madame, cheer up!” he said, “she is still living – ”

“Oh, is she? is she?” she again interrupted him, starting up wildly. “But why don’t you go on? why will you keep me in this torturing suspense?”

“I am trying to go on as fast as I can,” he said a little impatiently. “I was about to correct my last statement by saying we have at least reason to hope that your sister still lives, and that we shall yet find her.”

“But the girl – the daughter – have you seen her? and doesn’t she know all about her mother?”

“No, Madame; but if you want to hear the facts, as far as I have been able to gather them, your best plan will be to listen quietly to what I have to say. There is quite a little story to be told, and one that cannot fail to be of interest to you.”

Of interest! The Madame almost held her breath lest she should lose a syllable of the narrative as he went on to describe the scenes enacted in the shanty inn and depot at Clearfield Station, in which her sister had borne so conspicuous a part.

Then he showed her the deed of gift.

“Yes, yes,” she said, pointing to the signature, “that is my poor Ethel’s handwriting. I should recognize it anywhere. It was always peculiar. Oh, where is the child?”

“Downstairs in the parlor. Shall I call her? shall I bring her to you?”

She was too much moved to speak. She nodded assent.

In a moment more Floy stood before her.

The Madame gave a cry of mingled joy and surprise, and held out her arms.

“Is it you —you? oh, I am glad! I am the happiest woman alive!”

Floy knelt down by her side and suffered herself to be enfolded by the stout arms, pressed against the broad breast, kissed and cried over.

She had meditated upon Madame’s sufferings from loneliness and disease till her heart was melted with pity. She had thought upon the fact that the same blood flowed in their veins – that this was the sister, the only, and probably dearly loved, sister of the unknown yet beloved mother of whom she was in quest – till a feeling akin to affection had sprung up within her.

“My poor dear aunt,” she whispered, twining her arms about the Madame’s neck and imprinting a kiss upon her lips, “what a dreary, lonely life you have had! God helping me, I will make it happier than it has been.”

“Ah, yes, child!” returned her new-found relative, repeating her caress with added tenderness; “and you, you poor darling! shall never have to toil for your bread any more. Ah, what a delight it will be to me to lavish on you every desirable thing that money can buy! It is Miss Kemper, but it is my little Pansy too; did I not see the likeness from the first?” and the tears coursed down the Madame’s swarthy cheeks.

“Why do you call me that?” asked Floy.

“It was my pet name for my sister. She was so sweet and pretty, so modest, gentle, and retiring. And she called me Tulip, because, as she said, my beauty was gorgeous, like that of the flower. You would not think it now; there’s not a trace of it left,” she added, with a heavy sigh and a rueful glance into a pier-glass opposite.

It was all quite true. Nannette Gramont (that was the Madame’s maiden name) had a sylph-like form, a rich brunette complexion, sparkling eyes, ruby lips, a countenance and manners full of vivacity and mirth.

Now she was dull and spiritless; her eye had lost its brightness; the once smiling mouth wore a fretful expression; the smooth, clear skin had grown sallow and disfigured by pimples and blotches not to be concealed by the most liberal use of powder and rouge, poor substitute for the natural bloom which had disappeared forever under the combined influence of high living, indulged temper, remorse and consequent ill-health, far more than advancing years.

“You were not alike then?” Floy said, with a secret sense of relief.

“No, no! never in the least, in looks or disposition. I was always quick-tempered and imperious, Ethel so gentle and yielding that we never quarrelled – never till – ah, I cannot endure the thought of it!” And burying her face in her handkerchief, the Madame wept bitterly.

For a moment there was no sound in the room but her heavy sobbing, Floy feeling quite at a loss for words of consolation; but at last she said softly:

“One so gentle and sweet would never harbor resentment, especially toward a dear, only sister.”

“No, no; but it has parted us forever – this unkindness of mine! And it may be that she – my sweet one, my dear one – has perished with want, while I rolled in wealth. Ah, me! what shall I do?”

“I believe she is living still, and that we shall yet find her!” cried Floy, starting up in excitement and pacing to and fro, her hands clasped over her beating heart, her eyes shining with hope.

“It may be so,” said the Madame, wiping away her tears. “Child, would you like to see your mother’s face?” She drew out of her bosom the little gold locket which of late she had worn almost constantly, and opening it, held it out to Floy.

In an instant the young girl was again on her knees at her aunt’s side, bending over that pretty child-face, one strangely like it in feature and coloring, yet unlike in its eager curiosity, its tremulous agitation, the yearning tenderness in the great, dark, lustrous eyes.

“How sweet! how lovely!” she said, raising her eyes to her aunt’s face again. “But ah, if I could see her as she was when grown up!”

“Look in the glass and you will,” said the Madame.

Floy’s face flushed with pleasure.

The Madame opened the other side of the locket.

“This was of me, taken at the same time,” she said, displaying the likeness of a girl some six or eight years older in appearance than the first; bright and handsome too, but with a darker beauty, and a proud, wilful expression in place of the sweet gentleness of the other. “Our mother had them painted for herself. After her death I claimed the locket as mine by right of priority of birth, and though Pansy wished very much to have it, she yielded to me for peace’s sake, as usual.”

“You, too, were a very pretty child, Mad – ” Floy broke off in confusion.

“Aunt Nannette,” corrected the Madame, with a slight smile, passing her hand caressingly over the soft, shining hair of her newly-found niece. “Aunt Nannette, or simply auntie, as you like, my little Pansy.”

There was an earnest, unspoken entreaty in Floy’s eyes as she glanced from the locket to her aunt’s face.

“There is hardly anything I would refuse you, little one,” the Madame said in answer, “but this I cannot part with. I will have them copied for you, though; and the locket itself shall be enough handsomer to more than compensate for the pictures being only copies of the original.”

CHAPTER XXXI
A WONDROUS CHANGE

 
“Herein fortune shows herself more kind
Than is her custom.” —
 

Shakespeare.

Mr. Tredick, having accomplished his mission by breaking the good news to Madame Le Conte and ushering Floy into her presence, quietly withdrew, and, leaving a message with Mary to the intent that he would call again the next morning, returned to his office.

This was a memorable day in Floy’s life, the turning of a new page in her history.

Mary was presently despatched with a note to Mrs. Sharp briefly stating the facts, and with orders to bring away the few effects of the young girl which were there.

The news created a great sensation in the Sharp household, as Mary duly reported on her return, telling her story in a way which showed that she had keenly enjoyed her part in the scene, and that she was delighted to know that our heroine was no longer a mere transient sojourner in the Madame’s house.

Floy, in her capacity of dressmaker, had won golden opinions from the servants, and both were scarcely less pleased than astonished at the strange turn affairs had taken.

“It’s perfectly amazin’, as I told ’em down there,” said Mary in conclusion. “Who’d have thought that day you came here, lookin’ so sweet and sad in your black dress, to make that new gownd for the Madame, that you’d more real right in the house than any of us except the Madame herself!”

“I hope she will never need to look so sad again,” said Madame Le Conte, gazing with fond pride at the pretty face of her niece. “My dear, would you be willing to lay off your mourning now for my sake?”

The request caused such a flood of sad and tender memories that for a moment Floy was utterly unable to speak.

“I long to see you dressed as your mother used to be at your age,” the Madame went on. “She usually wore white gowns with pink or blue ribbons, and it was sweetly becoming.”

Floy conquered herself with a strong effort.

“I will, Aunt Nannette; I would do more than that to give you pleasure,” she said, with a winning smile, though tears trembled in her eyes and a bright drop rolled down her cheek as she spoke.

Madame Le Conte saw it, and appreciated the sacrifice.

“Dear child!” she said, “I see you are going to be a great comfort to me. I am no longer alone in the world, thank fortune! nor are you. It was a happy chance that brought us together at last, wasn’t it, dear?”

“A kind Providence, aunt,” Floy responded in cheerful tones, “and I am very glad and thankful to know that I have at least one living relative in the world. And a good home,” she added, with a bright smile. “I have not been cast adrift for a year without learning the value of that.”

It was a double house, and Floy had been already assigned a suite of spacious, elegantly-furnished apartments on the opposite side of the hall from the Madame’s own, and also told that she was to be joint mistress with her aunt, take the oversight of the domestic affairs, order what she pleased for her meals, and make free use of domestics, carriage and horses, the grand piano in the parlor, the library – in short, everything belonging to the establishment.

Floy was touched by this kindness and generosity of her aunt, and felt that she might well be willing to make some sacrifices to confer pleasure in return. This feeling was increased tenfold by the occurrences of the next day.

Mr. Tredick called according to appointment, was for a short time closeted with the Madame in her boudoir; then Floy was summoned to join them, when, to her amazement, she learned that her aunt had made over to her property in bonds, stocks, and mortgages to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars.

The girl’s first impulse was to return it with the idea that Madame Le Conte was impoverishing herself, and forgetful that other heirs might yet be found. Grateful tears filled her eyes; she was too much overcome to speak for a moment.

“It is a very generous gift,” the lawyer said, looking at her in surprise at her silence.

“Generous? it is far too much!” Floy burst out, finding her voice. “Dear aunt, what have you left for yourself? and have you not forgotten that my mother may be living and may have children by her second husband, who will be quite as nearly related to you as I?”

“No, child, take it. I have plenty left for myself and them,” the Madame answered, with a pleased laugh.

“That is quite true, my dear young lady,” remarked Mr. Tredick; “for though I consider this a generous gift for Madame Le Conte to bestow during her lifetime, it is not one fifth of what she is worth.”

Floy rose hastily and came to the side of her aunt’s easy chair.

“Ah, little one! are you satisfied now to take and enjoy it?” the Madame asked, touching the fair young cheek caressingly as the girl bent over her with features working with emotion.

It was not so much the abundant wealth so suddenly showered upon her as the affection she saw in the act of its bestowal which overcame Floy, so sweet was love to the lonely heart that for a year past had known so dreary a dearth of it.

“I will, dear auntie,” she said, smiling through her fast-falling tears. “But what return can I make for all your generous kindness?”

“My generous kindness!” the Madame repeated in a tone of contempt; then at some sad memory a look of keen distress swept over her face, and her voice grew low and husky. “It is a small atonement for the past,” she said, “the past that can never be recalled!”

Mr. Tredick was busied with some legal document, and seemed quite oblivious of what was passing between the ladies. Presently he folded the paper up, handed it, with several others, to Floy with the smiling injunction to keep them carefully, inquired of the Madame if she had any further commands for him, and, receiving a reply in the negative, bowed himself out.

As the door closed on her solicitor, the Madame lifted a tiny silver bell from the table at her side and tapped it lightly.

“The carriage waits, ladies,” said Mary, appearing in answer.

“Then we will go at once,” returned her mistress. “Pansy, my dear, put on your hat.”

A heavy rain during the night had wrought a sudden and delightful change in the temperature of the atmosphere; light clouds still partially obscured the sun, and a fresh breeze was blowing from the lake. The ladies had voted it a fine day for shopping, and decided to avail themselves of it for that purpose.

A few moments later they were bowling rapidly along toward the business part of the city in the Madame’s elegant, easily-rolling, softly-cushioned carriage, drawn by a pair of handsome, spirited grays, the pride of Rory’s heart.

They returned some hours after laden with great store of costly and beautiful things which Madame Le Conte had insisted upon heaping on her niece.

There were several ready-made dresses, and in one of these Floy made her appearance at the tea-table spread for herself and aunt in the boudoir of the latter.

The robe was white; a fine French muslin, trimmed with beautiful lace. Floy had fastened it at the throat with a pale pink rose, and placed another among the glossy braids of her dark brown hair.

“Ah, how lovely you look, my darling!” the Madame exclaimed, gazing upon her in delighted admiration. Then, the tears springing to her eyes, “I could almost believe that my little Pansy of other days stands before me,” she said.

While they were at the table her eyes continually sought her niece’s face, and when they left it she called for her jewel-box, saying, “You must let me add something to your attire, Pansy.”

The Madame had a great fondness for gold and precious stones, and Floy’s eyes opened wide in astonishment and admiration at the store of diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds, amethysts, and sapphires, adorning brooches, ear-rings, finger-rings, chains, and necklaces shortly spread before her.

“Have I not a fine collection?” asked their owner, gloating over them with intense satisfaction. “Take your choice, Pansy; take any or all you want; they will probably all belong to you some day.”

“Oh, thank you! I should be astonished at such an offer, auntie, had you not already shown yourself so wonderfully generous,” said Floy, coloring with pleasure. “But am I not too young to wear such things?”

“Not pearls, at all events,” said the Madame, throwing a beautiful necklace, composed of several strands of very large and fine ones, about the young girl’s neck, then adding bracelets, brooch, and ear-rings to match.

“Oh, auntie, what a present! they are too lovely for anything!” cried Floy in delight.

“This, too, you must have,” said the Madame, putting a jewel-case into her hand.

Floy opened it with eager curiosity. It contained a gold chain and a tiny gold watch, both ornamented with pearls.

“Do you like it?” asked the Madame.

“Like it!” cried Floy; “I am charmed with it! I have always wanted a watch, but never had one. My dear adopted father had promised me one on my eighteenth birthday, but I was all alone in the world before that came,” she added, her voice sinking low and trembling with emotion.