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Madelon: A Novel, a novel by Mary E Wilkins Freeman |
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Chapter 9 |
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_ Chapter IX When they reached the county buildings, the court-house and the jail, in New Salem, the old race-horse was still not nearly spent, although he breathed somewhat hard. When Madelon sprang out to blanket and tie him he seemed to vibrate to her touch like electric steel, and showed that the old fire had not yet died out of his nerves and muscles. Poor Dorothy Fair's knees were weak under her as she got out of the sleigh. Her pretty face was pitiful, her sweet mouth drooping at the corners like a troubled child's. Madelon looked at her sharply when they stood before the jail door waiting for admittance. "I have seen you wear a curl each side of your face outside your hood," said she. "I didn't think of it to-day," Dorothy replied, with forlorn surprise. Madelon went close to the other girl peremptorily, as if she had been her mother, pulled forward two soft curls from under her hood, and arranged them becomingly against the pale cheeks; and Dorothy submitted. Alvin Mead opened the jail door, and his great face took on a forbidding scowl when he saw Madelon Hautville. "Can't let ye in," he said, gruffly. "Ain't a visitin' day." He would have shut the door in their faces had not Madelon made a quick spring against it. "I don't want to come in!" she cried. "I don't want to see him to-day. It's this lady who wants to see him." "Can't see nobody," said Alvin Mead, filling up the door like a surly living wedge. "You must let us see him," persisted Madelon. "She's Parson Fair's daughter. She is going to marry Burr Gordon--she must see him." Alvin Mead shook his head stubbornly. Then Dorothy spoke, thrusting her fair face forward, and looking up at him with terrified, innocent pleading, like a child, and yet speaking with a gentle lady's authority. "I beg you to let me come in, only for a few moments," said she. "I will not make you any trouble. I will come out directly when you bid me to." Alvin Mead looked at her a second, then at Madelon with rough inquiry. "Who did ye say she was?" he growled. "Parson Fair's daughter, the lady that's going to marry Burr Gordon." "I can't let but one of ye see him, and she can't stay more'n ten minutes," said Alvin Mead, and moved aside, and Madelon and Dorothy entered. They followed Alvin Mead down the icy, dark corridor to Burr's cell door. He unlocked it, and bade Dorothy enter. He cast a forbidding look at Madelon. "I will stand here," she said with a strange meekness, almost as if her heart were broken; but when the jailer prepared to follow Dorothy into Burr's cell she caught him by the arm and tried to force him back, and cried out sharply that he should let her see him alone. "She is the girl he is going to marry, I tell you!" she said. "Let them see each other alone. You cannot come between two like that when they are in such trouble." Alvin Mead looked at her a second irresolutely. Then he stepped back in the corridor and locked the cell door. "That the gal? Thought ye was the one," he said, with a half-chuckle, with coarse, sharp eyes upon her face. "He is going to marry her," Madelon repeated. She stood stiff and straight like a statue, and waited. Once, when Alvin made an impatient motion as though to open the door, she restrained him with such despairing eagerness that he drew back and looked at her wonderingly, and stood in surly silence awhile longer. "She's got to come out now," he said, at last. "I've got other things to tend to. Can't stay here no longer, nohow." He unlocked the door and threw it open with a jerk. "Time's up!" he shouted, and Dorothy came out directly, almost as if she were running away. Alvin Mead clapped to the door with a great jar and locked it. Madelon, had she tried, could not have got a glimpse of Burr; but she did not try. She sprang at Dorothy Fair, and took her by the shoulders, and looked into her scared face with agonized questioning. "Did--he confess?" she gasped out. "Did--he tell you, did he--tell you, Dorothy Fair?" Dorothy shook her head in a mute terror that was almost horror. It seemed as if she would sink to the floor under Madelon's heavy hands. Alvin Mead stood staring at them. "Didn't he--tell you--I was the one who--stabbed Lot? Didn't he--tell you?" "She's at it again," muttered Alvin Mead. Dorothy shook her head. "He wouldn't speak," she said, faintly. "He would say nothing about it." Madelon fairly shook her. "Couldn't you make him speak? _You!_" "I couldn't, I couldn't, Madelon!" "Did you tell him your heart would break if he didn't--that you couldn't marry him if he didn't?" "Yes--don't, don't--look at me so, Madelon." Alvin Mead stepped forward. "Look at here--you're scarin' of that gal to death," he interfered. "You'd better take your hands off her." Then Madelon turned to him, and grasped at the keys in his hands, as if she would wrest them from him. "Unlock the door and let me in, and let Burr Gordon out!" she demanded, wildly. The jailer wrested his keys away with a contemptuous jerk, and took the skin from Madelon's hands with them. "You're crazy," he said. "I am not crazy! You've got an innocent man locked up in there, and I, who am guilty and tell you so, you will not arrest. It is you who are crazy. Let me in!" Alvin Mead laid a rough hand on Madelon's shoulder. "Now you look at here, gal," said he. "I've had about all this darned nonsense I'm a-goin' to stan'. That chap is in jail for murder, an' in jail he's a-goin' to stay till I git orders from somebody besides you to let him out. An' what's more, don't you come here on no sich tom-fool arrant agin. If you do you won't git in. I ain't no objection to gals he was goin' to marry ef he hadn't broke the laws comin' to see him a leetle spell, if they'll go away peaceable when they're bid, but as for havin' sech highstericky work as this, I'll be darned if I will. Now I can't stan' here foolin' no longer; you'd better be gittin' right along home, an' don't you break this other gal's neck with that old stepper you've got out there." Madelon Hautville said not another word. She went out of the jail quickly, and she and Dorothy were soon in the sleigh and flying down the road. The old racer was not so old nor so weary that the impetus of the homeward stretch failed to stir him--for a mile or so, at least. After that his pace slackened, and then Madelon turned to the other girl, who looked up at her with a kind of piteous defiance. "What did you say to him?" she demanded. "I--begged him--if he--did not kill Lot to--say so," replied Dorothy, faintly; then she shrank and quivered before the other girl, who started wrathfully, half as if she would fling her from the sleigh. "_If_ he did not kill Lot to say so!" repeated Madelon. "_If_ he did not! You know he did not." "He would not tell me so," said Dorothy, with her stubbornness of meekness, and her blue eyes met Madelon's, although there were tears welling up in them. "Tell you so!" cried Madelon. "What are you made of, Dorothy Fair?" "He would not," repeated Dorothy. "If he _was_ innocent, why should he not have told me if he loved me?" Madelon looked at her. "You don't love him!" she cried out, sharply. "You don't love him, and that's why. You don't love him, Dorothy Fair!" Dorothy flushed red and drew herself up with gentle stiffness. "You cannot expect me to unveil my heart to you," said she. "You have betrayed it," persisted Madelon. "You don't love him, Dorothy Fair! Shame on you, after all!" "What right have you to say that?" demanded Dorothy, and this time with some show of anger. "The right of another woman who does love him, and would save his life," Madelon answered, fiercely. "The right of a woman who can love more in an hour than such as you in a lifetime!" "You--don't know--" "I do know. You don't love him or you would not have distrusted him. You would have made him tell you the truth. You would have flung your arms around him, and you would not have let him go until he told you. Did you do that? Answer me: did you do that?" A great wave of red crept over Dorothy's face, but she replied, with cold dignity: "I throw my arms around no man unbidden!" "Unbidden!" repeated Madelon, and scorn seemed to sound in her voice like the lash of a whip. She flung out the reins over the horse's back, and they slipped along swiftly over the icy crust, and not another word did she speak to Dorothy Fair all the way home. _ |
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