Chapter XXIV: At Aunt Manette’s

All thought and desire for the hat-making business had deserted Magdalen’s mind when she came, late and heavy-eyed, to breakfast. Which was probably the reason that on the sound of the electric bell she ran down and found, not the baker’s boy, but a customer.

“I don’t know,” said the imitation Madame Aline rather doubtfully. She looked at the pretty old lady before her and did not open the door. Inside did not look much like a milliner’s establishment. “I,” with a brilliant inspiration, “never make bonnets--only hats.”

The strange old lady looked very pale in the gray light of the landing. To the blind a voice is a very telltale thing; Madame Aline’s had perhaps sounded as though she had no desire for a new customer.

“I am easily pleased.” The girl saw suddenly that her visitor’s silk gown and mantle were old-fashioned. “I am not very rich and I am blind.”

“Blind!” The little cry was involuntary.

“Stone blind, madam. Look!” She turned her face instinctively to the scant light and Magdalen saw that the bright, brown eyes were sightless. “But perhaps, for those reasons, you will not care----”

“Oh,” with quick compassion, “but I will. I will make you anything you like. Only--I--that is--I have nothing ready.”

“I did not want anything ready. I have--but I do not like to ask you. You are busy.”

“No,” with a wasted shake of her head.

“Then, as you are so kind, I have already a dozen--more--of bonnets. But it is that I am blind and live alone. Sometimes I select one and the children laugh at me in the street. If you would look at them and remodel me one from them.”

“Of course I will.” She looked to see a hat-box, but the new customer was empty-handed. “When will you bring them?” For a blind woman could not see that the milliner’s shop had neither hats, bonnets nor looking-glasses.

“I go out seldom,” said the woman slowly. “I thought if madame were not too occupied she might perhaps come to me. I am called Madame Duplessis and I live behind you, in Hare’s Rents.”

A half thought, a misgiving, struck her hearer; but the next minute she saw its absurdity. There was no reason to think Lord Stratharden was troubling his head about them; and if he were it was not likely he would send an emissary from Hare’s Rents who did not even ask to come in or for anyone but Madame Aline.

The blind woman had felt the hesitation in her manner.

“It was M. Lovell who told me of you, madame,” she said, and no one would ever have known the words were as purely gambling as drawing a card at poker. “I asked him if there were a milliner near here and he told me, ‘Madame Aline.’ He will tell you that I pay my debts,” with a little smiling dignity. “But Hare’s Rents is a poor place, madame, and perhaps I am a customer who will not show off your wares.” There was not a hint in her voice of the terrible excitement that was in her old heart.

Lovell! That warning fling of Dolly’s about not knowing who he was came back to the girl, but she did not care. It was only nonsense, anyhow. He loved her; he--the very thought of his hard, keen strength did her good after the silly terrors of yesterday.

“I hardly know Mr. Lovell,” she answered mechanically, “but it was kind of him to recommend me. I will do your work with pleasure.”

“I suppose you could not come now?” she unexpectedly asked. “You could not leave?”

Why not? She was sick of the house, had meant to go out anyhow and had her hat and coat on.

“I think I can leave,” she cried with a laugh at the non-existent business that could keep her. “I’m going out,” she called to Dolly, who, being only half dressed, could not come to investigate if she had even thought of it.

The blind woman felt her way down-stairs, and a wonder crept over the girl how she had ever found her way from Hare’s Rents.

“You do not see how I got here,” said Aunt Manette shrewdly, as they reached the street.

“It is quite simple, when one has been blind for twenty years and alone. I knew there was no street to cross. I kept my feet on the curbing and that told me when the corner came. Presently I asked a man to take me to your door.”

It might be simple, but it was dreadful to the girl who could see the feathers on a flying sparrow.

“And your own door?” she said.

“Twenty-four steps from turning into this dirty lane. It is here, I think. An open door--very dirty?”

“Sixteen?” glancing up.

Madame Duplessis, whom her world knew as Aunt Manette, nodded. The girl behind her marveled as she followed her up the filthy stairs why an old woman, who wore a brocade mantle, should live in such a place. They did not meet a soul as they climbed to the third story; perhaps the blind woman had known they would not at this time of day. Half of Hare’s Rents got up early and went to work; the other half stayed in bed till dark.

“We arrive,” she cried gaily, unlocking her own door unerringly from long practise in the dark.

For a moment Magdalen stood dazzled on the threshold.

The morning sun poured into the place through fresh white curtains and rows of blossoming flowers. There was a good fire, a clean brick hearth, a high-backed chintz chair beside it. The whole room was as scrupulously clean and fresh as a French inn, and the most homelike place, as well, that the girl had ever seen.

Aunt Manette let the door close behind her.

“You see, I am ready for you,” she said, and Magdalen saw an array of bonnet-boxes. Every one of them had “Worth” or “Pingat” on the cover; but as she took out the bonnets one by one she repressed a laugh. No wonder the children said things in the streets. Every bonnet had been the acme of extravagant fashion twenty years ago, and now----She glanced round the spotless room. To have come to this from Worth and Pingat had taken some time.

“Did you want a black bonnet?” she said with a smile that was very kindly, looking at the grass-green, staring-blue and magenta monsters surrounding her.

At the voice Aunt Manette started.

“Yes,” she said hastily. “I wear black. You mean----” Her hands were clasped hard in front of her; she did not care a straw what the milliner meant.

“These are colored,” Magdalen gently responded.

The old woman moved to her side.

“I had forgotten.” She felt one. “This?” she asked.

“Pale-fawn, trimmed with--with leather!” Magdalen could not imagine anyone with such a thing on her head.

“Oh! And this one?”

“Green.”

“With plumes?”

“Yes.”

The old woman’s face changed.

“It was hers--my daughter’s. She was so young that day,” she said as if to herself. “Would you--would you put it on, Madame Aline?”

Magdalen unpinned her hat. She did not even smile to herself as in the glass she beheld the green atrocity on her head; for the eyes that could not see her were full of tears.

“It goes so,” explained the old woman gently. She pushed it back a little on the dull, thick hair--and Magdalen noticed the delicate cleanliness of the old white hand. “Madame has beautiful hair.”

“Madame” winced.

“It’s red,” she said. It was lucky no one could see her in the bright-green hat.

“Minon’s was brown,” the old woman said dully. “You will permit me, madame? They are my eyes.”

Magdalen stood still as the cool, smooth finger-tips went over her face. The blind woman’s face she did not look at, which was well. But the next minute it was the Aunt Manette whom Lovell knew that spoke to her, and the girl, curiously enough, felt a sudden liking for the very hardness of the voice.

“What do you mean to get out of life?” she asked. “You were not born a milliner. Diamonds, marriage, position?”

“Position? No!” Magdalen sharply replied.

“Yet you hate your life. There are two black bonnets in that round box. You can amuse yourself with them.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Your eyes were hot, your mouth drooped. You have not a contented face. But you should be handsome.”

“I’m ugly,” the girl hastily remarked. “All white and black and red, like a poster. But I forgot----”

“Oh, I have heard of them,” the old woman dryly replied. She was aching to pour out a flood of questions, but she was too old and wise. She only sat as if she watched the girl make a new bonnet out of two old ones, deftly enough. She had an artistic touch, picked up goodness knows where.

“These bonnets are made of beautiful things, Madame Duplessis,” she said.

“They call me Aunt Manette in this house,” said the old lady. “I do not know why. I cannot come to you again, madame; but will you come to me? I am always here--and lonely.” Since she had felt the lines of the strong, delicate face her own had grown very hard. If she were right Mr. Lovell should come here no more, hear nothing from her about the Dark Magdalen he was intoxicated over; this girl was for no penniless photographer, gentleman or not.

The fresh, homelike room had done Magdalen good; she had a queer liking for Aunt Manette--a curiosity, too, about her. She put the finished bonnet in her hand.

“Is it right?” she asked.

“The little boys will tell me that when I wear it,” Aunt Manette composedly replied. “I pay you with pleasure, though--for it and your society.”

“Oh, no!” said the amateur milliner hastily. “It wasn’t ten minutes’ work. I couldn’t take any money.”

“And I cannot run in debt.” She went away and came back with something in her hand. “You shall take this,” she said carelessly, a longing that was passion shaking her to see this girl’s face as she held out a little pin. “It is old-fashioned, of no value, but a pleasure to me to give away.”

It was an old lace-pin, set with discolored turquoises, making an “N” on a dull-gold filigree heart. It was worth almost nothing at all, but Magdalen Clyde gave a cry of surprise. The thing was absolutely familiar to her.

“You will not take it? It is perhaps too broken?” Aunt Manette said coldly.

“No, no! I would love it. But I’ve seen one--one just like it,” she wonderingly exclaimed.

“They were the fashion when my daughter was young,” almost callously. “This one is broken, as you see. They were worn in pairs, linked with a little chain.”

“I know,” rather dazed. It was very queer, but probably the blind woman was right and the things had once been common. She stood over Aunt Manette and smiled, a splendid sight of flesh and blood wasted on blind eyes.

“I’ll tell you why it surprised me when I come again,” she said. “I must go now.” She did not thank the old woman, for she knew by instinct that she was not meant to. It was payment--not a present. “I’ll come again some afternoon. I’d like to,” she honestly declared.

For a moment their hands touched and the blind woman’s were burning. It had been cool till she felt the girl’s face.

“Do not come after dark,” she cautioned. “Remember, it is not a fit staircase for you after dark.”

Magdalen laughed. It was not the perils of Hare’s Rents that could worry her.

“I won’t,” she returned. “Good-by.”

She hurried through the dirty lane outside and, when she reached her own street, stepped into a shop close to her own house--a dark little shop for second-hand jewelry.

Dull hair, black-and-white face, she flashed into the shop like something glorious.

“That,” she said to the man behind the counter, holding out her turquoise pin, “worn linked to another with a chain--will you tell me if they were to be bought in every jeweler’s shop twenty years ago?”

He looked at it with a queer smile. He was rather a famous person in his way, an authority on his trade, and strictly honest, to the great gain of his dingy shop.

“They were not to be bought at any shop,” he said, putting down his magnifying-glass. “They were little badges worn by a certain set of ladies, among whom was the Empress Eugenie. That ‘N’ stands for Napoleon. If you cared to part with this,” he professionally suggested, “I could give you a very high price.”

“No,” said Magdalen, dumfounded; in her own box at home was the mate to this very pin, with a chain hanging to it, and the thing had been her mother’s.

How did Madame Duplessis come by the other half?

She flew home to make certain she was right, but in the little sitting-room she stopped short.

“Dolly!” she shrieked and pointed to a door where no door had been. “What have----” She could not utter another word.

“Four customers came,” said Dolly gaily; “so I told them to come back this afternoon and I made my bedroom into a showroom for you. Isn’t it too beautiful? I just moved the bookcase on this side and my wardrobe on mine. Now”--complacently--“that big glass is some use,” pointing to it standing exactly opposite the new door.

Magdalen forgot her mysterious pin, forgot everything. She stood speechless in the little room she had dreamed of at Ardmore Castle.