CHAPTER XLIII.THE SISTERS.
For a moment Queenie sat with her head dropped and her eyes closed; then, opening them suddenly and fixing them upon Margery, who knelt beside her, she said, “It is very dreadful, Margie, and I feel as if turned into stone. Oh, if I could cry; but I cannot, even though I know that everything is gone from me that I loved the most. Phil is dead—Phil, who would have stood by me even in this disgrace. He would have come to me and said, ‘Dear little Queenie, I love you just the same, and want you for my wife,’ and with him I might in time have been happy; but now there is nothing left to me, neither lover, friends, nor name, and that last hurts the worst and makes me so desolate; no name, no friends, not a single relative in the world except—except that woman, andsheis my mother!”
Queenie said the last word with a choking sob, while Margery kissed and rubbed her hands which were cold as ice and lay helplessly upon her lap.
“You forget that you haveme—forget that I am yoursister—that whatever sorrow comes to you must be shared by me,” Margery said, and Queenie replied, “No, I don’t forget that. It is the only thing which keeps me from dying outright. Oh, Margie, you do not know how foolishly proud I was when I believed myself Queenie Hetherton—proud of my position, proud of my blood. And—I will confess it all to you who stand just where I thought I stood, I was so wicked and so proud that I rebelled against my mother’s family—rebelled against the Fergusons, and though I tried to do my duty and tried to be kind and friendly,especially to grandma, I never came in contact with her, or with any of Uncle Tom’s family, that I did not feel the little shivers run over me, and a shrinking away from them and their manner of speaking and acting. I could not help this feeling, though I hated myself cordially for it, and told myself many times that I was no better than they, and still in my heart I fancied I was infinitely their superior—I, who had no right to be born. Once I knelt in the room I supposed was my mother’s, and prayed God to make me like the woman below stairs, whom I thought so coarse and vulgar—asked Him to humble me in any way, if that was what I needed to subdue my pride, but little did I dream the time would come when that prayer would be so terribly answered—when I would give my life to know the Fergusons were mine as I then believed them to be. Oh, if I could have the old days back again; if I could waken from this and find it a dream, but I never can. I am not Reinette Hetherton, I am nobody. I have neither name, nor friends, nor position, nor home; oh Margie, Margie, I had not thought ofthatbefore;” and Queenie bounded to her feet so suddenly that Margery was thrown backward upon the floor, where she sat staring blankly at the girl who it seemed to her had actually lost her mind.
She was walking rapidly across the floor, beating the air with her hands. There were blood-red spots on her cheeks, and her eyes shone with a strange, unnatural light as they flashed first upon one object, and then upon another, and finally rested upon Margery, before whom she stopped and said in a whisper:
“Do not you know it? Do not you see that I am an outcast, a beggar, a trespasser where I have no claim? Frederick Hetherton’s unlawful child has no right to a penny of his money.Youare his heiress;youare his daughter, and I only an intruder, who have lived foryears on what was not my own, and have, perhaps, sometimes felt that I was very good to give to you what was already yours, foryouare Miss Hetherton, andIam Reinette—Bodine!”
Her lips quivered as she repeated the name, and her whole manner showed how hateful was the sound of it to her. But Margery scarcely noticed that, so intent was she on what had gone before. Springing to her feet, and winding her arm around Queenie, she held her fast, while she said:
“What folly is this! What injustice to me! I do not pretend not to understand you, for I do. You are excited now, and insane enough to think that you have no right to Frederick Hetherton’s money because you are the child of Christine Bodine, whom you so despise. She isnota bad woman; the badness was on the other side. That ceremony which she thought truewastrue to her and in the sight of Heaven, so far as she was concerned, though it might not stand the test of the law. But in either case you are father’s child as much as I am, and it was his wish that you should be his heir. He knew nothing ofme, never dreamed of my existence, and, Queenie, the world need not know what we do. I would far rather remain Margaret La Rue forever than meet what we must meet should the truth be known. Stay as you are, here in your home, for it is yours, and, if you like, I will stay with you, and the secret of your birth shall be buried forever.”
“No, Margie,” Queenie said, disengaging herself from her sister’s embrace. “I have no right here, and I cannot stay; not a penny of all my father’s wealth is mine. You say truly that he did not dream of your existence; but if he had—if at the last moment of his life he had known that somewhere in the world there was a daughter lawfully his own, he would have repudiated me, and flown to you.
“I knew him, and you did not, and you cannot understandhow proud he was. I knew he was more to blame than Christine if she tells the truth, and I can never forgive him, even if I did promise to do so, and I can never forgive her for hiding you, whom father would have loved so much, while I should never have been born.
“And yet he loved me, I am sure; but, had he known of you, all would have been changed, just as I shall change it now. He would have sent me away—not penniless, it was not his nature to do that; he provided for Christine, and would have made provision for me—but sent me from him just the same and taken his lawful daughter home, and after you are established here as Miss Hetherton, I shall go away—where, I do not know—but somewhere in the world there is a place for Pierre and me, and we shall go together. I cannot stay here with that mark upon me. I feel it now burning into my flesh, and know it is written all over me in letters of fire, which all the waters in the world cannot wash out. Truly, the sins of the parents are visited upon the children, and I am suffering so terribly—oh, Margie, it does ache so hard, so hard!” and with a gasping sob Queenie sank into her chair, where she sat writhing like one in agony.
For a moment Margery regarded her intently, then kneeling before her again and taking the hot, quivering hands in hers said to her: “Queenie, do you thinkIhave forgotten the day when you came to me, a little, lonely girl, clad in garments so coarse that just to have worn them a moment would have roughened the delicate skin of one who, like you, had known only the scarlet, and ermine, and purple of life. And yet you did not shrink from me. You looked into my eyes with a look I have never forgotten. You touched my soiled hands with your soft, white, dimpled fingers, and the touch lingers there yet. You took the scarlet and ermine from your shoulders and put them upon me, and brought downheaven to me as nearly as it can be brought to us here upon earth. And now, when this great sorrow has come upon you, when it may be that I stand in the place you have held so long, when the scarlet and ermine are mine, will you not let me give it back to you as you once gave it to me, or at least share it with me—that is, supposing mother’s statement is proved to be true?”
“Proved to be true!” Queenie said. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean this,” Margery replied, “The world will not accept the story as readily as you have done. There will have to be proof, I think, thatIwas born at Rome and that Margaret Ferguson was my mother.”
“Doyoudoubt it, Margie?” Queenie asked, fixing her eyes searchingly upon her sister, who at last slowly answered, “No.”
“Neither do I,” was Queenie’s quick rejoinder. “Iknowit is true—knowI am Christine’s daughter by the resemblance I bear to her, just as I know you are a Ferguson by the blue in your eyes and the golden hue of your hair, so like them all, so like to Phil. Oh, Phil! if I could go to him and tell him of my pain.”
There was silence a few moments between the two girls, and it was Queenie who spoke first again.
“Go away now, Margie. My head is not quite straight. Go, and leave me awhile to myself.”
Margery obeyed, thinking that Queenie wished to rest, but such was not her intention, and no sooner was she alone than she arose, and, bolting her door, went to her writing-desk, and taking out several sheets of paper began to write the story which Christine had told her. This done, she took the three letters which she had found among her father’s papers, signed “Tina,” and inclosing the whole in an envelope, directed it to Mr. Beresford. Then, ringing her bell, she asked that Pierre should be sent to her. The old man obeyed the summons at once, for he was very anxious about his young mistress andthe sickness which had come so suddenly upon her. Stepping into the room, he made his bow, and then stood before her in his usual attitude of deference and respect, his head bent forward and his hands clasped, awaiting her orders.
“Sit down, Pierre,” Queenie said. “You need not stand before me now. I have something to tell you, and the sooner I tell it, the better. A dreadful thing has come to light—a dreadful wrong been done to Margery. She is not Miss La Rue. She is that baby born at Rome. She is Margaret Ferguson’s daughter, and I am—am—nobody! My father was Frederick Hetherton, and my mother is Christine Bodine, and they were never legally married. Do you understand me, Pierre?”
He did understand her, and the shock made him reel forward and grasp the back of a chair, to which he held, while he stood staring at his mistress as if to assure himself of her sanity.
“It is true,” she continued, as she met his questioning look of wonder, and then, very rapidly, she told him how it had come to her knowledge, and what she meant to do.
“I will never believe it,” was Pierre’s emphatic reply, when he could speak at all. “It is a lie she told, the bad woman.”
And yet in Pierre’s heart there was a growing fear that what he had heard might be true, but even if it were, it should make no difference with him. He would stand by Queenie against the whole world. Where she went he would go, where she died, he would die, her faithful slave to the last. It did not matter to him whether she were a Hetherton or a Bodine, she was his sovereign, his queen, and he told her so, with many gestures and ejaculations, some of which were far from being complimentary to “La femme Bodine,” as he called her.
“I knew I was sure of you,” Queenie said to him, “and after a little we will go away from here and find ahome somewhere, and I shall learn to work and take care of myself, and you, too, if necessary.”
Pierre shrugged his shoulders significantly at the idea of being taken care of by this little girl who had been reared so tenderly. Queenie noticed the gesture, though she did not seem to, and went on:
“I have written to Mr. Beresford, who will know just what to do, and early to-morrow morning you must take it to him. Say nothing to Miss Margery or any one, but come to my door, quietly, as soon as you are up. I shall be waiting for you. And now go: it is getting late, and I am very tired.”
Pierre obeyed and left her in a most bewildered state of mind, scarcely knowing what he had heard, and not at all able to realize its import. True to his promise, he was at Queenie’s door the next morning before either Margery or her mother were astir, and received the package for Mr. Beresford, and a second and smaller one for Grandma Ferguson. This last Queenie had written after Peirre left her the previous night, and she bade him deliver it.
“There will be no answer to either; at least none for you,” she said, and with a nod that he understood, Pierre hastened away to throw the bomb-shell at the feet of Mr. Beresford and Grandma Ferguson.