CHAPTER XLIQUEENIE LEARNS THE TRUTH.
This was not at all the way in which Queenie had intended to commence. She was going to come to it gradually, or, as she had expressed it to herself, “hunt Christine down.” But when she saw her, her hot, passionate temper rose up at once, and she blurted out what she knew and then waited the result. It was different from what she anticipated. She had expected Christine to crouch at once at her feet and, cowering before her, confess her guilt and sue for pity and pardon.
But Christine did nothing of the sort. Quiet and gentle as she usually seemed, there was still in her a fierce fiery spirit, which, when roused, was something akin to the demon which ruled Queenie in her moods. When charged with being Christine Bodine she was worn in mind and body, and had shown only nervousness and agitation, for Queenie had not approached her then as she did now. There was no disgust, no hatred, in her manner when she said: “You are Christine, my old nurse.” She had merely been excited and reproachful; butnowshe was angry, and attacked the woman with so much bitterness, and shrunk away from her with so much loathing that Christine was roused to defend herself, though at first she was stricken dumb when she heard of the letters which she remembered so well, and which would tell what she had kept so long.
Standing but a few feet from Queenie she gazed at her a moment, with a pallid face, on which all the worst emotions of her nature were visible. And when at last she spoke, it was not in the low, half-deprecating, apologetic voice habitual to her, but the tone was loud and clear, and defiant, in which she said:
“What letters have you seen, and where did you find them?”
Her manner, so different from what had been expected, made Queenie still more angry, and she replied with all the sternness and dignity it was possible for her to assume:
“It does not matter to you where I found them. It is sufficient that Ihavefound them, and know your barefaced treachery, and how you must have deceived my mother who trusted you so implicitly, and who died, believing you to be good, and honest, and true to her, when all the time you were vile and low. You knew when you held her dying head upon your bosom what you were at heart, and yet you dared lay your hands on her dead form, dared care for her baby, and kiss it with lips which never shall meet mine again, and then you wrote to my father and called yourself hislittle Tina, as if you really supposed he could care for you! Men like him never love women like you, and my father was not an exception. He cast you off as we do a worn-out garment; he hated the thoughts of you, hated himself, and repented so bitterly.
“I see it all now, and understand his remorse on shipboard before he died. He was thinking of the past, and his thoughts were like a scorpion, stinging him to madness and making him long to confess to me the wrong he had done. But he could not, weak as he was then and worn; he could not tell me, when he knew how much I loved and honored him, but he made me promise solemnly to forgive him if I ever found it out, and I promised, and I’ll keep the promise, too, though just now, I feel hard and bitter toward him, and were he living I should rebel against him so hotly and say I never could forgive him, as I never can you, whom I loved and respected, but whom I now know to be false in everything. You have made me believe alie, from first to last, until I can credit nothing you have told me, and am ready to doubt if your name is really La Rue, or if that man were your husband.”
“Hewasmy husband. I never deceived you there,” Christine exclaimed.
“But he was not Margery’s father,” Reinette continued, holding her breath for the answer, which did not come at once.
While she had been talking so rapidly, Christine had stood rigid and immovable, with a strange look upon her face and a gleam in her eyes such as mad people sometimes wear when they are becoming dangerous. Queenie’s sudden and unexpected attack had so confounded and bewildered Christine that she felt her brain reeling, and was conscious of a feeling as if she were losing control of herself and should not long be responsible for what she said. When Queenie spoke of M. La Rue as one who possibly was not her husband, she roused in her own defense and answered; but at Queenie’s next question she hesitated, while the blood came surging into her face, which was almost purple in spots, before she replied.
“No, he wasnotMargery’s father,” and the woman’s voice was hard and pitiless, while the gleam in her eye was wilder and more like a maniac as she went on:
“Queenie Hetherton, if you drive me too far I may say what I shall be sorry for and what you will be sorry to hear. The worm will turn when trodden upon, and a miserable wretch like me will not be pressed too sorely without trying to defend herself. I am wicked and sinful, it is true; but in one sense I was not false to Mrs. Hetherton, and God knows what I have suffered—knows of the years of anguish and remorse when I would have so gladly undone the past if I could; but it was too late. You have found those letters, it seems. Your father was foolish to keep them; he ought to have burned them, asI did his; but—but—the fact that he did not tells me he cared more for me than I supposed—that in his proud heart there was something which bound him to me lowly born as I am,” and over Christine’s face as she said this there came a smile of pleasure and gratification in the thought that Frederick Hetherton had kept her letters, even though they had failed to produce any result.
The look made Queenie angrier than she had been before, for she interpreted it aright, and her pride rose up against it.
“My father never cared for you,” she said. “It was only a fancy, which would never have existed at all if you had not tried to attract him.”
“It is false!” Mrs. La Rue exclaimed, taking a step forward, with flashing eyes, before which even Queenie quailed. “It is false. I didnottry to attract him at first, but he noticed and talked to and flattered me until my head he turned and I thought all things possible. The wrong was on his side. I was not bad nor had a thought of badness in my heart, and you, Queenie, of all others, should not speak to me as you have done. Margery did not, and hers is the greater wrong.”
“Then you have told Margery!” Reinette exclaimed, and before Mrs. La Rue could answer, Margery herself came to the door asking:
“Did you call me, Queenie? I thought I heard my name.”
“No, no,” Mrs. La Rue almost screamed, as she turned like a tigress upon Margery. “Go away, I tell you, go away. I am losing my senses, and with you both standing here, and Queenie talking to me as she has talked, I shall tell what I have sworn not to tell. Go away, Margery—go!”
But Margery did not move except to advance a little farther into the room, where she stood, with a blanched cheek and wondering, frightened eyes, gazing first at hermother and then at Queenie, who stretched her arms toward her and, with quivering lips and a voice full of unutterable pathos and love, said:
“You are mysister. Come to me.”
But Margery did not move, and her face grew whiter and more death-like, as she whispered to her mother:
“What does she mean? Have you told her? Does she know it all, and still call mesister?”
“Hush, Margie. No, she does not know it all,” Mrs. La Rue replied; and, sinking into a chair and bowing her head upon her hands, Margery exclaimed:
“Thank God for that! Oh, Queenie, I don’t know what you know or how you learned it; but if you love me, if you care for your own happiness, seek to know no more. Let the matter end here. If you believe I am your sister, love me as such; I shall be content with that.”
She did not look up, but sat with her head bowed down as if with grief or shame. Queenie thought it the latter, and crossed the room to where Margery sat, and, kneeling beside her, wound both arms around her neck and said:
“Margie, I know you are my father’s child, and I love you so dearly that this shall make no difference with me. You were not to blame, my darling. You had no part in the wrong; it was my father, may God forgive him, and this woman, who I am sorry to say is your mother, and whom I cannot forgive.”
“This woman!” and Christine’s voice rang out awfully clear and distinct, as she threw her arm toward the two girls. “Say no more ofthis woman, nor pity Margery because she is her mother; Margery’s parentage is as good as yours. Yes, better—better, Queenie Hetherton, for she is Frederick Hetherton’sownchild, and you—”
She did not finish the sentence, for, with a wild cry, Margery put Queenie’s clinging arms from herneck, and rushing to Christine, laid her hand upon her lips.
“Mother, mother,” she cried, in a voice of intense entreaty, “are you mad? Have you forgotten your vow, your promise to me? Will you kill Queenie outright?”
“Kill her? No. She is not the kind which such things kill,” Christine answered, fiercely, as she pushed Margery from her. “You ask if I am crazy. Yes, and well I may be—I, who have kept this horrible secret for so many years. Twenty and more—twenty and more; kept it since you were born. How old are you, Margery? How long since you were born in Rome? There’s a buzzing in my brain, and I do not quite remember.”
She was softening a little, and taking advantage of this Margery took her hand to lead her from the room, saying very gently. “Poor mother, you are not right to-day. Come with me and rest; and you, Queenie, don’t mind anything she may have said. She is not responsible when she is this way.”
“But I do mind,” Queenie said, stepping before the door through which Margery would have passed. “Idomind, and I cannot forget. Christine has said strange things to and of me—things she must explain. If you are Frederick Hetherton’s own child, as she affirms, and were born at Rome,who am I?”
“I tell you she is not in her right mind, and you are not to believe what she says,” Margery replied, trying to put Queenie aside, so that she might lead her mother from the room.
But Queenie kept her place by the door, against which she leaned heavily, while her breath came in quick gasps, and her voice was unsteady as she said again, and this time to Christine, whose eyes were fastened upon her, holding her by a strange spell she could not resist.
“Tell me, Christine, as you hope for pardon hereafterwhen you stand with me face to face with God, is Margery my sister?”
“Yes, Margery is your sister,” Mrs. La Rue replied, still holding Queenie with her awful eyes. “Margery is your sister—your father’s child.”
“My father’s own lawful child?” was the next question, and then Margery cried out, “Oh, mother, have pity; remember all it involves!”
“Hush, Margery. Be still, and let me know the worst,” Reinette said, lifting her hand with the manner of one who would be obeyed at any cost. “Tell me, Christine,” she continued, “Is Margery the lawful child of Frederick Hetherton?”
“Yes, she is.”
“And was she born in Rome?”
“Yes, she was born in Rome, and her mother was Margaret Ferguson,” Christine replied, without the slightest quaver in her voice or change of expression in her pitiless face.
Margery had released her hold of the woman’s arm and sank upon the floor, where she sat with her knees drawn up, her arms encircling them, her head resting upon them, and her whole body trembling as with an ague chill. She had done all she could to avert the calamity. She had tried to save Queenie from the blow which she knew would fall so crushingly, and she had failed. Her mother was a maniac for the time being, and was doing what she had sworn never to do. She was telling Queenie, and Margery was powerless to prevent it.
“Margaret Ferguson’s daughter!” Queenie repeated in a whisper, which, low as it was, sounded distinctly through the room, and told how the young girl’s heart was wrung with a mortal fear as she continued: “then who am I, and who are you?”
For a moment there was a death-like silence in the room, for Christine, half crazed though she was, shrankfrom declaring what she knew would be the bitterest dreg in all the bitter cup. How could she tell the truth to that young girl who had been so proud of her blood and of her birth, and who even in her pain, when every limb was quivering with nervous dread and excitement, stood up so erect before her like one born to command. But she must do it now; she had gone too far to recede—had told too much not to tell the whole, and when Queenie asked again, “who am I, and who are you?” she answered, “I am your mother;” but she said it very softly and low, for her heart was full of a great pity for the girl, over whose face there came that pallid, grayish look which comes upon the face of the dying when the death pang is hard to bear, and who writhed a moment in agony as the insect writhes when put upon the coals.
She was still looking fixedly at Christine, though she did not see her, for there was a blackness before her wide-open, staring eyes, and in her ears there was a sound like the roar of many waters, when the skies overhead are angry and dark. For a second the scene around her had vanished away. She did not see Margery upon the floor, with her arms still encircling her knees and her head bowed upon them—did not see the woman standing so near to her, and who had spoken those terrible words, but strangely enough saw the far-off Indian sea and Phil’s white face as it sank beneath the waves with a wild cry for her upon his lips. Mechanically she put up her hand to brush that vision away, and then the present came back to her with all its horror so much worse than the death of Phil had been, and she remembered the words Christine had spoken, “I am your mother!”
“My-my-my-m-mo-th-er,” she tried to say when she could speak, but the words died away upon her white, quivering lips in a kind of babbling sound, which was succeeded by a hysterical laugh so nearly resembling imbecility that Margery looked up, and a cold shuddercurdled her blood as she saw the face from which all resemblance to Queenie had vanished, and on which that ghastly, meaningless laugh was still visible.
Struggling to her feet she wound her arm around Queenie, saying to her mother, as she did so:
“You have destroyed her intellect. You have made her an imbecile.”
But Margery was mistaken. Queenie’s mind was not destroyed, though for many hours she remained in that condition, when her reason seemed to be tottering and her white lips had no power to frame the words she wished to say. They did not send for a physician, though it was Christine’s wish to do so; but Margery said:
“No, we will not parade this secret before the world. I can bring her to herself if any one can, and when I do I shall, if possible, persuade her that it is all a delusion of her brain—that she did not hear aright. Oh, why did you tell her? Why did you break your promise?”
“Because I was angry, was crazy, and did not know what I said,” Christine replied. “Her manner toward me provoked me more than her words, and roused in me a demon which would not be quieted, and so I told her all; and I am glad, for now I carry no dreadful secret to make my days so full of pain and my nights one long black horror. I have told the truth, and can call her my daughter now—my child—for she is my own flesh and blood—the little black-haired creature which lay in my arms and flashed her bright eyes on me—onme—her mother.”
And as she said this, Mrs. La Rue’s face glowed with excitement and her eyes shone with all the fire of her fresh girlhood when Frederick Hetherton had told her she was pretty. Margery had been dear to her as her own life, which she would at any time have given for the girl whom she had so wronged: but with her confession there had swept over her a great wave of motherly love and tenderness for the poor little girlwho, in her own room, whither Margery had taken her, sat in the great easy-chair, motionless as a stone, with her hands lying helplessly upon her lap, and her eyes, from which all the sparkle and brightness were gone, looking always from the window across the snow-clad hills and meadows to the spot where the tall evergreens marked the burial-place of the dead. Sometimes Margery went and spoke to her. But Queenie did not answer until late in the afternoon, when Margery came and stood between her and the window. Then she said, entreatingly:
“Move away, please. I am looking over to where father lies, and thinking of all he said to me before he died. Oh, Margie,” and the poor little white face quivered and the voice was very sad and piteous, “Is a lie to the dead worse than a lie to the living? I told him I would forgive him, whatever it was, and I cannot, I cannot, and my heart is so bitter and hard toward him andher, and all the world exceptyou. Oh, Margie, Margie, you will not turn against me? You will love me just a little, I could not help it, and I love you so much. I would have stood byyouin the face of the whole world; stand by me, Margie, will you?”
She was looking at Margery with her heavy, pleading eyes, and her hands were lifted in supplication as she spoke, while her voice told how abased and humiliated she felt. In a moment Margery knelt beside her and was covering the hands with tears and kisses as she said: “Queenie, Queenie, my love, my darling, will I stand by you? Will I love you? As well ask if the sun will rise again as to question my love for you,my sister. It is very sweet to call you thus, even though a shadow lies over us now; but that will pass away. There is brightness beyond and happiness, too—and, Queenie, you must not believe all mother said. She is not in her right senses.
“She knows it now, and wonders at herself. Youmay believe I am your sister, but not the rest—the part which touched you the closest—because—because——”
“Hush, Margery,” Queenie said, withdrawing her hands from Margery and leaning back wearily in her chair. “You cannot deceive me.Iam that child born in Marseilles. Margaret Ferguson was your mother; Christine Bodine is mine.”
Here a shudder ran through Queenie’s frame so long and deep that her teeth chattered as if she were seized with a chill, and both her hands and lips were purple with cold.
After a pause she continued:
“I think the hardest part of all is losing faith in father. I cannot forgive him, though I promised him I would. If he had left me in obscurity, where I belonged, it would have been better; but now the fall has crushed me utterly. And, Margery, what of you? How came you in that position—you, the lawful daughter of the house, while I, was raised to such a giddy height of prosperity that in my foolish pride I held myself better than the most of mankind? Why was it? Do you know?”
“Yes,” Margery replied; “but it will be better for mother to tell you.”
“Mother! Do you call her that still?” Queenie asked, and her voice expressed all the bitter scorn which she then felt for the woman who had so injured her.
“Yes, I call her mother still,” Margery answered, softly. “She is all the mother I have ever known, she was more sinned against than sinning. She did not understand what she was doing. She is not a bad woman. Our father was the most in fault, for she was young and ignorant and foolish enough to believe that she was his wife. She is purer far than manya woman of to-day who stands high in society, and before whom the world bows down because of her position.”
Margery was pleading for the woman who had done the greater wrong to her, and Queenie listened wonderingly, while there came back to her some words her father had said to her when dying: “If you find your mother, remember I was more to blame than she.” Shehadfound her, but she could not at once forgive her, but she said at last: “Where is she, Margie? Ask her to come up.”