CHAPTER XLIX.SISTER CHRISTINE.
So absorbed had Queenie been with Phil that she had failed to notice anything which was passing around her, or to think of anything except her great happiness. She knew that some time during the morning Pierre had brought her coffee and rolls, which he had managed to find somewhere near, he said, and which he made her eat. He had also given her some orders with regard to Phil’s medicines, saying that Madame La Rue bade him do so, and to say that Miss Hetherton must be very particular not to forget. And Queenie had not forgotten that, though all else was a blank to her until Phil went to sleep, and she sat watching him and wondering by what strange chance the sea had given up its dead and restored him to her. Then, as she heard a city clock strike eleven, she began to think how fast the hours had sped, and to wonder a little at Christine’s prolonged absence from the room. And still that did not surprise her much, for she naturally supposed she had gone to some other sick bed, where she was needed more than there with Phil.
“There is a great deal of good in her, and I must always be kind to her because of what she has done for Phil,” she thought, and she felt glad that all the old bitterness and resentment were gone, and that although she could not think of Christine as her mother, she could think of her quietly and calmly as of one who, if she had greatly sinned, had also greatly suffered for the sin and was trying to atone. “Phil and I will take care of her, though she cannot, of course, live with us. She will not expect that;” she thought, and her mind was busy with castles of the future, when Pierre looked in again justfor an instant, and seeing Phil asleep, shut the door at once and went out again before she could ask him a question.
But in the glimpse she got of him, it seemed to her that there was an unusual look of concern upon his face, while through the open door she caught a faint sound of voices in the distance, and footsteps hurrying here and there. What was it? she asked herself, and felt tempted to go out and see, but Phil’s hand was clasping hers and she would not free herself from it lest she should awaken him. So she still sat on till the clock struck twelve and the hum of voices was occasionally borne to her ears by the opening of some door further up the hall. There was somebody in the other part of the house besides Pierre—somebody sick, too; judging from the sounds, and she grew so nervous at last and curious upon the subject, that she gradually withdrew her hand from Phil’s, and rising softly was about to leave the room, when Pierre looked in again, and this time she could not be mistaken with regard to the expression on his face, which was very pale and troubled as it looked wistfully at her.
“What is it, Pierre?” she asked in a whisper, going close to him and observing that he stood against the door as if to keep her from passing. “Whose voices do I hear, and is any one sick? I was just coming to ascertain. Let me pass, please.”
“No, no, mademoiselle. Don’t come. She said you were not to know. We are doing all we can for her.” Pierre cried, in great alarm, thus letting out the secret he had been told to keep.
“Do all you can for her? For whom? Who is it that is sick, and said I must not know?” Queenie asked, as she put the old man aside, and opening the door, drew him with her into the hall. “Now tell me the truth,” she continued. “Is some one sick whom I ought to see? Is it—Christine?”
“Yes,” he answered, “it is Madame Christine, and she is very bad. She will die, the doctor fears, but she said you must not know. You must not leave Mr. Rossiter for her and she sent me many times to see how he was.”
Pierre was right, for in a small room at the end of the hall Christine La Rue was dying. She who had braved so much and borne so much and passed through so many dangers unscathed, had at last succumbed to the terrible disease which she knew was creeping upon her, when she sent for Queenie to share her vigils by Phil’s bedside.
“I must not give up yet; I must endure and bear until he is out of danger. I must save him for her sake,” she thought, and fought down with a desperate courage and iron will the horrid sensations stealing over her so fast and making her sometimes almost beside herself with dizziness and languor.
But when the crisis was past and she felt sure Phil was safe, she could endure it no longer, and with one long, lingering look at Queenie, whom she felt she should never see again, she started for her own lodgings.
“I can die there alone and so trouble no one,” she thought, as she made her way to the staircase.
But on the first landing her strength failed her and she fell upon the floor, where she lay, or rather sat in a half upright position, leaning against the wall with her face in her hands, until a voice roused her and she looked up to see a man standing before her and asking who she was and why she was there. It was the proprietor of the house, who, ashamed of his cowardice, had returned and going first through the rooms below where everything was as he had left it, started to ascend the stair to the chambers above, when he came upon Christine, whom he had often seen on her errands of mercy, but whom he did not recognize until she looked up and spoke to him. Then he knew her, and exclaimed:
“Sister Christine! What are you doing here, and what is the matter with you?”
“I am sick—I have the fever,” she replied; “and if you are afraid, leave me at once.”
He was mortally afraid, but he was not so unmanly as to leave a woman like Christine to die uncared for at the head of his own staircase, and helping her to the nearest room where there was a bed, he started for a physician. Meeting in the lower hall with Pierre, who had been out for Queenie’s coffee, and who explained to him that his house held another patient, he told him of Christine and where she was, bidding him look after her until help came from some other quarter.
But Christine was past all human aid. The disease had attacked her in its worst form, and she knew she should not live to see another sun setting. She was very calm, however, and only anxious for Queenie and Phil.
“They must not be disturbed—they must not know,” she said to Pierre, to whom she gave some orders concerning Phil’s medicines, which Pierre took to his mistress.
“Don’t tell her I am sick; don’t let her know until I am dead. Then tell her I was so glad to die and leave her free, and that I loved her so much, and am so sorry for the past,” she said to Pierre, who, half distracted with all he was passing through, wrung his hands nervously, and promised all she required.
But when Queenie began to suspect, and insisted upon knowing the truth, he told her, adding, as he saw her about to dart away from him toward Christine’s room:
“You better not go there; she does not need you. One of the sisters is with her, and she said you must stay with monsieur. All her anxiety is for him and you—none for herself. She seems so glad to die!”
He might as well have talked to the wind for all the heed Queenie gave him. Bidding him sit by Phil until he awoke, and then come for her if she was needed, shewent quickly to the room where Christine lay, with death stamped on every lineament of her face, but with a calm peaceful expression upon it, which told that she was glad for the end so fast approaching.
When Queenie entered, her eyes were closed, but they opened quickly, and a smile of joy and surprise broke over her face, when Queenie exclaimed:
“Oh, Christine, you are sick, and you did not let me know it, or I should have come before!”
For an instant Christine’s lips quivered in a pitiful kind of way; then the great tears rolled down her cheeks as she whispered faintly:
“Iamsick—I am dying; but I did not want you to know. I wished to spare you and him. How is he now?”
Queenie explained that he was sleeping quietly, and that she believed all danger had passed. Then, sitting down by the bedside, she took the hot, burning hands in hers, and rubbed and bathed them as carefully and gently as if they had been Phil’s, instead of this woman’s, toward whom she had felt so bitter and resentful. All that was gone now, and she was conscious of a strange feeling stirring within her as she sat and met the dying eyes fixed upon her with so much yearning tenderness and love. This woman was her mother. Nothing could change that; and whatever her faults had been, she was a good woman now, Queenie believed; and, as the dim eyes met hers so constantly and appealingly, she bent close to the pillow, and said:
“Mother, I am sorry I was so unforgiving and hard. It came so suddenly. Forgive me if you can.”
A low, pitiful cry was Christine’s only answer for a moment, and then she said:
“I have nothing to forgive; the wrong was all my own, and I deserved your scorn. But oh, Queenie, my child, you can never know how I was deceived, or how wholly I trusted your father whom I loved so much, andafter I had kept Margery’s birth a secret, I must go on concealing. There was no other way. He would have murdered me, or left me to starve with you. Oh, Margery. Margery, my other child! and, Queenie, you will not mind if I say my dearest child, for she has been all the world to me. Tell her so, Queenie; tell her I blessed her with my last breath, and loved her with all my strength, and soul, and might. She is so sweet, so good, so true! God bless her, and make her perfectly happy!”
During this conversation, which was carried on in French, the sister whom the physician had sent to attend Christine stood looking on wonderingly, and never dreaming of the relationship between the two. She was, however, anxious lest so much talking and excitement should be injurious to her patient, and she said so to Queenie, who replied:
“Yes, you are right. I should try to quiet her now. If you will be kind enough to look after the young man in No. 40, I will stay with Sister Christine. She wishes it to be so. She was my nurse in France. I knew her—her—”
Queenie hesitated a moment, and then added:
“Knew her daughter. She was talking of her to me.”
This satisfied the woman, who, bowing assent, went from the room, leaving the two alone.
For a time Christine lay perfectly still, with her eyes closed, but her lips were constantly moving, and Queenie knew that she was praying, for she caught the words:
“Forgive for Christ’s sake, who forgave the thief at the very last hour!”
And all the while Queenie held the hot hands in hers and occasionally smoothed the gray hair back from the pale brow where the sweat of death was gathering so fast. At last Christine opened her eyes and looked fixedly at Queenie, who said to her very gently:
“What is it? Do you wish to tell me something?”
“Yes,” the dying woman answered, faintly. “I hope I am forgiven, and that I shall find rest beyond the grave. I used to pray so much in the cottage when I was alone—pray sometimes all night with my face on the cold floor. But the peace I asked for would not come. There was always a horror of blackness before me until I came here, when the darkness has been clearing, and now there is peace and joy, for I feel that God forgives me all my sin, and you, my child, have forgiven me too, and called memother, and Phil is alive and safe. I’ve nothing more to live for, and I am so glad to die.”
She talked but little after that, and when she did speak her mind was wandering in the past, now at Chateau des Fleurs, now in Rome, where she watched by her mistress’ bedside, but mostly in Marseilles, where her baby was born, “her darling little girl baby,” whom she bade Queenie be kind to when she was gone. Then she talked of Margery and Paris, and the apartments in the Rue St. Honore, until her voice was only a whisper, and Queenie could not distinguish a word. She was dying very fast, and just at the last, before her life went out forever, Queenie bent over her, and kissing her softly, whispered:
“Mother, do you know that I am here—Queenie—your little girl?”
“Yes, yes,” she gasped, and a look of unutterable love and satisfaction shone in the eyes which looked up at Queenie. “I knowyou are Queenie—the baby born at Marseilles—my own—and you kiss me and call memother. God bless you, my child, and make you very happy. I am glad for your sake that I am going away. Good-by, my darling, good-by!”
She never spoke again, though it was an hour or more before Queenie loosed her hold of the hand which clung so tightly to hers, and closing the eyes which looked at her to the last, smoothed the bed-clothes decently, andthen going out to Pierre, who was waiting in the hall, told him that all was over.
Sister Christine was dead, and there was mourning for her in the city where she was so well known, and where her kindness and gentleness and courage had won her so many friends, some of whom followed her remains to their last resting-place, and wept for her as one long known and well beloved. Every respect which it was possible under the circumstances to pay her was paid to her. Many gathered about the grave where they buried her, just after the sun setting on the same day of her death. It was Queenie who prepared her for the coffin, suffering no other hands to touch her but her own.
“She nursed me when I was a baby, and I must care for her now,” she said to Sister Agatha, when she remonstrated with her and offered to take the task from her hands.
And to Queenie it was a mournful pleasure thus to care for the woman who had been her mother, and who, she felt, was truly good and repentant at the last.
“I am glad I feel so kindly toward her—glad I called her mother,” she thought, and was conscious of a keen pain in her heart as she looked upon the white dead face on which suffering and remorse had left their marks.
Notwithstanding the hour and her own fatigue, Queenie was among the number who stood by the open grave where all that was mortal of Christine was buried, and she would not leave until the grave was filled and all the work was done. Then, taking Pierre’s arm, she went back to the hotel, and going to Phil’s room laid her tired head upon the hands he stretched toward her and cried bitterly, while Phil soothed and caressed her until she grew quiet and could tell him all the particulars of Christine’s death.
“There was much that was noble and good in her,”she said, “and had she lived I would have tried to do right, and with you to help and encourage me I might have succeeded.”
“Yes,” Phil answered her, “I am sure you would; but it is better for her to be at rest.”
And Phil was right; for had Christine lived she could only have been a source of unhappiness to Queenie, who, with the best of intentions, could never fully have received her as a mother. God knew best, and took to himself the weary woman, who had been more sinned against than sinning, and whose memory was held in the hearts of those whose lives she had been instrumental in saving as the memory of a saint.