CHAPTER XXXV.MARGERY AND HER MOTHER.
For a full quarter of an hour after Reinette’s departure Margery sat motionless, with her head bent down, thinking of all the incidents of her past life as connected with her mother, and recalling here and there certain acts which, viewed in the new light shed upon them, seemed both plain andmysterious. Buzzing through Margery’s brain, and almost driving her mad, was the same suspicion which had at times so disturbed Reinette, but, like Reinette, she fought it down. But not for the dead man whose costly monument was gleaming cold and white in the grave-yard of Merrivale. He was nothing to her, save as the father of her friend, who, for his daughter’s sake, had been kind to her so far as money was concerned. But it was for the woman up stairs, her mother, that her heart was aching so, and the hot blood pouring so swiftly through her veins. To lose faith in her whom she had believed so good, and who had taught her always that truth and purity were more to be prized than all the wealth in the world, would be terrible. And yet that mother’s life had for years been one of concealment, for which she could see no excuse. That given to Queenie was not the true reason. There was something else, “and I must know what it is,” she thought, “even if it kills me.”
Starting to her feet at last, and forgetting how weak and sick her mother was, she went half way up the stairs and called:
“Mother, will you come down, or shall I come up?”
The voice was not the same which Mrs. La Rue knew as Margery’s. There was a hardness and sternness in it which boded no good to her, and a mortal terror took possession of her as she thought:
“My hour has come. She will wring it from me. Well, no matter. It will be better for her, perhaps.”
“Say, mother, will you come down, or shall I come up?” came again from Margery, and this time Mrs. La Rue replied:
“Oh, Margery, Margery! not yet—not yet! Spare me a little longer. I have been so tried and worried. I am not quite right in my head; wait awhile before you come, dear Margery.”
There was a world of pathos in those two words—“dearMargery”—pathos and pleading both, as if the mother were asking mercy from her child. And Margery recognized the meaning, but her heart did not soften or relent. Indeed, she could not understand herself, or define the strange feeling which had taken possession of her and was urging her on to know what it was her mother had hidden so long and so successfully.
But she did not then go up; she waited awhile, and going to the kitchen, prepared a tempting dinner, which she arranged upon a tray, and then took to the room, where Mrs. La Rue still sat just as Reinette had left her, her face as white as marble, her eyes blood-shot and dim, and her whole attitude that of a guilty culprit awaiting its punishment.
And she was awaiting hers, and when the first blow came in the person of Margery bringing her the nicely-prepared dinner, she seemed to shrivel up in her chair, and her head dropped upon her breast. But she did not speak, and when Margery drew a little table to her side, and placing the tray upon it, poured out her tea and held it to her lips, she swallowed it mechanically, as she did the food pressed upon her. At last, however, she could take no more, and putting up her hand, she made a gesture of dissent, and whispered faintly:
“Enough!”
How sick and old, and crushed she looked! But for this Margery would not spare her; and when, after taking the dinner away, she returned to her mother, and sat down where Queenie had sat, she said:
“Now, tell me.”
“Tell you what?” Mrs. La Rue asked, and Margery replied.
“Tell me the whole truth, every word of it, as you did not tell it to Queenie.”
“What did I tell her?” Mrs. La Rue said, in a bewildered kind of way, as if the events of the last few hours were really a blank to her.
“You told her you were Christine Bodine, her former nurse,” Margery began, and her mother interrupted her with:
“And I am, Margery; that was the truth. I was Christine Marie La Mille Bodine; but I dropped the first name and the last, and for years was only Marie La Mille.”
“Yes, I know,” Margery returned. “You deceived me with regard to your name, and you kept your identity a secret from Reinette when you knew how much she wished to find you, and you gave her as a reason that you feared lest she would think less of me if she knew I was the child of one who had once served her mother.”
“Yes, that’s it—that’s it, Margie!” Mrs. La Rue gasped, as she clutched the skirt of Margery’s gown and rubbed it caressingly.
“Mother,” Margery said, and her voice was low and stern, “that excuse might do for Queenie, but not for me, who knows all our past life. There is something you are keeping from me, and which I must know. What is it? Why were you afraid to let Queenie know who you were?”
“There is nothing—nothing—believe me, Margie, nothing,” Mrs. La Rue said, still caressing the gown, as if she would thus appease her daughter, who continued:
“Yes, there is something; there has been asomethingalways since I can remember. I see it now—your fits of abstraction, your moods of melancholy, amounting almost to insanity, and which have increased in frequency since we came to America and met Reinette. The money you received at stated times was from her father, was it not?”
“Ye-es,” came in a whisper from Mrs. La Rue’s white lips, and Margery went on:
“You must then have always known his whereabouts. When we lived in Paris, and father was alive you knewthat Mr. Hetherton was there in the city, too; and did you ever see him?”
“Never—never! He would have spurned me like a dog,” Mrs. La Rue answered, energetically, and Margery continued:
“But you knew he was there, and when Queenie came to me that day when I wore her scarlet cloak and she my faded plaid, you knew who she was, and did not speak?”
“Yes, I knew who she was, and did not speak,” moaned Mrs. La Rue, and Margery went on:
“And when I was at school with her, and her father paid the bills, and when I visited her at the chateau, you knew, and did not tell me. But did you tell my father? Did he know who Queenie was?—know of Mr. Hetherton?”
“No, he did not,” Mrs. La Rue replied, “nor was it necessary. I was a faithful wife to him, and there was no need for him to know.”
“Mother,” Margery began, after a moment’s pause, “why did you wish to hide from Queenie who you were? I have a right to know. I am your daughter, and if there has been any wrong I can share it with you. I would rather know the exact truth than think the horrible things I may think, if you do not tell me. Why did you take another name than your own, and why did you not reveal your self to Queenie, but leave her to grope in the dark for what she so much wished to find? Tell me. I insist upon knowing.”
Driven to the last extremity, and forgetting herself in her distress, Mrs. La Rue replied:
“I had sworn not to do it; had taken a solemn vow never to let Queenie know who I was.”
“Had made a vow? Had sworn not to do it? Who made you swear? Who required that vow from you? Was it Mr. Hetherton?” Margery asked, and her mother replied:
“Yes, Mr. Hetherton; curse him in his grave! He has been my ruin. I was so happy and innocent until I knew him. He wrung the vow from me: he paid me money to keep it; he——”
She stopped here, appalled by the look on Margery’s face—a look which made her cower and tremble as she had never trembled and cowered before.
Wrenching her dress away from the hands which still held it, and drawing herself back, Margery demanded:
“Tell me what you mean? You have said strange things to me, mother. You have talked of ruin, and innocence, and money paid for silence, and as your daughter I have a right to know what you mean. And you must tell me, too, before I look on Queenie’s face again. What is it, mother? What was the secret between you and Mr. Hetherton? What have you done, which you would hide from me? Speak, and I will forgive you, even if it brings disgrace to me. If you do not tell, and suffer me to live on with these horrid suspicions torturing me to madness, I can never touch your hand again in love, or think of you as I have done.”
She had risen from her chair, and stood with folded arms looking down upon the wretched woman, who moaned:
“Do not, Margie, do not drive me to tell, for the telling will involve so much—so much! Some will be disgraced and others benefited; do not make me tell, please do not.”
She stretched her arms toward Margery, who stood immovable as a rock, and said, with a hard ring in her voice:
“Disgrace to me, I suppose. Well, I can bear that better than suspense and uncertainty.”
“No, Margie, not disgrace to you, thank Heaven! not disgrace to you in the way you think,” Mrs. La Rue cried.
And with this horrid fear lifted from her mind, Margery came nearer to her mother, and said:
“If there is no disgrace for me, then tell me at once what it is. I shall never leave this room till I know.”
“Then listen.”
And raising herself erect in her chair, while the blood came surging back to her face, and her eyes flashed with the fire of a maniac, Mrs. La Rue continued:
“Listen; but sit down first. The story is long, and you will need all your strength before it is through. Sit down,” and she pointed to a chair, into which Margery sank mechanically, while a strange, prickling sensation ran through her frame, and she felt a sickening dread of what she was to hear.
“I am ready,” she said; but her voice was the fainter now of the two, for her mother’s was calm and steady as she commenced the story, which she told in all its details, beginning at the day when she first saw Mr. Hetherton’s advertisement for a waiting-maid for his wife.
For a time the story was pleasant enough to listen to, for Mrs. La Rue dwelt at length upon the goodness and sweetness of her mistress, who trusted her so implicitly; but at last there came a change, and Margery’s eyes grew dark with horror and pain, and her cheek paled, as she listened to a tale which curdled the blood in her veins and seemed turning her into stone.
Without the sleety rain was beating in gusts against the windows, and the wind, which had risen since noon, roared down the chimney and shook every loosened blind and casement, but was unheard by the young girl, who, with a face like the faces of the dead and hands locked so tightly together that the blood came through the flesh where the nails were pressing, sat immovable, listening to the story told her by the woman, whose eyes were closed as she talked, and whose words flowed on so rapidly as if to utter them were a relief and eased the terrible remorse which had gnawed at her heart so long.
Had she looked at the girl before her she might have paused, for there was something awful in the expression of Margery’s face as she listened, until the story was ended, when, with a cry like one in mortal pain, she threw up both her hands and fell heavily to the floor, while purple spots came out upon her face, and the white froth, flecked with blood, oozed from her livid lips.
Margery knew the secret of Christine Bodine!