CHAPTER XXXVIII.MOURNING FOR PHIL.
It was very bitter and deep, and all the more so because the blow had fallen so suddenly, without a note of warning. At the Knoll there was a small and select dinner party the evening the letter came. Some friends from Boston were visiting in the house, and Mrs. Rossiter had invited a few of the villagers to meet them, and in her evening dress of claret velvet, with diamonds in her ears and at her throat, she looked as lovely and almost as young as in her early girlhood when she won the heart of the grave and silent Paul Rossiter. Dinner had been over some little time, and she was standing with her guests in the drawing-room when the fatal letter was brought toher. She saw it was from Madras, and that the handwriting was a stranger’s; and though it was directed to her husband, who immediately after dinner had wandered off to his conservatories, where he spent most of his time, she opened it unhesitatingly, feeling sure that it contained tidings of her son, and feeling, too, with that subtle intuition which so often precedes dreadful news, that the tidings were not good. But she was not prepared to hear that Phil was dead; and when she read that he would never return to her again, she gave one long, agonizing shriek, and dropped upon the floor in a faint so nearly resembling death that for a little while they feared she was really dead. Fortunately the family physician was among the guests, and so relief was immediate, or she might never have returned to consciousness, so terrible was the shock to her nervous system. For hours she passed from one fainting fit into another, and when these were over lay in a kind of semi-stupor, moaning at intervals:
“Oh, my boy! my Phil, my darling—dead—gone from me forever—my boy, my boy!”
If Mrs. Rossiter had a weakness it was her love for her son. Phil had been her idol, and if her husband and both her daughters had lain dead at her feet and Phil had been spared to her, she would not have felt so badly as she did now when she still had husband and daughters, but Phil was not. Nothing availed to soothe or quiet her, and the house which had heretofore been so bright and cheerful, and full of gayety, became a house of sorrow and gloom. The servants trod softly through the silent halls, and spoke only in whispers to each other, while Ethel and Grace, with traces of bitter weeping upon their fair, sweet faces, sat from morning till night with folded hands looking hopelessly at each other as if paralyzed by the awful calamity which had fallen upon them. They were of no use to their mother, who lay in her darkened room, refusing to see any one except herhusband, whom she kept constantly with her, and who gave no sign of what he thought or felt. Quiet, patient all enduring, he sat by his wife’s bedside and listened to her moans, and did what she bade him do; left her when she said so; returned to her when she sent for him, and if he felt pain or grief himself uttered no word, and never mentioned Philip’s name.
Of Mr. Rossiter we have said comparatively nothing, as he has but little to do with the story, except as the father of Phil. He was a very peculiar man—silent, unsocial, undemonstrative, and, save for his love and admiration for his wife, apparently indifferent to everything except his four conservatories, and what they contained. Had he been poor and obliged to earn his own living he would unquestionably have been a gardener, so fond was he of flowers and plants of every kind. He had walked miles through the tangled glades of Florida, hunting for some new specimens of ferns or pitcher-plants, and his greenhouses were full of exotics from every clime. Here, and in the room adjoining, where he kept his catalogues and books of pressed leaves and flowers, he spent most of his time, and if beguiled away from his favorites for a few moments he was always in a hurry to return to them. It was in one of his conservatories that the news of his son’s death reached him. After dinner was over he had asked his gentlemen guests to go with him and see a new kind of fern, gathered the previous autumn in some of the neighboring swamps, and he was talking most eloquently of its nature and habits when his wife’s shriek reached him, and the next moment a servant rushed in, exclaiming:
“Oh sir, come quick, Mrs. Rossiter has fainted, and Mr. Philip is drowned.”
“Drowned! My son drowned! Did you say Philip was dead? It will go hard with his poor mother,” hesaid very calmly, as he put the pot of ferns carefully back in its place.
But the hands which held the pot trembled, and the palms were wet with great drops of sweat, as he went slowly to the room where his wife lay in a swoon. He was a small man, and weak, too, it would seem, but it was he who lifted the fainting woman up and bore her to her chamber and loosened her dress, and took the diamonds from her throat and ears, and the flowers from her hair, as quickly and skillfully as her daughters could have done. There was a good deal of Phil in his nature, and he showed it in his womanly and quiet manner at the sick bed.
“Poor Mary, I am so sorry for you,” he said, and pressed his lips to the forehead of his wife, who clung to him as a child in pain clings to its mother.
But there were no tears in his eyes, as the days passed by, no change in his manner, as he went about his usual vocations and watered his ferns and tended his orchids and picked off the dead leaves from the roses and carnations, and smoked the lilies and roses on which insects were gathering.
“Where have you been so long?” his wife asked him once, when he came to her after an absence of more than an hour.
“Been watering my ferns,” was his reply, and with a half reproachful sob his wife continued:
“Oh, Paul, how can you care for such things with Philip dead?”
“I don’t know, Mary” he answered, apologetically. “I am sorry if I have done anything out of character; the little things seem so glad for the water, and if I was to let every fern, and orchid, and pitcher-plant die, it would not bring Philip back.”
Had he then no feeling, no sorrow for his son? Mrs. Rossiter almost thought so; but that night waking suddenly from a quiet sleep, she missed him from her sideand raising herself in bed, saw him across the room by the window, where the moonlight was streaming in, kneeling upon the floor with his face buried in a pillow he had lain upon a chair, the better to smother the sobs which seemed almost to rend his soul from his body, they were so deep and pitiful.
“Phil, Phil, my boy, how can I live without him? I was so proud of him and loved him so much. Oh, Phil, they think me cold and callous, because I cannot talk and moan as others do, but God knows my bitter pain. God help me, and Mary, too. Poor Mary, who was his mother, and loved him, maybe, more than I did. God comfort her and help her to bear, no matter what I suffer.”
This was what Mrs. Rossiter heard, and in a moment she was beside the prostrate man—her arms were around his neck, and his bowed head was laid against her bosom, while she kissed his quivering lips again and again, as she said to him:
“Forgive me, Paul, if I have been so selfish in my own grief as not to see how you, too, have suffered. Phil was our own boy, Paul; we loved him together, we will mourn for him together, and comfort each other, and love each other better because we have lost him.”
Then Paul Rossiter broke down and cried as few men ever cry, and sobbed till it seemed as if his heart would break, while his wife, now the stronger and calmer of the two, supported him, and tried to comfort him. There was perfect accord and confidence between the husband and wife after that, and Mrs. Rossiter roused herself to something like cheerfulness and interest in the world about her for the sake of the man who, except to her, never mentioned Philip’s name, but who grew old and gray and bent so fast and sometimes even forgot to water his ferns and let them dry and wither in their pots, where they might have died but for his wife, whotook charge of them herself, and gave them the care they needed.
Like their father, Ethel and Grace were very quiet in their grief, which was not the less acute for that. A thought of Phil was always in their hearts, though they never spoke of him voluntarily, and always changed the conversation as soon as possible when his name was mentioned. But oh, how they missed him everywhere: missed his quick, springing step upon the walk as he came in, bright, and fresh, and gay, from doing nothing—his cheery whistle, or snatches of song, or his playful badinage, and all the thousand little acts by which a good, kind brother can make himself beloved. If they could have seen him dead—if his body could have been brought home and buried in quiet Merrivale, under the shadows of the pines, where they could have kept his grave bright with flowers and watered it with their tears—it would have been some solace for their pain. But alas! he had no grave, no resting-place, save those deep, dark Eastern waters, and who could tell what horrid monster of the deep might have torn and mangled his manly form ere it reached the bottom of the sea! It was too horrible to think of; and the faces of his mother and sisters grew whiter and thinner each day, for each day they missed more and more the young man who had been the sunlight of their home.
Poor Grandma Ferguson, too, was completely prostrated at first with the suddenness of the blow, and could only sit and cry like a little child for the boy whom she had loved so dearly, and who had always been kind and affectionate to her.
“No matter if I ain’t nothin’ but a homespun, uneddicated critter; he never acted an atom ashamed of me, and when he had some high young city bucks visitin’ him he allus brought ’em to see me and get some of my strawberry short-cake or mince pies,” she said to a neighbor who was trying to comfort her. “He never sassedme but once, and then he was a boy, and didn’t know no better, and he was sorry, too,” she said; and she went on to relate the circumstances of his coming to her the night before he went away to school, and asking her forgiveness for the rude words he had said to her, when she kissed him and called him her baby.
He was her only grandson, and her heart was very sore and full of pain; and, laying aside her brown silk dress, which she had thought to wear at Anna’s wedding, she clothed herself in deepest black, and thought and talked of nothing but her boy, her Phil, “drownded in the Ingies.”
As for Anna, she cried herself into a sick headache the first day, and declined to see the major, when he called. But she received him the next day, and was a good deal comforted by the beautiful necklace and pendant of onyx and pearls he brought to her with a view to assuage her grief, which was not very lasting. She liked Phil well enough, and his sudden death was a great shock to her, but she liked the major better, or, rather, she liked the costly presents he made her, and the position he would give her when she became his wife, as she expected to do in a few weeks. The grand wedding, however, which she was intending to have, must now be given up; and this, perhaps, added a little to her sorrow and regret for Phil’s untimely end.
Outside of his family, too, there was deep mourning for the young man who had been so popular with every one, and of whom it was said that he had not a single enemy. But nowhere was there a heart so full of pain and remorse as at Hetherton Place where Queenie shut herself in her room and refused to see any one except Margery and Pierre.
She had read with a fresh burst of anguish Phil’s letter written her from Madras—a letter full of tenderness and love, showing how he kept her still in his heart as the dearest, sweetest memory of his life, and at theclose containing a few words of passionate entreaty that she would overcome her scruples, and bid him come back to her by and by.
“Not now,” he wrote, “not while I am the shiftless, aimless block you were right to despise, but after I have shown that there is something in me besides a love of indolence and feminine occupations, will you reconsider, Queenie, and see if you cannot love me?”
“Yes, Phil, oh, Phil!” Queenie cried, as she finished reading this letter, which she covered with her kisses, and then kept under her pillow where she could find it readily when the fancy took her to read it.
Everything Phil had given her or helped to make, was brought to her chamber where she could see it, for she refused to go down stairs, but stayed constantly in her own room, sometimes pacing restlessly to and fro, but often lying down with her face to the wall and her eyes open day and night, for she could neither sleep nor cry, and her head seemed bursting with its pressure of blood and pain.
“If Icouldcry,” she said once to Margery, as she pressed her hands to her throbbing temples, “it would loosen the tightness in my throat and about my heart, but I cannot, and I am so tired, and sick, and faint, I shall never cry again or sleep.”
And it would almost seem as if she spoke the truth, for no tears came to cool her burning eyelids, and her eyes grew larger and brighter each day, while sleep such as she once had known had deserted her entirely. They gave her bromide, and morphine, and chloral in heavy doses, but these only procured for her snatches of troubled sleep which were quite as exhausting as wakefulness for she always saw before her that dark waste of waters, with the white face of her lover upturned to the pitiless sky, and heard always that wild cry for her who had been his evil star. Every morning the family at the Knoll sent to inquire for her, and every evening Mr. Beresfordrode over to Hetherton Place to ask how she was. And sometimes he staid for half an hour or more, and talked with Margery, not always of the sick girl, or Phil, but of things for which each had a liking and sympathy—of pictures, and statuary, and books—and Mr. Beresford was surprised and delighted to find how intelligent Margery was, and how much she knew of the literature of other countries than France.
“I always had a fancy for everything English or American, particularly the latter,” she said to Mr. Beresford, one evening when they had been discussing English and American authors, and he had expressed his surprise that a French girl should be so well posted.
“You like our country, then?” he said. “Did you ever wish you were part or whole American instead of French?” and he shot a curious glance at her to see what effect his question would have upon her.
For an instant her cheeks were scarlet, and then she turned very white about her lips, and her voice was not quite steady as she replied, “I pray God to make me content in that station to which he has called me, and if he has willed it that I should be French, then French I will remain forever.”
It was a strange answer, and seemed made more to herself than to Mr. Beresford, who felt more certain than ever that Margery knew what he suspected, and was bravely keeping it to herself, for fear of wounding and humiliating Queenie. What a noble woman she seemed to him, and how fast the interest he felt in her ripened into a liking during the days when he went nightly to Hetherton Place, ostensibly to ask after Queenie, but really for the sake of a few minutes’ talk with Margery La Rue, who was fast learning to watch for his coming, and to feel her pulses quicken when he came, and taking her hand in his, held it there while he put the usual round of questions with regard to Queenie and herself, appearingat last almost as much interested in her welfare as in Queenie’s.
It was the dawning of a new life for Margery, this feeling, that Mr. Beresford, the proudest man in Merrivale, found delight in her society and loved to linger at her side. It made everything else so easy, and her life was not one of perfect rest, for Queenie did not improve as the days went on, and to soothe, and quiet, and minister to her was not an easy matter. She couldnotsleep, and the physician who attended her was beginning to fear for her reason, when she one day said to Margery, “Where is your mother? Why has she never been to see me? Doesn’t she care for me any more?”
“She cares very much,” Margery replied, “and she has been here several times to ask for you, but as you would not see your cousins or grandmother, she did not suppose you would see her. Will you see my mother?”
“Yes, send for her,” was Queenie’s answer, and Pierre was dispatched to Mrs. La Rue, with the message that Miss Hetherton was anxious to see her.
And so Mrs. La Rue went to Hetherton Place, and up to the room where Queenie sat in her easy-chair, with her face so pale and pinched, and her eyes so large and bright, that the impulsive Frenchwoman uttered a cry of alarm, and going to her, threw her arms around her, and cried, “Oh, Queenie, my child, that I should find you so changed.”
“Yes, Christine,” Queenie replied, freeing herself from the stifling embrace, “I suppose I am changed. I feel it myself, and believe I shall die if I do not sleep. I have not slept a good sleep since I heard Phil was dead, and I have sent for you to hold me in your arms, just as you must have done when I was a baby, after mother died. Sing me the old lullabies you used to sing me then, and maybe I shall sleep. I feel as if I should—there is such a heaviness about my lids and pressure on my brain. Take me, Christine. Play I am a baby again.I can’t be very heavy now,” and she smiled a faint, shadowy smile, as she put up her arms to the woman who took her up so gladly and covered the wan face with kisses and tears, while she murmured words of pity and endearment.
“There, that will do—it wearies me,” Queenie said, and she laid her tired head upon Christine’s shoulder and closed her heavy eyelids. “Rock me to sleep, Christine, as you did atChateau des Fleurs,” she whispered, faintly, and, sitting down in the chair, Christine rocked the poor little girl, and sang to her, in a low, sad voice, a lullaby of France, such as she used to sing when, as now, the dark curly head was pillowed on her breast.
Attracted by the sound, Margery stole softly to the door and looked in, but Christine motioned her away and went on with her song of “Mother Mary, guard my child,” until nature, which had resisted every exertion and every drug, however powerful, gradually began to yield—the head pressed more heavily, the rigid nerves softened, a slight moisture showed itself under the hair upon the forehead, and the eyes, which had been so wild and bright, were closed in slumber.
Queenie was asleep at last, and when Margery came again to the door of the room and saw the closed eyes and the parted lips, from which the breath came easily and regularly, she exclaimed:
“Thank God, she sleeps at last. You have saved her life—or, at least, her reason; but let me help you lay her down. She is too heavy for you to hold, and you are not strong.”
“No, no,” Mrs. La Rue answered, almost fiercely. “No, no, I will not give her up, now that I have her in my arms. I am not tired. I do not feel her weight any more than I did when she was a baby, and if I did, think you I would not do it all the same—I who have so longed to hold her as I do now. Go away, Margie, and leave us alone again.”
So Margery went away a second time, and busied herself below with some work she had been persuaded to take, and which was a part of Anna’s bridal trousseau, for that young lady had insisted upon her making the traveling dress, which was all there was now to finish of the elaborate and expensive wardrobe for which, it was said, the major’s money paid.
And while Margery worked in the sitting-room below, Mrs. La Rue sat in the chamber above, holding the sleeping girl, until her limbs were cramped, and numb—and ached with intolerable pain, while rings of fire danced before her eyes, and in her ears there was a humming sound, and a fullness in her head, as if all the blood of her body had centered there. And still she did not move, lest she should awaken the sleeper, but sat as motionless as a figure carved from stone, sometimes shutting her tired eyes, and again fixing them with a steady gaze upon the upturned face resting on her arm.
Two hours had gone by, and Mrs. La Rue was beginning to feel that her strength was failing her, when Queenie at last awoke, and said, very sweetly and kindly:
“I have been asleep, I am sure, and I feel so much better. How good in you, Christine, to hold me so long. It must have tired you very much. Thank you, dear old Christine!”
And taking the pallid face between both her hands, Queenie kissed it lovingly, thereby paying the tired woman for her two hours’ endurance.
Queenie was much better after that long sleep. The spell which bound her so relentlessly was broken, and she improved steadily both in health and spirits, but would let neither Mrs. La Rue nor Margery leave her.
“I shall sink right back again into that dreadful nervousness if you go away,” she said. “I need you both to keep me up—Margery to cheer me by day, and Christine to soothe me to sleep at night, when the world is the blackest, and Phil’s dead face seems so close tomine that I can almost feel its icy touch, and can hear his bitter cry for me. Only Christine’s song can drown that cry, which, I think, will haunt me forever.”
So the two women stayed, Margery busying herself with the work which her former customers persisted in bringing to her as soon as they heard she was free to do anything of that sort, and Christine devoting herself to Queenie, to whom she talked of the days when she first entered the service of Mrs. Hetherton in Paris. Reinette was never tired of hearing of her mother, and the same story had to be told many times ere she was satisfied.
“It brings her so near to me to hear all this,” she said to Christine, one evening when they sat together by the firelight in Queenie’s room, and Christine had been describing a dress which her mistress wore to a grand ball at which dukes and duchesses were present. “I like to think of her in that lovely dress, and she was happy, too, I am sure, though you have sometimes talked as if she were not. I know my father loved her very much, though he might not have shown it before you. Men are different from women. Did he never pet her in your presence?”
“Oh, yes, sometimes, and called her his littleDaisy—that was his pet name for her,” Christine replied, and Reinette rejoined:
“Daisy is such a sweet name. I wish it were mine, though Queenie does very well. I like pet names so much. Did you ever have one? I hardly know what could be made of Christine.”
Mrs. La Rue was gazing steadily into the fire, and did not at once reply, and when at last she did, she said, “I have been called Tina.”
“Tina,” Reinette exclaimed, starting suddenly, while like a flash of lightning there shot through her brain the memory of the long black tress she had burned and the letter whose writer had signed herself Tina. “Whousedto call youTina?” she demanded. “Was it your husband?”
Not a muscle of Christine’s face moved, nor did her voice tremble in the least, as she replied:
“Yes; there was more sentiment in his nature than any one would suppose from seeing him. He was very fond of me at times.”
Just then Pierre came in bringing candles and a tray with his mistress’ supper upon it, and the conversation was brought to a close, nor was it resumed again, for after tea Margery came up and sat with Reinette and her mother until the latter asked to be excused, and retired to her room.