THE TWO REINETTES.
“Oh, how lovely it is!” she cried, as she entered the room and took it
all in as rapidly as Phil himself could have done. “What perfect taste
Mr. Beresford must have!” she continued. “It is just as I would have it,
except the blue ribbons, which do not suit my black face. But I can soon
change them, and then everything will be faultless; and—oh—oh—the cats!”
she screamed, as she caught sight of Mrs. Speckle, who, with her three
children, was purring contentedly in the cushioned arm-chair by the
window. “_Cats!_ and I love them so much; he has remembered everything!”
and bounding across the floor, Reinette knelt by the chair and buried
her face in the soft fur of the kittens, who, true to their feline
instincts, recognized in her a friend, and began at once to pat her neck
and ears with their velvety paws, while Mrs. Speckle, feeling a little
crowded, vacated the chair and seated herself upon the window-stool,
where Phil saw her when he rode by.
The sight of the cats carried Reinette back to the day when her father
had written his directions to Mr. Beresford and she had made
suggestions. How careful he had been to remember all her likes and
dislikes, and how pale and tired he had looked after the letter was
finished, and how unjust and thoughtless she had been to feel aggrieved
because he said he was not able to drive with her in the Bois de
Boulogne after dinner was over. And now he was dead, and she was alone
in a strange new world, with only Mr. Beresford for a friend, unless it
were _those people_ who claimed her for a relative—_those people_ of
whom she had never heard, and against whom she rebelled with all the
strong force of her imperious nature. She had not had time to consider
the matter seriously; but now, alone in her own room, with the doors
shut between her and the outside world, it rose before her in all its
magnitude, and for a time drove every other feeling from her. The proud
aristocratic part of her nature was in the ascendant, and battled
fiercely against her better self.
Was it possible, she thought, that the loud-voiced old lady, who used
such dreadful grammar and called her _Rennet_, and the Aunt Lyddy Ann,
who looked like a bar-maid, and the tall, showily-dressed Anna, with the
yellow plume, the cheap lace scarf, and the loud hat, such as only the
common girls of Paris wore—were really the relatives of her beautiful
mother, who she had always supposed was an Englishwoman, and whom she
had cherished in her heart as everything that was pure, and lovely, and
refined! Her father had said of her once:
“I never knew my wife to be guilty of a single unlady-like act, and I
should be glad, my daughter, if you were half as gentle and gracious of
manner as she was.”
It is true she had never been able to learn anything definite of her
mother’s family, for her father, when questioned, had either answered
evasively, or not at all. Once he had said to her, decidedly:
“There are reasons why I do not care to talk of your mother’s family and
it is quite as well that you remain in ignorance. Mrs. Hetherton was
everything that a perfect lady should be. You must be satisfied with
that, and never trouble me again about your mother’s antecedents.”
He had seemed very much excited, and there was a strange look on his
face, as he walked the _salon_, which frightened Reinette a little; and
still she persisted so far as to say:
“I am sure mother was an Englishwoman, by her picture.”
“Be satisfied then that you know so much, and don’t seek for more
knowledge. Whatever her friends were, they are nothing to me; they can
be nothing to you. So never mention them again.”
And she never did; but she almost worshiped the beautiful face, which
had been painted on ivory in Paris when her mother was a bride and had
rooms at the Hotel Meurice. It was a fair, lovely face, with hair of
golden brown, and great tender eyes of lustrous blue, with a tinge of
sadness in them, as there was also in the expression around the sweet
mouth just breaking into a smile. The dress was of heavy creamy satin,
with pearls upon the neck and arms, and on the wavy hair. A refined
aristocratic face, Reinette thought it, and in spite of her father’s
evident dislike of her mother’s friends, she never for an instant had
thought of them as other than fully her equals in position and social
standing. Probably there had been some quarrel which had resulted in
lasting enmity, or her mother might have been the daughter of some
nobleman, and eloped with the young American, thus incurring the
life-long displeasure of her family. This last was Reinette’s pet
theory, and she had more than once resolved that when she was her own
mistress she would seek her mother’s friends, never doubting that she
should find them fully equal to the Hethertons, who, her father said,
had in their veins the best blood of the land.
Everything pertaining to her mother was guarded by Reinette with great
fidelity, and in the box where her favorite treasures were hidden away
was a long, bright tress of hair and a few faded flowers, tied together
with a bit of blue ribbon, to which was attached a piece of paper, with
the words, “My mother’s hair, cut from her head after she was dead, and
some of the flowers she held in her hands when she lay in her coffin.”
Among Reinette’s books there was also an old copy of “The Lady of the
Lake,” on the fly-leaf of which was written in a very pretty hand.
“Margaret, From her sister Mary. Christmas, 18—.” This was the only link
between herself and her mother’s family which Reinette possessed, and
she built upon it a multitude of theories with regard to the Aunt Mary
whom she meant some time to find, and whom she always saw clad in
velvet, jewels, and old laces, with possibly a coronet on her brow.
Such were Reinette’s ideas of her mother’s friends, which her father had
suffered her to cherish, only smiling faintly at some of her extravagant
speculations, but never contradicting them. And now, in place of lords,
and ladies, and English nobility, to have _these people_ thrust upon
her, this grandmother, and aunt, and cousin, with unmistakable marks of
vulgarity stamped upon them, was too much, and for a time the proud,
sensitive girl rebelled against it with all the fierceness of her
nature, while, mingled with her bitter humiliation was a better and
deeper feeling, which hurt her far more than the mortification of
knowing that she was not what she had believed herself to be. Her
father, whom she had so loved, and honored, and believed in, had not
dealt fairly with her.
Why had he not told her the truth, especially after he knew they were
coming to America, and that she must certainly know it some time?
“If he had told me, if he had said a kind word of them, I should have
been prepared for it, and loved them, just because they were mother’s
people. Oh, father, whatever your motive may have been, you did me a
grievous wrong,” she said, and into her eyes there crept a look of
resentment toward the father who had kept this secret from her.
Then, as her thoughts went backward to the state-room where he died, and
the words he said to her, she cried out:
“I understand now what he meant, and what I was to forgive. He meant to
have told me before, he said; he was sorry he had not. Yes, father, I
see. While we were in France there was no need for me to know, and when
we started for America it was hard to confess it to me, and destroy my
beautiful air castles filled with a line of ancestry nobler, better,
even, than the Hethertons, and so you put it off, as you did everything
unpleasant, as long as possible. You were going to tell me when you
reached New York, but before we were there you were dead, and I was left
to meet it alone. Oh, father, I promised to forgive and love you just
the same, and I will, I do—but it’s very, very hard on me, and I must
fight it out and cast the demon from me before I meet one of them
again.”
And in truth Reinette did seem to be fighting with some foe as she stood
in the center of the room, her face as white as ashes, her tearless eyes
flashing fire, and her hands beating the air more rapidly and fiercely
than they had done when in the carriage her grandmother questioned her
of her knowledge of her mother. That was a feeble effort compared to
what she was doing now as she flew about the room striking out here and
there as if at some tangible object, and sometimes clutching at the long
curls floating over her shoulders. It was a singular sight and not
strange at all that Mrs. Speckle, from her seat in the window, looked
curiously at the young girl acting more like a mad than a sane woman,
and at the three kittens upon the floor, who, fancying all these
gyrations were for their benefit, jumped and scampered, and spit, and
pulled at Reinette’s feet and dress in true feline delight.
Suddenly the door opened cautiously and Pierre looked in, saying,
softly:
“Please, Miss Reinette, wouldn’t you come out of it quicker if you was
to _shake me_ a bit. I shouldn’t mind it if you didn’t use your nails,
and would let my hair alone. There isn’t much of it left, you know!”
Pierre had not lived in his master’s family fourteen years without
understanding his mistress thoroughly, and that in his heart he
worshipped her was proof that he had found far more good in her than
bad. He knew just how kind, and loving, and self-sacrificing she was,
and how she had cared for him when he had the fever in Rome, and her
father was away in Palestine. In spite of the remonstrances of friends
she had stood by him night and day, for weeks because he missed her when
she was absent and called for her in his delirium. It did not matter
that the gayeties of the carnival were in progress and that rare
facilities were offered her for seeing them. She turned her back on them
all and staid by the sick man who needed her, and who, the physicians
said, owed his life to her nursing and constant care. Pierre had never
forgotten it any more than he had forgotten the time when, in a fit of
anger she had pounced upon his back like a cat and scratched, and bit,
and pulled his hair until he shook her off and held her till her passion
had subsided. Her father had punished her severely, and she had never
behaved so badly since, though she sometimes shook Pierre furiously, for
by contact with some living thing which resisted her she could conquer
herself more readily, she said; and when there was no one near whom she
dared touch she occasionally gave vent to her excitement by whirling
round in circles and beating the air with her hands. Pierre knew this
peculiarity, and when he came to the door and heard the tempest within,
he offered himself at once as a kind of breaker for the storm to beat
against. But Reinette did not need him. The battle was nearly over, for
at its height, when it seemed to her that she could not lose one grain
of respect for her father for having thus deceived her—could not
exchange the ideal friends of her mother for _these people_ so different
from herself, there came suddenly before her mind a fair, handsome face,
with eyes as tender and pitiful as those of a woman, and yet with
something strong and masterful in their expression as they smiled a
welcome upon her.
It was when she was most bewildered and confounded by the unknown
relations claiming her that somebody had said, “This is another cousin;”
but in her excitement she had scarcely heeded it, and made no response
when the young man’s hat was lifted politely by way of a greeting.
It was the same young man, she was sure, who had held her back from the
open grave, and spoken to her in a voice which she recognized at once as
belonging to her class. Reinette laid great stress upon the human voice,
insisting that by it she could tell how much of real culture or natural,
inborn refinement its owner possessed. The sharp, loud voices of the
Fergusons, with their peculiar intonation, had grated upon her nerves,
but the well-modulated, well-trained tones of the young man had fallen
on her ear like a strain of music among jarring discords.
Who was he? Not the brother, surely, of that tall blonde with the yellow
plume and long lace scarf. That was impossible; and yet some one had
said, “Here is another cousin,” and he had acknowledged it with a smile,
which came to her now like sunshine breaking through a rift of clouds
and clearing up the sky.
“Oh! if he only were my cousin, I could bear it so much better,” she
thought, just as Pierre came in, offering himself as a victim, provided
she spared his hair, of which he had so little.
The whole thing was so unexpected and droll that it quieted Reinette at
once, and, sitting down in a chair, she laughed and cried alternately
for a moment; then dashing her tears away and taking the kittens upon
her lap, she bade the old man sit down beside her, as there was
something she wished to ask him.
“Pierre,” she began, “it was right nice in you to offer yourself a
victim to my fury; and, had you come sooner, I might have shaken you a
little, for when I’m fighting with my other self I always like to feel
something in my power—something which stands for that other girl I’m
trying to conquer, and I was half tempted to take one of these little
kittens and wreak my temper on that, but I didn’t, and I am glad, and I
am going to govern myself hereafter, for I must be a woman now and not a
child.”
“Yes, miss, that’s very good,” Pierre said, wondering how he should like
his little mistress if she were always as mild and gentle as she seemed
now, without any fire or spirit at all.
“Pierre,” Reinette continued, “how long have you lived with us?”
“Fourteen years come Christmas.”
“I thought so; and did you know papa before you came to us?” she asked,
and he replied:
“No, miss: only as I had heard of him as the rich American, who lived so
extravagantly at the Hotel Meurice, and had such a handsome chateau in
the country.”
“Yes, Chateau des Fleurs. It was lovely, and I was so happy there. Then,
of course, you never saw my mother.”
“Never,” said Pierre, and Reinette continued:
“And did you never hear anything of her from strangers? Did you never
hear where she came from, where papa found her?”
“I heard from you that she was very beautiful and good, and died at Rome
when you were born, and I think you told me she was English. Surely
_you_ would know about your own mother;” and Pierre looked curiously at
his young mistress, who colored painfully and beat the matting with her
boot.
Reinette was hesitating as to how much she would tell Pierre, for it
hurt her to confess to any one how little she really knew of her
mother’s antecedents, so wholly silent and non-committal had her father
been on the subject. At last, deciding that she must be frank with
Pierre if she wished him to be so with her, she said:
“Pierre, you are all I have left of the life in France, and I must tell
you everything. There was always a mystery about mamma which I could not
solve, and all I know of her was her name, Margaret Ferguson, and that
papa loved her so much that he could not bear to talk of her, and all I
know besides the name I guessed, and now I am afraid I did not guess
right. I have never met anybody who had seen her but papa, except the
nurse Christine Bodine, who was with her when she died, and who brought
me to Paris. She, too, left me when I was a year or so old, and I have
not seen her since, and it made father very angry if I ever spoke of
her. She was not a nice woman, he said, and he did not wish me to
mention her name. Do you know anything of her?”
“What was the name, please?” Pierre asked, and Reinette replied:
“Christine Bodine, and if living now she must be forty or more. Mother
would be forty-three.”
“I don’t know where she is, and I never saw her,” said Pierre, “but the
name brings something to my mind. Years ago, a dozen or more, when we
were staying at Chateau des Fleurs, I went with monsieur to Paris—to the
office of Monsieur Polignie, a kind of broker or money agent in town,
and your father gave him a note or check of 1250 francs to be sent to
Mademoiselle Christine Bodine. I remember the name perfectly, Christine
Bodine, because it rhymed, and I said it to myself two or three times,
but who she was or where she lived I didn’t know; only master’s face was
very dark, and he was silent and gloomy all day, and I thought maybe
Mademoiselle Bodine was some woman to whom he had to pay money, whether
he liked it or not. You know many fine gentlemen in Paris do that.”
He saw that she did not understand him, and though he might have told
her that her father had not always been the spotless man which she
believed him to be, he would not do it, preferring that she should be
happy in her ignorance.
“I remember that day so well,” he continued, “your father bought you a
big wax doll in the Palais Royal, and although you were in bed when we
returned to the chateau, he had you up to give it to you, and fondled
and caressed you more than usual, as if making up for something.”
Reinette’s eyes were full of tears at these reminiscences of Pierre’s,
but she forced them back, and said:
“You have no idea where Christine is now?”
“None whatever, but I think monsieur heard from her or of her when we
were in Liverpool waiting to sail. You remember that several letters
were forwarded to him, and one excited him very much. I was in the room
when he read it, and heard him say something in English which I think
was a _swear_, and I know he said something angry about Christine, for I
understood that plain. He was very white and weak all day, and that
night asked you if you would feel very badly to turn back to Paris and
not go to America after all. You remember it, don’t you?”
Reinette did remember it, though at the time she had laid little or no
stress upon it, thinking it a mere idle remark, as her father was
naturally changeable. Now she could recall how sick and sad he had
looked, and how much he had talked of France and she could see, or
thought she could, that had she been willing, he would have gone back so
gladly.
Surely there could have been nothing in a letter from Christine, which
should make him angry or wish to go back. Pierre did not understand
English well; it was easy for him to blunder, though he had not done so
in the name “Christine Bodine” to whom her father had sent money. Why
had he done so, and where was Christine now?
Turning to Pierre, she said:
“This money agent, Polignie, is still in Paris?”
“Yes, miss, I think so.”
“And you know his address?”
“I know where we went that day your father paid the money, but he may
have moved since many times.”
“No matter. He must be well known: a letter will find him, and I shall
write and ask for Christine Bodine, for I mean to find her if I cross
the ocean to do it. She knew mother, and I must know something of her
too, for—oh, Pierre, my brain is all in a whirl with what has happened
to-day; but I can’t tell you in here, I feel so smothered when I think
of it. Let’s go to that ledge of rocks yonder on the hill-side. We must
see the sun set from there, and maybe we can see poor papa’s grave.”
She put on her hat and preceded Pierre down the stairs and through the
dining-room, where she found Mrs. Jerry arranging a very dainty-looking
tea-table.
“Supper will be ready very soon,” Mrs. Jerry said, suggesting that her
young mistress wait till it was served, as the muffins would all be
cold. But Reinette was not hungry, she said, and Mrs. Jerry must eat the
muffins herself. By and by she would perhaps have some toast and tea in
her room; she would tell Mrs. Jerry when she wanted it, and she flashed
upon the woman a smile so sweet and winning that it disarmed her at once
of the resentment she might otherwise have felt because her nice supper
was slighted and she must keep up the kitchen fire in order to have
toast and tea whenever it should suit the young lady’s fancy.
Meanwhile Reinette went on her way, through the back yard toward the
ledge of rocks, when suddenly she heard a pitiful whine, and, turning,
saw the dog tugging at his chain to get away. In an instant she was at
his side, with her arms round his neck, while she cried:
“Look, Pierre, what a noble fellow he is! Why do they keep him tied up?
I mean to set him free.”
And she was about to do so, when the coachman, who was watching her at a
little distance, called out:
“Miss Hetherton, you must not do that. He is strange here, and will run
home. He has done so twice already.”
“Who are you?” Reinette asked, rather haughtily, and he replied:
“I am Stevens, and take care of the horses. Maybe you would like to see
them; they are real beauties.”
“Yes, when I unchain the dog,” Reinette replied. “He’ll not run from me;
I can tame him. What’s his name?”
“King,” said Stevens; and taking the dog’s face between her hands, and
looking straight, into his eyes, Reinette said:
“Mr. Doggie, you are my king, and I am your queen. You must not run away
from me. I’ll take such good care of you, and love you so much; and in
proof thereof I give you your liberty.”
She slipped the chain from his neck, and, with a joyful bark, King
sprang upon her, licking her face and hands in token of his grateful
allegiance. Every brute recognized a friend in Reinette, and King was
not an exception, and kept close to her side as she went toward the
stables to see the horses, which Stevens led out for her inspection.
First, the splendid bays, Jupiter and Juno, with which she could find no
fault, unless it were that Juno carried her head a trifle higher than
Jupiter, and might be freer in the harness. She could not quite decide
until she saw them on the road, she said; and then she turned to the
milk-white steed, her saddle pony, with which she was perfectly
delighted; she was so white and clean, and tall and gentle, and ate
grass from her hand, and followed her about as readily as King himself.
“What’s her name?” she asked.
And on Stevens replying that he did not know, she said:
“Then she shall be Margery, after the dearest friend I ever had except
papa. She was so fair, and beautiful, and tall, and I loved her so much.
Oh, Margery!” she continued, laying her hand upon the neck of her steed;
“where are you now, and do you know how sad and lonely your little
Queenie is?”
There was a shadow on Reinette’s bright face, but it quickly passed
away; and sending the horses back to their stalls, she went, with Pierre
and King, toward the ledge of rocks on the grassy hill-side.