REINETTE AND PHIL.
He was gotten up after the most approved manner of a young man of
leisure and taste. From his short, cut-away coat to the tip of his boots
everything was faultless, and his fair, handsome face impressed you with
the idea that he was fresh from a perfumed bath, as, with his soft hat
under his arm, he stood leaning on the mantel and looking curiously
about the room. _She_, in pink and white dishabille, a good deal tumbled
and mussed, her hair just ready to fall down her back, her cheeks
flushed and her eyelids swollen and red, showed plainly the wear and
tear of the last few days. And still there was a great eagerness in her
face, and her eyes were very bright as she stood an instant on the
threshold looking intently at Phil, as if deciding what manner of man he
was. Something in the expression of his face which won all hearts to
trust him, won her as well, and when he stepped forward to meet her, she
went swiftly to him, and laying her head upon his bosom as naturally as
if he had been her brother, sobbed like a child.
“Oh, Philip, oh, cousin, I am so glad you have come at last,” she said.
“Why didn’t you come sooner, come first of all, before—those—before
my—Oh, I am so glad to see you and find you just like my father!”
Phil did not quite know whether he felt complimented or not to be
likened to her father, but to say that he was astonished faintly
portrays his state of mind at the novel position in which he found
himself. Although warm-hearted and affectionate he was not naturally
very demonstrative, or if he were, that part of his nature had never
been called into action, except by his grandmother. His sisters were
very fond and proud of him, but they never caressed or petted him as
some only brothers are petted, and only kissed him when parting with
him, or after a long absence. As to the other girls of his acquaintance,
his lips had never touched theirs since the days of his boyhood when he
played the old-time games in the school-house on the common, nor had he
held a girl’s hand in his except in the dance, and when assisting her to
the carriage or her horse; and here was this stranger, whom till
yesterday he had never seen, sobbing in his arms, with his hands clasped
in hers and her face bent over them so that he could feel the touch of
her burning cheek, and the great tears as they wet his imprisoned
fingers. And with that queer perversity of man’s nature Phil liked it,
and drew her closer to him, and felt his own eyes moisten, and his voice
tremble as he said gently and pityingly, as women are wont to speak:
“Poor little Reinette, I am so sorry for you, for I know how you have
suffered: and you have the headache, too, grandmother told me. She was
here this morning. I hope you liked her. She is the kindest-hearted
woman in the world.”
“Yes,” came faintly from the neighborhood of his hands, where Reinette’s
face was hidden for an instant longer; then, freeing herself from him
and stepping backward, she looked at him fixedly, until all the tears
left her eyes, which twinkled mischievously as she burst into a merry
laugh, and said: “No, I will be honest with you, Philip, and let you
know just how bad I am. I didn’t like her! Oh, I know you are horrified
and hate me, and think me awful,” she continued, as she sank into an
easy-chair, and plunging the napkin into the bowl of water still
standing there, spread it upon her head. “But you can’t understand how
sudden it all is to me, who never knew I had a relative in America,
unless it were some distant one on father’s side, and who, had I been
told that I was first cousin to Queen Victoria, would not have been
surprised, but rather have thought her majesty honored by the
connection, so proud was I of my fancied blood. And to be told all
these—”
“What have you been told?” Phil asked, and she replied:
“Everything, I am sure, or if there _is_ anything more I never wish to
hear it. I know about the chimneys and the cellar walls, the gingerbread
and the beer, and closing shoes, though what that is, I can’t even
guess, and the runaway match, worse than all the rest unless it be those
dreadful men who fought each other like beasts. What were their names? I
cannot remember.”
“You mean Uncle Tim and Uncle Will Martin,” Phil said, calling the men
uncle for the first time in his life, although there was not a drop of
their blood in his veins.
But he would not hint that he was not as much a Martin as herself.
“You mean Uncle Tim and Uncle Will, grandmother’s brothers; they were
only great uncles, and had the good taste to get killed in the war. They
can’t hurt you.”
“I know that, but something hurts me cruelly,” Reinette replied,
clenching her hands together. “And you don’t know how much I hate it
all—hate everybody—and want to fight and tear somebody’s hair; that
would relieve me, but it would not rid me of these dreadful people.”
She looked like a little fury as she beat her hands in the air, and
forgetting that they were strangers, Phil said to her:
“You surprise me, Reinette, by taking so strange a view of the matter.
Can you not understand that in America, where we boast of our democracy,
there is no such commodity as blood, or if there is, it is so diluted
and mixed that the original element is hard to find. It does not matter
so much who you are, or who your parents were, as it does what you are
yourself.
“‘Honor and shame from no condition rise,
Act well your part, there all the honor lies.’
“That used to be written for me in my copy-book at school, and I puzzled
my brain over it to know what it meant, understanding at last that it
was another version of that part of the church catechism which tells us
to do our duty in that state of life to which God has called us.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean by talking poetry and catechism to
me,” Reinette said, tartly, and Phil replied:
“I mean that you should look on the brighter side and not hate us all
because we chance to be your relatives and not rebel so hotly and want
to fight and tear somebody’s hair because, instead of being the
granddaughter of a duchess, you prove to be the granddaughter of—of a
Ferguson.”
“Who calls me _Rennet_, and talks such dreadful grammar, and wears
purple gloves,” interrupted Reinette, with a half-laugh in her eyes,
where the great tears were shining.
Phil smiled a little, for the purple gloves, into which Grandma Ferguson
persisted in squeezing her coarse red hands, shocked his fastidious
taste sorely, but he was bent upon defending her, and he replied:
“Yes, I know all that; grandma is peculiar and old-fashioned, but she
does not harm you, as Reinette Hetherton, one whit. She never had a
chance to learn; circumstances have been against her. She had to work
all her early life, and she did it well, and is one of the kindest old
ladies in the world, and some day you will appreciate her and think
yourself fortunate to have so good a grandmother, and you’ll get used to
us all.”
“I _never_ shall,” Reinette replied, “never can get used to these
people. You know I don’t mean you, for you are not like them, though I
do think it very mean in you to stand there lecturing me so, when I
wanted you to come to me so badly, and thought you would comfort me and
smooth the trouble away, and instead of that you have done nothing but
scold me ever since you’ve been here, and nobody ever dared to do that
before but father, and you know how awfully my head is aching, and
you’ve made it ten times worse. I am disappointed in you, Philip
Rossiter; and I meant to like you so much. But you don’t like me, I see
it in your face, and you are a Ferguson, too, and I hate you—there!”
As she talked Reinette half rose from her chair, and in her excitement
upset the bowl of water, which went plashing over the floor. Then,
sinking back into her seat, she began to cry piteously as Phil had never
heard a girl cry before. Crossing swiftly to her side he knelt down
before her, and taking her flushed, tear-stained face between both his
hands, kissed her upon her forehead and lips, while he tried to comfort
her, assuring her that he was not scolding her, he was only defending
his friends, that he was sorry for her, and did like her very much.
“Please forgive me, Reinette,” he said, “and let us be friends, for I
assure you I like you.”
“Then don’t call me Reinette,” she said. “Father always called me
Queenie, and so did Margery, and they are the only people I ever loved,
or who ever loved me. Call me Queenie, if you love me, Philip.”
“Queenie, then, it is—for by Jove, I do love you; and you must call me
Phil, if you love me, and so we seal the compact,” the young man said,
touching again the sweet, girlish lips, which this time kissed him back
without the least hesitancy or token of consciousness.
And so they made it up, these cousins who had quarreled on the occasion
of their first interview; and Phil picked up the bits of broken china
and the napkin, and wiped up the water with his handkerchief, and told
her he could cure her headache by rubbing, just as he often cured his
mother’s. And Queenie, as he ever after called her, grew as soft and
gentle as a kitten, and, leaning her head upon the back of her chair,
submitted to the rubbing and manipulations of her forehead until the
pain actually ceased, for there was a wonderful mesmeric power in Phil’s
hands, and he threw his whole soul into the task, and worked like a
professional, talking learnedly of negative and positive conditions, and
feeling sorry when his cousin declared the pain gone, and asked him to
throw open the blinds and let in the light, and then sit down where she
could look at him.
There was perfect harmony between them now, and for an hour or more they
talked together, and Reinette told Phil everything she could think of
with regard to her past life, and asked him numberless questions
concerning his own family and the Fergusons generally.
“I am ashamed of myself,” she said, “and I am going to reform—going to
cultivate the Fergusons, though I don’t believe I can ever do much with
Anna. What ails her, Phil, to be so bitter against everybody? Are they
so very poor?”
“Not at all,” said Phil. “Uncle Tom—that’s her father—is a good, honest,
hard-working man, odd as Dick’s hat-band, and something of a codger, who
wears leather strings in his shoes, and never says his soul is his own
in the presence of his wife and daughter; but he is perfectly
respectable, though he doesn’t go to church much on Sundays, and always
calls my mother ‘Miss Rossiter,’ though she’s his half-sister.”
“What?” and Reinette looked up quickly. “Aren’t we own cousins, and
isn’t your mother my own aunt?”
“No,” Phil answered reluctantly; then, thinking she would rather hear
the truth from him than from any one else, he told her of his
grandfather’s two wives, one of whom was his grandmother and one hers.
“And so the Martins and the prize-fighters are not one bit yours; they
are all mine,” Reinette said, the tears rushing to her eyes again.
“Nonsense, Queenie; that doesn’t matter a bit. Remember what I told you;
blood does not count in this country. Nobody will think less of you
because of those fighters, or fancy you want to knock him down.”
“But I feel sometimes as if I could; that must be the Martin in me,”
Reinette said, laughingly; and then she spoke again of Anna, who Phil
said was too sensitive, and jealous, and ready to suspect a slight where
none was intended.
“But once give her a chance,” he added, “and she would ride over
everybody’s head, and snub working people worse than she thinks she is
snubbed because her mother makes dresses.”
This allusion to dressmaking reminded Reinette of what Anna had said
with regard to Miss La Rue who had proposed buying her mother’s
business, and she questioned Phil of her, but he knew nothing, and
Reinette continued:
“Oh, if it only were my Margery, I should be so happy. You don’t know
how I love her; she is so sweet, and good, and beautiful. I’ve known her
since we were little girls at school together. It was a private English
school in Paris, where I was a boarder, and she a day scholar at half
rate, because they were poor. I never saw Mrs. La Rue but once or twice,
and she is not at all like Margery. She had been a hair-dresser at one
time, I think. Oh, if this Miss La Rue should prove to be my friend!
When will you see her? When are you going to the Vineyard?”
Phil could not tell. He had intended going at once, but since coming to
Hetherton Place he had changed his mind, for there was something in this
willful, capricious sparkling girl which attracted him more than all the
gaieties of the Sea View House, and he said it was uncertain when he
should go to the Vineyard—probably not for two weeks or more.
“Oh, I am so sorry,” Reinette said frankly, “for I do want to know about
Margery; but then,” she added, with equal frankness, “it is real nice to
have you here, where I can see you every day. We must be great friends,
Phil, and you must like me in all my moods; like me when I want to tear
your eyes out just the same as when I would tear mine out to serve you.
Will you promise, Phil?”
“Yes,” was his reply, as he took in his the hand she offered him,
feeling strongly tempted to touch again the girlish lips which pouted so
prettily as she looked up at him.
One taste of those lips had intoxicated him as wine intoxicates the
drunkard; but there was a womanly dignity now in Reinette’s manner which
kept him at a distance, while she went on to tell him of her good
intentions. She was going to cultivate the Fergusons, especially her
grandmother, and she should commence by calling there that very
afternoon, and Phil must go with her. She would order an early dinner,
at half-past four, to which Phil should stay, and then they would take a
gallop together into town.
“You have nothing to do but to stay with me. Your business will not
suffer?” she asked; and coloring at this allusion to his business, Phil
replied that it would _not_ suffer very much from an absence of half a
day or so, and that he was at her disposal.
“Then I’ll interview Mrs. Jerry, and have dinner on the big piazza which
overlooks the river, and the meadows. That will make it seem some like
Chateau des Fleurs, where we ate out doors half the time,” she said, as
she disappeared from the room in quest of Mrs. Jerry who heard with
astonishment that dinner was to be served upon the north piazza instead
of in the dining-room.
But a few hours’ experience had taught her that Miss Hetherton’s ways
were not at all the ways to which she had been accustomed, and so she
assented without a word, while Reinette went next to her room and
transformed herself from an invalid in a wrapper into a most stylish and
elegant young lady.
How lovely she was, in her dress of dark-blue silk with a Valenciennes
sleeveless jacket, such as was then fashionable, her hair arranged in
heavy curls, which were fastened at the back of her head with a scarlet
ribbon, while a knot of the same ribbon was worn at her throat.
Phil had thought her bewitching in her wrapper, with the wet napkin on
her head, but when she tripped into the room in her new attire he
started with surprise at the transformation. There was a bright flush on
her cheeks, and her eyes shone like stars as they flashed smile after
smile upon him, until he became so dazed and bewildered that he scarcely
knew what he was doing. She had her sun-hat in her hand, and led him out
into the grounds, where she told him of the improvements she meant to
make, and asked what he thought of them.
She should not change the general appearance of the house, she said. She
should only add one or two bay-windows and balconies, and enlarge the
north piazza, as she wished the rooms to remain as they were when her
father lived there, but the park was to undergo a great change, and be
modeled, as far as possible, after the park at Chateau des Fleurs. There
were to be winding walks, and terraces, and plateaus of flowers, and
fountains, and statuary gleaming among the evergreens, and clumps of
cedar trimmed and arranged into a labyrinth of little rooms, with seats
and tables in them, and lamps suspended from the branches. But the
crowning glory of the whole was to be a rustic summer-house, large
enough to accommodate three or four sets of dancers, when she gave an
outdoor _fete_, and to seat at least forty people at a breakfast or
dinner. Her ideas were on a most magnificent scale, and Phil listened to
her breathlessly till she had finished, and then asked if she had any
idea how much this would cost.
“A heap of money, of course,” she said, arching her eyebrows and nose a
little, as she scented disapprobation; “but what of that? Father had a
great deal of money, I know, and never denied me anything. What is money
for, except to spend and let other people have a good time? I mean to
fill the house with company, summer and winter, and make life one grand
holiday for them, and you must stay here most of the time and help me
see to things, or would that interfere too much with your business—your
profession?”
This was the second time she had alluded to his business, and Phil’s
cheeks were scarlet, and he was conscious of a feeling of shame in the
presence of this active, energetic girl, who took it for granted that he
must have some business—some profession. He could not tell her that he
had none, and had she pressed the point, would have fallen back upon
that two months’ trial in Mr. Beresford’s law office, when he started to
have a profession; but fortunately for him the dinner was announced, and
they went together to the north piazza, where Reinette presided at one
end of the table, and he at the other.
“It was quite like housekeeping,” Reinette said, and she made Phil
promise to dine with her every day when he was in town.
“Not always here,” she said, “but around in different places—under the
trees, and in my new summer-house, which must be built directly, and
every where.”
She was the fiercest kind of a radical, always seeking something new,
and Phil felt intuitively that to follow her would be to lead a busy,
fatiguing life, but he was ready for it; ready for anything; ready to
jump into Lake Petit, if she said so, he thought, a little later, when
he saw her in her riding habit, mounted upon the snow-white Margery, who
held her neck so high, and stepped along so proudly, as if conscious of
the graceful burden she bore. Reinette was a fine horsewoman, and sat
the saddle and handled the reins perfectly, and she and Phil made quite
a sensation as they galloped into town, with King in close attendance,
for Reinette had insisted that he should accompany them as a kind of
body-guard.
Their first call was upon Mr. Beresford, who came out and stood by
Reinette’s horse as he talked to her, marveling at the change in this
sparkling, brilliant creature, so different from the tear-stained
swollen-eyed girl he had seen in the morning. She told him of her plans
for improvements, which she meant to begin immediately, and which Phil
had said would cost at least two thousand dollars, but that did not
matter. When she wanted a thing, she wanted it, and would Mr. Beresford
give her the money at once, as she had only two or three hundred dollars
in her purse at home. She talked as if gold grew on bushes, and Mr.
Beresford listened to her aghast, for unless he advanced it himself,
there were not two thousand dollars for her in his possession. The
repairs at Hetherton Place had already cost enormously, and there were
still debts waiting to be paid. Mr. Hetherton’s death would of course
retard matters a little, but it was impossible to refuse the eager,
winsome girl, whose eyes looked so straight into his own, and he
promised to give her what she asked for, and said he had already written
to Paris to Messrs. Polignie & Co., who he believed had charge of her
father’s foreign business, adding that he should like the papers as soon
as possible.
Reinette said he should have them the next day, and added:
“I, too, am going to write to Messrs. Polignie, to inquire for my old
nurse, Christine Bodine. She knew mother, and I mean to find her if she
is alive.
“Not that it matters much, as there is no doubt that my mother was
Margaret Ferguson,” she said to Phil, as they rode off, “and I am
getting quite reconciled to it now that I know you. Would you mind,” and
she dropped her voice a little, “would you mind showing me the chimneys
and _cellar_ walls our grandfather built? and the beer shop where mother
sewed the pieces of cloth together, and those shoes and things?”
Phil could not show her the chimneys John Ferguson had built, for though
there were those in the town who often pointed them out when Mrs.
Rossiter, his daughter drove by in her handsome carriage, _he_ didn’t
know where they were, but he could show her the beer shop, as she termed
it, though it bore no traces now of what it used to be. It was long and
low, like many of the old New England houses, but it looked deliciously
cool and pleasant under the tall elms, with its plats of grass and its
sweet, old-fashioned flowers in full bloom. Grandma Ferguson, too, in
her clean calico dress and white apron, with her hair combed smoothly
back, made a different picture from what she did in the morning, with
her wide ribbons and purple gloves. She was delighted to see them, and
took Reinette all over the house, from the parlor where she said Paul
Rossiter and Fred Hetherton had courted their wives, to the room where
Reinette’s mother used to sleep when she was a girl, and where the
high-post bed she occupied, and the chair she used to sit in, were still
standing.
“Mary—that’s Miss Rossiter—wanted me to git some new furniture,” she
said, as they stood in the quiet room, “and I could afford it as well as
not, for your gran’ther left me pretty well off, with what Mary does for
me; but somehow it makes Margaret seem nigher to me to have the things
she used to handle, and so I keep ’em, and sometimes when I’m lonesome
for the days that are gone, and for my girl that is dead, I come up here
and sit awhile and think I can see her just as she used to look when I
waked her in the mornin’, and she lay there on that piller smilin’ at me
like a fresh young rose, with her hair fallin’ over her pretty eyes; and
then I cry and wish I had her back, though I know she’s so happy now,
and some day I shall see her again, if I’m good, and I do try to do the
best that I know how. Poor Maggie, dear little Maggie, dead way over the
seas.”
Grandma was talking more to herself than to Reinette, and the great
tears were dropping from her dim old eyes, and her rough, red hands were
tenderly patting the pillows, where she had so often seen the dear head
of the child “dead way over the seas.” But to Reinette there was now no
redness, or roughness about the hands, no coarseness about the woman,
for all such minor things were forgotten in that moment of perfect
accord and sympathy, and Reinette’s tears fell like rain as she bent
over the hands which had touched her mother.
“Blessed child,” grandma said, “I thank my God for sending you to me,
and that you are good and true, like Margaret.”
This was too much for the conscious-smitten Reinette, who burst out
impulsively:
“I’m not good; I’m not true; I’m bad and wicked as I can be, and I am
going to confess it all here in mother’s room, hoping she can hear me,
and know how sorry I am. I was proud and hot, and felt like fighting
yesterday when I met you all, because it was so sudden, so different;
and this morning I rebelled again, and wanted to scream, but I’ll never
do so again, and I am going to make you so happy; and now, please, go
away and leave me for a little while.”
Grandma Ferguson understood her in part, and went out, leaving the girl
alone in the low, humble room, which had been Margaret’s. Kneeling by
the bed, and burying her face in the pillows, Reinette sobbed like a
child as she asked forgiveness for all her proud rebellion against the
grandmother whom in her heart she knew to be kind and loving. The prayer
did her good, and as hers was an April nature, she was as bright and
playful as a kitten when she went down the steep, narrow stairs, and
bidding her grandmother good-night, mounted her horse and started with
Phil for Mrs. Lydia Ferguson’s. They found that lady very hot and
nervous over a dress which must be finished that night, and on which
Anna was working very unwillingly. Through an open door Reinette caught
a glimpse of a disorderly supper-table, at which a man was sitting in
his shirt sleeves, regaling himself with fried cakes and raw onions.
“Come, father,” Mrs. Lydia called, in a loud, shrill voice, “here’s
Reinette, your niece. Reinette, this is your Uncle Tom, who is said to
look enough like your mother to have been her twin.”
His face was pleasant, and his manner was kindly, as he shook hands with
Reinette, and said he was glad to see her, and told her that she favored
the Hethertons more than the Fergusons, but Reinette saw that he
belonged to an entirely different world from her own, and when they were
going over the house at the Knoll, she said to Phil that she felt as if
she were backsliding awfully.
“Isn’t there a couplet,” she asked, “which runs thus:
“‘The de’il when sick a saint would be,
But when he got well, the de’il a saint was he.’
“Now I am just like that. Over at grandmother’s I felt as if I never
could be bad again; and I never will to grandmother. I shall make her
caps and fix her dresses, and coax her not to wear purple gloves, or
call me Rennet. But O, Phil, shall I be so wicked that I can never go to
Heaven if I don’t rave over those other people? They are so different
from anything I ever saw before. Now, _this_ suits me; this is more like
Chateau des Fleurs,” she said, as she followed Phil through the house
until they came to his room, where, on the table, he found a telegram
from his father, which was as follows:
“Come to us at once as I must go to Boston on business, and your
mother needs you.
“PAUL ROSSITER.”
He read it aloud to Reinette, who exclaimed:
“I am so sorry, for now I shall be alone, and I meant to have you with
me every day.”
Phil was sorry, too, for the dark-eyed French girl had made sad havoc
with his heart during the few hours he had known her. But there was no
help for it; he must go to his mother, and the next morning, when the
Springfield train, bound for Boston, left Merrivale, Phil was in it on
his way to Martha’s Vineyard.