REINETTE’S INTERVIEW WITH MARGERY.
Reinette did not ring, but entered unannounced, like one who had but one
thought, one purpose, and was resolved to carry it out with as little
ceremony as possible. It was fortunate for all parties that this was
Margery’s dull season, and there were no girls there with prying eyes
and curious ears to listen, for Reinette was greatly excited now that
the moment drew near when she could confront Christine, and she plunged
at once into business by saying to Margery, “Where is your mother? I
have come to see her.”
“Mother is sick,” Margery replied; “she is very nervous and cannot see
any one. I am sorry, but you will have to wait. Maybe I can do as well,”
she continued, looking wonderingly at Queenie, who, utterly disregarding
what she said, had started for the stairs.
“No, you will not do as well. I must see her; it is very important and I
cannot wait,” Queenie said, still advancing toward the stairs, while
Margery put herself between them and her friend, whose strange conduct
surprised her so much.
“But you cannot see her. I promised no one should disturb her,” she said
again, and now she laid her hand on Queenie’s shoulder to detain her,
for Queenie’s foot was on the first stair and she looked resolute enough
to storm a fortress as she persisted in her determination to go up.
But not less resolute than her own was the face which confronted her as
Margery roused up and said in a voice Queenie had never heard from her
before: “Miss Hetherton! You astonish me. I tell you mother is sick and
cannot be disturbed. You must not go up.”
“And I tell you I _must_. I have important news from Mentone, which
concerns your mother and me, and I must see her.”
“What news?” Margery asked, thinking suddenly of the letter her mother
had received from Mentone the previous night, and experiencing a vague
feeling of fear and dread of some impending evil. “What news have you
heard which concerns my mother?” she repeated, looking steadily at
Reinette.
Reinette hesitated a moment, kept silent by something in Margery’s face,
but when she said for the third time, “Tell me what news you have
received from France,” she replied: “Margery, it shall never make any
difference between us, but your mother is Christine Bodine, whom I have
been trying to find.”
“My mother Christine Bodine! Impossible! She was Marie La Mille,”
Margery gasped, as she clutched Reinette’s shoulder with a grip which
was painful.
“I have it from her agent in Mentone, who has received money for her at
different times from Messrs. Polignie in Paris—money my father deposited
for her with them years ago. Now let me go! I _must_ see her!” Queenie
said, darting up the stairs, no longer restrained by Margery, who had
let her pass without further protest.
Clasping her hand to her head as if smitten with a blow, Margery
staggered back, and leaning against the wall for support, tried to think
what it all meant, while her mind traveled rapidly back over the past,
gathering up a thread here and there, until she had no doubt that what
Queenie had told her was true. Her mother _was_ Christine Bodine. But
why this concealment? What was she hiding? What had she done?
Margery’s first impulse was to hurry to her mother’s room, where there
was already the sound of excited voices, her mother’s and Queenie’s
blended together, as each strove to be heard, and once she caught her
own name, as if her mother were calling her to come.
Then she did start, and was half way up the stairs, when the door-bell
rang violently—a sharp, imperious ring, which she recognized as Anna
Ferguson’s. She was expecting that young lady, and knowing that however
fierce a storm might be blowing, she must keep it from the world, she
calmed herself with a tremendous effort, and opening the door to Anna,
listened patiently for several minutes, while the girl examined her
sacque and said it would do very well, only the price was too high.
“Ma never asked anything like that for a common sacque.”
“Very well. Pay me what you like,” Margery said, anxious to be rid of
her customer, who had asked, in her supercilious way:
“Isn’t that Queenie up stairs? And isn’t she talking pretty loud for a
well-bred person?”
“Oh, will she never go?” Margery thought, just as the bell pealed a
second time, and Grandma Ferguson came in, bringing a bundle almost as
large as herself, and entering at once into full details of what she
wished to have made, and how.
“I s’pose Anny is goin’ to be married,” she said, looking hard at her
granddaughter, “though she hain’t noticed me enough to tell me so, right
out; but everybody’s talkin’ it, and I thought I might as well have a
new silk gown. My _moiry antique_ is pretty well whipped out, and a nice
silk is allus handy. I got brown—a nice shade, I call it,” and she
unrolled a silk of excellent quality, but of a yellowish brown, which
would be very unbecoming to her.
“Oh, grandma, why didn’t you get black instead of that horrid
snuff-color?” Anna said, contemptuously, as she glanced at the silk, and
then went out, leaving the old lady a good deal crest-fallen, and a
little doubtful with regard to the dress she had lately thought so
pretty.
Margery soothed her as well as she could, and heard her suggestions, and
took her measure, and showed her some new fashion-plates, and did it all
with her ears turned to her mother’s room where the talk was still going
on, now low and earnest and almost pleading, and again so high and
excited, that grandma asked if that was not _Rennet’s_ voice and what
she was talking so loud for. Then Margery excused herself for a moment
and ran up stairs to her mother’s room, the door of which was ajar, and
that accounted for the distinctness with which the sound of voices was
borne to the parlor below.
Mrs. La Rue had risen from her bed and put on a dressing-gown which
Reinette was buttoning for her while she was trying to bind her long,
loose hair into a knot behind. Her face was white as ashes, and in her
eyes there was a hunted look, as of one pursued to the last extremity.
But when she saw Margery, their expression suddenly changed, and
thrusting out both hands, she cried: “Oh, Margery, go away; this is no
place for you.”
Advancing into the room and closing the door, Margery said in a low,
firm tone of voice: “Miss Hetherton, I don’t know what all this is
about, but mother is too weak and sick to be thus excited. Will you
leave her until a fitter time?”
“Don’t call me Miss Hetherton, as if you were angry at me,” Reinette
replied without looking up from buttoning Mrs. La Rue’s dressing-gown.
“I cannot go now. Your mother knew my mother and is going to tell me
about her. She is Christine Bodine.”
“Yes, I am Christine. God pity me,” the miserable woman exclaimed, and
over Margery’s face there swept a look of unutterable pain and
disappointment.
She had said to herself that this which Reinette had told her was true;
that her mother _was_ Christine, and still there had been a faint hope
that there might be some mistake; but there was none; her mother had
declared it herself, and with a low cry she turned away, saying as she
did so: “There are people in the parlor, and your voices are sometimes
louder than you suppose, and though they cannot understand you, they
will know you are excited and that there is trouble of some kind. Speak
lower; do. If this thing I hear be true we surely need not tell it to
the world; we can keep it to ourselves.”
“Yes, Margery, that is what I mean to do,” Queenie said, while Mrs. La
Rue exclaimed, with a ring of joy in her voice as if some unexpected
relief had come to her: “Yes, yes, we need not tell; we will not tell;
we will keep the secret forever.”
“But you must tell me all you know about my mother,” Queenie said, while
Margery went down stairs, for the bell was ringing again and Grandma
Ferguson was growing impatient of waiting to know if she should trim her
brown silk with velvet or fringe.
This time it was Mrs. Rossiter and her daughters, and into Margery’s
mind there flashed the thought, “Are all the Fergusons coming here
to-day, and what would they say if they knew who my mother was?” But
they did not know or dream of the exciting interview in the room above,
where Reinette questioned so rapidly and impatiently the woman who
almost crouched at her feet in her abasement and answered amid tears and
sobs. The Rossiters had merely come to ask when Miss La Rue could do
some work for them, and they left very soon taking grandma with them, to
the great relief of Margery, who locked the door upon them, determined
that no one else should enter until Reinette was gone and she knew
herself why the truth had been withheld from her.
Up stairs the talk was still going on, though the voices now were low
and quiet as if the storm was over: but would the interview never end?
would Reinette never leave her free to go to her mother herself and
demand an explanation? Slowly, as it seemed, the hour hands crept on
until it was twelve o’clock, and then at last a door opened and shut,
and Queenie came down the stairs, her eyes red with weeping, but with a
look of content upon her face which surprised Margery a little.
“She cannot be very angry with mother,” she thought and her heart began
to grow lighter as Queenie came up to her, and putting her arms around
her neck, said to her:
“Margie, it makes you seem nearer to me, now that I know your mother was
my nurse, and I love you more than ever. But how white you are, and your
hands are like lumps of ice. Are you sick?” she continued, as she looked
with alarm at Margery’s face, which was as white as ashes.
“Not sick, but a good deal upset with what I have heard,” Margery
replied; “but tell me,” she continued, “what does mother say? Why has
she never told you who she was?”
“She says it was for your sake; that she feared lest I might think less
of you if I knew you were the daughter of my former nurse,” Queenie
replied, and looking earnestly at her, Margery asked:
“And you believe this to be the only reason, don’t you?”
“No, I do not,” Queenie answered, promptly. “It is true in part, no
doubt, but there is something she did not tell me, and which I am
resolved to find out. But I did not tell her so, she seemed so scared—so
like a frightened child. Margery, I believe your mother is more than
half crazy.”
“Yes, yes,” and Margery caught eagerly at the suggestion. “You are
right; she is crazy. I can see it now, and that will account for much
which seems so strange. Oh, Queenie, be patient; be merciful. Remember,
she is my mother.”
“And my nurse,” Queenie rejoined. “She was with my mother when I was
born and when she died. I shall not wrong her; do not fear me,” and
Queenie’s lips touched Margery’s in token that through her no harm
should come to the poor woman who, in the chamber above, sat in a low
chair rocking to and fro, with a sickening dread of the moment when she
must stand face to face with Margery and meet the glance of those clear,
blue eyes which might read the story she had not told Reinette.