CHRISTINE’S STORY.
Margery found her mother in the library standing by the window, with
that gloomy abstracted look upon her face which she had so often seen
there before she learned the cause and knew of the keen remorse always
gnawing at her heart-strings and making her life so wretched. Christine
had done the worst she could do to Queenie. She had told her the truth;
and though a great burden was lifted from her, and in one sense she felt
freer and happier than she had felt in years, she was weighed down with
a sense of remorse and regret, and filled with a dread of the future.
That Queenie could ever love, or even respect her, was impossible,
reared as she had been in a very hot-bed of pride and aristocracy, and
taught from her infancy that such as Christine Bodine were creatures of
an entirely different grade from herself.
“She may compel herself to be civil to me,” Christine thought, “though I
ought not to hope for that; but if she only knew how much I love her and
how the affection, smothered so long, has grown since I confessed myself
her mother, she would forgive me, perhaps.”
“Mother,” Margery said just here, and with a start Christine turned
toward her; “Mother, Queenie wishes to see you. Will you go to her now?”
“Yes,” Mrs. La Rue replied, in a frightened voice, for there swept over
her a great fear of the girl to whom she must tell her story, and
grasping Margery’s arm she whispered, “Does she hate me? Will she scorn
me? Will she make me feel that I am but the dust beneath her feet? Oh,
Margie, go with me. I cannot meet her alone. She is so hot, so
imperious, so proud, so different from you, who have never reproached
me, except for her sake. Come, Margie, you must go, too; and if she is
too hard upon me, say a word for me, will you, Margie?”
She was like a child shrinking from the rod, and Margery’s heart ached
for the woman who clung to her nervously as they went up the stairs
together to Queenie’s room. Pierre had been there before them, full of
concern for his young mistress, whose sudden and strange illness he did
not understand.
As they entered, Queenie lifted her eyes to them, but made no sign of
recognition to Christine, who, like some guilty culprit, sank into a
chair, where she sat shaking in every limb.
After the first glance at her, Queenie shut her eyes and said languidly
and slowly, as if speaking were wearisome, “I wish you to tell me of
Margery and myself; tell me why she was deserted and left to live in the
Rue St. Honore, while I was taken to Chateau des Fleurs and treated as
the daughter of the house. That is all.”
While Queenie talked she did not once look at Christine, but sat with
her eyes closed and her whole attitude one of extreme weariness. But she
heard Margery as she was stealing from the room and called her to come
back.
“You must stay with me, Margery,” she said, “I want to hold your hand so
that I can feel there is something left when all else slips from me.”
So Margery came back and sitting down by Queenie took one of the hot,
feverish hands in hers, and caressed it occasionally as Christine told
her story.
“I must commence at a period prior to Margery’s birth,” she said, “or I
cannot make you understand how ignorant of the world I was when I
entered Mrs. Hetherton’s employ, and how innocent and unsuspecting too.
And when Monsieur began to notice me, and speak to me pleasantly, and
tell me what a good girl I was I thought nothing of it, but redoubled my
efforts to please him. But when he flattered me and said I was more a
lady than many a one who wore her diamonds and pearls, I was angry and
told him he must never speak to me like that again; and he did not,
though he was always very kind and polite, and I felt intuitively that
he respected me as one superior to my class, and admired me, too, for I
was pretty then, with ways something like Queenie’s.”
There was a slight sound like a moan from Queenie, and Christine
continued:
“That he could ever think of me for a wife never entered my brain till I
sat by my dying mistress and heard her say, ‘I am so glad, for Frederick
has wanted a child so much, and a daughter will make him very happy, and
keep me in his mind. Christine, it may be very foolish in me, but I do
not like to think that Frederick will marry again—that another woman
will take my place, and possibly be loved more than I have been, and now
that he has a little daughter to care for, there is not so much danger
of it. He will be satisfied with little Margery, he will call her by
that name. I have told him so in the letter which you will give to him.
Stay with him, Christine, and be a comfort to him, you and Margery.’
These were nearly the last words she said to me, for in less than an
hour she was dead, and I was alone with her baby in my arms, and the
horrible temptation to which I afterwards yielded kept suggesting itself
to me, making me shudder and grow faint as I reflected what a monster I
was to harbor such a thought for an instant. And still it recurred to me
over and over again until it did not seem so very dreadful, and I began
to consider it seriously, as something which might be done. I was not
then the simple peasant girl I had been when I first entered my
mistress’ service. The familiarity with which she had treated me, the
evident liking of my master whom I could influence at times more readily
even than his wife, the notice I received from strangers, especially
Americans who frequently mistook me for Mrs. Hetherton’s companion,
rather than her maid, had turned my head and made me discontented with
my position. I wanted to be a lady, and as I sat with Margery in my
arms, the devil whispered to me that now was my opportunity to try for
something higher, and test the power I knew I held over my master. He
had made one misalliance—he might make another. If he was very proud he
was very susceptible too—he liked to be cared for and petted, and I, who
understood him so well, would make myself so necessary to him that he
could not live without me, and would perhaps make me his wife at last.
Thus I reasoned when suddenly it occurred to me that the baby was an
obstacle in my way. He was passionately fond of children, and a daughter
in his house would change everything. My mistress had said so, and I
believed it. With the baby at Chateau des Fleurs I could never hope to
be more than nurse and maid, as I was now. And then Satan told me to
hide the child for a time, till I saw what I could do with the father.
If I succeeded I would tell him the truth, and brave his anger, for I
should still be his wife. If I failed I would send his daughter to him
with the letter my mistress entrusted to me, and in which she told him
of its birth and the name she had given it. In any event I did not mean
to hide Margie forever, but I did not know then how one sin leads to
another or what a hard master is the evil one when you give yourself to
him as I did, for I resolved at last to do the wicked thing which was
comparatively easy. Of Margery’s expected birth Monsieur knew nothing,
for his wife had purposely kept it from him to make the surprise and
pleasure greater. He had not seen her in some months, and would have no
suspicion of the existence of the little girl. We had lived very quietly
in Rome, and few knew or cared for the young mother who died alone with
me. But when she was dead strangers kindly came forward and when they
heard that Mr. Hetherton was away in Austria or Russia, I did not know
which, they took the matter in hand and buried her in the Protestant
burying ground, but left me to do what I pleased with the baby, which I
took to Paris, to an old woman whom I had known for years, and to whom I
entrusted it, telling her it was mine, and hiring her to care for it
until I was in a position to claim it. She asked me no questions, for
the gold I paid her was a conclusive argument in my favor and would, I
knew, insure kind care for the child.
“My next step was to go to Chateau des Fleurs to await the coming of my
master, for I had written him from Rome, telling him of his wife’s
death, and my intention to return to the Chateau with whatever effects
she left in my care. The letter was some time in finding him; but on its
receipt, he hastened home at once, and for a day or two seemed crushed
with grief and remorse. Then for a short time he drank hard and deeply,
and kept his room, where bottle after bottle of wine and brandy was
sent, and in his drunkenness he was more like a brute than a man.
“This drunken revel was succeeded by an illness of several weeks’
duration, during which I nursed him with the utmost care, playing my
part so well that the result came sooner than I anticipated, but was not
what I desired. I must be his wife or nothing, and at last weakened
bodily and mentally by disease and the brandy he drank in so large
quantities he promised to make me his wife on condition that I kept it a
secret until he chose to tell of it himself. As there was no Protestant
clergyman near Chateau des Fleurs he said we would marry ourselves, and
he made me believe that by joining hands and promising to take each
other for man and wife after the manner of the English Prayer Book, we
should really become so. ‘Such things were common in America,’ he said,
‘when a priest was not easy of access.’ Of course, when it was
convenient this private ceremony, though perfectly legal, must be
repeated in public, and this he swore solemnly should be done, and I
trusted him and went blind-folded to my ruin, but innocent—oh, Queenie,
as innocent as you are to-day.”
“Yes,” Queenie rejoined, with a look of unutterable anguish upon her
face, for now she had lost all faith in and respect for her father, but
as yet had no relenting towards the poor deceived mother. “Yes, go on.”
Christine flushed a little as she went on rapidly: “I believe I was his
wife and wished to remain at the Chateau, but he would not hear to me.
‘We must go to Marseilles,’ he said, and thither he went, and he hired a
suite of rooms for me, but did not remain there himself, though he came
often to see me, and treated me with kindness and consideration, but did
not bring the clergyman as he had promised to do. ‘He had not met one of
the right sort,’ he said, and there was no haste as I was really his
wife. And so matters went on until a great fear took possession of me
that all was not right, and then you were born, and when you were three
or four weeks old he came to me and seemed to love you so much, and was
so kind to me that I begged him on my knees to acknowledge me to the
world, and take me with him to Chateau des Fleurs. Then it was that he
undeceived me and told me how I had been duped, and did it as coolly as
if to ruin an innocent girl was nothing but pastime for gentlemen like
him, and he laughed at me for taking it as I did, for at first I raved
like a mad woman, but it did no good.
“‘Christine,’ he said, ‘you must be very weak to suppose for a moment
that I was in earnest, or that you could ever live at Chateau des Fleurs
as other than a servant. Men of my stamp do not marry girls like you, or
in fact marry at all in our sober senses. I will admit that I am far
more to blame than you, but you can never be my wife, though I will care
for the child. It is lonely at Chateau des Fleurs; a baby’s voice and
baby’s prattle will make it more endurable. I have wanted a child so
much, and if Margaret had left me one I should never have done what I
have.’
“You will not believe me if I tell you that when I heard this my first
impulse was to fall at his feet and tell him of the little girl in
Paris, thoughts of whom had haunted me continually, making me sometimes
cry out with pain and remorse. But I had gone too far to confess. He
would never have forgiven me, and all my ambitious dreams for my own
child would have come to naught. I had no hope for myself; his imperious
manner and cold, disdainful words crushed all that; but there arose in
me an intense desire to see _you_ a lady, and I begged him to take you,
whatever he might do with me, and he consented at last, but bade me stay
where I was until I heard from him again. He wished to make some change
in his household, he said, for if he took you home it would be as the
child of his dead wife. I was only the nurse, who might or might not be
retained; it would depend upon myself.
“Then he left me, and I knew I was no more to him than a cast-off
garment, of which he was tired, and that in whatever arrangements he
might make, no thought for me or my comfort would actuate him; and in my
anguish I felt that my punishment was greater than I could bear, and I
even thought to kill myself and you too. But a thought of little Margery
prevented me. Somebody must care for her, and so I lived on and waited
and hoped the time might come when I could restore her to her rights.
“On quitting Marseilles your father went to Chateau des Fleurs, and, on
one pretext or another, dismissed all the servants in his employ,
filling their places with strangers, who knew nothing of his past life,
and who readily believed him when he told them of his wife who had died
in Rome, and of his little daughter whom he was soon to bring home. A
huge nursery, which communicated with his apartments, was fitted up with
every possible luxury. And then he bade me come; and I took you to him
as his lawful child, while I was only the head nurse—for he hired
another woman to look after you, giving me the post of looking after
her.
“I remember so well the day I took you to the Chateau and waited for his
coming, but waited in vain, for though he knew I was in the house, he
kept aloof from me and took his dinner, and read his paper, and smoked
his cigar, and then at last he sauntered into the nursery with that air
of elegant indifference and superiority so natural to him. I had not
seen him since his visit to Marseilles, when you were a few weeks old;
but he simply bade me good-evening, and asked if I had found everything
in readiness. Then he walked up to the cradle, and when you raised your
little hands toward him as if asking him to take you, he lifted you in
his arms, kissed your lips, and laying your head upon his shoulder said:
‘My daughter, my heiress, Reinette Hetherton.’
“I knew he had adopted you as his own. But I was only your hired nurse,
who was entitled to consideration in the household because I had been
the trusted maid of his wife. This raised me somewhat above my
fellow-servants, who treated me with a great deal of respect, and asked
me many questions concerning my late mistress and Mr. Hetherton, who
puzzled them with his cold, quiet, haughty manner.
“With your advent at the Chateau all his former habits were changed, and
he seldom left home except to go to Paris, where he never stayed more
than a day or two. All his old associates were dropped, and few ever
came to see him. And yet he did not seem to be lonely, so great was his
love for you. From the moment he took you in his arms and kissed you, he
was perfectly devoted to you, and had you brought to him in the library
every night after his dinner was over. I generally took you to him
myself, but he never noticed me by a word or look, and this so enraged
me that I spoke out to him at last, and threatened to go away and take
you with me, if he continued to treat me with so much contempt.
“‘You can do so to-morrow, if you like, I shall be glad to have you,’
was his reply, and I knew that he meant it.
“But my desire to see you a lady was stronger than my resentment, and so
I stayed, content to be trodden down, if by that means you might rise.
But those foolish words of mine sealed my fate, for from that time I
think he began to plan how to be rid of me. The sight of me was
distasteful to him, and when you were about a year and a half old, we
had a bitter quarrel, which ended in a final separation; but I could not
take you from all the luxury with which you were surrounded, and when he
offered to settle upon me a certain sum of money if I would go away
quietly, and promise solemnly, never to come near you, or let you know
that I was your mother, I consented, and left you at Chateau des Fleurs
the acknowledged and petted child of the house.
“How well I remember you, Queenie, as I saw you for the last time in
your embroidered white dress, with coral clasps at your neck, and your
hands full of flowers, which you offered to me when I bent over you,
crying as if my heart would break. You were so beautiful and bright, and
I loved you so much, that for a moment I was tempted to break my vow,
and, defying my cruel master, publish to the whole world my wrongs, and,
if possible, carry you off in triumph. But when I remembered the home to
which I must take you, and how different all your future life would be,
I abandoned the project, and left you there in the sunshine, with wealth
and luxury all around you, and went out into the darkness, where only
toil and poverty awaited me, with a constant sense of my wrong and the
sin I had committed in hiding Margery.”
Here Christine paused, and with closed eyes and clenched fists seemed to
be living over again the scenes she had described, while Reinette raised
herself from her reclining position in the chair, and winding her arms
tightly around Margery’s neck, rested her cheek upon the bowed head, and
said:
“Well, Christine, you have let me see one side of the picture, have
shown me myself, surrounded with riches and love, and sunshine and
flowers, to which I had no right. Now show me the other side; take me to
the garret where Margie, to whom belonged the sunshine and the flowers,
was struggling with cold and hunger, and shrinking it may be, from harsh
words and cruel blows.”
“No, Queenie, never,” Margery exclaimed. “Never hunger or cold or blows
or harsh words. The woman who cared for me was always kind, and my
childhood was a happy one, for I knew no other life, and the children of
poverty are as much pleased with a toy which costs a penny as are the
children of the rich with one which costs many francs; and after mother
came and took me to live with her, I was very happy, for if she
defrauded me of my birthright, she made it up in love and tender care.”
Margery’s generous defense of the woman who had wronged her so deeply,
touched Queenie, and her voice was softer and her manner less imperious
as she continued: “I know she loved you, Margie—know she has been kind
to you, and I thank her for it; but I wish to hear about it all the
same—wish to know where you lived, and how, after she left Chateau des
Fleurs and went back to you. Tell me, please,” and she turned to
Christine: “tell me of Margie when she was a baby.”
Christine was quick to detect the change in Queenie’s voice and manner,
and her face was brighter as she replied: “After I left you I went to
Paris, to Florine’s apartments, where I found a healthy, beautiful
child, whom no one could see and not love. My heart was very sore and
full of a great longing for my own baby girl left at Chateau des Fleurs,
and when she toddled to my side and put up her sweet lips to be kissed,
as was a habit of hers, I took her in my arms and into my heart and made
a solemn vow to be true to her and never let her feel the want of a
mother’s love. I told her to call me mamma, and the name came prettily
from her lips. I was younger and better looking than Florine, and she
took to me readily, and slept in my arms and cried when I left her to
look for lodgings and employment. I found both: the first with a
hair-dresser in Rue de Richelieu, and the second on the upper floor of
number —— Rue St. Honore, where you came to us one day and changed
Margery’s whole life. Had I chosen to use the money your father paid me
annually, we might have lived in much better style, but I shrank from
touching more of it than it was absolutely necessary, and took pleasure
in supporting her by my own hard labor. I would lay the money by for her
until she married, if she ever did, or until she needed it more, I
thought; and should she marry now she would not go empty-handed to her
husband, for there are many thousand dollars invested for her in France.
“How I toiled and slaved for her, and how I loved her as time went on
and she grew more and more into my heart; loved her so much, in fact,
that your image gradually began to fade, and I could think of you
without a pang. I saw you occasionally—once in the grounds at the
Chateau, where I came upon you with your nurse, and several times in the
streets of Paris, after your father brought you there. I used to take
Margery out upon the Champs d’Elysees on fine afternoons when the
streets were full of people driving out to the Bois, and hiring a chair
I would hold her in my lap and watch for your father to pass. Though not
the most showy—for his taste was too good for that—Mr. Hetherton’s
turn-out was the most elegant and probably the most expensive of all the
private carriages in Paris, while his splendid thoroughbreds were the
talk of the city. I always watched anxiously for him, and when he
appeared, sitting up so proud and erect, with that look of haughty
indifference and selfishness on his face, and with you beside him on the
cushions, clad in dainty apparel, I used to hold little Margery tightly
to my heart and bite my lips till the blood almost forced itself through
the skin, so fearful was I lest I should shriek out the truth so loudly
that he would hear it above the roll of the wheels and the tramp of the
horses’ hoofs. Something impelled me strongly to hold you high in my
arms, and, making him see you, say to him: ‘This is your lawful
daughter, the child of your wife who died in Rome. Her place is there
beside you, and not far up in the tenement house on the Rue St. Honore.’
“But it was too late now to confess, so I let you go by in all your
splendor, and if at night I kissed Margery more tenderly than usual and
held her closer to me as I undressed her for bed, it was by way of
atonement for the great wrong I was doing her.
“It was about this time that I fell in with Gustave La Rue, who offered
me marriage. He was a good-natured easy-going man, who would never
trouble me much with questions concerning the past, provided I made his
home comfortable and his life easy, and so I married him, and gave
Margery his name, and said to strangers that she was his daughter. He
was fond of children and always kind to her, and never pressed me hard
with regard to her parentage but once, and then I swore to him that she
was not my child; but he did not believe me, though he never suspected
the truth.”
“And when I went to your room in the Rue St. Honore, you knew I was
Margery’s sister?” Queenie said; and Christine replied:
“Yes, and kissed the chair you sat upon, and in my poor blind way
thanked God for sending you there, and thanked him again when, through
your influence, Margery was placed at the same school with you, and her
education paid for by the man who never suspected the truth, or even
knew that the little girl in whom his daughter was so interested was
anything to me until her education was finished and she was a grown
young lady, then he learned it accidentally and was very angry and bade
me keep you apart, lest in some way you should learn who I was.
“It was then that the idea of emigrating to America was suggested to my
mind by some ladies for whom Margery had worked, and who gave such
glowing accounts of the country and the prospects for dressmaking that I
began to consider the matter seriously, and finally made up my mind to
go, without communicating with Mr. Hetherton upon the subject. I wrote
him, however, from Oak Bluffs, and directed to the old address in Paris,
but possibly he never received my letter.”
“Yes, he did; I am sure he did,” Queenie exclaimed. “There were letters
forwarded to him at Liverpool, and one of them made him very angry,
Pierre told me. He was present when papa read it, and after that he was
very nervous and excited, and suggested to me that we give up America
and go back to Paris. But I would not listen. I made him come, and he
died on the voyage, and you were the cause of his death. He dreaded
meeting you here, and the dread and the remorse killed him. Oh, papa—I
can see him so plain as his eyes followed me, and he made me promise to
forgive him if something ever came to my knowledge, and I promised; but
it is so hard. Oh, Margie, if it were not for you, I could not keep my
promise, and I don’t know as I can at all, he was so bad—if all she says
is true. It would have been better to have left me in Marseilles where I
was born—left me to poverty and want—for then I should have known
nothing better, and might have been as happy as the girls I have seen
dancing on the street for the amusement of the crowd. But now, to fall
so far—it makes me dizzy, and sick, and dazed, and there’s a buzzing in
my head, and a feeling as if I were crazed and could not understand it
at all.”
She was very white, with a drawn look about her lips, which alarmed
Margery, who bent over her and said:
“You have heard enough. There can be nothing more to tell which will
interest you. Mother must go out now, and leave you to rest.”
“Yes, yes, Margie; tell her to go; I am so tired and sick,” Queenie
whispered, and without a word Christine left the room, and the two girls
were alone.