SISTER CHRISTINE.
So absorbed had Queenie been with Phil that she had failed to notice
anything which was passing around her, or to think of anything except
her great happiness. She knew that some time during the morning Pierre
had brought her coffee and rolls, which he had managed to find somewhere
near, he said, and which he made her eat. He had also given her some
orders with regard to Phil’s medicines, saying that Madame La Rue bade
him do so, and to say that Miss Hetherton must be very particular not to
forget. And Queenie had not forgotten that, though all else was a blank
to her until Phil went to sleep, and she sat watching him and wondering
by what strange chance the sea had given up its dead and restored him to
her. Then, as she heard a city clock strike eleven, she began to think
how fast the hours had sped, and to wonder a little at Christine’s
prolonged absence from the room. And still that did not surprise her
much, for she naturally supposed she had gone to some other sick bed,
where she was needed more than there with Phil.
“There is a great deal of good in her, and I must always be kind to her
because of what she has done for Phil,” she thought, and she felt glad
that all the old bitterness and resentment were gone, and that although
she could not think of Christine as her mother, she could think of her
quietly and calmly as of one who, if she had greatly sinned, had also
greatly suffered for the sin and was trying to atone. “Phil and I will
take care of her, though she cannot, of course, live with us. She will
not expect that;” she thought, and her mind was busy with castles of the
future, when Pierre looked in again just for an instant, and seeing Phil
asleep, shut the door at once and went out again before she could ask
him a question.
But in the glimpse she got of him, it seemed to her that there was an
unusual look of concern upon his face, while through the open door she
caught a faint sound of voices in the distance, and footsteps hurrying
here and there. What was it? she asked herself, and felt tempted to go
out and see, but Phil’s hand was clasping hers and she would not free
herself from it lest she should awaken him. So she still sat on till the
clock struck twelve and the hum of voices was occasionally borne to her
ears by the opening of some door further up the hall. There was somebody
in the other part of the house besides Pierre—somebody sick, too;
judging from the sounds, and she grew so nervous at last and curious
upon the subject, that she gradually withdrew her hand from Phil’s, and
rising softly was about to leave the room, when Pierre looked in again,
and this time she could not be mistaken with regard to the expression on
his face, which was very pale and troubled as it looked wistfully at
her.
“What is it, Pierre?” she asked in a whisper, going close to him and
observing that he stood against the door as if to keep her from passing.
“Whose voices do I hear, and is any one sick? I was just coming to
ascertain. Let me pass, please.”
“No, no, mademoiselle. Don’t come. She said you were not to know. We are
doing all we can for her.” Pierre cried, in great alarm, thus letting
out the secret he had been told to keep.
“Do all you can for her? For whom? Who is it that is sick, and said I
must not know?” Queenie asked, as she put the old man aside, and opening
the door, drew him with her into the hall. “Now tell me the truth,” she
continued. “Is some one sick whom I ought to see? Is it—Christine?”
“Yes,” he answered, “it is Madame Christine, and she is very bad. She
will die, the doctor fears, but she said you must not know. You must not
leave Mr. Rossiter for her and she sent me many times to see how he
was.”
Pierre was right, for in a small room at the end of the hall Christine
La Rue was dying. She who had braved so much and borne so much and
passed through so many dangers unscathed, had at last succumbed to the
terrible disease which she knew was creeping upon her, when she sent for
Queenie to share her vigils by Phil’s bedside.
“I must not give up yet; I must endure and bear until he is out of
danger. I must save him for her sake,” she thought, and fought down with
a desperate courage and iron will the horrid sensations stealing over
her so fast and making her sometimes almost beside herself with
dizziness and languor.
But when the crisis was past and she felt sure Phil was safe, she could
endure it no longer, and with one long, lingering look at Queenie, whom
she felt she should never see again, she started for her own lodgings.
“I can die there alone and so trouble no one,” she thought, as she made
her way to the staircase.
But on the first landing her strength failed her and she fell upon the
floor, where she lay, or rather sat in a half upright position, leaning
against the wall with her face in her hands, until a voice roused her
and she looked up to see a man standing before her and asking who she
was and why she was there. It was the proprietor of the house, who,
ashamed of his cowardice, had returned and going first through the rooms
below where everything was as he had left it, started to ascend the
stair to the chambers above, when he came upon Christine, whom he had
often seen on her errands of mercy, but whom he did not recognize until
she looked up and spoke to him. Then he knew her, and exclaimed:
“Sister Christine! What are you doing here, and what is the matter with
you?”
“I am sick—I have the fever,” she replied; “and if you are afraid, leave
me at once.”
He was mortally afraid, but he was not so unmanly as to leave a woman
like Christine to die uncared for at the head of his own staircase, and
helping her to the nearest room where there was a bed, he started for a
physician. Meeting in the lower hall with Pierre, who had been out for
Queenie’s coffee, and who explained to him that his house held another
patient, he told him of Christine and where she was, bidding him look
after her until help came from some other quarter.
But Christine was past all human aid. The disease had attacked her in
its worst form, and she knew she should not live to see another sun
setting. She was very calm, however, and only anxious for Queenie and
Phil.
“They must not be disturbed—they must not know,” she said to Pierre, to
whom she gave some orders concerning Phil’s medicines, which Pierre took
to his mistress.
“Don’t tell her I am sick; don’t let her know until I am dead. Then tell
her I was so glad to die and leave her free, and that I loved her so
much, and am so sorry for the past,” she said to Pierre, who, half
distracted with all he was passing through, wrung his hands nervously,
and promised all she required.
But when Queenie began to suspect, and insisted upon knowing the truth,
he told her, adding, as he saw her about to dart away from him toward
Christine’s room:
“You better not go there; she does not need you. One of the sisters is
with her, and she said you must stay with monsieur. All her anxiety is
for him and you—none for herself. She seems so glad to die!”
He might as well have talked to the wind for all the heed Queenie gave
him. Bidding him sit by Phil until he awoke, and then come for her if
she was needed, she went quickly to the room where Christine lay, with
death stamped on every lineament of her face, but with a calm peaceful
expression upon it, which told that she was glad for the end so fast
approaching.
When Queenie entered, her eyes were closed, but they opened quickly, and
a smile of joy and surprise broke over her face, when Queenie exclaimed:
“Oh, Christine, you are sick, and you did not let me know it, or I
should have come before!”
For an instant Christine’s lips quivered in a pitiful kind of way; then
the great tears rolled down her cheeks as she whispered faintly:
“I _am_ sick—I am dying; but I did not want you to know. I wished to
spare you and him. How is he now?”
Queenie explained that he was sleeping quietly, and that she believed
all danger had passed. Then, sitting down by the bedside, she took the
hot, burning hands in hers, and rubbed and bathed them as carefully and
gently as if they had been Phil’s, instead of this woman’s, toward whom
she had felt so bitter and resentful. All that was gone now, and she was
conscious of a strange feeling stirring within her as she sat and met
the dying eyes fixed upon her with so much yearning tenderness and love.
This woman was her mother. Nothing could change that; and whatever her
faults had been, she was a good woman now, Queenie believed; and, as the
dim eyes met hers so constantly and appealingly, she bent close to the
pillow, and said:
“_Mother_, I am sorry I was so unforgiving and hard. It came so
suddenly. Forgive me if you can.”
A low, pitiful cry was Christine’s only answer for a moment, and then
she said:
“I have nothing to forgive; the wrong was all my own, and I deserved
your scorn. But oh, Queenie, my child, you can never know how I was
deceived, or how wholly I trusted your father whom I loved so much, and
after I had kept Margery’s birth a secret, I must go on concealing.
There was no other way. He would have murdered me, or left me to starve
with you. Oh, Margery. Margery, my other child! and, Queenie, you will
not mind if I say my dearest child, for she has been all the world to
me. Tell her so, Queenie; tell her I blessed her with my last breath,
and loved her with all my strength, and soul, and might. She is so
sweet, so good, so true! God bless her, and make her perfectly happy!”
During this conversation, which was carried on in French, the sister
whom the physician had sent to attend Christine stood looking on
wonderingly, and never dreaming of the relationship between the two. She
was, however, anxious lest so much talking and excitement should be
injurious to her patient, and she said so to Queenie, who replied:
“Yes, you are right. I should try to quiet her now. If you will be kind
enough to look after the young man in No. 40, I will stay with Sister
Christine. She wishes it to be so. She was my nurse in France. I knew
her—her—”
Queenie hesitated a moment, and then added:
“Knew her daughter. She was talking of her to me.”
This satisfied the woman, who, bowing assent, went from the room,
leaving the two alone.
For a time Christine lay perfectly still, with her eyes closed, but her
lips were constantly moving, and Queenie knew that she was praying, for
she caught the words:
“Forgive for Christ’s sake, who forgave the thief at the very last
hour!”
And all the while Queenie held the hot hands in hers and occasionally
smoothed the gray hair back from the pale brow where the sweat of death
was gathering so fast. At last Christine opened her eyes and looked
fixedly at Queenie, who said to her very gently:
“What is it? Do you wish to tell me something?”
“Yes,” the dying woman answered, faintly. “I hope I am forgiven, and
that I shall find rest beyond the grave. I used to pray so much in the
cottage when I was alone—pray sometimes all night with my face on the
cold floor. But the peace I asked for would not come. There was always a
horror of blackness before me until I came here, when the darkness has
been clearing, and now there is peace and joy, for I feel that God
forgives me all my sin, and you, my child, have forgiven me too, and
called me _mother_, and Phil is alive and safe. I’ve nothing more to
live for, and I am so glad to die.”
She talked but little after that, and when she did speak her mind was
wandering in the past, now at Chateau des Fleurs, now in Rome, where she
watched by her mistress’ bedside, but mostly in Marseilles, where her
baby was born, “her darling little girl baby,” whom she bade Queenie be
kind to when she was gone. Then she talked of Margery and Paris, and the
apartments in the Rue St. Honore, until her voice was only a whisper,
and Queenie could not distinguish a word. She was dying very fast, and
just at the last, before her life went out forever, Queenie bent over
her, and kissing her softly, whispered:
“Mother, do you know that I am here—Queenie—your little girl?”
“Yes, yes,” she gasped, and a look of unutterable love and satisfaction
shone in the eyes which looked up at Queenie. “_I know_ you are
Queenie—the baby born at Marseilles—my own—and you kiss me and call me
_mother_. God bless you, my child, and make you very happy. I am glad
for your sake that I am going away. Good-by, my darling, good-by!”
She never spoke again, though it was an hour or more before Queenie
loosed her hold of the hand which clung so tightly to hers, and closing
the eyes which looked at her to the last, smoothed the bed-clothes
decently, and then going out to Pierre, who was waiting in the hall,
told him that all was over.
* * * * *
Sister Christine was dead, and there was mourning for her in the city
where she was so well known, and where her kindness and gentleness and
courage had won her so many friends, some of whom followed her remains
to their last resting-place, and wept for her as one long known and well
beloved. Every respect which it was possible under the circumstances to
pay her was paid to her. Many gathered about the grave where they buried
her, just after the sun setting on the same day of her death. It was
Queenie who prepared her for the coffin, suffering no other hands to
touch her but her own.
“She nursed me when I was a baby, and I must care for her now,” she said
to Sister Agatha, when she remonstrated with her and offered to take the
task from her hands.
And to Queenie it was a mournful pleasure thus to care for the woman who
had been her mother, and who, she felt, was truly good and repentant at
the last.
“I am glad I feel so kindly toward her—glad I called her mother,” she
thought, and was conscious of a keen pain in her heart as she looked
upon the white dead face on which suffering and remorse had left their
marks.
Notwithstanding the hour and her own fatigue, Queenie was among the
number who stood by the open grave where all that was mortal of
Christine was buried, and she would not leave until the grave was filled
and all the work was done. Then, taking Pierre’s arm, she went back to
the hotel, and going to Phil’s room laid her tired head upon the hands
he stretched toward her and cried bitterly, while Phil soothed and
caressed her until she grew quiet and could tell him all the particulars
of Christine’s death.
“There was much that was noble and good in her,” she said, “and had she
lived I would have tried to do right, and with you to help and encourage
me I might have succeeded.”
“Yes,” Phil answered her, “I am sure you would; but it is better for her
to be at rest.”
And Phil was right; for had Christine lived she could only have been a
source of unhappiness to Queenie, who, with the best of intentions,
could never fully have received her as a mother. God knew best, and took
to himself the weary woman, who had been more sinned against than
sinning, and whose memory was held in the hearts of those whose lives
she had been instrumental in saving as the memory of a saint.