Queenie Hetherton

Mr. Beresford was the first to say it. As he did not often see Phil and Queenie together, except in company with Grace and Ethel, or Anna, he had no reason to know how much they were to each other, or he might not have been as confident of success as he was when at last he made up his mind to speak and know the worst or best there was to know. It had been his boast that no woman living could affect his happiness one way or the other. As a general thing he did not believe in them; that is, did not believe them real, or worth the love so many strong, sensible men wasted upon them.

But the little, bright-eyed French girl had torn down all his fortifications, and he did believe in her, and wanted her for his own, as he had never wanted anything before in his life. She was so fresh, so original, so piquant, so different from any one he had ever seen. Ethel and Grace Rossiter were sweet and lady-like, but they never affected him, while Margery La Rue was, he acknowledged, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

Everybody conceded that, and Mr. Beresford was not an exception to the rule.

Since the night when Reinette berated him so soundly for what she thought his lack of appreciation for Miss La Rue, he had called upon her a few times, and felt a growing interest in her, as he saw how pure and sweet she was, with an inborn delicacy and refinement of manner seldom found in persons of her class, for she never tried to hide the fact that her mother was a hair-dresser in Paris, and her father a nothing.

This, of itself, would have been a terrible obstacle in Mr. Beresford’s way had he been greatly interested in Margery. Her family was against her, but with Queenie it was different, and he loved her as men of his mature age usually love when the grand passion seizes them for the first time, and he told her so one night when they sat together upon the ledge of rocks which overlooked the town and the river wandering through it.

Reinette had quarreled with Phil that day—hotly and fiercely quarreled, and had told him to go away and never come near her again, for she did not like him, and thought big cousins bores any way. And Phil had answered back, and said he was quite ready to go, and glad to be rid of such a termagant, and that she need not expect him to put himself in the way of her temper again, even though she wrote him a hundred notes of apology.

Then Phil went away and slammed the door after him, and was soon riding rapidly down the hill, while Queenie from her window watched him, wondering if she had offended him past all reconciliation, and what her life would be without patient, good-for-nothing Phil to come and go at her nod.

And then she wondered if it was true, as he had said, that she was vixenish and catty (those were the terms he had used), and if others thought so too—Mr. Beresford, for instance, who was so different from Phil, and of whom she was a little afraid. She had never treated him with such bursts of temper as she had Phil, but she had been hot and imperious in her manner toward him when he did not please her, and with Phil’s words, “You are a vixen and a termagant,” ringing in her ears, she resolved to be very gracious to Mr. Beresford when he came that evening, as he was sure to do. Every claw should be sheathed, and if she were a cat, she would be a very gentle, purring one, and she wore the dress she knew Mr. Beresford liked, and put knots of scarlet ribbon here and there, and was altogether lovely when he came, earlier than usual, and this time without any papers or foreign letters for her to read. There was nothing to do but talk, and Queenie was very soft and gentle, and acquiesced readily in his proposition that they walk out to the ledge of rocks, which was her favorite seat.

The early October night was warm and still, and the young moon hung in the western sky giving a pale silvery light to everything, and falling upon the dark hair and bright, glowing face of the young girl who was full of life and animation, and talked, and laughed, and coquetted with her companion until he could restrain himself no longer, and catching her suddenly in his arms, he said to her:

“Queenie, I love you, and want you for my wife; I have loved you, I believe, since the moment I first saw you at the station, and you clung to me as your father’s friend, whom you were to trust with everything. So trust yourself to me; let me have a right to call you mine. I have lived many years with no thought or care for womankind, and such men love all the more when at last their heart is touched. Surely, surely, Queenie, you will not tell me no.”

This last was said in a tone which had in it something of fear, for Queenie had wrenched herself from him, and standing a little apart was looking fixedly at him with wide-open, wondering eyes as if asking what he meant.

“Say, Queenie,” he continued, “you will let me love you. You will be my wife.”

“No, never, never! Always your friend but never your wife,” she said, and her voice rang out clear and full as if the answer were decisive. “I am sorry,” she began very gently as she saw how he staggered back as if smitten with a sudden blow, “I am sorry that you care for me this way; sorry if I have encouraged you. I thought you knew me better than that. I have laughed, and talked, and flirted with you, just as I have with Phil, but with no intention to make you love me. Forgive me, Mr. Beresford, if I have misled you. I cannot be your wife. I have no love for you.”

He knew she was in earnest, quite as much by the expression of her face as by her words, and for a moment he felt bewildered and stunned with his sense of loss and pain which was all the greater because he had expected a different answer from her. Not expected her to say yes at once, for that was not her nature. She would tease him, and maybe laugh at him, and call him old, as she had sometimes done, when he was conscious of trying to act young. She would assume all these coquettish manners which he thought so charming, and then in the end she would lay her little hands in his, and answer in her saucy way:

“You can have me if you really want me, but you will get a bad bargain.”

This, or something like it, was what he had fondly imagined, and alas, the result was so different. The little hands he had expected to be laid in his were locked firmly together, and the girl stood up erect and dignified before him, with no coquetry in her manner, or even shyness, as she gave him her answer which hurt him so cruelly. He was not one to beg and plead as a younger, more impetuous man might have done, and so the blow hurt him worse and made him shiver with a cold, faint feeling as he looked at her for a moment, while she looked back as curiously at him, seeing something in his face which awoke within her a feeling of great pity for him.

“Oh, Mr. Beresford,” she said, coming a little nearer to him. “Don’t look at me like that. Don’t care for me so much—I am not worth it. I should not make you happy, I am so high-tempered, and passionate, and bad, and say things you never would forget. Nobody could forget them but Phil, and he has sworn never to do it again. Only to-day he called me a vixen and a termagant, and left me in hot anger, and if I can make him feel like that, what could I not do to you, who are so different—so much more matter-of-fact.”

The mention of Phil was unfortunate, and awoke in Mr. Beresford a feeling of bitter jealousy which made him say things he would have given worlds to unsay when it was too late to do so.

“Phil!” he repeated, sneeringly. “Yes, I see; I understand; Phil is my rival, and I might have known it. Women always prefer idlers like him, who have—” he stopped suddenly, checked by the expression of the black eyes confronting him so steadily, and growing so fierce and bright, as the girl said:

“Well, go on. You did not finish. You said ‘idlers like him, who have—’ Have what? I insist upon knowing what you mean. What is it Phil has which you have not?”

Her tone and manner made him angry, and he answered at last:

“He has plenty of time at his disposal to make love to you; he has nothing else to do, and women like men with no aim, no object in life; nothing to do but to play the Sardanapalus.”

“Mr. Beresford,” and Reinette’s eyes blazed with scorn, “I did not dream you were so mean—so dastardly. Idler as you say he is, Phil Rossiter would cut his tongue out sooner than it should say a word against you, his friend, were you a thousand times his rival; and you, in your foolish jealousy, accuse him of wearing women’s dresses, and spinning, and—”

“Queenie, I did nothing of the sort,” Mr. Beresford said, interrupting her, and she continued:

“Yes, you did. You likened him to Sardanapalus, which is the same thing, and I hate you for it!”

“Not more than I hate myself,” Mr. Beresford said, for he was beginning to be very much ashamed of the weakness which prompted him to speak against Phil Rossiter, whom he liked so much. “Forgive me, Queenie; it was unmanly—cowardly in me to attack my rival, and nothing but cruel disappointment and bitter pain could have induced me to do it. Phil is my friend, and the most unselfish, kind-hearted fellow in the whole world. Can you forgive me for saying aught against him?”

Queenie knew he was in earnest, and, as ready to forgive as to take offense, she answered at once:

“Yes, I know you did not mean it; you could not. Phil may be an idler, I rather think he is, but he is so noble, so good, so unselfish, and bears with me as no one else ever could. But, Mr. Beresford, you are mistaken. Phil is not your rival, and it was no thought of him which led me to refuse you. He is my cousin, and if I loved him ever so much, I could no more marry him than I could my brother, if I had one. I am enough of a Roman Catholic to think such a marriage unnatural and wicked. I could not do it, and I have no desire to—no love for him that way. Why, I would sooner marry you than Phil; upon my word, I would.”

She had forgiven him, and he knew it, and hope rose suddenly within him, and taking her hands in his, and holding them tightly there, he began again:

“Oh, Queenie, you give me new life, new hope, for if Phil is not my rival, you may come in time to think of me, not now, not for a year, perhaps, or more, but some time, when you have learned how much I love you. Promise me that you will try. Put me on trial for a year, during which time I will not bother you with love-making. I’ll be your staid old guardian, nothing more. Will you—will you think of it a year!”

“Of what use would that be,” she said, “when at the end of the year I should think just the same?”

“But you might not,” he replied. “At least give me that chance; give me one ray of sunlight, for without it the world will be very dreary. I shall put myself on probation whether you will or not.”

She did not answer him, but stood looking off across the moon-lit meadows with a troubled look in her dark eyes which he could not fathom. At last releasing her hands from his, she said, with a little shiver:

“It is growing cold. I must go in now, and you must go home, and never speak to me again as you have to-night.”

“Not until a year, and then if no other love has come between us, I shall tell you again that I love you,” he said, and she replied:

“A year is a long time, and so much may happen to us both.”

It did seem long to her, but to him, who was so much older, it seemed as nothing, if at the end he could hope to win the girl who walked so silently by his side until the house was reached, where he said good-night to her and then rode back to town, feeling, in spite of her assertion to the contrary, that there was a grain of hope for him, if he would bide his time patiently, and feeling, too, a great remorse and hatred for himself for what he had said of Phil.