Queenie Hetherton

He did not tell it until two days after Christine’s burial, for Queenie would not listen to him until she felt that he was past all possible danger of a relapse. Then, with her head leaning upon his arm and his hand clasped in hers, she heard how he had escaped from death on that night when the boat was capsized and he found himself struggling for life in the angry waters.

“My friend wrote you,” he said, “how the accident occurred and how for hours we clung to the boat, which was being drawn rapidly out to sea. For a time I kept up bravely, though for myself I cared but little to live, life was so dark and hopeless to me then. But I remembered my mother, who would mourn for me, and made every possible exertion to hold on. When we were capsized I struck my head just over the temple upon some iron surface of the boat, and I know now that the blow was of itself almost sufficient to cause my death. As it was, I felt stunned and bewildered and my strength was fast failing me when my friend bade me try and reach him, as he thought he could help me. I remember reaching out one hand toward him, while I tried to change my position, but my foot was caught in something which, when I lost my hold and floated away from the boat, was also detached and floated with me. It was the grating from the bottom of the boat, and it proved my salvation, for, as I came to the surface after sinking once beneath the waters, I caught at it and clung to it desperately, while the waves carried me far away from my companion, who, seeing me go down, naturally supposed I must be drowned. Indeed, I do not myself know how I was saved, or had the strength to endure the horrors of that night and hold to my frail support as I did.

“At last daylight broke over the waters, and a small vessel, bound for the southern coast of Africa, passed near me as I floated. I had then no power to signal them, my arms were so cramped and numb, but one of the sailors spied me, and a boat was at once lowered and sent to my rescue. How they got me on board I do not know, for all sense forsook me from the moment I felt a hand laid upon my shoulder, and when next I awoke to a consciousness of anything, I was lying in a close berth, and a dark face was bending over me, speaking in a language I could not comprehend. But the voice was kind, and the face a good-natured one, and I remember thinking that I should be cared for until I reached some point where I could make myself understood. My head was paining me dreadfully, and was probably the cause of the weeks and months of partial insanity which followed. I had taken a frightful cold, a burning fever set in, and for days I raved like a madman, they told me afterward and made several attempts to throw myself into the sea. It was useless for them to ask me anything, as their language was gibberish to me, as mine was to them. But one word they learned perfectly—it was on my lips so constantly—and that was your name. No matter what they said to me, I always answered Queenie, until every officer and common sailor in the boat knew the name, and could say it as well as I, though they little dreamed who the Queenie was I talked about so constantly.”

“Oh, Phil!” Queenie cried, with streaming eyes; “and I was mourning for you, and thinking you were dead, and was so sorry for having sent you away. Can you ever forgive me, Phil, for all I have made you suffer?”

His answer, not given in words, was quite satisfactory, and then he went on:

“They thought at last it must be my own name, and called me Queenie whenever they addressed me or spoke of me. The voyage was rather long, owing to adverse winds and the bad condition of the ship, but they reached their destination at last, and gave me at once into the charge of some English who were living there. But these could get no satisfaction from me with regard to my home, or friends, or name. I had fallen into a weak, half-imbecile, frame of mind, and was very taciturn and reserved, refusing sometimes to talk at all, though always, when I did speak, begging them to carry me home. At intervals I suffered greatly in my head, and even now at times, if I touch the spot upon my temple where I received the blow, I experience a sensation like an electric shock, showing that the injury I received was a most serious one.

“And so the time wore on, and, as I was perfectly harmless, I was allowed to do as I pleased, and gradually, as I grew stronger in health, my mind regained its balance, and I was able to recall the past, or rather to remember up to the time when I was in the water holding to the grating of the boat. Everything else was a blank, and is so to me now. I have no recollection whatever of the voyage to Zanguibar, or of the months which followed my arrival there, and it was some little time before I could comprehend my position, or realize how long it was since I was at Madras and started with my friend on the excursion which ended so disastrously. My first act was to write at once to my father, who, I naturally supposed, must think me dead, but the letter was probably miscarried or lost, for it never reached him.

“At last a chance came for me to leave the coast, and I availed myself of it. An English sailing vessel, bound for Liverpool, took me on board, but, as if I were a second Jonah, we encountered heavy seas and violent storms, so that we were double the usual length of time in reaching Liverpool, where I took a steamer for New York, where I landed just a week before you found me here. Not wishing to shock my family, as I knew they would be shocked if they had never received my letter, I telegraphed to Mr. Beresford that I should be home on the next train from New York. The news took him as much by surprise as if one of the dead bodies in the grave-yard had walked in upon him, and I have been told that all Merrivale was wild with excitement, and that Uncle Tom, usually so quiet and undemonstrative, went himself and rang the fire-bell, to call the people out so as to tell them the news. I really believe the entire town was at the station to meet me when the train came in, and had I permitted it some of the men would have carried me in their arms up the hill to my very door, where Ethel and Grace and grandma were waiting to receive me. Mother was in bed, going from one fainting fit to another, and father was with her trying to quiet her. Poor old father, I used to think he cared more for his ferns and his flowers than for his children, but I have changed my mind, and never shall forget the expression of his face when he met me at the door, and, leading me to my mother, said to her, so tenderly:

“Here he is, Mary—here is our boy. Now please don’t faint again. ‘Praised be God.’

“To me he never spoke a word for full five minutes, but sat smoothing and patting my hands, and rubbing with his handkerchief a speck of dirt from my coat sleeve, while he looked at me so lovingly, with the great tears in his eyes and his lips quivering with his emotions. He has grown old so fast within the last few months. His hair is quite gray, and he stoops when he walks, though I do believe he was straighter when I came away, and younger, too, in looks. I did not know my friends were so fond of a good-for-nothing like me. It was almost worth my while to go and be drowned for the sake of all the petting I had at home the few days I remained there. But one thing was wanting. You did not come to meet me, and I wondered at it, for I think I had half expected to see your face among the very first to welcome me, and I felt disappointed and a little hurt at its absence. I did not know but you were Mr. Beresford’s wife, and though the thought that it might be so hurt me cruelly, I had made up my mind to hide the hurt and make the best of the inevitable. It would be some comfort to see you, even if you belonged to another, and all the time I was receiving the welcome congratulations of my friends, I was thinking of and watching for you. But you did not appear, and no one mentioned your name until late in the evening, when Ethel asked me to go with her for a walk in the garden before retiring, and then she told me the strangest story I ever heard of you and Margery, who, it seems, is my cousin, while you——”

He paused a moment, while Queenie turned very white, and with a long, gasping breath, said, faintly:

“Yes, Phil, I know what I am. Don’t remind me please.”

“Queenie,” and Phil drew the trembling girl closer to him, and stroking her bowed head continued: “Do you for a moment suppose that I have ever given the accident of your birth a thought, except to be glad, with a gladness I cannot express, that you are not my cousin? And when Ethel told me of your grief at my supposed death, and the love you were not then ashamed to confess for me, I felt that I must fly to you at once, and only my mother’s weak condition and her entreaties for me to wait a little kept me from doing so. She and my sisters thought you were in Florida, for Margery had kept your secret, as you wished, and had not told them of your rash plan of coming here into this atmosphere of infection and death. But she told me when I went next day to see her, and told me, too, of all the remorse, and pain, and bitter humiliation you had endured; and, better than all the rest, of the perfect trust and faith you had in me—that were I living a hundred Christines could make no difference with me, and she was right. I would have called that woman mother for your sake had she lived, and treated her with as much respect as if she had been Margaret Ferguson instead of Christine Bodine. My cousin Margery I adopted at once. She is a noble woman, and so true to you. By the way, I fancy that Mr. Beresford visits Hetherton Place quite as often as he used to do in the days when I was so horridly jealous of him, and you played with us both as the cat plays with the mouse it has captured. And I am glad, for the match is every way suitable. Beresford is a noble fellow—a little too proud, perhaps, in some respects, and a trifle peculiar, too; but Margery will cure all that, and I would rather see him master of Hetherton Place than any one I know, if Margery must be its mistress. She wishes you to return and live with her; but of that by and by. When she told me where you were, my heart gave a great throb of terror for you, and I resolved to start at once and take you away if I should find you alive. I had a mortal fear of the fever, and this, I think, added to my mental excitement and the low state of my health, made me more liable to take it, as I did almost immediately, for I was sick and unable to leave my bed the very first morning after my arrival, and before I had time to inquire for you. You know how Christine found me and saved my life, for but for her I should most surely have died.

“And now, Queenie, I have been talking with the physician, who says I must leave the city at once if I would recover my strength, and he advises a stay of a few weeks in some quiet, cool spot among the mountains of Tennessee, where I shall grow strong and lazy again. You know that is my strong point—laziness.”

He looked a little quizzically at her, but she paid no attention. She only said:

“I think that would be so nice. Have you decided upon the place?”

He told her of a little spot which the physician had recommended, where the air was pure and the water good, and then continued:

“But I cannot go alone; it would be so poky and forlorn, with nobody I know. I must have a nurse to look after me and keep me straight. Will you go with me, Queenie?” he said, looking earnestly into the eyes which met his so innocently, as, without a blush, Queenie answered:

“Of course I’ll go with you, Phil. Did you think I would let you go alone?”

She was so guileless and unsuspecting of evil that it seemed almost a pity to open her eyes and show her that the world is not always charitable in its construction of acts, however innocent in themselves—that Mrs. Grundy is a great stickler for the proprieties, and that for a young girl to go alone to a hotel or boarding-house as nurse to a young man in no way related to her would make every hair of that venerable lady’s head stand upright with horror. But Phil must do it, both for her sake and by way of accomplishing the end he had in view. So he said to her:

“I knew you would go with me; but, Queenie, do you know that for Queenie Hetherton to go to the mountains as a nurse to a great long-legged, rather fast-looking fellow like Phil Rossiter, would be to compromise herself sadly in the estimation of some people.”

I doubt if Queenie quite comprehended him, for she looked at him wonderingly, and said:

“I don’t know what you mean by my being compromised. I think it is an ugly word, and not at all one you should use with reference to myself, as if I should not always behave like a lady, whether I was taking care of you among the mountains, or here in Memphis, as I am doing now.”

She was getting a little excited, and her eyes shone with the gleam Phil remembered so well and rather liked to provoke.

“Yes, I know,” he said, “but don’t you remember what you told me of the cats at the St. James, who used to spy upon the young people and make remarks about them? Well there are cats everywhere, and they would find us out in the mountains, and however quiet and modest you might be, they would set up a dreadful caterwauling because you were with me, and not at all related to me. They would tear you in pieces, till you had not a shred of reputation left. Do you understand now that as Queenie Hetherton you cannot go with me?”

“No, I don’t understand,” she answered wrathfully, “and I think it mean in you to ask me first if I will go, and then, when I say yes, to talk to me about cats, and compromise and reputation, as if I were bad, and immodest, and every sort of a thing. No, Phil, I didn’t expect this from you; I must say I did not, and I don’t like it, and I don’t like you either—there! and I won’t stay here any longer to hear such dreadful talk!”

For one who had pledged herself never to lose her temper again under any circumstances, Queenie was a good deal excited, as she wrenched her hand from Phil’s and flounced from the room, leaving him to chuckle over her anger, which he had anticipated, and which he felt sure would result in her doing just as he wished her to do. And he was right in his calculations, for, after the lapse of an hour or two, during which Pierre had brought him his lunch, the little lady appeared in a most repentant frame of mind, and standing by him, with her hand on his shoulder, said:

“I am sorry, Phil, I was so angry with you. I did not think I ever should be again, but you did rouse me so with your cats, and compromising, and all that, after you had asked me to go. But I see you were right. It would not be proper at all, and people would be sure to talk. But you must take Pierre. I should feel safer about you, and can do very well without him. I know the way to Florida, and shall start to-morrow, for if it is improper for me to take care of you in the mountains, it is improper here, now you are so much better; so I am going back to Magnolia Park. But, Phil,” and Queenie’s voice began to tremble, “you’ll come there next winter, won’t you? You, and Ethel, and Grace, and Margery? That will make it quite proper and conventional, and it is so lonely there.”

She was crying by this time, and Phil, who, as she was talking, had stolen his arm around her, drew her down upon his knee and, brushing away her tears, said:

“Yes, darling, if you are in Florida next winter, or next week, I shall be there, too; for in the words of Naomi, ‘Where thou goest I shall go,’ whether to the mountains or to the moon, and, as the mountains suit me best just now, what say you to going there at once?”

“But I thought you said I wasn’t to go—that it would be very disreputable, or some other dreadful word like that? I don’t understand you at all,” Queenie said, hotly, and Phil replied:

“You are an innocent chick, that’s a fact, and cannot see through a millstone. I said that as Queenie Hetherton you must not go scurriping round the world with a yellow-haired chap of the period like me; but as Queenie Rossiter, my wife, you will be a matron sans reproche.”

“Your wife, Phil!” Queenie exclaimed, starting suddenly and trying to free herself from him. But he held her fast, and answered:

“Yes, my wife, and why not? You are bound to be that some time, and why wait any longer? We can be married here to-night or to-morrow, if you please, with Pierre and our landlord for witnesses, and we shall be as firmly tied as if all Merrivale were present at the ceremony. You do not care for bride-maids, and flowers, and flummery. I am sure Anna exhausted all that. And to me you are sweeter and fairer in this black dress, which was put on for me, than you would be in all the white satin robes and laces in the world. Shall it be so, love? Will you marry me to-morrow, and at once start for Tennessee?”

Queenie did not care for satins, or laces or bridal favors, but to be married so suddenly, and in such an informal manner, shocked her at first, and Phil had some little difficulty in getting her consent. But it was won at last. A desire to be with him, to go where he went, and have him to herself, prevailed over every other feeling, and early the next morning, with Pierre, and their landlord, and the sister who had cared for poor Christine as witnesses, Queenie and Phil were married, their wedding a great contrast to what Queenie had thought her wedding would be. But she was very, very happy, and Pierre thought he had never see his young mistress one-half so beautiful as she was in her simple black dress, with only bands of white linen at her throat and wrists, and the brightness of a great happiness in her face and in her brilliant eyes. She was Phil’s at last. The joy she had thought never could be hers had come to her, greater far than she had ever dreamed, and in her happiness all the sad past was forgotten, and she could think of Christine without a pang.

“Next fall we will come here again, and place a tablet at mother’s grave,” she said to Phil, and by the name she gave the dead he knew that the old bitterness was gone, and that Queenie was content.

They took the first train for Brierstone, a quiet, lovely spot among the mountains of Tennessee, where, in the cool, bracing air, Phil felt himself growing stronger every hour, and where the bright color came back to Queenie’s cheeks, and the old sparkle to the eyes which had shed so many bitter tears since the day when the news first came to her of the lover drowned in the Indian waters.