“‘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.