Queenie Hetherton

by Mary Jane Holmes

“A small room will suit me; I do not care for a very expensive one,” she said, timidly, as she stood before the clerk’s desk, with Pierre and Axie on either side of her.

But the only vacant room in the house was one on the third floor front, and of this Queenie took possession, glad to escape for a time at least from the curious eyes which she felt were turned upon her. In all large hotels where the guests mingle freely together at table d’hote and in a common parlor, there is necessarily a good deal of gossip, and talk, and speculation with regard to strangers, especially if the latter chance to be at all out of the common order. And to this rule the St. James was not an exception. As Mrs. Strong had said, it had its cats, as what hotel has not? Idle, listless cats, who lead an aimless life, with nothing to do but scratch and tear each other, sometimes with claws unsheathed, but oftener with velvet paws and purring notes, and dark insinuations, which are far more dangerous, inasmuch as they cannot be met and combatted openly. Cliques, too, there were, the members of which, after criticising and talking each other up, turned their attention to any new-comers unfortunate enough to differ from the ordinary type of women, and Queenie was one of these. Everybody was interested in her. Everybody turned to look after her as she walked through the hall, or entered or left the dining-room, and many sought the books for information. But “Miss Hetherton, Merrivale, Mass.,” told them nothing definite of the dark-faced little girl in black, who sat apart from them all, with a strange expression in the brilliant eyes, which swept the room so often and so rapidly, and which had in them a far-off look of weariness and pain rather than any particular interest in what was passing around her. Then one of the ladies tried Pierre. But at the first alarm the old man conveniently forgot every word of English he had ever known, and jabbered in his native tongue so rapidly that his interlocutor turned from him in dismay and opened her batteries upon Axie, whom she encountered in the hall. But Axie, too, was non-committal, or mostly so. Miss Hetherton was French and had always lived in Paris until quite recently, when she came to Merrivale, the old home of her father, who died upon the voyage, leaving her alone. Magnolia Park, near Tallahassee, belonged to the Hetherton estates, and thither the young lady had come for a change of air and scene, but finding that the place was a good deal run down and needed some repairs, she had decided to spend a little time at the St. James while they were being made.

This was Axie’s explanation, which was wholly satisfactory, and as it was repeated with sundry additions, all in Queenie’s favor, she was indorsed at once, and had she chosen, she might have been a belle and headed every clique in the house. But Queenie was far too sad and her heart was too full of pain to care for flattery, and yet in a way she was interested and amused with what she saw of life at the St. James, and liked to sit alone by herself in a quiet corner of the great parlor and watch the people around her—the devotees of whist, who night after night sat at the same table, with the same people, and usually with the same result; the dancers, who occasionally varied the monotony with a quadrille or a waltz; and the knots of lookers-on gathered here and there in groups, and whispering their confidences to each other. It was all very new and very strange to Queenie, who had never seen anything like it, and she was beginning to forget in part her great sorrow in the scenes around her, when an unexpected arrival brought the past back to her in all its bitterness, and made her shrink more than ever from intercourse with strangers. This arrival was none other than that of Mistress Anna Rossiter, nee Anna Ferguson, who had been three weeks a bride, and after doing Washington, as she expressed it, had resolved to see a little of Florida life before the season was fairly over and the Northerners gone home.

Miss Anna’s wedding had been a very quiet one, owing to poor Phil’s recent death, and only a few of the villagers had been honored with an invitation; but those so honored had been among the first in town—the Grangers, and Markhams, and Marshalls, against whom Anna had once rebelled so hotly because of fancied slights and indignities. It was now her turn to hold up her head, she thought: she was to be Mrs. Lord Seymour Rossiter, with a house in New York, and another on the Hudson if she liked. She was to have a maid, and diamonds, and her carriage, and servants in livery, for she liked those long coats and yellow boots, she said, and she meant to have her women servants wear caps, as she was told they did abroad.

Anna was very happy. The old days of dressmaking and drudgery were over. No more pricked red fingers for her, no more bundles to be carried home to those who bade her ring at the side instead of the front door.

All that was past and gone. The sign which had once so annoyed her was split and burned. It was hers now to snub instead of being snubbed, and so she began by slighting the very ones who had been kind to her, but whom she did not consider worthy of her notice in the days of her prosperity. She should begin her new life as she could hold out, and she would not have Tom, Dick, and Harry hanging to her skirts, she said, and she put aside the friends with whom she had been in the habit of associating intimately, and invited only those with whom it could scarcely be said she had ever been recognized as an equal. Margery was, of course, one of the guests, for she was now Miss Hetherton, of Hetherton Place, and it was an honor to claim her as a relation.

Mrs. La Rue was wholly ignored. A woman of her reputation, whose life had been a lie, had no right to expect civilities from the people she had deceived, Anna argued, and Mrs. La Rue’s name was omitted from the list.

But the intended slight failed to touch the sad, remorseful woman, who now lived quite alone at the cottage, having resisted all Margery’s entreaties that she should make her home at Hetherton Place. Since her confession, and especially since Queenie’s departure for the South, she had fallen into a sad and silent mood, shrinking from every one, and preferring to live entirely alone, as solitude was best suited to such as she. And so she scarcely gave a thought to the wedding which took place one afternoon in the best room of Tom Ferguson’s house, with only the elite of Merrivale looking on and commenting upon the airs of the bride and the childish delight of the bridegroom, who did not attempt to conceal his joy, but rubbed his hands in the exuberance of delight and kissed the bride many times the moment she was pronounced his wife.

There was a short trip to New York, and a long one to Washington, where Anna created a great sensation with her satins, and velvets, and diamonds, which she wore on all occasions. She had sold her youth and beauty for gold, and she meant to reap the full price of her charms. Every day she blossomed out in a new costume, with jewelry to match, and as she was really pretty, and could be very gracious when she tried, Mrs. Lord Seymour Rossiter, became the rage and was flattered, and admired, and complimented to her heart’s content, and mentioned in the papers as the most distingue and lovely woman in Washington—notices which she read with great satisfaction at the breakfast-table every morning, and then passed to her husband, with the remark:

“How perfectly absurd! Did you ever read such nonsense?”