CHAPTER LI.
CONCLUSION.
As soon as they were located in their new quarters at the farm-house, which they had chosen in preference to the hotel, Phil sent the following telegram to his mother:
“Queenie and I were married two days ago, and are spending our honey-moon at Brierstone. Margery will explain.
“Phil.”
Margery’s little phaeton, which she had bought for her own use, was standing before the Knoll, where she was calling, and where Grandma Ferguson was spending the afternoon with her step-daughter, when the telegram was received, and thus the parties most interested had the news at the same time. And they were not greatly surprised, except at the place from which the telegram was sent. How came Phil in Tennessee, when they supposed him to be in Florida? It was Margery who explained to them, then, what she had purposely withheld for the sake of sparing them the anxiety they would have felt had they known that not only was Queenie in the midst of the yellow fever at Memphis, but that Phil was going there, too. Queenie had written her immediately after Christine’s death, and had told her of Phil’s illness, but added that he was past all danger, and there was no cause for alarm. Margery had wept in silence over the sad end of one whom she had loved as a mother, even after she knew the true story of her parentage. But, like Phil, she felt that it was better so, that by dying as she did Christine had atoned for the past even to Queenie, who must necessarily be happier with her dead than she could have been with her living. That Phil should have taken the fever so soon filled Margery with dismay lest he might have a relapse, or Queenie be smitten down, and her errand to the Knoll that afternoon was to tell her cousins, Ethel and Grace, the truth, and with them devise some means of getting the two away from the plague-smitten town. She had told them of Christine’s death, but did not say how she received her information, and they were wondering why they did not hear from Phil, who must have been some days at Magnolia Park, when his telegram was brought in, and they heard for the first time that Queenie had been a nurse in Memphis, and of her falling in with Phil through Christine, but for whom he would have died. For a few moments they almost felt as if he were dead, and Mrs. Rossiter’s face was very white as she listened to Queenie’s letter, which Margery read, and in which were so many assurances of his safety that her fears gradually subsided and she could at last speak calmly of his marriage, of which she was very glad. It was sure to take place some time, she knew, and as Queenie ought to be with him during his convalescence, they could not have managed better than they did. But she was not willing to have them remain away from her any longer; they must come home at once, and she wrote to that effect to Phil, welcoming Queenie as a daughter whom she already loved, and insisting upon their immediate return to Merrivale. This letter Phil received in the heyday of his first married days, when he was perfectly happy with Queenie, who was as sweet, and loving, and gentle as a new bride well could be.
“Only think, I have not had a single tantrum yet, and we have been married two whole weeks,” she said to Phil on the day when he received his mother’s letter, to which she did not take kindly. “Do not let us go,” she said, nestling close to him, and laying her head on his arm. “I am having such a nice time here with you all to myself, where I can act just as silly as I please. Do not go home just yet. I shall not be half as good there as I am here.”
So Phil wrote his mother not to expect him for a few weeks, as the mountain air was doing him a great deal of good, and he was growing stronger every day. The same mail which took this letter to Mrs. Rossiter carried one to Margery from Queenie, who wrote in raptures of her happiness as Phil’s wife, and begged Margery to come to Brierstone and see for herself.
“There is such a pleasant chamber right across the hall from mine, which you can have,” she wrote, “and I want you here so much to see how happy we are, and how good I am getting to be.”
And so one day early in September Margery came to Brierstone and took possession of the large, pleasant chamber opposite Queenie’s, into whose happiness and plans she entered heart and soul; and ten days after her arrival Mr. Beresford came to escort her home. It was a settled thing now, the marriage between Mr. Beresford and Margery, and the four talked the matter over together and decided some things to which, without Mr. Beresford and Phil, Queenie would never have consented. It was Margery’s wish that Queenie should share equally with her in their father’s estate. And as this was also the wish of Mr. Beresford, while Phil himself said he saw no objection to it, and that it was probably what Mr. Hetherton would wish, could he speak to them, Queenie consented and found herself an heiress again, with money enough to support herself and Phil, even if he had no business or occupation. They talked that over, too, and Phil asked Queenie what she wished him to do.