The Queen of Hearts

Griffith

mily S

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know, but I reverence the observation, whoever made it. It speaks a startling truth through an appropriately grim metaphor — a tru

ard in which it was hidden, by slow degrees. I was a child when I first began to suspect that

y mother on the score of birth, breeding, or character — they only disliked her heartily. My grandfather, grandmother, uncles, and aunts all declared that she was a he

succeeded in life; he failed. His profession was the same as my father’s, but he never got on when he started in practice for himself. The sick poor, who could not choose, employed him, and liked him.

ome strong passion, some germ of what is called romance, hidden more or less deeply in our natures. All

r ventured on differing with anyone before, to the amazement of everybody, undertook the defense of his future sister-in-law in the most vehement and positive manner. In his estimation, his brother’s choice was something sacred and indisputable. The lady might, and did, treat him with unconcealed contemp

tle while, he took his youngest broth

volting cases — all the drudging, dirty business of the surgery, in short, was turned over to him; and day after day, month after month, he struggled through it without a murmur. When his brother and his sister-in-law went out to dine with the county gentry, it never entered his head to feel disappointed at being left unnoticed at home. When the return dinners we

y own personal experience of him is limited to what I remember as a mere child

tion of beauty and health. I was small, weakly, and, if the truth must be told, almost as plain-featured as Uncle George himself. It would be ungracious and undutiful in me to presume to decide

ht my sister up in their arms and kissed her they scrupulously gave me my turn afterward. My childish instinct told me that there was a difference in their smiles when they looked at me and looked at her; that the kisses given to Caroline were warmer than the kisses given to me; that the hands which dried her tears in our childish griefs, touched her more gently than the hands which dried mine. But these, and o

he was of me, was fonder of

ering of a horse, while I sat on his shoulders; but he would never proceed at any pace beyond a slow and safe walk when Caroline had a ride in her turn. When he took us out walking, Caroline was always on the side next the wall. When we interrupted him over his dirty work in the surgery, he used to t

ken to the sea-side, and had shown symptoms of relapsing on being brought home again to the midland county in which we resided. After much consultation, it was at last

future and as happy in the present as any boy could be. Uncle George petitioned for a holiday to take me to the seaside, bu

l is all out of proportion, and the rig has been smiled at by every nautical friend of mine who has ever looked at it. Yet, worn-out and faulty as it is — inferior to th

ther’s manner. She looked paler and more anxious at each succeeding visit, and always had long conferences in private with my aunt. At last she ceased to come and see us altogether, and only wrote to know how my health was getting on. My father, too, who had at the earlier periods of my absence from home trave

useless to attempt to explain it to me. I next applied to the servants. One of them was less cautious than my aunt, and answered my question, but in terms that I could not comprehend. After much explanation, I was made to understand that “something was growing on my sister’s neck that would spoil her beauty forever, and perhaps kill her, if it could n

inued to be ill. One day I privately wrote a letter to Uncle George, ask

n the ground floor. The room above was my aunt’s bedchamber, and the moment I was inside the house I heard moans and loud convulsive sobs proceeding from it. My aunt was a singularly quiet, c

with serious faces. They started when they saw me as if I had

ay to the other. “So far as he is concerned, it

rst. It was indeed my aunt who had been

s, and I had the blessed elasticity of a child’s nature. If I had been older I might have been too much absor

ok me in her arms at meeting. But I was both amazed and perplexed by the look of terror that I detected in her face. It was natural enough t

dreadful news from home beside

mother? No. Uncle George? My aunt trembled all over as she said No to that also, and bade me cease asking any m

fter we had left the tailor’s, I persuaded the girl to extend our walk for some distance along the sea-beach, telling her, as we went, every little anecdote connected with my lost sis

. The housemaid was rather nervous at finding herself alone with me on the beach, and once or tw

n the cliff as

word, covered my face with kisses. I knew he was crying, because my cheeks were instantly wet with his tears; but it was too dark for me to see who he was, or even how he was dressed. H

aring of it; but in a moment more there came a change over her face, as if she had suddenly recollect

ly a mischievous trick to frighten you, I dare say.

low it. For many nights after, I thought of nothing b

rried me to that length. But when I tried to think over all the grown-up gentlemen who loved m

pte

the scene of our first meeting after Caroline’s death was wisely and considerately shortened by my aunt, who took me out of the room. She seemed to have a confused desire to keep me fr

orge’s garret bedroom — he was not there; his cheap hairbrush and old cast-off razor-case that had belonged to my grandfather were not on the d

e Geo

my aunt came hastily

u must never call tha

d looked as if her own w

asked. My aunt turned re

felt cold. I ran breathlessly and recklessly into the room where my father and mother had received me. The

le Geor

ess. My father looked at her for a moment, rang the bell that summoned th

and put me before him between his knees. His lips were awfully white, an

quick, angry, trembling whisper. “Never to me, never to your mother, ne

uppressed vehemence with which he spoke. He saw that I was f

u dearly; but if you forget what I have told you, you will be sent away from

ed — and oh, how co

oment he had kissed me, and we

g unspeakably horrible to my young mind in this mystery which I was commanded always to respect, and which, so far as I then knew, I could never hope to see revealed. My father, my mother, my aunt, all appeared to be

l scream of my mother’s, which seemed to be still ringing in my ears, were more than enough to insure my obedie

the idea of writing to them, at my age and in my position, was out of the question. My aunt was as unapproachably silent as my father and mother; but I never forgot how her face had altered when she reflected for a moment after hearing of my extraordinary adventure while going home

lways determined to be a sailor from the time when I first went to stay with my aunt at the sea-side, and I

s. When I at length returned home, it was to find a new affliction darkening our fire

was a child, need no longer be persisted in now that I was growing to be a young man, she fell into a violent fit of trembling, and commanded me to say no more. It had been my father’s will, she said, that the reserve to which I referred should be always adopted toward me; he had not authorized her, before he died, to speak more openly; and, now that he was g

er heard from him, and that they knew nothing about him, except that he had gone away to settle, as they supposed, in some foreign place, after having behaved very basely and badly to my father. He had been traced to London, where he had sold out of the funds the small share of money which he had inherited after his father’s death, and he had been seen on the deck of a packet bound for France later on the same day. Beyond this nothing was known abou

deed at any period of their intercourse, seemed incredible; but that he should have been guilty of an act of baseness at the very time when my sister was dying was simply and plainly impossible. And yet there was the incomprehensible fact staring me in the face that

s of the next few years o

nexplicable events that followed, when I had returned, after my sister’s funeral, to my father’s house; and oftener still did I puzzle my brains vainly, in the attempt to form some plan for inducing my mother or my aunt to disclose the secret which they had hitherto kept from me so perseveringly. My only chance of knowing what had really happened to Uncle George, my only hope of seeing him again, rested with those two near and dear relatives. I despaired of ever getting my mother to speak on the forbidden subject after what had passed between us, but I felt m

ter

ing any discoveries in relation to Uncle George. Shortly after the period of this last affliction m

w of a hill at some distance from the main road, and resolved to have a nearer look at the place, with a view to stopping there for the night, if it pleased me. I found the principal inn clean and quiet — ordered my bed there — and, after dinner, strolled out to look at the church. N

out to leave it again, when I caught a glimpse of a pr

walking up and down a gravel-path that parted the rows of graves. In the course of my wanderings I had learned to speak French as fluently as most Englishmen, and when the priest came near me I s

ss at the head of it differed remarkably, in some points of appearance, from the crosses on the other graves. While all the

stopped to look at the grav

e had borne the burden of a great sorrow among us, in this town, for many weary

e is not inscribed over

d name. I asked his real name, and he told it to me, with the particulars of his sad story. He had reasons for desiring to be forgotten after his death. Almost the las

ive, I supp

phew,” said

strange answering bound. I suppose I must have changed color al

to his burial-place, and asked about him, I was free in that case to disclose all I knew. ‘I should like my little C

throat the moment I heard the priest unconsciously mention

ssion, I communicated my family name to the cure, and asked him if t

ral steps, and clasp

es, gazing at me earnestly, with

t days crowded back on me. Hardly knowing what I did, I knelt down by the grave, and smoothed the grass over it w

that I thought my uncle might have spoken of, in order to satisfy my companion that I was really the person I represented mys

ted here on the subject of Uncle George, and his disappearance from h

you, but pardon me if I say first that there are circumstances in yo

n me to hear as a

est, looking away

anion’s warning, but I begged him, at the same time, to keep me no longer in suspense a

ntioned as a strange coincidence that your sister’s death and your uncle’s disappearance took pla

ved — that she had a tumor in the neck, or, as I sometimes heard it

of that tumor,” said the priest, in low ton

rds all the tru

rling understand each other, and are happy now. That thought bore him up to the last on his death-bed. He always spoke of your sister as his ‘little

ho has ever loved a

ty of her beautiful child horrified her. She was desperate enough to catch at the faintest hope of remedying it that anyone might hold out to her; and she persuaded your uncle to put his opinion to the proof. Her horror at the deformity of the child, and her despair at the prospect of its lasting for life, seem to have utterly blinded her to all natural sense of the danger of the operation. It is hard to know how to say it to you, her son, but it must be told, nevertheless, that one day, when your fat

elf, but I could not repres

mention — excesses which began in his degrading his brother by a blow, which ended in his binding himself by an oath to make that brother suffer public punishment for his fatal rashness in a court of law. Your uncle was too heartbroken by what had happened to feel those outrages as some men might have felt them. He looked for one moment at his sister-in-law (I do not like to say your mother, considering what I have now to tell you), to see if

ould not speak to him at that moment — I could on

ed in th

witness that I honestly believed I could save the child from deformity and suffering. I have risked all and lost all. My heart and spirit are broken. I am fit for nothing but to go and hide myself, and my shame and misery, from all eyes that have ever looked on me. I shall never come back, never expect your pity or forgiveness. If you think less harshly of me when I am gone, keep secret what has happe

is own family included. My mother had evidently confessed all to her sister u

y the sea-side. Tie had not the heart to quit his country and his friends forever without kissing you for the last time. He followed you i

s place?

on the brow of the hill yonder, with his head on his hand, looking toward England. That place seemed a favorite with him, and he is buried close by it. He revealed the story of his past life to no living soul here but me, and to me he only spoke when his last hour was approaching. What he had suffered during his long exile no man can presume to say. I, who

rd England. How my heart ached for him as I thought of what he must have suffered in the silence and solitude of his long exile! Was it well for me that I had discovered the Family