A Reconstructed Marriage Part 34

And Isabel cried and wrung her hands and said softly, but from her very heart, "I am glad, I am glad! You did right, Christina! Yes, you did!

You did! And Isabel will stand by you till the last. She will! She will!"

With tears still on her white cheeks, she went down to the dining-room.

Robert and his mother were at the table, and evidently not on agreeable terms. "Jepson thought you had a letter from Christina," said Mrs.

Campbell, "and I am astonished you did not bring it to us, at once."

"I thought it would be better, to see first what news it contained."

"Well? Can you not speak?"

Then Isabel put the letter into her mother's hand.

And in a few minutes there was a cry like that of a woman wounded and crushed to death. With frantic pa.s.sion Mrs. Campbell threw the letter at her son, and then with bitter execrations a.s.sailed the child she accused of killing her.

"Mother, mother! Do be quiet!" pleaded Isabel.

"She has killed me! I shall die of shame! I shall die! She has broken my heart!"

Robert read the letter through, his face growing darker and darker as he read. When he had finished, he threw it on the fire, and Isabel rushed to the grate and rescued it, though it was smoked, and browned, and mostly illegible. But she clasped its tinder and ashes in her hands, cried over them, and finally left the room with the precious relics clasped to her heart.

"Have you gone crazy too?" called her mother.

"Let her alone!" said Robert.

"And pray what is the matter with you?"

"I am ashamed of the way you are behaving."

"It is your sister of whom you must be ashamed. Her disgraceful marriage will kill me."

"It is the result of your own doing, and withholding."

"I am to bear the blame, of course. Poor mother!"

"You never gave her any happiness, and when she got the opportunity she gave it to herself. That was natural."

"She had all the happiness I had."

"You had your husband, your family, your house, your servants, and your social duties. You were quite happy, but none of these things made happiness for your daughters. They wanted the pleasures of youth--gay company, gay clothing, travel and lovers, and none of these things you gave them. I was often very sorry for them."

"Then why did you not help them yourself?"

"Do you remember the year I begged you to take your daughters to Edinburgh and London, and offered to pay all expenses, and you would not do it?"

"I did not wish to go to Edinburgh and London."

"No, you wanted to go to Campbelton, and so you made your daughters go with you, though they hated the place. There Christina met this low fellow whom she married. She had no other lover. To the Campbelton rabble you sacrificed my sisters from their babyhood."

"Robert Campbell! How dare you call my kindred 'rabble'?"

"The name is good enough. Do you think I have forgotten how they treated my wife's clothing, and our rooms?"

"What are you bringing up that old story for?"

"It comes in naturally to-day, and I have not forgotten it. For your cruelty at that time, you are rightly served. Christina has avenged Theodora."

He flung the last words at her over his shoulder as he left the room.

She had no opportunity to answer them, indeed she was not able to do so.

It seemed to her as if she had been stricken dumb from head to feet; as if her world was being swept away from her, and she could not protest against it. Isabel had left her in anger and opposition. Robert in reproach. As for Christina, she had smitten her on every side, and gone away without contrition and without reproof. And Robert's few words had been keener than a sword, for they were edged with Truth, and Truth drove them to her very soul.

But she had no thought of surrendering any foothold of her position. She only wanted time to consider herself, for this solid defection of son and daughters had come like a cataclysm out of a clear sky, unforeseen, entire, and apparently complete in its misery. Her first resolve was to go to Theodora, and have the circ.u.mstance "out" with her. But her limbs were as heavy as her heart, and when with difficulty she reached the door of the room, she heard her son talking to his wife. And it had been brought home to her that morning that Robert could not be depended on, therefore she must risk no more uncertain encounters. Theodora alone, she did not fear; but Theodora and Robert in alliance meant certain defeat.

So she stumbled back to the sofa and sat down. Nature ordered her to lie down, but she flatly refused. "This is a critical time," she said to herself, "and Margaret Campbell, there is to be no lying down. You be to keep on the defensive." But she rang for Jepson, and told him to tell Miss Campbell her mother wanted her. In a few minutes Isabel answered the summons, and as soon as she entered the room she cried out, "Oh, mother, mother, mother! what is the matter? You are ill."

"Ay, Isabel, I am ill, and it would be a miracle if I were not ill." The words came slowly and with effort, and Isabel was terrified by her mother's face, for it was gray as ashes, and had on it an expression of terror, as if she had looked on Death as he pa.s.sed her by.

"Lie down, mother. You ought to lie down."

"Get me a gla.s.s--a big gla.s.s--of red Burgundy."

Isabel obeyed, and when she had drunk it, she said in something of her natural voice and manner, "Burgundy is the strong wine. It is full of iron, and we require plenty of iron in our blood. In the common crowd, it goes to their hands, and helps them to work hard, but in the Campbell clans, it goes to the hearts of both men and women."

"And makes them hard-hearted."

"Hard to their own, and worse to their foes--and to strangers. Oh, Isabel, Isabel, this is the blackest day I have ever seen! What shall we do?"

"Bear it. Others have borne the like. We can."

"I can never look my friends in the face again."

"Never mind either friends or foes. In nine days they will have said their say. Let them."

"Yesterday at this hour, I was the proudest and happiest woman in Glasgow. To-day I am----"

"The bravest woman in Glasgow. Defy your trouble, as you always do.

Christina's conduct is most unusual, and few will understand it--they can't. But, oh mother, stand by your daughter! Tell every one, that when she found out she loved Mr. Rathey better than Sir Thomas Wynton, she did what was honorable and womanly, and that you admire her truth and sincerity, though of course, somewhat disappointed. Such words as these will silence the ill-natured, and satisfy the friendly. You will say them, mother?"

"Something like them, no doubt."

"And we must find Christina, and you will forgive her, and protect her?"

"I will do no such things."

"It would stop people's tongues."

"Their tongues may clash till doomsday, ere I will stop them that gate.

Never name the wicked woman to me again. I do not know her any more, and I do not want to know, whether she is living or dead, in plenty or poverty, sick or well, happy or miserable. She is out o' this world, as far as I am concerned. _Sure!_"