A Reconstructed Marriage

Robert was charmed with her appearance, and told her so. "I want you to charm Sir Thomas Wynton for me," he added. "It is desirable that I should have him for a business partner. Do you understand?"

She laughed, and putting her fan before her face asked in a whisper: "What will you give me, Robert, if I win him for you?"

"Five hundred pounds," he said promptly.

"Done!" she replied, and then, hearing the door open, she turned to see Sir Thomas Wynton entering. She went to meet him with a laughing welcome and with both hands extended. She sat at his side during dinner and kept him laughing, and when she left the dining-room ordered him with a pretty authority to be in the drawing-room for tea, in forty-five minutes. And he took out his watch, noted the time, and promised all she asked.

In forty-five minutes exactly, he appeared in the drawing-room. Jepson was serving tea, and Christina's cup stood on the piano, for as Robert and Sir Thomas entered the room she was playing with lively, racy spirit, the prelude to the inimitably humorous song of "The Laird o' Cockpen." Sir Thomas went at once to her side, and when he spoke to her, she answered him with the musical, mocking words:

"The laird of Cockpen he's proud, and he's great,His mind is taen up wi' the things o' the State," etc.

Sir Thomas listened with peals of laughter, and Robert and Mrs. Campbell joined in the merriment. Even Isabel was unable to preserve the usual stillness of her face, though she was far more interested in the singer than the song. Where had all these charming coquetries, this mirth and melody been hidden in the old Christina? This was not the Christina she had known all her life. "It is Theodora's doing," she thought, "and not one of us have given her one word of thanks. It is too bad! And I am sure she stayed in her own room to-night, to give Christina a fair field, and no rival. She is a good woman. I wish mother could like her."

The whole evening was a triumph for Christina. She sang "Sir John Cope" with irresistible raillery, and roused every Scotch feeling in her audience with "Bannocks o' Barley Meal," and "The Kail Brose of Auld Scotland." She told her most amusing stories, and finally induced Sir Thomas Wynton and her brother, mother, and sister to join her in the parting song of "Auld Lang Syne." Then, with evident reluctance, Sir Thomas went away, "thoroughly bewitched in a' his five senses," as he confessed later. Christina knew it, for ere she bid her brother good-night, she found an opportunity to whisper:

"You will owe me five hundred pounds very soon."

"I will pay it," he answered, and she looked backward at him with a laugh. Then he turned to his mother and said: "Who would have believed that Christina had all this fun and mischief in her?"

"Ah, well, Robert," answered Mrs. Campbell, "Scotch girls don't put all their goods in the window. They hold a deal in reserve and there's none but the one man can ever bring it out o' them. I'm thinking Sir Thomas is the one man, in Christina's mind."

"I hope so."

"I have not such a thing as a doubt left."

"Do you tell me that, mother?"

"Yes, I took good notice, and she seemed to be on a very easy footing with him. I'll give him a week to think things o'er, but the marriage o' Christina Campbell and Sir Thomas Wynton is certain."

"We will not go quite that far yet, mother, but I think this evening's events warrant that presumption."

While this conversation was in progress, Christina was going upstairs, and her quick, strong steps were in singular contrast to the slow, inert movements of the Christina of a few years previous. At Theodora's bedroom door she paused irresolutely for a few moments, but finally tapped at it. Theodora herself answered the summons. She was in a long, white gown, and her face was white as the linen.

"Are you ill, Dora?" Christina asked.

"No, I am sleepy. Have you had a pleasant evening?"

"Yes. All went to my wish. Every honor was in my hand, but if you had been present honors would have been easy, if not entirely in your hand. It was kind of you to give me this free opportunity, and I feel sure I have won the game. Good-night."

"Good-night. You are looking unusually handsome."

"This dress is becoming. Good-night," and she went gaily away, timing her steps to the music of the last line of her conquering song:

"And the late Mistress Jean, is my Lady Cockpen,"

laughing softly to herself as she closed her door. For she knew that she had won Sir Thomas Wynton, and her sharp little bit of a soul had already caught a keen sight of the further triumphs awaiting her. She would travel, she would be presented at many courts, she would entertain splendidly at Wynton Castle, she would be kind to Theodora, and patronize and protect her and she would make the hearts of the Campbelton set sick with envy. So she went to sleep planning a future for herself, of the most stupendous self-pleasing.

But within one week her most unlikely plans had assumed an air of certainty. Sir Thomas Wynton had formally asked Mrs. Campbell for her daughter's hand, and Miss Christina Campbell been recognized as the future Lady Wynton. Then her world was at her feet, every one did her homage, and brought her presents, and praised her for having done so well to herself. And she took the place in the household accorded her without dissent and without apologies, and ordered her outgoings and incomings as she desired.

At first the middle of June had been named for the marriage, but before long the date was forwarded to the eighteenth of April, for Sir Thomas was an ardent lover and would hear of no delaying. Then the house was in a kind of joyful hurry from morning to night, and Christina spent her days between the shops and her dressmaker, and not even Sir Thomas could get a glimpse of her until the day's pleasant labor was over. At first Mrs. Campbell went with her daughter on these shopping expeditions, and sometimes Isabel accompanied them, but soon the various demands of the coming event gave the elder ladies abundant cares, and Christina was permitted to manage her shopping and fitting as she thought best. So then she gained daily in self-assertion, and soon submitted to no dictation even from her brother. But Sir Thomas was a lover sure to make any woman authoritative, for he submitted gladly to all his mistress's whims, obeyed all her orders, and grew every hour more and more infatuated with his charming Christina. The most expensive flowers and fruits were sent to her daily, the Wynton jewels were being reset for her use, and Wynton Castle elaborately decorated and furnished for its new mistress. Christina, indeed, was now drinking a full cup of long-delayed happiness, and late as it was, finding the dew of her long-lost youth.

Mrs. Campbell shared her daughter's triumphant satisfaction. To all her kinfolk, married and unmarried, male and female, she wrote little notes brimming with pride and false humility, and expatiating on Sir Thomas Wynton's rank, wealth and power, his handsome person, and his deep devotion to her daughter; piously trusting that "her dear child might not be lured from the narrow path of godliness, in which she had been so carefully trained."

So in these days Christina was busy and happy, and mistress of all she desired. Yet as the wedding-day approached, she became nervous and irritable; she said she was weary to death, and wanted to sleep for a month. No one cared to cross her in the smallest matter, though her family devotion never deserted her. This feeling was strongly exemplified about two weeks before the wedding-day, in a few words said to her brother one evening when they were alone in the dining-room.

"Robert," she asked, "how near are you to the hundred thousand you expected? You have paid me the five hundred pounds promised. I should like to know if I have earned it. How near are you to your desire?"

"Near enough."

"Has he signed the papers yet?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I have not pressed the matter."

"You are foolish. It will be easier to get his signature before we are married, than after."

"You suspicious woman! Men keep their word about money matters, Christina. Don't you know that?"

"No."

"Well, of course you don't. You know nothing about men."

"You are satisfied, are you?"

"I am perfectly satisfied."

"And sure?"

"And positively sure."

A week later she asked again, though in a joking manner, "if he had secured that signature?" and Robert answered in a tone of annoyance:

"Do not trouble yourself anent my money matters, Christina."

Then she laughed and said: "When I am Lady Wynton, I may find many other ways for the spending of that hundred thousand of lying siller."

"I can trust you," replied Robert. "When you are Lady Wynton, you will not cease to be Christina Campbell, and Campbells stand shoulder to shoulder all the world over."

At these words she gave him her hand, and he clasped it tightly between his own. No further words were necessary. Robert knew assuredly that his sister's influence would always be in his favor, never against him.

As she left her brother, Mrs. Campbell called her, and with a slight reluctance she went into the familiar room.

"What is it you want with me, mother?" she asked, quickly adding, "I am very busy to-day."

"I want to tell you, Christina, that I have had the small room behind this room prepared for your trunks. They ought to have been here yesterday. Are your dresses not finished? It is high time they were."

"Some are finished, others are not."

"Those that are finished had better be sent here at once."

There was a moment's pause, and then Christina said decidedly: "None of my bride things are coming here, mother. When they are all in perfect order they will be sent to my future home."

"To Wynton Castle?"

"Of course. They will be quite safe there."

"Safe! What do you mean, miss? And pray, why are your bride clothes sent to Wynton Castle, instead of to Traquair House? I insist on knowing that."

"Because Traquair House is notoriously unlucky to bride clothes. Poor Theodora's pretty things were all ruined by those dreadful Campbelton people. You said your bride things were treated in the same way. Very well, I am determined that none of my trunks shall be broken open and rifled, and so I am sending them to where they will be guarded and respected."

"You are acting in a shameful, and most unusual manner, and I command you to send your trunks here. I will be responsible for their safety."

"Thank you, mother, but I have already made excellent arrangements for their security."

"I consider your behavior abominable. It is an outrage on your mother's love and honor."

"Theodora trusted you, and you allowed a lot of vulgar, unscrupulous women to ransack her trunks, wear her new dresses dirty, and spoil all they touched, and carry away with them neckwear and jewelry they had no right to touch. I will not give them so much opportunity to injure me. You ought not to wish me to do so."

"Christina Campbell, your behavior is beyond all excuse, it is almost beyond all forgiveness. Isabel, tell your sister her duty."

Then Isabel said in a slow, positive voice: "I think Christina is right. You know, mother, the Campbelton people will come to the marriage, and after Christina has gone, who will be able to restrain them? Not you. It is quite certain that they ruined poor Dora's home-coming, and made her begin her life here, at sixes and sevens."

"Poor Dora! What do you mean?"

"I mean, mother, that the opening of her trunks, and the use of her clothing was a shameful thing. I have often said so, and I will always say so."

"Do not dare to say it to me again. I will not listen to such nonsense, and as for you, Christina Campbell, you are an ungrateful child, and you are cocking your head too high, and somewhat too early. Wait until you are Lady Wynton, before you put on ladyship airs."

"Look you, mother, once and for all time, my trunks are not coming near Traquair House. I am as good as married, and I will not be ordered about like a child; it is out of the question."

"Dod! but you are full of bouncing, swaggering words. And what good girl ever sent her bridal clothes away, without letting her mother see them? What in heaven and earth will you do next?"

"I shall be delighted, if you will come with me to Madame Bernard's rooms this morning. I have asked you frequently to do so. You always refuse."

"I intended to examine them here, at my leisure."

"And as to what I shall do next, you will see that very shortly. I am very sorry, mother, to disappoint you, but after I am married you can see me wearing the dresses, and – "

"I do not wish to see them at all now."

"Very well."

"All your life, until lately, you have been a good obedient daughter; the change in you is the work of that wicked, wicked woman Dora Newton."

"All my life until lately, I was kept in a state of nothingness – but I am no longer a nonentity. I have come into a human existence, and you are right, it is Dora Campbell's doing, and I wish I knew how to thank her."

"It would be thanking the devil, for teaching you to sin."

"Mother, you are spoiling my day, and I have a great deal to do. Good-morning, or will you come with me?"

"I will not come one footstep with you. How can you expect it?"

At these words Christina left the room, and Mrs. Campbell began a complaint illustrated by sobs, and sighs, and intermittent tears. She told Isabel that all the pleasure she expected from her child's marriage had been taken from her. She confessed that she had spoken a little to many people of the rich and beautiful presents Christina had received, and now she would not be able to show one of them; and no one would believe what she had said – and she could not blame people if they did not. "Oh, Isabel!" she cried, "for my sake, and for all our sakes, Christina must send her trunks here for a week or two. Do try and persuade her. She always listens to you."

"It is quite useless, mother; she has made up her mind to send them to her new home. I rather think some have gone there already, for two weeks ago there were eight trunks at madame's, and last week I only saw three."

"Why did you not tell me? Oh, why did you not give me a chance to persuade the cruel, selfish girl? So wrong! So wicked! So ungrateful! You know, Isabel, I gave her five hundred pounds to buy that very clothing – I had a right to see it – yes, I had – I had – and it is shameful!"

"Mother, you could have gone with Christina to her dressmaker's. You could not expect her to bring all her things here, they would certainly have been shown and handled – they might have been ill-used as Dora's pretty clothes were. Oh, mother, I do not blame Christina at all! I think she acted for the best."

"So you also are joining the enemy – getting Newtonized like Christina. Do you also hope to become a beauty, and a belle, and marry a baronet?"

"Mother, you are throwing sarcasm away. I have no hopes left for myself. It is too late for me to develop in any direction."

"Whose fault is that?"

"Destiny's fault, I suppose. I was nursing the sick, when I ought to have been in school and in society."

Mrs. Campbell did not answer this reproach. Destiny was a good enough apology. No one could thwart Destiny. She at least was not to blame for the wrongs of Destiny. She sat dourly still and silent, the very image of resentful disappointment. The silence was indeed so profound, that one could hear the passage of Isabel's needle through the silk she was sewing, and for ten minutes both women maintained the attitude they had taken.

Then Isabel – holding her needle poised ready for the next stitch – looked at her mother. Her expression of hopeless defeat was pathetic, and her silent, motionless endurance of it, touched Isabel's heart as tears and complaints never could have done. She rose and, taking her mother's dropped hand, said:

"Never mind, mother. You will often see Christina wearing her fineries in her grand new home. That will be far better than taking them out of a trunk to look at."

"Isabel, I care nothing about seeing them. I wanted to show them. People will never believe she got all I said she did."

"Why should you care whether they believe it or not? And why not pay the newspapers to make a notice of them. They will send some youngster here to item them, and you can give him a sovereign, and a glass of wine, and then you can give Christina all the wonderfuls you like – even to the half, or the whole, of Sir Thomas Wynton's estate."

"That is the plan, Isabel. I'm glad you thought of it."

"Robert is gey fond of a newspaper notice. He'll pay the sovereign without a grumble."

"I'm sure you are an extraordinar' comfort, Isabel."

"And I thought you were going to order the wedding cake this morning. There is really no time to lose, mother."

"You are right, Isabel, and I must just put back my own sair heartache and look after the ungrateful, thrawart woman's wedding cake. It's untelling what I have done for Christina, and the upsetting ways o' her this morning and the words she said, I'll never forget. I shall come o'er them in my mind as long as I live; and I'll tell her what I think of her behavior, whenever I find a proper opportunity."

"Very well, mother. Tell her flatly your last thought; it will be the best way."

"I will."

"But do go about the cake at once. It is important, and there's none but yourself will be heeded."

Then with a long, deep sigh, she went slowly out of the room, and Isabel watched her affected weakness and indifference with a kind of scornful pity. For women see through women, know intuitively their little tricks and make-beliefs, and for this very reason a daughter's love for her mother – however devoted and self-sacrificing – lacks that something of mystical worship which a son feels for his mother. The daughter knows she wears false hair and false teeth and pink and white powder; the son simply takes her as she looks and thinks "what a lovely mother I have!" The daughter has watched her mother's little schemes for happy household management, and probably helped her in them; the son knows only their completed comfort and their personal pleasure. He never dreams of any policy or management in his mother's words and deeds, and hence he believes in her just as he sees and hears her. And her wisdom and love seem to him so great and so unusual, that an element of reverence – the highest feeling of which man is capable – blends itself with all his conceptions of mother. And the wonder is, that a daughter's love exists, and persists, without it. Knowing all her mother's feminine weaknesses, she loves her devotedly in spite of them – nay, perhaps loves her the more profoundly because of them. And if she is not capable of this affection she does not love her at all.

Isabel watched her mother leave the house on the wedding cake business and then she went to her sister's room. She found her dressing to go out. "I have an appointment at eleven, Isabel," she said, "and I am so glad you have come to sit beside me while I dress. The days are going so fast, and very soon now you will come to my room, and Christina will not be here, any more in this life."

"You will surely come back to your own home sometimes, Christina?"

"No. I shall never enter Traquair House again, unless you are sick and need me – then I would come. I have just been going through my top drawer, Isabel; it was full of old gifts and keepsakes, and I declare they brought tears to my eyes."

"Why? I dare say the givers have forgotten you – they were mostly school friends, and the Campbelton crowd."

"Do you think I had a tear for any of them? No, no! I was nearly crying for myself, for it was really piteous to see the trash a woman of my age thought worth preserving. I sent the whole contents of the drawer to the kitchen – the servant lasses may quarrel about them."

"Was there nothing worth taking to your new home? No single thing that had a loving, or a pleasant memory?"

"Not one. The whole mess of needlework, and painted cards, toilet toys, and sham trinkets represented my existence until Dora came. It was just as useless and unsatisfying as the trash flung into the kitchen. Dora opened the gates of life for me. Poor Dora!"

"Why do you say 'poor Dora'?"

"She is unhappy, disappointed, I have sometimes thought almost frightened. She is much changed. Robert is not kind to her, and he ought to be ashamed of himself. I wonder if my intended husband will act as Robert has done?"

"Sir Thomas is much in love with you."

"Robert was much in love with Dora. See how it ends. He sits reading, or he lies asleep on the sofa the evenings he is with her – and he used to feel as if the day was not long enough to tell her how lovely and how dear she was. I suppose Sir Thomas will act in the same way."

"I do not think he will."

"He had better not."

"Oh, Christina, do not talk – do not even think of such contingencies. Women should never threaten."

"Pray, why not?"

"Because it is dangerous to themselves to show their teeth if they cannot bite, and they cannot. Women in this country are helpless as babies."

"Then there are other countries."

"Hush! This is uncanny talk. What a pretty suit! Are you going to wear it to-day?"

"Yes, it is a spring suit, and this is a lovely spring morning. I heard the robins singing as you came upstairs."

"Mother has gone to order the wedding cake – you ought to be a happy woman, Christina."

"I am – and yet, Isabel, life will be bare without you. All my life long you have been my comfort, and I love you, yes, I love you dearly, Isabel."

"And I love you, Christina. I shall miss you every hour of the day."

Then they were both silent, they had said all they could say, and much more than was usual. Christina finished her toilet, and Isabel sat watching her, then they clasped hands and walked downstairs together, and so to the front door, which Jepson opened as Christina approached it. For a few moments Isabel stood there and watched her sister enter the waiting carriage, and felt well repaid when Christina, as the horses moved, fluttered her white handkerchief in a parting salute.

Mrs. Campbell returned in time for lunch. She had quite recovered her dignity, and was indeed more than usually vaunting and exultant. "I have ordered a cake twice the ordinary size," she said, "and the small boxes, and the narrow white ribbon, in which to send friends not present at the ceremony a portion. It will be a labor to tie them up, and direct them, but there will be a house full to help you. When will your dress be done, Isabel?"

"To-night, mother."

"And Christina's comes to-morrow night. Mine is finished. I called at Dalmeny's to examine it. The lace is particularly effective, and it fits – which is a wonder. Will Sir Thomas be here to dinner?"

"He has gone to Edinburgh for the Wynton diamonds. He has set his heart on Christina wearing them at the marriage ceremony."

"I do not approve his determination. A bride, in my opinion, ought to be dressed with great simplicity. I was. A few orange blossoms, or the like of them, are enough."

"Not always. A young girl looks well enough with a few flowers, but a woman in the prime of life, like Christina, can wear diamonds even on her wedding-day, and look grander and lovelier for them."

"Well, well! Your way be it. I do not expect my opinions to be regarded, but can tell you one thing – if Sir Thomas goes on giving her gems at the rate he has done, the Wynton baronage will be in a state of perfect beggary, before the end of their lives. I was just telling Mrs. Malcolm that I verily believed the sum-total o' Sir Thomas Wynton's gifts to my daughter might reach all o' a ten thousand pounds, and she was that astonished, she could barely keep her composure."

"That is just like yourself, mother. I do wish you would not boast so much about Sir Thomas. He is not any kind of a miraculous godsend, for Christina is quite as good as he is."

"Isabel, if my family has been honored with extraordinar' mercies, I am not the woman to deny them, or even hide them in a napkin, as it were. I am going to be thankful for them and speak well of them to all and sundry. I am going to rejoice day and night over the circumstance. I think it just and right to testify my gratitude so far; and I would think shame o' myself if I did not do it."