A Reconstructed Marriage

"I trust you will behave decently, as Christina Campbell ought to do."

"If he winks, I shall laugh. I know I shall."

"Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

"I am, but what good does that do?"

"See here, Christina, there are going to be many changes in this house, and if you intend to meet them with this idiotic laughter, what pleasure can you expect? Be sensible, Christina."

Poor Christina! The keenest of all her faculties was her sense of the ridiculous. On this side of her nature, her intellect could have been highly developed, but instead it had been ruthlessly depressed and ignored. The comic page of the newspapers, the only page she cared for, was generally removed; she could tell a funny story delightfully, but no one smiled if she did so; she saw the comical attributes of every one, and everything, but it was a grave misdemeanor to point them out; and thus snubbed and chided for the one thing she could do, she feared to attempt others which she knew only in a mediocre manner.

At the dinner table she was able to take her place in a placid, sensible mood. She found the family deep in the discussion of an immediate removal to the seashore. It was at any rate about the usual time of their summer migration, and Robert was advising his mother to go to the Isle of Arran. But Mrs. Campbell had resolved to go to Campbelton, where she had many relations. "We can stay at the Argyle Arms," she said, "and then neither the Lairds nor the Crawfords will have the face to be dropping in for a few days' change, at my expense."

Christina looked distressed, and touched Isabel's foot to excite her to rebellion. "Mother," said Isabel dolorously, "Christina and I hate Campbelton! It smells of whiskey and fish, and not even the great sea winds can make the place clean and sweet."

"It makes me ill," ventured Christina.

"My family have lived there for generations, Christina, and it never made them ill. They are, indeed, very robust and healthy."

"There is nothing to see, mother."

"I am ashamed of you, Christina. It is a town of the greatest antiquity, and was, as you ought to know, the capital of the Dalriadan kingdom in the sixth and seventh century."

"I know all about its antiquities, mother. I wish I didn't."

"Christina, what is the matter with you to-day?"

"I am tired of living, mother."

"Robert, do you hear your sister?"

"Why are you tired of living, Christina?" asked Robert, not unkindly.

"We do not live, brother; that is the reason."

"What do you mean?"

"Life is variety. To us every day is the same, except the Sabbath, and that is the worst day of all. I don't blame you, brother, for a desperate effort to change your life. If I were a man I should run away."

"What do you mean by a desperate effort, Christina?"

"I mean marriage. Sometimes I feel that I would run away with any man that would marry me."

"Hush! Such a feeling is shameful. What do you wish instead of Campbelton?"

The courage of the desperate possessed Christina and she answered: "I should like to travel. I want to see Edinburgh and London and Paris like other girls whose families have money, and Isabel feels as badly at our restrictions as I do."

"What do you say, mother? Will you go with the girls to Edinburgh and London? Paris is out of the question. I will pay all expenses."

"I will do nothing of the kind. I am going to Campbelton. I suppose the girls can go by themselves."

"You know better, mother."

"English girls go all over the world by themselves, and some kinds of Scotch girls are beginning to think mothers an unnecessary institution."

Robert looked at Isabel, and she said: "We might have a courier. I mean a lady courier."

"I will not permit my daughters to go stravaging round the world with any strange woman. Robert, I think you have behaved most imprudently to propose any such thing."

"In your company, mother, was my suggestion. I do think an entire change of people and surroundings would do both you and my sisters a great deal of good."

"Changes are plentiful; too many are now in progress."

So the subject died in bad temper, and Robert felt his proffered kindness to have been very ungraciously received. But when he rose from the table, Christina touched his arm as he passed her chair. "Thank you, brother," she said. "You wished to give us a little pleasure. It is not your fault we are deprived of it."

He saw that her eyes were full of tears, and her weary, plaintive voice touched his heart, so he turned to his mother and said:

"Think of what I have proposed. I will not stint you in expenses. Give the girls and yourself a little pleasure – do."

"Your own expenses are going to be tremendous, Robert, furnishing, travelling and what not. I can't conscientiously increase them."

At these words Christina left the room. Robert did not answer his mother's remark, but he looked at Isabel, and she understood the look as entrusting the further prosecution of the subject to her.

Mrs. Campbell, however, refused to give up Campbelton. "I heard," she said, "that Mrs. Walter Galbraith was going to France and Italy. Perhaps she will allow you to travel with her."

Isabel looked at her mother with something like reproach. "You know well, mother, that Mrs. Galbraith dresses and travels in the most extravagant fashion. She would not be seen with two old maids in plain brown merino suits. We should look like her servants. Even if we got stylish travelling gowns, we should want dinner dresses, and opera dresses, and cloaks and changes, and small necessities innumerable. It would cost a thousand pounds, if not more, to clothe us both for a three months' travel with Mrs. Galbraith."

"Then be sensible women and go to Campbelton. You can take your wheels and on the firm sands of Macrihanish Bay have a five miles' unbroken spin. There are boating and fishing and very interesting walks."

"And Christina will find company for her wheel and walks, mother. The last time we were in Campbelton, the schoolmaster, James Rathey, was constantly with her. He was in love, and Christina liked him. After we came home he wrote to her, and I had hard work to prevent her answering his letters."

"You ought to have told me this before."

"I was sorry for her. Poor girl, he was the only lover she ever had!"

"Such folly! I shall watch the schoolmaster myself this summer. I have influence enough to get him dismissed. He shall not teach in Campbelton another year."

"Oh, mother, how cruel and unjust that would be! I am sorry I told you." And Isabel felt the case to be hopeless, and did not make another plea.

She went straight to her sister's room. "Mother is not to be moved, Christina," she said. "We shall have to go to Campbelton."

"So be it. Jamie Rathey will be having his vacation now, and he can play the fiddle and sing 'The Laird o' Cockpen' worth listening to. He promised to buy a wheel before I came again, and then we will away to Macrihanish sands for a race. I won't be cheated out of that pleasure, Isabel, and you need not say a word about it."

"You cannot hide it. Every one but mother knew about you and James Rathey last year, and Aunt Laird would have told mother, but I begged her not. If you begin that foolishness again, I must attend to the matter."

"You mean you will tell mother?"

"Yes, decidedly."