Amelia Barr - A Reconstructed Marriage

"You might be flustered if you were in a hurry and unprepared, mother, and miss points of advantage, or get more than you gave, but if you had a plan thought out – "

"No, no, Isabel! I have lived long enough to learn the wisdom of building my wall with the stones I find at the foot of it."

"Many a sore heart the poor thing will get!" said Christina, with an air of mock pity.

"We cannot say too much or go too far, while Robert is as daft in love as he is at present," continued Mrs. Campbell. "We must be cautious, and that is the good way – the bit-by-bitness is what tells; now a look, now a word, now a hint, there a suspicion, there a worriment, there a hesitation or a doubt. It is the bit-by-bitness tells! This is a forgetful world, so I mention this fact again. And remember also, that men are the most uncertain part of creation. I have known Robert Campbell thirty years and I have just found him out. He is a curious creature, is Robert. He thinks himself steady as the hills, but in reality he is just as unstable as water. Good-night, girls! We will go for our sleep now, though I'm doubting if we get any."

"Theodora won't keep me awake," said Christina. Isabel did not speak then, but as they stood a moment at their bedroom doors, she said: "Mother is not to be trifled with. She is going to make Theodora trouble enough. I'm telling you."

"I don't care if she does! Anything for a change. Good-night!"

"Good-night! I do not expect to sleep."

"Perfect nonsense! Why should you keep awake for a woman in Kendal? Shut your eyes and forget her. Or dream that she brings you a husband."

"I'll do no such thing. That's a likely story!" and the two doors shut softly to the denial, and Christina's low laugh at it.

When the three women came down to breakfast in the morning, they found a dozen men at work dismantling the hall and the rooms on the north side of the house. The glass cases of insects and butterflies, and the old-fashioned engravings of Sir Robert Peel, Lord Derby, the Duke of Wellington, and Queen Victoria's marriage ceremony were just leaving the house. Mrs. Campbell, walking in her most stately manner, approached the foreman and began to give him some orders. He listened impatiently a few moments, and then answered with small courtesy:

"I have my written directions, ma'am, from the master, and I shall follow them to the letter. There is no use in you bothering and interfering," and with the last word on his lips, he turned from her to address some of his workmen.

She looked at him in utter amazement and speechless anger; then with an apparent haughty indifference, turned into the breakfast-room bringing the word "interfering" with her, and flavoring every remark she made with it. She was in a white heat of passion, and really felt herself to have been insulted beyond all pacification. Isabel had been a little in advance, and had not seen and heard the affront, but she was in thorough sympathy with her mother. Christina was differently affected. The idea of a workman telling her mother not to interfere in her own house was so flagrantly impudent, that it was to Christina flagrantly funny. Every time Mrs. Campbell imitated the man, she felt that she must give way, and at length the strain was uncontrollable, and she burst into a screaming passion of laughter.

"Forgive me, mother!" she said as soon as speech was possible. "That man's impertinence to you has made me hysterical, for I never saw you treated so disrespectfully before. I was very nervous when I rose this morning."

"You must conquer such absurd feelings, Christina. Observe your sister and myself. We should be ashamed to exhibit such a total collapse of will power."

"Excuse me, mother. I will go to my room until I feel better."

"Very well, Christina. You had better take a drink of water. Remember, you must learn to meet annoyance like a sensible woman."

"I will, mother."

But after breakfast when Isabel came to her, she went off into peals of laughter again, burying her face in the pillows, and only lifting it to ejaculate: "It was too delicious, Isabel – too deliciously funny for anything! If you had seen that man stare mother in the face – and tell her not to interfere! I wondered how he dared, but I admired him for it; he was a big, handsome fellow. Oh, how I wished I was like him! What privileges men do have?"

"Do you mean to call it a privilege to tell mother not to interfere?"

"Many a time I would like to have done it; yes, many a time. I know it is wicked, but mother does interfere too much. It is her specialty!" and Christina appeared ready for another fit of laughter.

"If you laugh any more, Christina, I shall feel it my duty to throw cold water in your face. Mother told me to do so."

"Such advice comes from her interfering temper. That handsome fellow was right."

"Behave yourself, Christina. What is the matter with you?"

"It is the change, Isabel. To see lots of men in the hall, and that heavy black furniture and the poor beetles and butterflies, and the great men's pictures going away – "

"Can't you speak correctly? Are you sick?"

"I must be!"

"Go back to bed, and I will get mother to give you a sleeping powder."

"That will be better than cold water. If you could only have seen mother's face, Isabel, when that man told her not to interfere. As for him, he had a wink in his eyes, I know. I hope I shall never see him again. If I do – "

"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."