THE BEGINNING OF THE END
On this same night the Mistress of Braelands sat musing by the glowing
bit of fire in her bedroom, while her maid, Allister, was folding away
her silk dinner-gown, and making the preparations for the night's
toilet. She was a stately, stern-looking woman, with that air of
authority which comes from long and recognised position. Her
dressing-gown of pale blue flannel fell amply around her tall form; her
white hair was still coiled and puffed in an elaborate fashion, and
there was at the wrist-bands of her sleeves a fall of lace which half
covered her long, shapely white hands. She was pinching its plaits
mechanically, and watching the effect as she idly turned them in the
firelight to catch the gleam of opal and amethyst rings. But this
accompaniment to her thoughts was hardly a conscious one; she had
admired her hands for so many years that she was very apt to give to
their beauty this homage of involuntary observation, even when her
thoughts were fixed on subjects far-off and alien to them.
"Allister," she said, suddenly, "I wonder where Mr. Archibald will be
this night."
"The Lord knows, Madame, and it is well he does; for it is little we
know of ourselves and the ways we walk in."
"The Lord looks after his own, Allister, and Mr. Archibald was given to
him by kirk and parents before he was a month old. But if a man marries
such a woman as you know nothing about, and then goes her ways, what
will you say then?"
"It is not as bad as that, Madame. Mrs. Archibald is of well-known
people, though poor."
"Though low-born, Allister. Poverty can be tholed, and even respected;
but for low birth there is no remedy but being born over again."
"Well, Madame, she is Braelands now, and that is a cloak to cover all
defects; and if I was you I would just see that it did so."
"She is my son's wife, and must be held as such, both by gentle and
simple."
"And there is few ills that have not a good side to them, Madame. If
Mr. Archibald had married Miss Roberta Elgin, as you once feared he
would do, there would have been a flitting for you and for me, Madame.
Miss Roberta would have had the whole of Braelands House to herself,
and the twenty-two rooms of it wouldn't have been enough for her. And
she would have taken the Braelands's honour and glory on her own
shoulders. It would have been 'Mrs. Archibald Braelands' here and there
and everywhere, and you would have been pushed out of sight and
hearing, and passed by altogether, like as not; for if youth and beauty
and wealth and good blood set themselves to have things their own way,
which way at all will age that is not rich keep for itself? Sure as
death, Madame, you would have had to go to the Dower House, which is
but a mean little place, though big enough, no doubt, for all the
friends and acquaintances that would have troubled themselves to know
you there."
"You are not complimentary, Allister. I think I have few friends who
would _not_ have followed me to the Dower House."
"Surely, Madame, you may as well think so. But carriages aye stop at
big houses; indeed, the very coachmen and footmen and horses are dead
set against calling at cottages. There is many a lady who would be
feared to ask her coachman to call at the Dower House. But what for am
I talking? There is no occasion to think that Mrs. Archibald will ever
dream of sending you out of his house."
"I came here a bride, nearly forty years ago, Allister," she said, with
a touch of sentimental pity for herself in the remembrance.
"So you have had a long lease, Madame, and one like to be longer; for
never a better son than your son; and I do think for sure that the lady
he has married will be as biddable as a very child with you."
"I hope so. For she will have everything to learn about society, and
who can teach her better than I can, Allister?"
"No one, Madame; and Mrs. Archibald was ever good at the uptake. I am
very sure if you will show her this and that, and give her the word
here and there yourself, Madame, there will be no finer lady in Fife
before the year has come and gone. And she cannot be travelling with
Mr. Archibald without learning many a thing all the winter long."
"Yes, they will not be home before the spring, I hear."
"And oh, Madame, by that date you will have forgot that all was not as
you wanted it! And no doubt you will give the young things the loving
welcome they are certain to be longing for."
"I do not know, Allister. The marriage was a great sorrow, and shame,
and disappointment to me. I am not sure that I have forgiven it."
"Lady Beith was saying you never would forgive it. She was saying that
you could never forgive any one's faults but your own."
"Lady Beith is very impertinent. And pray what faults has Lady Beith
ever seen in me?"
"It was her general way of speaking, Madame. She has that way."
"Then you might tell Lady Beith's woman, that such general ways of
speaking are extremely vulgar. When her ladyship speaks of the Mistress
of Braelands again, I will ask her to refer to me, particularly. I have
my own virtues as well as my own faults, and my own position, and my
own influence, and I do not go into the generalities of life. I am the
Mistress of Braelands yet, I hope."
"I hope so, Madame. As I was saying, Mrs. Archibald is biddable as a
child; but then again, she is quite capable of taking the rudder into
her own hands, and driving in the teeth of the wind. You can't ever be
sure of fisher blood. It is like the ocean, whiles calm as a sleeping
baby, whiles lashing itself into a very fury. There is both this and
that in the Traills, and Mrs. Archibald is one of them."
"Any way and every way, this marriage is a great sorrow to me."
"I am not disputing that, Madame; but I am sure you remember what the
minister was saying to you at his last visitation--that every sorrow
you got the mastery over was a benefactor."
"The minister is not always orthodox, Allister."
"He is a very good man; every one is saying that."
"No doubt, no doubt, but he deviates."
"Well then, Madame, even if the marriage be as bad as you fancy it, bad
things as well as good ones come to an end, and life, after all, is
like a bit of poetry I picked up somewhere, which says:
There's nane exempt frae worldly cares
And few frae some domestic jars
Whyles _all_ are in, whyles _all_ are out,
And grief and joy come turn about.
And it's the turn now for the young people to be happy. Cold and bleak
it is here on the Fife coast, but they are among roses and sunshine and
so God bless them, I say, and keep us and every one from cutting short
their turn of happiness. You had your bride time, Madame, and when
Angus McAllister first took me to his cottage in Strathmoyer, I thought
I was on a visit to Paradise."
"Give me my glass of negus, and then I will go to bed. Everybody has
taken to preaching and advising lately, and that is not the kind of
fore-talk that spares after-talk--not it, Allister."
She sunk then into unapproachable silence, and Allister knew that she
needed not try to move her further that night in any direction. Her
eyes were fixed upon the red coals, but she was really thinking of the
roses and sunshine of the South, and picturing to herself her son and
his bride, wandering happily amid the warmth and beauty.
In reality, they were crossing the Braelands's moor at that very moment
The rain was beating against the closed windows of their coach, and the
horses floundering heavily along the boggy road. Sophy's head rested on
her husband's shoulder, but they were not talking, nor had they spoken
for some time. Both indeed were tired and depressed, and Archie at
least was unpleasantly conscious of the wonderment their unexpected
return would cause.
The end of April or the beginning of May had been the time appointed,
and yet here they were, at the threshold of their home, in the middle
of the winter. Sophy's frail health had been Archie's excuse for a
season in the South with her; and she was coming back to Scotland when
the weather was at its very bleakest and coldest. One excuse after
another formed itself in Archie's mind, only to be peremptorily
dismissed. "It is no one's business but our own," he kept assuring
himself, "and I will give neither reason nor apology but my wife's
desire." and yet he knew that reasons and apologies would be asked, and
he was fretting inwardly at their necessity, and wondering vaguely if
women ever did know what they really wanted.
For to go to France and Germany and Italy, had seemed to Sophy the very
essence of every joy in life. Before her marriage, she had sat by
Archie's side hour after hour, listening to his descriptions of foreign
lands, and dreaming of all the delights that were to meet her in them.
She had started on this bridal trip with all her senses set to an
unnatural key of expectation, and she had, of course, suffered
continual disappointments and disillusions. The small frets and
sicknesses of travel, the loneliness of being in places where she could
not speak even to her servants, or go shopping without an attendant,
the continual presence of what was strange--of what wounded her
prejudices and very often her conscience,--and the constant absence
of all that was familiar and approved, were in themselves no slight
cause of unhappiness.
Yet it had been a very gradual disillusion, and one mitigated by many
experiences that had fully justified even Sophy's extravagant
anticipations. The trouble, in the main, was one common to a great
majority of travellers for pleasure--a mind totally unprepared for
the experience.
She grew weary of great cities which had no individual character or
history in her mind; weary of fine hotels in which she was of no
special importance; weary of art which had no meaning for her. Her
child-like enthusiasms, which at first both delighted and embarrassed
her husband, faded gradually away; the present not only lost its charm,
but she began to look backward to the homely airs and scenes of Fife,
and to suffer from a nostalgia that grew worse continually.
However, Archie bore her unreasonable depression with great
consideration. She was but a frail child after all, and she was in a
condition of health demanding the most affectionate patience and
tenderness he could give her. Besides, it was no great sin in his eyes
to be sick with longing for dear old Scotland. He loved his native
land; and his little mountain blue-bell, trembling in every breeze, and
drooping in every hour of heat and sunshine, appealed to the very best
instincts of his nature. And when Sophy began to voice her longing, to
cry a little in his arms, and to say she was wearying for a sight of
the great grey sea round her Fife home, Archie vowed he was homesick as
a man could be, and asked, "why they should stop away from their own
dear land any longer?"
"People will wonder and talk so, Archie They will say unkind
things--they will maybe say we are not happy together."
"Let them talk. What care we? And we are happy together. Do you want to
go back to Scotland tomorrow? today--this very hour?"
"Aye. I do, Archie. And I am that weak and poorly, if I don't go soon,
maybe I will have to wait a long time, and then you know."
"Yes, I know. And that would never, never do. Braelands of Fife cannot
run the risk of having his heir born in a foreign country. Why, it
would be thrown up to the child, lad and man, as long as he lived! So
call your maid, my bonnie Sophy, and set her to packing all your braws
and pretty things, and we will turn our faces to Scotland's hills and
braes tomorrow morning."
Thus it happened that on that bleak night in February, Archie Braelands
and his wife came suddenly to their home amid the stormy winds and
rains of a stormy night. Madame heard the wheels of their carriage as
she sat sipping her negus, and thinking over her conversation with
Allister and her alert soul instantly divined _who_ the late comers
were.
"Give me my silk morning gown and my brocade petticoat, Allister," she
cried, as she rose up hastily and set down her glass. "Mr. Archibald
has come home; his carriage is at the door--haste ye, woman!"
"Will you be heeding your silks to-night, Madame?"
"Get them at once. Quick! Do you think I will meet the bride in a
flannel dressing-gown? No, no! I am not going to lose ground the first
hour."
With nervous haste the richer garments were donned, and just as the
final gold brooch was clasped, Archie knocked at his mother's door. She
opened to him with her own hands, and took him to her heart with an
effusive affection she rarely permitted herself to exhibit.
"I am so glad that you are dressed, Mother," he said. "Sophy must not
miss your welcome, and the poor little woman is just weary to death."
Then he whispered some words to her, which brought a flush of pride and
joy to his own face, but no such answering response to Madame's.
"Indeed," she replied, "I am sorry she is so tired. It seems to me,
that the women of this generation are but weak creatures."
Then she took her son's arm, and went down to the parlour, where
servants were re-kindling the fire, and setting a table with
refreshments for the unexpected guests. Sophy was resting on a sofa
drawn towards the hearth. Archie had thrown his travelling cloak of
black fox over her, and her white, flower-like face, surrounded by the
black fur, had a singularly pathetic beauty. She opened her large blue
eyes as Madame approached and looked at her with wistful entreaty; and
Madame, in spite of all her pre-arrangements of conduct, was unable at
that hour not to answer the appeal for affection she saw in them. She
stooped and kissed the childlike little woman, and Archie watched this
token of reconciliation and promise with eyes wet with happiness.
When supper was served, Madame took her usual place at the head of the
table, and Archie noticed the circumstance, though it did not seem a
proper time to make any remark about it. For Sophy was not able to eat,
and did not rise from her couch; and Madame seemed to fall so properly
into her character of hostess, that it would have been churlish to have
made the slightest dissent. Yet it was a false kindness to both; for in
the morning Madame took the same position, and Archie felt less able
than on the previous night to make any opposition, though he had told
himself continually on his homeward journey that he would not suffer
Sophy to be imposed upon, and would demand for her the utmost title of
her rights as his wife.
In this resolve, however, he had forgot to take into account his
mother's long and absolute influence over him. When she was absent, it
was comparatively easy to relegate her to the position she ought to
occupy; when she was present, he found it impossible to say or do
anything which made her less than Mistress of Braelands. And during the
first few weeks after her return, Sophy helped her mother-in-law
considerably against herself. She was so anxious to please, so anxious
to be loved, so afraid of making trouble for Archie, that she submitted
without protest to one infringement after another on her rights as the
wife of the Master of Braelands. All the same she was dumbly conscious
of the wrong being done to her; and like a child, she nursed her sense
of the injustice until it showed itself in a continual mood of sullen,
silent protest.
After the lapse of a month or more, she became aware that even her ill
health was used as a weapon against her, and she suddenly resolved to
throw off her lassitude, and assert her right to go out and call upon
her friends. But she was petulant and foolish in the carrying out of
the measure. She had made up her mind to visit her aunt on the
following day, and though the weather was bitterly cold and damp, she
adhered to her resolution. Madame, at first politely, finally with
provoking positiveness, told her "she would not permit her to risk her
life, and a life still more precious, for any such folly."
Then Sophy rose, with a sudden excitement of manner, and rang the bell.
When the servant appeared, she ordered the carriage to be ready for her
in half an hour. Madame waited until they were alone, and then said:
"Sophy, go to your room and lie down. You are not fit to go out. I
shall counter-order the carriage in your name."
"You will not," cried the trembling, passionate girl. "You have ordered
and counter-ordered in my name too much. You will, in the future, mind
your own affairs, and leave me to attend to mine."
"When Archie comes back"
"You will tell him all kinds of lies. I know that."
"I do not lie."
"Perhaps not; but you misrepresent things so, that you make it
impossible for Archie to get at the truth. I want to see my aunt. You
have kept me from her, and kept her from me, until I am sick for a
sight of those who _really_ love me. I am going to Aunt Kilgour's this
very morning, whether you like it or not."
"You shall not leave this house until Archie comes back from Largo. I
will not take the responsibility."
"We shall see. _I_ will take the responsibility myself. _I_ am mistress
of Braelands. You will please remember that fact. And I know my rights,
though I have allowed you to take them from me."
"Sophy, listen to me."
"I am going to Aunt Kilgour's."
"Archie will be very angry."
"Not if you will let him judge for himself. Anyway, I don't care. I am
going to see my aunt! You expect Archie to be always thinking of
feelings, and your likes and dislikes. I have just as good a right to
care about my aunt's feelings. She was all the same as mother to me. I
have been a wicked lassie not to have gone to her lang syne."
"Wicked lassie! Lang syne! I wish you would at least try to speak like
a lady."
"I am not a lady. I am just one of God's fisher folk. I want to see my
own kith and kin. I am going to do so."
"You are not--until your husband gives you permission."
"Permission! do you say? I will go on my own permission, Sophy
Braelands's permission."
"It is a shame to take the horses out in such weather--and poor old
Thomas."
"Shame or not, I shall take them out."
"Indeed, no! I cannot permit you to make a fool and a laughing-stock of
yourself." She rang the bell sharply and sent for the coachman When he
appeared, she said:
"Thomas, I think the horses had better not go out this morning. It is
bitterly cold, and there is a storm coming from the northeast. Do you
not think so?"
"It is a bad day, Madame, and like to be worse."
"Then we will not go out."
As Madame uttered the words, Sophy walked rapidly forward. All the
passion of her Viking ancestors was in her face, which had undergone a
sort of transfiguration. Her eyes flashed, her soft curly yellow hair
seemed instinct with a strange life and brilliancy, and she said with
an authority that struck Madame with amazement and fear:
"Thomas, you will have the carriage at the door in fifteen minutes,
exactly," and she drew out her little jewelled watch, and gave him the
time with a smiling, invincible calmness.
Thomas looked from one woman to the other, and said, fretfully, "A man
canna tak' twa contrary orders at the same minute o' time. What will I
do in the case?"
"You will do as I tell you, Thomas," said Madame. "You have done so for
twenty years. Have you come to any scath or wrong by it?"
"If the carriage is not at the door in fifteen minutes, you will leave
Braelands this night, Thomas," said Sophy. "Listen! I give you fifteen
minutes; after that I shall walk into Largo, and you can answer to your
master for it. I am Mistress of Braelands. Don't forget that fact if
you want to keep your place, Thomas."
She turned passionately away with the words, and left the room. In
fifteen minutes she went to the front door in her cloak and hood, and
the carriage was waiting there. "You will drive me to my aunt Kilgour's
shop," she said with an air of reckless pride and defiance. It pleased
her at that hour to humble herself to her low estate. And it pleased
Thomas also that she had done so. His sympathy was with the fisher
girl. He was delighted that she had at last found courage to assert
herself, for Sophy's wrongs had been the staple talk of the
kitchen-table and fireside.
"No born lady I ever saw," he said afterwards to the cook, "could have
held her own better. It will be an even fight between them two now, and
I will bet my shilling on fisherman Traill's girl."
"Madame has more wit, and more _hold out_" answered the cook. "Mrs.
Archibald is good for a spurt, but I'll be bound she cried her eyes red
at Griselda Kilgour's, and was as weak as a baby."
This opinion was a perfectly correct one. Once in her aunt's little
back parlour, Sophy gave full sway to her childlike temper. She told
all her wrongs, and was comforted by her kinswoman's interest and pity,
and strengthened in her resolution to resist Madame's interference with
her life. And then the small black teapot was warmed and filled, and
Sophy begged for a herring and a bit of oatcake; and the two women sat
close to one another, and Miss Kilgour told Sophy all the gossip and
clash of gossip there had been about Christina Binnie and her lover,
and how the marriage had been broken off, no one knowing just why, but
many thinking that since Jamie Logan had got a place on "The Line," he
was set on bettering himself with a girl something above the like of
Christina Binnie.
And as they talked Helen Marr came into the shop for a yard of ribbon,
and said it was the rumour all through Pittendurie, that Andrew Binnie
was all but dead, and folks were laying all the blame upon the Mistress
of Braelands, for that every one knew that Andrew had never held up his
head an hour since her marriage. And though Miss Kilgour did not
encourage this phase of gossip, yet the woman would persist in
describing his sufferings, and the poverty that had come to the Binnies
with the loss of their only bread-winner, and the doctors to pay, and
the medicine folks said they had not the money to buy, and much more of
the same sort, which Sophy heard every word of, knowing also that Helen
Marr must have seen her carriage at the door, and so, knowing of her
presence, had determined that she should hear it.
Certainly if Helen had wished to wound her to the very heart, she
succeeded. When Miss Kilgour got rid of her customer, and came back to
Sophy, she found her with her face in the pillow, sobbing passionately
about the trouble of her old friends. She did not name Andrew, but the
thought of his love and suffering hurt her sorely, and she could not
endure to think of Janet's and Christina's long hardships and sorrow.
For she knew well how much they would blame her, and the thought of
their anger, and of her own apparent ingratitude, made her sick with
shame and grief. And as they talked of this new trouble, and Sophy sent
messages of love and pity to Janet and Christina, the shop-bell rung
violently, and Sophy heard her husband's step, and in another moment he
was at her side, and quite inclined to be very angry with her for
venturing out in such miserable weather.
Then Sophy seized her opportunity, and Miss Kilgour left them alone for
the explanation that was better to be made there than at Braelands. And
for once Archie took his wife's part without reservation. He was not
indeed ill-pleased that she had assumed her proper position, and when
he slipped a crown into Thomas's hand, the man also knew that he had
done wisely. Indeed there was something in the coachman's face and air
which affected Madame unpleasantly, before she noticed that Sophy had
returned in her husband's company, and that they were evidently on the
most affectionate terms.
"I have lost this battle," she said to herself, and she wisely
retreated to her own room, and had a nominal headache, and a very
genuine heartache about the loss.
All day long Sophy was at an unnatural pitch, all day long she exerted
herself, as she had not done for weeks and months, to entertain and
keep her husband at her side, and all day long her pretty wifely
triumph was bright and unbroken. The very servants took a delight in
ministering to it, and Madame was not missed in a single item of the
household routine. But about midnight there was a great and sudden
change. Bells were frantically rung, lights flew about the house, and
there was saddling of horses and riding in hot haste into Largo for any
or all the doctors that could be found.
Then Madame came quietly from her seclusion, and resumed her place as
head of the household, for the little mistress of one day lay in her
chamber quite unconscious of her lost authority. Some twelve hours
later, the hoped-for heir of Braelands was born, and died, and Sophy,
on the very outermost shoal of life, felt the wash and murmur of that
dark river which flows to the Eternal Sea.
It was no time to reproach the poor little wife, and yet Madame did not
scruple to do so. "She had warned Sophy,--she had begged her not to go
out--she had been insulted for endeavouring to prevent what had come to
pass just as she had predicted." And in spite of Archie's love and
pity, her continual regrets did finally influence him. He began to
think he had been badly used, and to agree with Madame in her
assertions that Sophy must be put under some restrictions, and
subjected to some social instruction.
"The idea of the Braelands's carriage standing two hours at Griselda
Kilgour's shop door! All the town talking about it! Every one wondering
what had happened at Braelands, to drive your wife out of doors in such
weather. All sorts of rumours about you and Sophy, and Griselda shaking
her head and sighing and looking unspeakable things, just to keep the
curiosity alive; and the crowds of gossiping women coming and going to
her shop. Many a cap and bonnet has been sold to your name, Archie, no
doubt, and I can tell you my own cheeks are kept burning with the shame
of the whole affair! And then this morning, the first thing she said to
me was, that she wanted to see her cousins Isobel and Christina."
"She asked me also about them, Mother, and really, I think she had
better be humoured in this matter. Our friends are not her friends."
"They ought to be."
"Let us be just. When has she had any opportunity to make them so? She
has seen no one yet,--her health has been so bad--and it did often
look. Mother, as if you encouraged her _not_ to see callers."
"Perhaps I did, Archie. You cannot blame me. Her manners are so crude,
so exigent, so effusive. She is so much pleased, or so indifferent
about people; so glad to see them, or else so careless as to how she
treats them. You have no idea what I suffered when Lady Blair called,
and insisted on meeting your wife. Of course she pretended to fall in
love with her, and kissed, and petted, and flattered Sophy, until the
girl hardly knew what she was doing or saying. And as for 'saying,' she
fell into broad Scotch, as she always does when she is pleased or
excited, and Lady Blair professed herself charmed, and talked broad
Scotch back to her. And I? I sat tingling with shame and annoyance, for
I knew right well what mockeries and laughter Sophy was supplying
Annette Blair with for her future visitors."
"I think you are wrong. Lady Blair is not at all ill-natured. She was
herself a poor minister's daughter, and accustomed to go in and out of
the fishers' cottages. I can imagine that she would really be charmed
with Sophy."
"You can 'imagine' what you like; that will not alter the real state of
the case; and if Sophy is ever to take her position as your wife, she
must be prepared for it. Besides which, it will be a good thing to give
her some new interests in life, for she must drop the old ones. About
that there cannot be two opinions."
"What then do you propose, Mother?"
"I should get proper teachers for her. Her English education has been
frightfully neglected; and she ought to learn music and French."
"She speaks French pretty well. I never saw any one pick up a language
as cleverly as she did the few weeks we were in Paris."
"O, she is clever enough if she wants to be! There is a French woman
teaching at Miss Linley's Seminary. She will perfect her. And I have
heard she also plays well. It would be a good thing to engage her for
Sophy, two or three hours a day. A teacher for grammar, history,
writing, etc., is easily found. I myself will give her lessons in
social etiquette, and in all things pertaining to the dignity and
decorum which your wife ought to exhibit. Depend upon it, Archie, this
routine is absolutely necessary. It will interest and occupy her idle
hours, of which she has far too many; and it will wean her better than
any other thing from her low, uncultivated relations."
"The poor little woman says she wants to be loved; that she is lonely
when I am away; that no one but the servants care for her; that
therefore she wants to see her cousins and kinsfolk."
"She does me a great injustice. I would love her if she would be
reasonable--if she would only trust me. But idle hearts are lonely
hearts, Archie. Tell her you wish her to study, and fit herself for the
position you have raised her to. Surely the desire to please you ought
to be enough. Do you know _who_ this Christina Binnie is that she talks
so continually about?"
"Her fourth or fifth cousin, I believe."
"She is the sister of the man you won Sophy from--the man whom you
struck across the cheek with your whip. Now do you wish her to see
Christina Binnie!"
"Yes, I do! Do you think I am jealous or fearful of my wife? No, by
Heaven! No! Sophy may be unlearned and unfashionable, but she is loyal
and true, and if she wants to see her old lover and his sister, she has
my full permission. As for the fisherman, he behaved very nobly. And I
did not intend to strike him. It was an accident, and I shall apologise
for it the first opportunity I have to do so."
"You are a fool, Archie Braelands."
"I am a husband, who knows his wife's heart and who trusts in it. And
though I think you are quite right in your ideas about Sophy's
education, I do not think you are right in objecting to her seeing her
old friends. Every one in this bound of Fife knows that I married a
fisher-girl. I never intend to be ashamed of the fact. If our social
world will accept her as the representative of my honour and my family,
I shall be obliged to the world. If it will not, I can live without its
approval--having Sophy to love me and live with me. I counted all this
cost before I married; you may be sure of that, Mother."
"You forgot, however, to take my honour and feelings into your
consideration."
"I knew, Mother, that you were well able to protect your own honour and
feelings."
This conversation but indicates the tone of many others which occupied
the hours mother and son passed together during Sophy's convalescence.
And the son, being the weaker character of the two, was insensibly
moved and moulded to all Madame's opinions. Indeed, before Sophy was
well enough to begin the course of study marked out for her, Archie had
become thoroughly convinced that it was his first duty to his wife and
himself to insist upon it.
The weak, loving woman made no objections. Indeed, Archie's evident
enthusiasm sensibly affected her own desires. She listened with
pleasure to the plans for her education, and promised "as soon as she
was able, to do her very best."
And there was a strange pathos in the few words "as soon as I am able,"
which Archie remembered years afterwards, when it was far too late. At
the moment, they touched him but lightly, but _Oh, afterwards!_ Oh,
afterwards! when memory brought back the vision of the small white face
on the white pillow, and the faint golden light of the golden curls
shadowing the large blue eyes that even then had in them that wide gaze
and wistfulness that marks those predestined for sorrow or early death.
Alas! Alas! We see too late, we hear too late, when it is the dead who
open the eyes and the ears of the living!