Fortunately David Campbell was at Mrs. Oliphant's, having returned from Edinburgh not ten minutes previously. He heard Theodora's tidings with a calm pleasure. "We are ready," he said. "Your father and mother have been in Glasgow for a week. They are boarding at a house in Monteith Row, a pretty locality on Glasgow Green."
"Oh, David, were you not afraid?"
"Not at all," he answered, "the Campbells are exclusive West-Enders. They would be as likely to go near Monteith Row as to go to Ashantee. Your parents are known as Mr. and Mrs. Bell. You must not try to see them until you meet on the steamer."
"Very well. When shall we sail?"
"This is Tuesday. The Anchor Line have a good boat sailing at noon, Saturday. Can you be ready?"
"Easily. About your daughters?"
"They are ready. They will be here Friday, or perhaps Thursday. Now I will go and secure the four best staterooms possible. I shall take them in the name of Kennedy – and that will be our name, until we reach New York."
Theodora remained with Mrs. Oliphant until David returned with the tickets for the four staterooms. She felt then, that there was no reprieve, and that her first duty now was to be as cheerful and brave as she ought to be. On reaching home, she found that David's cot had been carried to the maid's room, but she made no complaint. The fact swept away all doubts and misgivings; it was the last injustice, the last cruelty that could be inflicted, and it was a vain one, for David could sleep with her, until the end came.
On the following morning, she asked Jepson to send to her room the smallest of her trunks, and she put into it a few things belonging to her girlhood's life – her music, her textbooks, a novel she had nearly finished writing, and the beautiful linen she had made and embroidered with her own hands for her marriage outfit. Two dresses were all that remained of the gowns bought at this date. These she took with her. In her hand she would carry a Gladstone bag with toilet necessities, and plenty of clean white waists and collars for David and herself. Their suits, bought with reference to this necessity, were of dark blue cloth; David's made into his first breeches and jacket, and Theodora's in the simplest manner possible, but as Mrs. Campbell said to Isabel:
"Plain, of course. But look at the lines and the make o' it! Menzie's cutting and fitting no doubt. It cost five guineas to make that dress and the cloak with it. She's a wasteful creature."
"Robert said she bought it herself, and – "
"So she ought, so she ought! And the boy dressed up in broadcloth and linen waists! A few yards of lindsey would be more fitting."
"Mother, he is a beautiful boy."
"Is he? I cannot see myself where his beauty comes in."
During the next two days Theodora employed herself in folding carefully away all her clothing, and locking it up in its proper drawers. Her jewels she packed separately, and with a letter, put into McNab's charge, requesting her to give them to Mr. Campbell, if she did not return with him. When Friday morning came, she rose early, dressed herself and David, and was ready for the train that left just about the time the Campbell breakfast was served. In this way, she hoped to escape the presence of Jepson, whom she feared might be told to accompany her. On the contrary, Mrs. Campbell grumbled at Jepson for helping the coachman with her trunk, and the only question she asked was: "What road did she take, Jepson?"
"The Caledonian, ma'am," was the answer.
"Hum-m-m! I thought so."
"Has she gone?" said Isabel.
"Yes, and a good riddance of her."
"Oh, mother, and none of us bid her good-bye, or wished her a pleasant time. I intended to go to the train with her – now I have missed – "
"Making a fool of yourself. That is all you have missed."
"What train would Mrs. Campbell take, Jepson?"
"The nine o'clock train, I suppose, miss."
But Theodora did not take the nine o'clock train. She gave a porter a shilling to care for her trunk, and watched an hour in a waiting-room. No one suspicious appearing, she requested the porter to call a cab, and put her trunk upon it, and then without fear or hurry, she drove to a certain store, where David Campbell was waiting. He went with her at once to the pier of the Anchor Line, where they left her trunk to be placed with the rest of the Kennedy luggage in the hold. "And now, where will you hide yourself until to-morrow morning, Theodora?" he asked kindly.
"Mrs. Oliphant – "
"No. She wants you, but I told her it could not be. Her servants will be closely questioned, no doubt."
"I see."
"The steamer touches at Greenock. Get a room in the Tontine Inn. Have your food served in your room, and keep quiet until you walk down to meet the steamer."
"I will do so. It is the best plan."
So they went to the railway station, and David Campbell put them into a comfortable carriage for Greenock. "You will see your father and mother to-morrow," he said. "They are as happy as two little children over the journey. It is a great event for them, and they are talking of their little grandson continually. They long to see him."
Theodora hardly knew what was being said to her. She was in a kind of dreamlike state – a state, however, in which no mistakes are ever made. The Inner Woman had control, and she had quite resigned herself to its leading. "David and I will meet the steamer in the morning. Be on the watch for us, brother," she said.
"I will. You will go to the Tontine?"
"Certainly."
"And if they should not have room for you there, then go to the – "
"I will go to the Tontine. There is a room ready for me there."
He looked at her kindly and understood. Those who have watched long, solemn nights away with the Beloved One, slowly dying, know something beyond the lines of science, or the teachings of creeds. He said good-bye to her, without a fear of any mistake.
At Greenock she found the prepared room in the Tontine, and she made herself and little Davie comfortable, and then ordered their dinner to be brought to them. She was glad of this pause in her affairs, and long after Davie was asleep, she sat pondering the past and the future. At first she was dazed and half-unbelieving of the great event that had taken place in her life. In the darkness of the room, she fell into short sleeps, and kept feeling around in the darkness of her mind to learn what troubled her, until suddenly, in cruel starts from sleep, her sorrow found her out.
But this is the depth in our nature, where the divine and human are one. Here, in our weakness and weariness, we are visited by the Upholder of the tranquil soul, and words wonderful and secret, cheer the weary and heavy-laden; for God has royal compassions for the broken in heart. Theodora awoke in the morning full of hope, and in one of her most cheerful moods. The road no longer frightened her, the ocean no longer separated her. She had wings now for all the chasms of life, and when she opened a little book for a word to clear the way, and the day, she cried out joyfully, for this was her message:
"The Lord is with me, hastening me forward."2
At the time appointed the steamer reached Greenock, she was there to meet it, and David Campbell was at the gangway watching for her. There was a crowd of incomers and outgoers, and David was glad of it, for Theodora with her child reached their stateroom without notice from any one. There she found her father and mother, and the joy and wonder of that meeting may well be left to the imagination.
It had been decided, that until David found out whether any of the passengers were sitters in Dr. Robertson's church, or people from any circumstance likely to know Theodora, she should remain in seclusion; but in a couple of days, David had clearly established the safety of her appearance; and after that assurance, she was constantly on deck with the rest of the party. All the way across the Atlantic they had a blue sky, a blue sea, sunshine, and good company; and one morning they were awakened by some one calling "Land! Land in sight!" and hastening on deck they stood together watching their approach to the low-lying shores of that New World which held for them the promise of a happy home and a prosperous future.
CHAPTER XI
CHRISTINA AND ISABEL
Just about the time Theodora's party were sitting down to a happy dinner in the Astor House, New York, Robert reached his home in Glasgow. He had confidently expected to see his wife waiting for him at Crewe Junction, and been disappointed and angry at her failure to do so. "Women are all alike," he muttered to himself, "they never keep an appointment, and they never catch a train." He wandered round the waiting-rooms looking for her, and so missed his own train, and had to wait two hours at one of the most depressing stations in England. For though the traffic is immense there, the stony, prison-like order, the silent, hurrying passengers, and the despondent-looking porters, fill the heart with a restless passion to escape from the place. Without analyzing this feeling, Robert was conscious of it, and it intensified the annoyance of his detention.
All the way to Glasgow he pondered on the singular circumstance of Theodora's failure to obey the telegram he had sent her. She had always been so prompt and glad to meet him, there must have been some mistake made in the message. He tried to remember its exact words, but could not, and as he neared his own city a certain fear assailed him. He began to wonder if his wife or child was sick – or if any accident had happened on their journey from Bradford to Crewe. But this solution he quickly dismissed as incredible. Theodora would have managed under any circumstances to send him word. She would not have kept him waiting and wondering. It was utterly unlike her. At length the anxious journey was over, but in hurrying from the train to his carriage, he noticed that the coachman spoke in an easy, nonchalant way, and that there was no sign about him of anything unusual or unhappy. When he reached Traquair House his mother and Isabel met him at the door, and Jepson unlocked his apartments, and began to turn on the light in the parlors.
"We shall have dinner in twenty minutes, Robert," said Mrs. Campbell, and Jepson added:
"Your rooms upstairs are prepared for you, sir."
No one had named Theodora, and he had not done so either. Why? He could not tell "why"; for her name beat at his lips, and inquiry about her was the great demand of his nature. He looked into her rooms, and the sense of emptiness and desertion about them was like a blow. David's cot had been removed, he saw that at once, and felt angry about it. And the perfect order of things shocked something in his feelings never before recognized. He missed sorely those pretty bits of disorder, that seemed to him now almost a part of his wife and child – the bow of ribbon, the little shawl or scarf over a chair-back, the small book of daily texts, and the thin parchment copy of "The Imitation" on her table; David's puzzle on the window seat, or his tiny handkerchief on the floor beside it.
Restless and unhappy he went down to the dining-room. His mother was in high spirits; Isabel still and indifferent. But it was Isabel who asked: "How much longer is Dora going to stay? The house is so lonely without her."
"The house has been peaceful and restful without her, and the noisy child. I am sure it has been a great relief," corrected Mrs. Campbell.
"I am anxious about Dora," said Robert with a touch of his most sullen temper, "she ought to have met me at Crewe, and did not do so. It was not like her."
"It was very like her. She is the most unreliable of women. I dare say we shall see her by the next train – perhaps we – "
"Mother, you are mistaken both about Dora and the train. Dora can always be depended on, and I waited for the next train, but she was not on it. After dinner I must telegraph to Bradford and elsewhere."
"Perfect nonsense! Let her alone, and she'll come home – no fear of it. She was, however, keen enough to get away – off before we had breakfast – and without a word to any one."
"Mother," corrected Isabel, "that was our fault. She came to bid us good-bye, but we neither of us spoke to her."
"Drop the subject," said Robert in a manner too positive to be disobeyed.
He himself dropped every subject, and finished his meal in a silence so eloquent, that no one had the spirit to break it. His mother looked at him indignantly, his sister kept her eyes on her plate, and ate with a noiseless deliberation, that was almost provoking. It was a most wretched meal.
"And all because that creature missed meeting him at Crewe," snorted the angry mother as her son left the room.
"You had better go to the library, mother, and find out what is the matter. I dare say it is business – and not Dora at all."
"I will go as soon as he has had a ten minutes' smoke. He is as touchy as tinder yet, Isabel."
But Robert did not go to the library. As he came out of the dining-room McNab walked up to him, and he spoke more pleasantly to her than he had yet done to any one since his return. "Good-evening, McNab," he replied to her greeting, "I hope you are well."
"As well as I ever expect to be in this house, sir. My dear young mistress left these jewels in my care – fearing what happened once before, sir – and I promised to keep them safe till you came home; the same I've done. And she left this letter likewise for you, and I hope there is no bad news in it, sir, for she was breaking her heart the day she was writing it."
"Breaking her heart? What about, McNab?"
"They were going to take the bit bonnie bairn from her – and him every night, as like as not, having a black life-and-death-fight wi' what they ca' croup. You know, sir?"
"I know, McNab. Thank you!" and instead of going to the library, he went into his own parlor, and locked both doors leading into it. Then he sat down with the letter in his hand. He looked at the neatness with which it was folded, addressed, and sealed, and he had a sudden memory of the joy and expectation with which he had once been used to receive such letters. He had no fear of bad news. He expected only Theodora's usual pleading for little David, and he thought it likely the removal of the boy's cot typified a more than common dispute concerning the child.
When he finally opened the letter, a small parcel fell out of it, which he laid aside. Then he read without pause or faltering, the following words:
"My Dear Robert: – A little while ago, you told me all that I possessed, that even my wedding ring, belonged to you. To-day I restore you all that you have given me, and with my raiment and ornaments, the dearest ornament of all – my wedding ring. You have broken every pledge it promised. You have treated me, and permitted others to treat me, with a sustained, deliberate neglect and cruelty that is almost incredible. To-day I make you free from all obligations to me, and my child. Do not try to find us. You cannot. We shall disappear as completely as a stone thrown into mid-ocean. But you know well, that I may be fully trusted to do all my duty to David. Oh, Robert, Robert, I cannot bear to reproach you! I love you, though I am leaving you forever. My father and mother go with me, and God and they are a multitude. I shall want for nothing but your love, and that was taken from me long ago. My love, my love! Farewell forever.
"Theodora."
Then he unfolded the bit of tissue paper which the letter contained, and out of it fell the wedding ring. He laid it in the hollow of his hand and looked at it. And as he looked, the storm in his heart gathered and gathered, until all its waves and billows went over him.
"Gone! Gone forever!" he said in an awful whisper – a whisper that came from a depth of his nature never plumbed before; an abyss that only despair and death know of. He rose and walked about, he sat down, he re-read the letter, he tried to think, and could not. He threw off his coat and vest, his collar and neckerchief; they lay at his feet, and he kicked them out of his way. "I am choking – dying!" he murmured. "Dora! Dora! Dora! Where are – you?"
The unfortunate man was torn with the most contrary feelings. He loved the adorable woman who had cast him off; and he hated her. Remorse for his own neglect and cruelty alternated with anger at his wife for the pain she was giving him. And she had robbed him of his child also, his child! Oh, he would have the child back, if he moved heaven and earth to compass it. There was no order, no method in his grief, one dreadful accusation followed another like actual blows, from a hand he could neither stay, nor entreat, nor reason with.
In hoarse mutterings, and fierce imprecations, he gave voice to a passion of grief and anger so furious, that ordinary speech utterly failed it. Frequently he struck the table or the piano frenzied blows with his hand – or he kicked out of his path chairs, stools, or whatever came in his raging way. Even Theodora's embroidery frame was thus treated, and then tenderly lifted and straightened, and put in its place. His restless feet and hands, his distracted walk, his mad motions, his distorted face and inflamed eyes, all indicated a tumult of suffering and despair, rendered all the more terrible by the shrill strain of half-religious oaths, which like flashes of hell-fire made the blackness of darkness in which he suffered all the more lurid and awful.
At length his physical nature refused to express any longer his mad sorrow by motion. He fell prone upon the sofa, and clasping his hands over his heart, he sobbed as only strong men in the very exhaustion of all other expression of feeling can sob. By this time it was late, the house was dark and still, and only the miserable man's mother was awake and watching. She felt that there was sorrow in the house, and when midnight came she went softly downstairs and stood at her son's door, listening to the soul in agony, moaning, sobbing, accusing, blaming, entreating, defying. She feared to let him know she was there and she feared to leave him. She was at a loss to account for a passion so amazing and uncontrolled. Stepping softly back to her room she reconsidered herself. In a couple of hours there was the crash of china falling, and her temper got the better of her fear. She went hastily and without attempt at secrecy, to her son's door.
"Robert!" she called, but there was no answer.
"Robert, Robert Campbell, open this door!" and she shook the handle violently.
He rose with an oath, flung the door wide, and stood glaring at her from eyes red and swollen and fierce with anger. "What do you want?" he asked. "Can you not let me alone, even at midnight?"
"What is the matter with you? Are you ill?"
"No."
"Then what for are you sobbing and crying? I'm fairly ashamed for you. Do you know it's two o'clock in the morning?"
"I don't care what time it is. Go away."
"I will not go. You are demented – or you are wicked beyond believing."
"Go away!"
"I will not. What, in God's name, is the matter?"
"Theodora!" he shrieked, as he flung his arms upward.
"O, it is Theodora, is it? I thought so."
"She has left me, left me forever! She has gone, and taken my little Davie with her."
"Just what I expected."
"Just what you drove her to."
"Has that black-a-visored dandy staying at the Oliphants' gone with her?"
"Damnation, no! Her father and mother went with her."
"She says so, no doubt. Do you believe her?"
"Yes."
"Weel, I'm glad she's off and awa'. We'll hae a bit o' peace now."
"My heart is bleeding, bursting; I cannot listen to you."
"Such parfect nonsense! You ought to be thanksgiving. Who broke that vase to smithereens?"
"I did."
"It cost twenty guineas."
"I don't care a tinker's curse, if it cost a hundred guineas." He walked to the mantlepiece and flung down on the marble hearth a valuable piece of Worcester.
"My God, Robert! Have you lost your senses?"
"I have lost my wife and child."
"Good riddance of baith o' them."
"How dare you?"
"Dinna say 'dare' to me."
"Go away! Go instanter!"
"You will go first. I'll not leave you alane."
"If you don't go, I will call McNab and Jepson, and they will help you to your own room. Do you hear me?"
"Robert Campbell, go to your decent bed and sleep, and behave yourself."
"My God, woman!"
"I am your mother."
"God pity me! I can't throw you down, but – " then he lifted a white marble clock, and let it crash among the broken china. "Out of here!" he screamed. His usually deep, strong voice had been rising with every word he spoke, and his last order was given in a mad alto which terrified the woman browbeating him. It was not Robert's voice; its shrill shriek was the cry of extremity or insanity. She fled upstairs to McNab's room.
"Waken! waken! McNab," she cried. "Your master has lost his senses. Run for Dr. Fleming. Make him come back wi' you."
"What hae ye been doing to the poor man?" she asked sleepily as she put on her shoes.
"Nothing, nothing at all. Just advising him. It is that English cutty – she – "
"Meaning Mrs. Robert Campbell?"
"Call her what you like. It is her, it is her! She has taken the bairn and gone."
"Gone?"
"Left her husband forever. Be in a hurry, woman. Don't you hear the man raving like a wild beast?"
He was not raving when McNab looked at him in passing. He was lying on the sofa perfectly still, with his hands clasped above his head. So the doctor found him a quarter-of-an-hour later. "You have had a great shock, Campbell," he said.
"A shot in the backbone, doctor. My wife has left me, and taken my son with her."
"I know! But were you not expecting her to do so?"
"No, no! Why should I?"
"How much longer did you think your wife could bear – what she had to bear? Come, come, you must look at this trial like a sensible man! I suppose you want to find her?"
"It is all I shall live for."
"Then you must sleep. I will go with you to your room, and give you a sedative. You must sleep, and get yourself together. Then you will have to make your face iron and brass, for all you will have to meet – advice and pity, blame and sympathy, but you will carry your cup of sorrow without spilling it o'er everybody you meet – or I don't know you. What made you lose your grip to-night?"
"Necessity, doctor. I had to, or – "
"I know."
"One towering rage was better than daily and hourly disputing. The subject is buried now, between my family and myself. It was a necessity."
"Ay, ay, and when Necessity calls, none shall dare 'bring to her feet excuse or prayer.' Your wife's flight was a necessity also. Keep that in your mind. You are sleepy, I see; don't look at the newspapers till the wonder is over."
The newspapers easily got hold of the story, and each related the circumstance in its own way. Some plainly said domestic misery had driven the ill-used lady to flight; others spoke of her great beauty and wonderful voice, and made suspicious allusions to the temptations always ready to assail beauty and genius. None of them omitted the world-weary taunt of the mother-in-law, and some very broad aspersions were made on Mrs. Campbell's well-known impossible temper, and her hatred of all matrimonial intrusions into her family. The story of her eldest son's unsatisfactory marriage was recalled, his banishment and exile and supposed death. Christina's flight from her rich, titled lover to the poor man she preferred added a romantic touch; and the final tragedy of the disappearance of Robert Campbell's wife and son seemed to the majority proof positive that the trouble-making element was in the Campbell family, and rested in the hard, proud, scornful disposition of the mother, and mother-in-law. There was not a single paper that did not take a special delight in blaming Mrs. Traquair Campbell, but all, without exception, praised extravagantly the beauty, the sweet nature, and the genius of her wronged and terrorized daughter-in-law.
Robert Campbell took no notice of anything, that either the newspapers or his mother said. One day Isabel showed him a remark concerning "the unhappy life of that unfortunate gentleman, the late amiable Traquair Campbell, Esq." "You ought to stop such shameful allusions, Robert," she said, "they make mother furious."
