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 pa.s.sengers, and the despondent-looking porters, fill the heart with a restless pa.s.sion to escape from the place. Without a.n.a.lyzing 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 circ.u.mstance 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 a.s.sailed 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 circ.u.mstances 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 G.o.d and they are a mult.i.tude. 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 compa.s.s 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 hoa.r.s.e mutterings, and fierce imprecations, he gave voice to a pa.s.sion 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 h.e.l.l-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 p.r.o.ne 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 pa.s.sion 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 G.o.d'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?"

"d.a.m.nation, no! Her father and mother went with her."