A Knight of the Nets by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (christmas read aloud txt) 📖

sigh, "what that poor girl's folly has led her to."

"I see what she has come to. I'm not blaming Sophy, however."

"Well, whoever is to blame--and I suppose Braelands should have been more patient with the troubles he called to himself--I shall have to put on 'blacks' in consequence. It is a great expense, and a very useless one; but people will talk if I do not go into mourning for my son's wife."

"I wouldn't do it, if I was you."

"Society obliges. You must make me two gowns at least."

"I will not sew a single stitch for you."

"Not sew for me?"

"Never again; not if you paid me a guinea a stitch."

"What do you mean? Are you in your senses?"

"Just as much as poor Sophy was. And I'll never forgive myself for listening to your lies about my niece. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Your cruelties to her are the talk of the whole country-side."

"How dare you call me a liar?"

"When I think of wee Sophy in her coffin, I could call you something far worse."

"You are an impertinent woman."

"Ah well, I never broke the Sixth Command. And if I was you, Madame, I wouldn't put 'blacks' on about it. But 'blacks' or no 'blacks,' you can go to some other body to make them for you; for I want none of your custom, and I'll be obliged to you to get from under my roof. This is a decent, God-fearing house."

Madame had left before the end of Griselda's orders; but she followed her to the door, and delivered her last sentence as Madame was stepping into her carriage. She was furious at the truths so uncompromisingly told her, and still more so at the woman who had been their mouthpiece. "A creature whom I have made! actually made!" she almost screamed. "She would be out at service today but for me! The shameful, impertinent, ungrateful wretch!" She ordered Thomas to drive her straight back home, and, quivering with indignation, went to her son's room. He was dressed, but lying prone upon his bed; his mother's complaining irritated his mood beyond his endurance. He rose up in a passion; his white haggard face showed how deeply sorrow and remorse had ploughed into his very soul.

"Mother!" he cried, "you will have to hear the truth, in one way or another, from every one. I tell you myself that you are not guiltless of Sophy's death--neither am I."

"It is a lie."

"Do go out of my room. This morning you are unbearable."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Are you going to permit people to insult your mother, right and left, without a word? Have you no sense of honour and decency?"

"No, for I let them insult the sweetest wife ever a man had. I am a brute, a monster, not fit to live. I wish I was lying by Sophy's side. I am ashamed to look either men or women in the face."

"You are simply delirious with the fever you have had."

"Then have some mercy on me. I want to be quiet."

"But I have been grossly insulted."

"We shall have to get used to that, and bear it as we can. We deserve all that can be said of us--or to us." Then he threw himself on his bed again and refused to say another word. Madame scolded and complained and pitied herself, and appealed to God and man against the wrongs she suffered, and finally went into a paroxysm of hysterical weeping. But Archie took no notice of the wordy tempest, so that Madame was confounded and frightened, by an indifference so unusual and unnatural.

Weeks of continual sulking or recrimination passed drearily away. Archie, in the first tide of his remorse, fed himself on the miseries which had driven Sophy to her grave. He interviewed the servants and heard all they had to tell him. He had long conversations with Miss Kilgour, and made her describe over and over Sophy's despairing look and manner the morning she ran away. For the poor woman found a sort of comfort in blaming herself and in receiving meekly the hard words Archie could give her. He visited Mrs. Stirling in regard to Sophy's sanity, and heard from that lady a truthful report of all that had passed in her presence. He went frequently to Janet's cottage, and took all her home thrusts and all her scornful words in a manner so humble, so contrite, and so heart-broken, that the kind old woman began finally to forgive and comfort him. And the outcome of all these interviews and conversations Madame had to bear. Her son, in his great sorrow, threw off entirely the yoke of her control. He found his own authority and rather abused it. She had hoped the final catastrophe would draw him closer to her; hoped the coolness of friends and acquaintances would make him more dependent on her love and sympathy. It acted in the opposite direction. The public seldom wants two scapegoats. Madame's ostracism satisfied its idea of justice. Every one knew Archie was very much under her control. Every one could see that he suffered dreadfully after Sophy's death. Every one came promptly to the opinion that Madame only was to blame in the matter. "The poor husband" shared the popular sympathy with Sophy.

However, in the long run, he had his penalty to pay, and the penalty came, as was most just, through Marion Glamis. Madame quickly noticed that after her loss of public respect, Marion's affection grew colder. At the first, she listened to the tragedy of Sophy's illness and death with a decent regard for Madame's feelings on the subject. When Madame pooh-poohed the idea of Sophy being in an hospital for weeks, unknown, Marion also thought it "most unlikely;" when Madame was "pretty sure the girl had been in London during the hospital interlude," Marion also thought, "it might be so; Captain Binnie was a very taking man." When Madame said, "Sophy's whole conduct was only excusable on the supposition of her unaccountability," Marion also thought "she did act queerly at times."

Even these admissions were not made with the warmth that Madame expected from Marion, and they gradually grew fainter and more general. She began to visit Braelands less and less frequently, and, when reproached for her remissness, said, "Archie was now a widower, and she did not wish people to think she was running after him;" and her manner was so cold and conventional that Madame could only look at her in amazement. She longed to remind her of their former conversations about Archie, but the words died on her lips. Marion looked quite capable of denying them, and she did not wish to quarrel with her only visitor.

The truth was that Marion had her own designs regarding Archie, and she did not intend Madame to interfere with them. She had made up her mind to marry Braelands, but she was going to have him as the spoil of her own weapons--not as a gift from his mother. And she was not so blinded by hatred as to think Archie could ever be won by the abuse of Sophy. On the contrary, she very cautiously began to talk of her with pity, and even admiration. She fell into all Archie's opinions and moods on the subject, and declared with warmth and positiveness that she had always opposed Madame's extreme measures. In the long run, it came to pass that Archie could talk comfortably with Marion about Sophy, for she always reminded him of some little act of kindness to his wife, or of some instance where he had decidedly taken her part, so that, gradually, she taught him to believe that, after all, he had not been so very much to blame.

In these tactics, Miss Glamis was influenced by the most powerful of motives--self-preservation. She had by no means escaped the public censure, and in that set of society she most desired to please, had been decidedly included in the polite ostracism meted out to Madame. Lovers she had none, and she began to realise, when too late, that the connection of her name with that of Archie Braelands had been a wrong to her matrimonial prospects that it would be hard to remedy. In fact, as the winter went on, she grew hopeless of undoing the odium generated by her friendship with Madame and her flirtation with Madame's son.

"And I shall make no more efforts at conciliation," she said angrily to herself one day, after finding her name had been dropped from Lady Blair's visiting-list; "I will now marry Archie. My fortune and his combined will enable us to live where and how we please. Father must speak to him on the subject at once"

That night she happened to find the Admiral in an excellent mood for her purpose. The Laird of Binin had not "changed hats" with him when they met on the highway, and he fumed about the circumstance as if it had been a mortal insult.

"I'll never lift my hat to him again, Marion, let alone open my mouth," he cried; "no, not even if we are sitting next to each other at the club dinner. What wrong have I ever done him? Have I ever done him a favour that he should insult me?"

"It is that dreadful Braelands's business. That insolent, selfish, domineering old woman has ruined us socially. I wish I had never seen her face."

"You seemed to be fond enough of her once."

"I never liked her; I now detest her. The way she treated Archie's wife was abominable. There is no doubt of that. Father, I am going to take this situation by the horns of its dilemma. I intend to marry Archie. No one in the county can afford to snub Braelands. He is popular and likely to be more so; he is rich and influential, and I also am rich. Together we may lead public opinion--or defy it. My name has been injured by my friendship with him. Archie Braelands must give me his name."

"By St. Andrew, he shall!" answered the irritable old man. "I will see he does. I ought to have considered this before, Marion. Why did you not show me my duty?"

"It is early enough; it is now only eight months since his wife died."

The next morning as Archie was riding slowly along the highway, the Admiral joined him. "Come home to lunch with me," he said, and Archie turned his horse and went. Marion was particularly sympathetic and charming. She subdued her spirits to his pitch; she took the greatest interest in his new political aspirations; she listened to his plans about the future with smiling approvals, until he said he was thinking of going to the United States for a few months. He wished to study Republicanism on its own ground, and to examine, in their working conditions, several new farming implements and expedients that he thought of introducing. Then Marion rose and left the room. She looked at her father as she did so, and he understood her meaning.

"Braelands," he said, when they were alone, "I have something to say which you must take into your consideration before you leave Scotland. It is about Marion."

"Nothing ill with Marion, I hope?"

"Nothing but what you can cure. She is suffering very much, socially, from the constant association of her name with yours."

"Sir?"

"Allow me to explain. At the time of your sweet little wife's death, Marion was constantly included