CHAPTER VIII
THE autumn secured to set itself against the house that Wully had determined to have ready for occupancy before winter. Week after week the roads continued so deep in mud that six oxen could newt manage to haul a load of lumber die mere twenty-six miles. Chirstie was not as much disappointed by the delay as her husband; she rather liked being hidden away, just then, on the outskirts of the settlement, in her father's lonely cabin. She had seen no one but Wully's mother, and her aunts into whose chagrined ears the humbled Isobel McLaughlin had poured a story as sympathetic as possible, blaming Alex McNair for this fruit of his unfatherly desertion. Mrs. McLaughlin had come at once to see Chirstie after Wully's revelation, apparently utterly pleased over the prospect of a grandchild, never intimating by a syllable that she saw anything deplorable in the unchristian haste of his advent. Her kindness had naturally humbled the girl more than any reproof could have done, and after a long cry the two had been friends, both relieved that estrangement was a thing of the past.
One afternoon late in November Mrs. McLaughlin came as far as Chirstie's with her husband, who was going on to the Keiths' on an errand. It seemed to Chirstie then, and often afterwards, that one who had not seen loving-kindness incarnate in her mother-in-law, had never seen it at all. Her own mother had been a sad, repressed woman, well-loved, indeed, by her children, but as far different as possible from this great, cordial, brimming woman, who seemed so capable of anything that might ever be required of her. One couldn't imagine her hesitating, complaining, broken in spirit.
Chirstie sat beside her sewing, an awe-filled pupil in the things of maternity. It was comforting, when one was feeling daily more wretched, to be assured by the mother of thirteen huskies that a baby is just nothing whatever but a joy, no trouble worth speaking of. Did Chirstie remember that her brother Jimmie had been just Wully's age? Many was the time Jeannie McNair and Isobel McLaughlin had sat together waiting for those two, and sewing, and Jeannie had said so and so, and Isobel had answered thus and thus. Once she had said to Chirstie's grandmother that she wouldn't like to have just a common bairn, and the old woman had replied that there was not the least chance of it, for no woman yet had mothered just a common child. In Scotland, too, when a baby was born, one had to lose the flavor of joy wondering where its food was to come from. But in this land crying aloud to the heavens for inhabitants, there was no anxiety of that sort to dull one's happiness. What had it been to them but an omen of the new home's abundance, that the John McLaughlins had had twins born the year of their arrival, that the Squires had had twins within six months, and that before the year was gone, the Weirs, from the same Ayrshire village, were also blessed in the same way. To be sure, Squire McLaughlin had uttered a word which might not have been taken to signify altogether pure satisfaction with these godsends, the morning after the double increase in his family. He had gone to his barn, and finding that his dearly-bought cow, which was to have furnished him milkers, had given birth to twins, he had sighed a sigh which became a tradition, and murmured, "Bull calves, and lassie wee'uns!" The men had laughed at that, but the women considered it a rather cheap thing of the old wag, even as a joke.
And so they talked on, until the clouds covered the sun again, and they heard the wind rising noisily as they drew near the fire to consider their knitting in the light of it. The elder Mrs. McLaughlin, who was, as usual, doing most of the talking, looked enviously around the kitchen from time to time. She knew she was considered a capable woman. And she had a fine family—yes, certainly, a fine family—in spite of this—affair of Wully's. But she could never keep house as Jeannie did, or even Chirstie. She could, of course, polish her kitchen to some such a degree of luster for special occasions, but to maintain such a brightness was out of the question for her. There had been no white sheets on the wall here for some time now. But each little pane in the window glowed from its daily polishing. The bits of rag carpet seemed always scarcely yet to have lost the marks of their folding, so recently had they been spread down after washing. Even the fireplace was more kept than any other fireplace. The back of it had always just been scraped and scrubbed and whitewashed. Isobel wondered if her son realized the degree of this beautiful neatness.
After a while they heard a wagon drive in, and Mrs. McLaughlin, thinking it was her husband, rose and began leisurely wrapping her knitting. There was no hurry about going. Her man had best come in and warm himself. She stood buttoning her old gray faded coat about her. It had been made, mantle-fashion, in Scotland, before she had grown so large, and she had increased its capacity by the simple device of putting broad black strips of cloth down either side of the front, where it fastened. Afterwards it had needed new sleeves, and hadn't apparently sulked about having new ones of a brownish gray homespun woolen. It had nothing to sulk about, in fact. It was still given plenty of honor as a good serviceable garment. Mistress McLaughlin was wrapping round and round her throat a knitted scarf, pulling it carefully up around her ears, when the door opened. . . .
And in walked—not John McLaughlin, but that tall, gaunt, thin-faced Alex McNair! With those little round, black, piercing eyes shining out from under straight black brows! . . .
And after him, a woman!
A woman in olive green silk, with black fringe around a puffy overskirt, and such fur and gloves as Isobel McLaughlin had seen only in her travels, and Chirstie never remembered seeing in all her life! The two of them! Coming right into the room!
McNair, seeing Isobel standing there, cried, blinking,
"Weel, weel! You here, Isobel! Weel, weel! This is Barbara, Isobel!"
Chirstie had shrunk in fear and confusion, back into her seat. But the elder woman showed no signs of confusion. She looked the grand wee body over majestically and replied:
"Is't, indeed! I hope she fares better than Jeannie, Alex, dying here alone."
Alex had bent down to kiss his daughter, and seemed to be not so much impressed by this greeting as the little woman was. She continued:
"I have just been sitting a while with my son's wife. You may not remember Chirstie was married, you having so grand a time in Scotland!"
"Warm yourself!" he said to his wife, indicating a chair. "I'll be bringing in the kist." He went out of the door, which had not yet been shut, so suddenly and quickly had it all happened. Mrs. McLaughlin's manner changed at once, and she began helping the amazing stranger out of her wraps. How could those two who watched, so impressed by the richness of them, and so unbetraying of their impressions, how could they have imagined, seeing her, the deceitfulness of those little innocent hesitating airs! The garments were scarcely laid gingerly on the bed until Alex returned, carrying, with Bob McNorkel's help, a great box, which they seemed to plan to leave in the middle of the floor. Chirstie remonstrated and gave them directions. It seemed from Alex's grunting and hard-breathing words as the box was put in the only possible place for it, that he and his bride had ridden out with Bob, who had to be hurrying on. Alex went out of the door with him, and after Alex, Isobel the avenger.
"I'll just have a word with you!" she said to him, stepping inside the barn to be out of the wind. It was a powerful word. Had she not planned it many a night as she lay sleepless thinking of Jeannie and her daughter! "I mind the day you brought Jeannie home a bride," she began. "'Twas no day like this." None of them would ever forget the day she died deserted. Never had Isobel McLaughlin had an occasion worthier of her tongue, and never a stronger motive for making the best of the occasion. McNair was a slow-moving, slow-thinking man, not without tenderness. Isobel's recital of grim detail after grim detail as he stood there amazed, remorseful, humiliated, angry, tired of his journey, and chilled to the bone, overwhelmed him. He could scarcely follow her. It seemed that the whole clan was bitter against him, not only because of his wife's death, but because, some way, his absence had brought disgrace beyond disgrace upon the McLaughlins. He could scarcely understand. Wully and Chirstie had waited and waited for him to come home, and he would not, and fine results these were of his delay! They were married now, but not soon enough. . . . The girl feared to marry without his permission. . . . If he had only come when they wrote for him to. . . . He wasn't to blame the Keiths or any of the neighbors for this. They had done what they could. He was to be very careful what he said to Wully, none too pleased with him, and always hot-headed . . . and to Chirstie. . . . It was all his own fault, he was to remember. . . .
The man was staggered. He liked this news all the less because all the day the little new wife's spirits had been sinking as they traveled over the prairies away from the world. Now to bring her into a disgrace of this sort! He was shivering. He wanted to get in to the fire.
"I have nothing against Wully!" he murmured to the woman who bearded him. "He's a fine man for the lassie!"
Nevertheless, when they were inside again, Isobel watching saw his face darken with anger as he realized Chirstie's condition. She saw too that the girl had seen, it, and she determined not to leave the house till Wully would come. She busied herself to make tea for the strange woman, sparing her daughter-in-law with the consideration which so beautiful and so fruitful a woman deserved. She sat herself to make the wee body feel at home. Dod came in from school, and she noticed without relenting the warmth of his father's greeting. Even the little lassie was persuaded to go to his lap. Alex was probably wishing Isobel would go home and leave his family in peace. But she would wait.
McNair was telling something about the passage across when Wully opened the door. He paused a moment, seeing the room full. He looked at them in surprise, and they looked at him with various degrees of admiration. He came from cutting and hauling home wood for the winter and the wind had made his cheeks as red as the fringe of the scarf around his neck, and his eyes as blue as the knit wool of it. In the old coat wrapped about him, he filled the door, a huge young man one would not like for an enemy. His mother had just begun to tell the strange woman that this was her son, when Alex rose and stretched out his hand.
"Come away, man! Come away!" he cried cordially. It was not the kind of meeting Wully had anticipated. But what could he do, with his mother and the women right there, but acknowledge the little woman's salutation, and give his hand to Chirstie's father? And taking his cue from his mother, he smiled so warmly down upon the wee body, that then and there she began liking her step-son-in-law. His mother began at once giving him instructions. He and Chirstie had best begin packing their things. His father would be along any minute now, and they would all go home together, Wully would no longer be needed at McNair's, and with all that work to be done on his own house———
McNair interrupted her decidedly,
"Huts, Isobel! Ye canna take Chirstie away the night!" One would almost think she was the McLaughlins' daughter to hear Isobel! That manipulator of events smothered the retort that came to her, upon this. She simply enlarged innocently upon the inconvenience of Wully's having to ride every day from this place to his own, such a distance. McNair could understand that, but nevertheless they weren't going one step to-night. Wully winked slyly at his wife. He didn't know exactly how his mother had worked it all, but it did him good to hear his father-in-law begging for the privilege of his company for a while—that man he had expected to have such a time with! Isobel yielded gracefully at length. They might stay the night with Alex, but they mustn't stay longer. With her big girls both away at school, she was that lonely for Chirstie!
Then the elder McLaughlin came in and the greetings were all gone over again, with this difference, that John McLaughlin, being less quick at taking hints from his wife than his son had been, showed just enough coldness to McNair to let him see that Isobel's account of the clan's opinion of him was not exaggerated. Naturally after the worthy McLaughlins had departed with so little of the old cordiality, Alex was more eager than ever to placate Wully, who, divining that Chirstie dreaded her father's outburst against her, stood very much upon his dignity, a rather forbidding son-in-law.
When the young two were alone in the kitchen that night, Chirstie said, weary with the day's excitement, and her first taste of shame before strangers;
"Whatever'll she say in the morning, when you're not here, Wully?"
He answered;
"What do you care what she says? Anyway, she don't look like she'd say anything. Just you hold your head high, and she won't dare!"
"It's well enough for you to talk of holding your head high! But how can I?"
"I'll stay about in the morning, and in the afternoon we'll go home. I'll say we must go."
So they planned, little knowing how useless it was to fear the wee body. In the next room, she was saying to her husband;
"Ye never telt me you lived in a sty!"
"Huts, woman! 'Tis no sty!"
"And I thinking you like a laird, with so many fine acres!"
"It's a new country!"
"It's an old sty!" Had she not from the train seen many a little snug place among comforting hills, livable little places! But that had been, to be sure, far from this, in the east. The further west they came, the more they traveled into desolation. Lonely enough places she had seen, but none so unpromising as this sty. Could it be expected that a man with so disconsolate a bride would add to her woe by rehearsing the fresh scandal of the family into which she had come? She remarked at length that it was a terrible thing for a lassie with the baby coming. Why had he not told her of that before? He hadn't remembered to. It was a fine place for bairns. Just let her wait till the spring came. She remarked that it was many months till spring. He snored, more or less successfully.
The next morning the new mother unpacked the great kist to get out the presents she had brought for her stepchildren. She unpacked till the poor room lay heaped high and hidden under richness. Wee Jeannie had a fine doll. Dod had fur-lined mittens. Chirstie had a collar of lace more soft and fine than she had ever seen. And the wee body presented these things with that timid, conciliatory air that made her career later so hard to understand. She apologized for having nothing for the baby. If she had known about that, she would have brought it something good. When was it to be born, she asked, point-blank. Chirstie, blushing to the unruly little curls about her forehead, said in December. This seemed to relieve her stepmother greatly. By that time, she declared, she could make a fine little dress for it, out of stuff she had in another box. Another box! Were there then other boxes? Of course brides bring dowries to their husbands, the girl remembered with a pang. But she had brought hers only disgrace! But the wee body talked on, in a kindly way. Chirstie watched her making friends with little Jeannie. She liked her, very much. That woman could never be anything but kind to the little sister who was to be left in her charge. Oh, Chirstie could have coveted that woman's love for herself. But, of course, when the truth about herself became known—and when she thought of going to the McLaughlins, to live in that house, full always of children and cousins and visitors, the center, as it were, and rallying place of the neighborhood, her spirits sank lower and lower.
Wully had learned before now to conquer her depression, and he talked the cold hours cunningly away as they rode towards his father's. His reward, that evening, was to see his wife sitting there at the table, long after the meal was over, forgetful of herself, telling his ejaculating mother of the dresses, the capes, the mantles, the ribbons and feathers, reds and browns and greens and blues, puffs and ruffles and tucks, all of these out of one box, and besides the one there were three others left at the station to be brought out, full of—whatever did they suppose? They couldn't imagine! Isobel was trying to fancy how Alex had enticed a woman so obviously rich to the wilderness. She was disappointed in this marriage. She had hoped when Alex married again, he would get a woman who would show him how to treat a wife. But that timid, wee body! Meek like! With faded red hair, and mild light blue eyes! There would be no hope of her ever separating him from the price of a milk-crock! Anyone could see that. The poor wee thing, married to Alex McNair!