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!
IX
Chirstie used to say afterwards, when Wully’s younger orphaned brothers and sisters would try to thank her for making her home their own, that she had never spent a happier winter in her life than the one during which she lived with her mother-in-law. That partly explained to them her detestation of all mother-in-law jokes. She would never try to conceal her contempt for any low person—proved low by the very act—who
