CHAPTER IX
THE LAST STRAW
For a few days Theodora clung tenaciously to her hope, but it had only told her a flattering tale. Robert had gradually fallen below the plane—moral and intellectual—on which his wife lived; and it was only by a painful endeavor, that he returned to the Robert of six years previously. His wife's conversation, though bright and clever, was not as pleasant to him as his mother's biting gossip about the house and the callers; and he could assume a slippered, careless toilet in her presence, that made him uncomfortable when at the side of the always prettily gowned Theodora. For when such a circumstance happened, he involuntarily felt compelled to apologize, and he did not think apologies belonged to his position as master of the house. He had lost his taste for music, unless there was some stranger present whom he desired to make envious or astonished; in fact he had descended to that commonplace stage of love, which values a wife or a mistress only according to the value set upon her by outsiders—by their envy and jealousy of himself, as the clever winner of such an extraordinary artist, or beauty. Consequently, in a time of economy, forbidding the entertainment of strangers, Theodora's hours of supremacy were likely to be few and far between.
But this fact did not trouble Robert. He came home from the works tired of the business world, and the household chatter of his mother was a relief that cost him no surrender of any kind. Yet had Theodora attempted the same rôle, he would have seen and felt at once its malice and injustice, and despised her for destroying his ideals and illusions. Thus, even her excellencies were against her. Again, Mrs. Campbell disguised much of the real character of her abuse, in the picturesqueness of the Scotch patois; nothing she said in this form sounded as wicked and cruel as it would have done in plain English. But this disguise would have been a ridiculous effort in Theodora, and could only have subjected her to scorn and laughter; while it was native to her enemy, and a vivid and graphic vehicle both for her malice and her mockery.
Thus, when Robert was rising to go to his own parlor, she would say: "Smoke another cigar, Robert, or light your pipe, boy. I dinna dislike a pipe, I may say freely, I rather fancy it. It doesna remind me o' the stable, and I have no nerves to be shocked by its vulgarity. God be thankit, I was born before nerves were in fashion! And He knows that one nervous woman in a house is mair than enou'. I am sorry for ye, my lad!"
"It is not Dora's nerves, mother; it is her refined taste. She thinks a pipe low, common, plebeian, you know, and for the same reason she hates me to wear a cap—she thinks it makes me look like a workingman. Dora is quite aristocratic, you know," and he mimicked the English accent and idioms, and saw nothing repellent in an old woman giggling at him.
"It is nerves, my lad," she answered, "pure nerves, and nerves are a' imagination. Whenever did I, or your sisters, or any o' our flesh and blood have an attack o' the nerves? Whenever did a decent pipe o' tobacco, or the smell o' a good salt herring mak' any o' us sick at the stomach? Was there ever a Campbell made vulgar, or low, by a cap on his head? 'Deed they are pretty men always, but prettiest of a' when they are wearing the Glengary wi' a sprig o' myrtle in the front o' it. Dod! it makes me scunner at some folks' aristocracy. I trow, I am as weel born as any Methodist preacher's daughter, and I have kin behind me and around me to show it; but you can smoke a pipe, or cap your head, or slipper your feet, and my fine feelings willna suffer for a moment."
"You are mother—you understand."
"To be sure I do. Poor lad, ye hae lots to fret ye, and nane need a pipe o' tobacco, or an easy déshabille mair than you do; if you are understanding what I mean by déshabille—I'm not vera sure mysel', but I'm thinking it means easy fitting clothes on ye; that is my meaning o' the word anyhow, and I don't care a bawbee, whether it is the French meaning or not."
"You are all right, mother. You generally are all right."