Christie Johnstone Part 35

"Mother," said he calmly, "forgive me, and accept your son's arm.

"I will, my son!"

"We are alone in the world now, mother."

Mrs. Gatty had triumphed, but she felt the price of her triumph more than her victory. It had been done in one moment, that for which she had so labored, and it seemed that had she spoken long ago to Christie, instead of Charles, it could have been done at any moment.

Strange to say, for some minutes the mother felt more uneasy than her son; she was a woman, after all, and could measure a woman's heart, and she saw how deep the wound she had given one she was now compelled to respect.

Charles, on the other hand, had been so hara.s.sed backward and forward, that to him certainty was relief; it was a great matter to be no longer called upon to decide. His mother had said, "Part," and now Christie had said, "Part"; at least the affair was taken out of his hands, and his first feeling was a heavenly calm.

In this state he continued for about a mile, and he spoke to his mother about his art, sole object now; but after the first mile he became silent, _distrait;_ Christie's pale face, her mortified air, when her generous offer was coldly repulsed, filled him with remorse. Finally, unable to bear it, yet not daring to speak, he broke suddenly from his mother without a word, and ran wildly back to Newhaven; he looked back only once, and there stood his mother, pale, with her hands piteously lifted toward heaven.

By the time he got to Newhaven he was as sorry for her as for Christie.

He ran to the house of the latter; Flucker and Jean told him she was on the beach. He ran to the beach! he did not see her at first, but, presently looking back, he saw her, at the edge of the boats, in company with a gentleman in a boating-dress. He looked--could he believe his eyes? he saw Christie Johnstone kiss this man's hand, who then, taking her head gently in his two hands, placed a kiss upon her brow, while she seemed to yield lovingly to the caress.

Gatty turned faint, sick; for a moment everything swam before his eyes; he recovered himself, they were gone.

He darted round to intercept them; Christie had slipped away somewhere; he encountered the man alone!

CHAPTER XV.

CHRISTIE'S situation requires to be explained.

On leaving Gatty and his mother, she went to her own house. Flucker--who after looking upon her for years as an inconvenient appendage, except at dinnertime, had fallen in love with her in a manner that was half pathetic, half laughable, all things considered--saw by her face she had received a blow, and raising himself in the bed, inquired anxiously, "What ailed her?"

At these kind words, Christie Johnstone laid her cheek upon the pillow beside Flucker's and said:

"Oh, my laamb, be kind to your puir sister fra' this hoor, for she has naething i' the warld noo but yoursel'."

Flucker began to sob at this.

Christie could not cry; her heart was like a lump of lead in her bosom; but she put her arm round his neck, and at the sight of his sympathy she panted heavily, but could not shed a tear--she was sore stricken.

Presently Jean came in, and, as the poor girl's head ached as well as her heart, they forced her to go and sit in the air. She took her creepie and sat, and looked on the sea; but, whether she looked seaward or landward, all seemed unreal; not things, but hard pictures of things, some moving, some still. Life seemed ended--she had lost her love.

An hour she sat in this miserable trance; she was diverted into a better, because a somewhat less dangerous form of grief, by one of those trifling circ.u.mstances that often penetrate to the human heart when inaccessible to greater things.

w.i.l.l.y the fiddler and his brother came through the town, playing as they went, according to custom; their music floated past Christie's ears like some drowsy chime, until, all of a sudden, they struck up the old English air, "Speed the Plow."

Now it was to this tune Charles Gatty had danced with her their first dance the night they made acquaintance.

Christie listened, lifted up her hands, and crying:

"Oh, what will I do? what will I do?" burst into a pa.s.sion of grief.

She put her ap.r.o.n over her head, and rocked herself, and sobbed bitterly.

She was in this situation when Lord Ipsden, who was prowling about, examining the proportions of the boats, discovered her.

"Some one in distress--that was all in his way."

"Madam!" said he.

She lifted up her head.

"It is Christie Johnstone. I'm so glad; that is, I'm sorry you are crying, but I'm glad I shall have the pleasure of relieving you;" and his lordship began to feel for a check-book.

"And div ye really think siller's a cure for every grief!" said Christie, bitterly.

"I don't know," said his lordship; "it has cured them all as yet."

"It will na cure me, then!" and she covered her head with her ap.r.o.n again.

"I am very sorry," said he; "tell me" _(whispering),_ "what is it? poor little Christie!"

"Dinna speak to me; I think shame; ask Jean. Oh, Richard, I'll no be lang in this warld!!!"

"Ah!" said he, "I know too well what it is now; I know, by sad experience. But, Christie, money will cure it in your case, and it shall, too; only, instead of five pounds, we must put a thousand pounds or two to your banker's account, and then they will all see your beauty, and run after you."

"How daur ye even to me that I'm seekin a lad?" cried she, rising from her stool; "I would na care suppose there was na a lad in Britain." And off she flounced.

"Offended her by my gross want of tact," thought the viscount.

She crept back, and two velvet lips touched his hand. That was because she had spoken harshly to a friend.

"Oh, Richard," said she, despairingly, "I'll no be lang in this warld."

He was touched; and it was then he took her head and kissed her brow, and said: "This will never do. My child, go home and have a nice cry, and I will speak to Jean; and, rely upon me, I will not leave the neighborhood till I have arranged it all to your satisfaction."

And so she went--a little, a very little, comforted by his tone and words.

Now this was all very pretty; but then seen at a distance of fifty yards it looked very ugly; and Gatty, who had never before known jealousy, the strongest and worst of human pa.s.sions, was ripe for anything.

He met Lord Ipsden, and said at once, in his wise, temperate way:

"Sir, you are a villain!"

_Ipsden. "Plait-il?"_

_Gatty._ "You are a villain!"

_Ipsden._ "How do you make that out?"

_Gatty._ "But, of course, you are not a coward, too."