Mrs. Blair

“ He did not relish taking vengeance on a woman.
Mrs. Blair, as if inspired by a new spirit, sat up, and disdaining Skelton’s arm, and even Mrs. Shapleigh’s or Sylvia’s, rose to her feet. Just then Blair came up. In ten minutes he had aged ten years. He had had a crazy moment or two, but now he was deadly calm and pale.
“The boy is all right,” he said. As a matter of fact, Hilary was far from all right, but Blair did not intend to tell Mrs. Blair then. “Mr. Bulstrode has already put him in his chaise, and will take him home. Do you feel able to ride home?” ”

“ Society does her the justice to believe her faithful to him, and praises the devotion with which, since his breakdown and retirement, she has given up her world to devote herself to his care. Essentially the girl is Puritan in her concepts of duty.”
“Does she know anything of the manner of Blair’s death?”
“No one knows much of it, from what I understand, unless it be Alexander Blair. One of the family, who went to Hedgerow House for the funeral, called upon me, as a courtesy due to Mrs. Blair’s nearest relative. Alexander Blair, he said, was reticent; his dread of publicity is notorious. ”

“ And Blair did not listen all the time, but sat looking at the fire, with his teacup in his hand, and marveling in a dreamy fashion at the faithfulness of women.
This girl—the most hunted heiress in London, pretty, accomplished, every way desirable, whom he had neglected, almost deserted—received him as if he had been most devoted and steadfast. It was wonderful!
His heart smote him, and he felt drawn toward her in a curious kind of way.
After all, it is to the women men go when trouble smites them. There is no heart so tender, no sympathy so sure as that of a woman. ”

“ She isn’t used to keeping house. She’s going to Boston with the Colonel and that will set her up again.”
Mrs. Blair was silent for a moment then flashed:
“How much do you see of her?”
“Precious little. Breakfast, and a glimpse sometimes as I go to my couch at night.”
“You must leave the house; you must come and live with us at once,” declared Mrs. Blair with impressive finality.
“Thanks!” Wayne laughed. “Do you think I tease my stepmother to make her cry? Do you think my moral example is bad for her? Addie snubs me every chance she gets. ”

“ Skelton caught her in his arms. He laid her down upon the grass, and Sylvia Shapleigh, jumping out of the carriage, ran to her. People crowded around. Here was a tragedy for the Blairs with a vengeance—Hilary perhaps killed, Blair ruined and making a brute of himself before the whole county, and Mrs. Blair falling insensible. It was ten minutes before she opened her eyes, and then only when Lewis Pryor, making his way through the people surrounding her, threw himself beside her and cried, “Dear Mrs. Blair, it was not my fault; and he is alive! he is alive!” ”

“ Just let her get out, let her be alone, where nobody could speak to her. How could she ever speak to people again?—to Miss White, who was down in the dining-room, now, planning for the—wedding! To Nannie, who knew that David had been summoned, and who must be told that he refused to come; to Blair, who would guess—she paused, remembering that she was angry with Blair. There was a perceptible instant before she could recollect why; when she did, she felt a pang of relief in her agony of humiliation. Blair, whatever else he was, was a man, a man who could love a woman! ”

“ It was there in Blair's white face—the dreadful truth. He wore a ribbon on his breast and he leaned on a crutch. For the instant, as father and son faced each other, there was something in Blair's poise, his look of an eagle, that carried home a poignant sense of his greatness. Lane thrilled with it and a lump constricted his throat. Then with Blair's ringing "Dad!" and the father's deep and broken: "My son! My son!" the two embraced.
In a stifling moment more it seemed, attention turned on Red Payson, who stood nearest. Blair's folk were eager, kind, soft-spoken and warm in their welcome. ”

“ Blair’s balance, find herself embarrassed with clients. John McCandless Blair could never tell, when he went home to dinner, what new musical genius would be enthroned in the music room—young men in flowing black scarfs, or, rather more delectable, young girls of just the right type to look well at the harp, and who, no matter what strains might be evoked by their fingers, yet possessed in the requisite degree what Mrs. Blair capitalized as Soul. ”

“ Blair's voice rose again, ever higher and more metallic:—
"I dunno what you've got to complain of more'n the rest of us. Look at that dress you've got on,—a good thick thibet, an' mine's a cheap, sleazy alpaca they palmed off on me because they knew my eyesight ain't what it was once. An' you're settin' right there in the sun, gittin' het through, an' it's cold as a barn over here by the door. My land! if it don't make me mad to see anybody without no more sperit than a wet rag! If you've lost anybody, why don't ye say so? ”

“ Austin Ambrose laughed.
"Nonsense! Blair will do nothing of the kind. He will simply repudiate you, and with many apologies, show you the door. But really it would be more merciful to kill you outright, than to leave you the butt of the whole of London! The great heiress, Violet Graham, wrongfully married to Blair Leyton, and discarded for his first and lawful wife!" ”

“ Listen, Elizabeth, and I'll try to explain—you look as if you had some sense, so maybe you can understand. Nannie couldn't; she has no brains. And Blair wouldn't—I guess he has no heart. But this is how it is: Blair has always been a loafer—that's why he behaved as he did to you. Satan finds some mischief still, you know! So I'm cutting off his allowance, now, and leaving him practically penniless in my will, to stop his loafing. To make him work! He'll have to work, to keep from starving; and work will make a man of him. As for you, you've done an abominable thing, Elizabeth ”

“ Mrs. Richie told Robert Ferguson, "that he will take Nannie and go abroad definitely; she can call it desertion. Yes; on Nannie's money of course; how else could he go? Oh, my poor Blair!"
"'Poor Blair'? He deserves all he gets," Elizabeth's uncle said, after his first astonishment. Then, in spite of himself, he was sorry for Blair. "I suppose he's hard hit," he said, grudgingly, "but as for 'poor Blair,' I don't believe it goes very deep with him. You say he was out of temper because she had not lighted up, and told her she could go? Rather a casual way of getting rid of a wife." ”

“ He even forced himself to take up her sanguine view of the future, and hoped that by kind and sympathetic treatment, he would succeed in making Grace Bourhill into a useful minister's wife.
Four years have elapsed—four momentous years. Mr and Mrs Blair are seated at breakfast. He is wan and wasted, and stoops over his cup and plate as he drinks his weak tea and eats his thin toast. She is stout, red, and restless-eyed. A pervading air of discomfort is given to the room by the dirty discoloured tablecloth, the disarranged furniture, and the careless dress of the two occupants. ”

“ You used to be a brave woman once, summon up some courage now. Consider, after all, what can you do better than fly with me? In an hour or two, at any moment, as I say, Blair and the countess will meet, the truth will be known, and you—what will you be? Nothing—worse than nothing! The law cannot give you redress, for Blair believed her dead; but none the less you will be—an outcast!"
She writhed and tore at the pillows in a frenzy of despair.
"Oh, please!" he murmured, reproachfully. "Is this the same woman who bade me separate Blair and Margaret Hale at any cost?—at any cost? ”

“ CHAPTER IX For the next five or six years Blair was not often at home. At the end of his freshman year he was conditioned, and found a tutor and the seashore and his sketching—for he painted with some enthusiasm just at that time—much more attractive than his mother and Mercer. After that he went to Europe in the long vacations.
"How much vacation have I had since I began to run his business for him?" his mother said once in answer to Nannie's intercession that he might be allowed to travel. But she let him go. ”

“ Blair is not telling quite all that he knows. Nevertheless, the theory which he propounds as to his son’s assailant, is natural enough, from his point of view. Although,” added Kent thoughtfully, “it will be most unfortunate if it leads him to distrust Mrs. Blair.”
“Marjorie? Am I to infer that her good name is involved?” demanded the old man.
“Hardly her good name. Mr. Blair believes—if I correctly follow his mental processes—that Francis Sedgwick met his son on the night of the tragedy, by chance or otherwise, and that in the encounter which he believes followed, Wilfrid Blair was killed. ”

“ Blair’s letter to Jacquelin in reply was more to him than General Legaie’s mention of his name in his report.
Blair was growing up to be almost a woman now. Women, as well as men, age rapidly amid battles, and nearly every letter Jacquelin received from home contained something about her. “What a pretty girl Blair has grown to be. You have no idea how we all lean on her,” his mother wrote. Or Miss Thomasia would say: “I wish you could have heard Blair sing in church last Sunday. ”

“ Blair said, carelessly, "I didn't know which. I'll go and get her there." His own words reassured him, and he apologized lightly. "Sorry to have disturbed you, sir. Good-night!" And he was gone before another question could be asked. But out in the street he found himself running. "Of course she's at Nannie's!" he said, panting. He even had a twinge of anger at Elizabeth for giving him all this trouble. "She ought to have left word," he thought, crossly. It was a relief to be cross; nothing very serious can have happened to a person who merely makes you cross. ”

“ Mrs. Maitland was silent because she was absorbed in thought; Nannie and Blair were silent because they were afraid to talk. But the two children gave a touch of humanness to the ruthless room, which, indeed, poor little Blair had some excuse for calling a "pigsty."
"When I'm big," Blair announced one afternoon after school, "I'll have a bunch of flowers on the table, like your mother does; you see if I don't! I like your mother, David."
"I don't; very much," Elizabeth volunteered. "She looks out of her eyes at me when I get mad."
"I don't like to live at my house," Blair said, sighing. ”

“ Blair was eminently human, and women are never so weak as before the temptation to loot. She heard her father’s voice above, describing to his wife the character of the upper chambers and she joined Wayne in the library where he stood in the bay window looking out upon the thinning boughs of the maples.
“Well,” she exclaimed with a half sigh, “the worst is over.”
“You’ve done bully, Fanny. You’ve risen to the occasion!”
“Oh, it might be worse! It might be infinitely worse. What do you think of her?”
“Oh, she’s not bad! I should call her a pretty woman.” ”

“ His face was dusky with shame, yet when he said that, his lip loosened in a furtively exultant smile. Blair would have been less, or more, than a man if, at that moment, in spite of his shame, he had not exulted. "She's my wife!" he said, through those shamed and smiling lips. Then his eyes narrowed: "And she doesn't care a damn for me."
So it was that as he sat there in the snow, watching the puff of white deepen on the stalk of goldenrod, his god prevailed yet a little more, for, so far as Elizabeth was concerned, he did not try to fool himself: "she doesn't care a damn." ”

“ Blair, rubbing his ankle, said he'd like to throw the little wretch overboard.
Well, of course, Elizabeth being Elizabeth, the result was inevitable. The next instant the ring lay sparkling in the bottom of the boat. "I break my engagement! Take your old ring! You are a cruel, wicked boy, and I hate you—so there!" "I must say I don't see why you should expect me to enjoy being bitten," Blair said hotly. "Well, all right; throw me over, if you want to. I shall never trust a woman again as long as I live!" He began to row fiercely. "I only hope that darned pup isn't going mad." ”

“ But after that, for days, they talked of household economies, and with Cherry-pie's help Elizabeth managed to pare down those estimates which had so diverted her uncle and Mrs. Richie. With such practical preoccupations no wonder she was unconscious of the change in Blair. Suddenly, like a stone flung through the darkness at a comfortably lighted domestic window, she saw, with a crash of fright, a new and unknown Blair, a man who was a complete and dreadful stranger.
It was dusk; she had come in to see Nannie and talk over that illuminating suggestion: why not live on the principal? ”

“ And, Blair, I should like you to go over her [25] clothes after breakfast. I must arrange for Miss Jenkins to come at once for a few days' sewing. Be sure she drinks plenty of milk with her porridge, and be careful she doesn't get into draughts just at first, as she's accustomed to a warmer climate."
Blair was a power in the household. She managed her nursery with the tactics of a general, reducing small rebels to a state of submission with admirable skill, and keeping order among her noisy little crew with a firm though just hand. ”

“ How surprised everybody would be. The earl, her grandmother, her old companions at the art school! She could almost see her grandmother weeping and laughing over her with loving pride. Then she sighed. With all Blair's flattery she felt so unfit to be a grand lady, a viscountess who would some day wear the Ferrers' coronet!
"If we could only stay as we are," she thought, girl-like. "It is Blair I want, not the title or the money. I would rather live with him here until we die, than be the mistress of Leyton Court. What a pity it is he is not a fisherman! ”