Christine - Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (the kiss of deception read online TXT) 📗

She said as if speaking to a servant, "Place the soup at the head of the table. Mr. Ruleson is home."

When he took the head of the table, and so faced her, and could no longer be ignored, she said, "Is it really you, Neil? By what train did you arrive?"

"I told you, in my last letter, at what time I should arrive in Glasgow. You did not meet me, as I expected. I had to take a cab home."

"The stable man said one of the horses was acting as if it did not feel well. He thought it had better not be driven."

"He thought it would be more comfortable to stay at home this wet night. I had a very cold, disagreeable drive. I dare say I have taken a severe cold from it."

"The soup waits, if you will serve it."

He did so, remarking the while, "I sent you word I would be home by this train. Did you receive my letter?"

"Yes."

"Then why?"

"O you know, you have been coming by so many trains the past week, I thought it best not to take the sick horse out on such an uncertainty as your promise."

"I was, as I told you, detained by business."

"I hope you made it pay you."

"A few hundreds."

"Ah! Then you would not mind the expense of a cab."

"Do I ever mind necessary trifles?"

"I have never considered the matter," and the little laugh of indifference which closed the sentence, made him look at her attentively.

She was in full evening costume, and it struck him that tonight she looked almost handsome.

"Did you intend to go out this evening? Has my coming home prevented some social pleasure?"

"I had told Reginald to meet me in my box at Glover's Theater. Reginald is a social pleasure no woman would willingly miss."

"I do not approve of Reginald Rath, and I would rather you did not invite him to our box. His presence there, you know, would assuredly preclude mine."

"I cannot interfere with dear Reggie's rights. The box is as much his, as mine. Father bought it in perpetuity, when the theater was built. The Merrys, and Taits, and others did the same--and Father left it to Reggie and myself, equally."

"It would be very unpleasant to you, if Reginald married a woman you did not like--and you really approve of so few women--it is remarkable how few----"

"Yet I have found a woman since you went away, that is perfect--as good and clever as she is beautiful."

"Where did you find her?"

"It is my little romance. I will tell you about her after dinner."

"I am not impatient."

This kind of half-querulous conversation continued during the service of dinner, but when the cloth had been drawn, and the wine and the nuts promised the absence of servants uncalled for, Roberta's attitude changed. She took a letter from her bag, and pushed it towards Neil.

"It is your letter," she said, "it came ten days ago."

"Why did you open it?"

"The word 'haste' was on it, and I thought it might be an announcement of your mother's death, or serious sickness--not that I thought you would care----"

"Of course, I care."

"Then you had better read the letter."

She watched his face gathering gloom and anger as he did so, and when he threw it from him with some unintelligible words, she lifted and put it again in her bag.

"That is my letter, Roberta, give it to me."

"You have just flung it away from you. I am going to keep it--it may be useful."

"What do you mean?"

"Neil, you must now answer me one or two questions. On your answers our living together depends."

He laughed softly, and said, "Nothing so serious as that, surely, Roberta!"

"Just that. When you went to your father's funeral, you told me that you owed your sister ninety pounds. You said it was her life's savings from both labor and gifts, and that she had loaned it to you, in order to make possible your final year at the Maraschal. You said further, that your father was not a saving man, and you feared they would be pinched for money to bury him. And I loaned you ninety pounds, being glad to see such a touch of natural affection in you. This letter from Christine says plainly that you never paid her the ninety pounds you borrowed from me. Is Christine telling the truth?"

"Yes."

"Yet, on your return, you gave me a rather tedious account of your mother's and Christine's thankfulness for the money. It created in me a wrong impression of your mother and sister. I asked myself why they should be so crawlingly thankful to you for paying a just debt, and I thought meanly of them. Why did you not pay them the ninety pounds you borrowed from them? And why did you invent that servile bit of thankfulness?"

"I will tell you, Roberta. When I got home I found the whole village on my father's place. The funeral arrangements were, for a man in my father's position, exceedingly extravagant, and I was astonished at my mother's recklessness, and want of oversight. Christine was overcome with grief, and everything appeared to be left to men and women who were spending other people's money. I thought under the circumstances it was better not to pay Christine at that time, and I think I was right."

"So far, perhaps, you were prudent, but prudence is naturally mean and as often wrong as right. And why did you lie to me, so meanly and so tediously?"

"You have to lie to women, if you alter in the least anything you have told them. You cannot explain to a woman, unless you want to stand all day doing it. There are times when a lie is simply an explanation, a better one than the truth would be. The great Shakespeare held that such lies were more for number, than account."

"I do not take my opinion of lies from William Shakespeare. A lie is a lie. There was no need for a lie in this case. The lie you made up about it was for account, not for number--be sure of that. You admit that you did not give Christine the ninety pounds you borrowed from me, in order to pay your debt to her. What did you do with the money?"

"Have you any right to ask me that question? If I borrowed ninety pounds from the bank, would they ask me what I did with it?"

"I neither know nor care what the bank would do. I am seeking information for Roberta Ruleson, and I shall take my own way to obtain it."

"What is it you want to know?"

"What you did with that ninety pounds?"

"I banked it."

"In what bank? There is no record of it in the Bank of Scotland, where I have always supposed, until lately, our funds were kept."

"I did not put it in the Bank of Scotland. Every business man has an official banking account, and also a private banking account. I put that ninety pounds to my private bank account."

"In what bank?"

"I do not give that information to anyone."

"It must be pretty well known, since it has come as a matter of gossip to me."

"You had better say 'advice' in place of gossip. What advice did you get?"

"I was told to look after my own money, that you were putting what little you made into the North British Security."

"I suppose your clever brother told you that. If Reginald Rath does not leave my affairs alone, I shall make him."

"You will have a bad time doing it. Your check books, no doubt, are in this valise. You will now write me a check on the North British for one hundred and eighty pounds. It is only fair that the North British should pay out, as well as take in."

"Why should I give you a check for a hundred and eighty pounds?"

"I gave you ninety pounds when you went to your father's funeral, I took ninety pounds to Culraine ten days ago, in answer to the letter Christine wrote."

"You went to Culraine? You, yourself?"

"I went, and I had there one of the happiest days of my life. I got right into your mother's heart, and taught her how to crochet. I saw and talked with your splendid sister. She is the most beautiful, intelligent girl, I ever met."

"Such nonsense! She knows nothing but what I taught her!"

"She knows many things you know nothing about. I think she will become a famous woman."

"When Mother dies, she will marry Cluny Macpherson, who is a Fife fisher, and settle down among her class."

"I saw his picture, one of those new daguerreotypes. Such a splendid-looking fellow! He was a Fife fisher, he is now Second Officer on a Henderson boat, and wears their uniform. But it is Christine I am telling you about. There is a new _Blackwood_ on the table at your right hand. Turn to the eleventh page, and see what you find."

He did so, and he found "The Fisherman's Prayer." With a scornful face he read it, and then asked, "Do you believe that Christine Ruleson wrote that poem? I have no doubt it is the Domine's work."

"Not it. I saw the Domine. He and that lovable lad he has adopted----"

"My nephew."

"Dined at the hotel with me. I never before met such a perfect man. I did not know such men lived. The Domine was as happy as a child over Christine's success. She got five pounds for that poem."

"I do not believe it."

"I read the letter in which it came. They praised the poem, and asked for more contributions."

"If she is making money, why give her ninety pounds? It was absurd----"

"It was just and right. You say you have made a few hundreds on this London case, you will now write me a check for the two loans of ninety pounds each."

"I did not borrow the last ninety pounds. You took it to Culraine of your own will and desire. I do not owe the last ninety pounds. I refuse to pay it."

"I will give you until tomorrow morning to change your mind. When Christine wrote you the letter, now in your hand, she had not a sixpence in the world--her luck came with the money I took her. I do not think she will ever require anyone's help again. Oh, how could you grudge even your last penny to a sister like Christine?"

"She owes everything to me. I opened up her mind. I taught her to speak good English. I----"

"'I borrowed all her life's savings, kept the money through the death of her father, the severe illness of her mother, and the total absence of anyone in her home to make money or in any way help her to bear the burden and fatigue of her great strait.' You can tell me in the morning what you propose to do."

Then she rose, and left the room, and Neil made no offer to detain her. In fact he muttered to himself, "She is a little premature, but it may be as well."

In the morning he