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

you! You sneaking ne'er-do-well."

Kinlock had spoken with inconceivable passion, and the very sight of the red-headed, gigantic Highlander, sputtering out words that cannot be written, and of the growling brute, that only required a relaxed hand to fly at his throat, made him faint with terror.

"I am sure, Mr. Kinlock----"

"How daur you 'mister' me? I am Kinlock, of Kinlock! You had better take yourself off. I'm at the end of my patience, and I cannot hold this kind of a brute much longer. And if he grabs any kind of a human being, he never lets go while there's life in him. I can't say how he would treat you--one dog does not eat another dog, as a rule." Then he clashed-to the door, and Neil was grateful. He did not ask again for it to be opened.

He went to his office. Perhaps there was a letter for him there. It was locked, and the man who kept the keys lived over the river. Thoroughly weary and distressed, and full of anxious forebodings, he went to a hotel, and ordered supper in his own room. He did not feel as if he could look anyone in the face, with this dreadful uncertainty hanging over his life. What was the matter?

Thinking over things he came to no conclusion. It could not be his few words with Roberta on the night of his return from London. A few words of contradiction with Roberta were almost a daily occurrence, and she had always accepted such offers of conciliation as he made. And he was so morally obtuse that his treatment of his mother and sister, as influencing his wife, never entered his mind. What had Roberta to do with his mother and Christine? Suppose he had treated them cruelly, what right, or reason, had she to complain of that? Everything was personal to Neil, even moralities; he was too small to comprehend the great natural feelings which make all men kin. He thought Kinlock's reference to his dying mother a piece of far-fetched impertinence, but he understood very well the justice of Kinlock's personal hatred, and he laughed scornfully as he reflected on the Highlander's longing to strike him with the whip, and then set the dog to finish his quarrel.

"The Law! The gude Common Law o' Scotland has the like o' sic villains as Kinlock by the throat!" he said triumphantly. "He wad hae set the brute at my throat, if he hadna kent it wad put a rope round his ain red neck. I hae got to my Scotch," he remarked, "and that isna a good sign. I'll be getting a headache next thing. I'll awa' to bed, and to sleep. Monday will be a new day. I'll mebbe get some light then, on this iniquitous, unprecedented circumstance."


CHAPTER XI


CHRISTINE MISTRESS OF RULESON COTTAGE

Now, therefore, keep thy sorrow to thyself and bear with a good
courage that which hath befallen thee.--Esdras ii, ch. 10, v. 15.

Be not afraid, neither doubt, for God is your guide.--Esdras i,
ch. 16, v. 75.

It was a cold winter day at the end of January, and a streak of white rain was flying across the black sea. Christine stood at the window, gazing at her brother's old boat edging away to windward, under very small canvas. There was a wild carry overhead, out of the northeast, and she was hoping that Norman had noticed the tokens of the sky. Margot saw her look of anxiety, and said: "You needna worry yoursel', Christine. Norman's boat is an auld-warld Buckie skiff. They're the auldest model on a' our coasts, and they can fend in a sea that would founder a whole fishing fleet."

"I noticed Norman had lowered his mainsail and hoisted the mizzen in its place, and that he was edging away to windward."

"Ay, Norman kens what he must do, and he does it. That's his way. Ye needna fash anent Norman, he'll tak' his old Buckie skiff into a gale that yachts wi' their lockers fu' o' prizes wouldna daur to venture."

"But, Mither dear, there's a wind from the north blowing in savage gusts, and the black seas tumble wild and high, and send clouds of spindrift to smother the auld boat."

"Weel, weel! She'll give to the squalls, and it's vera near the turn o' the tide, then the wind will gae down, as the sea rises. The bit storm will tak' itsel' off in a heavy mist and a thick smur, nae doubt o' it."

"And Norman will know all this."

"Ay, will he! Norman is a wonderfu' man, for a' perteening to his duty."

Then the door opened, and one of the Brodie boys gave Christine two letters. "I thought ye wad be glad o' them this gloomy day," he said to Christine.

"Thank you, Alick! You went a bit out o' your road to pleasure us."

"That's naething. Gude morning! I am in a wee hurry, there's a big game in the playground this afternoon." With these words the boy was gone, and Christine stood with the letters in her hand. One was from Cluny, and she put it in her breast, the other was from Roberta, and she read it aloud to her mother. It was dated New Orleans, and the first pages of the letter consisted entirely of a description of the place and her perfect delight in its climate and social life.

Margot listened impatiently. "I'm no carin' for that information, Christine," she said. "Why is Roberta in New Orleans? What is she doing in a foreign land, and nae word o' Neil in the circumstance."

"I am just coming to that, Mither." Then Christine read carefully Roberta's long accusation of her husband's methods. Margot listened silently, and when Christine ceased reading, did not express any opinion.

"What do ye think, Mither?"

"I'll hae to hear Neil's side, before I can judge. When she was here, she said naething against Neil."

"She did not name him at all. I noticed that."

"Put her letter awa' till we get Neil's story. I'll ne'er blame my lad before I hae heard his side o' the wrang. I'm disappointed in Roberta. Wives shouldna speak ill o' their husbands. It isna lawfu', and it's vera unwise."

"The faults she names are quite in the line o' Neil's faults."

"Then it's a gude thing he was keepit out o' the ministry. The Maraschal was gude enough. I'm thinking all the lad's faults are quite in the line o' the law. Put the letter awa'. I'm not going to tak' it into my consideration, till Neil has had his say-so. Let us hae a good day wi' a book, Christine."

"So we will, Mither. I'll red up the house, and read my letter, and be wi' you."

"Some wee, short love stories and poems, and the like. That verse you read me a week syne, anent the Lord being our shepherd, is singing in my heart and brain, even the now. It was like as if the Lord had but one sheep, and I mysel' was that one. Gie me my crochet wark, and I will listen to it, until you are through wi' your little jobs."

The day grew more and more stormy, but these two women made their own sunshine, for Margot was now easy and pleasant to live with. Nothing was more remarkable than the change that had taken place in her. Once the most masterful, passionate, plain-spoken woman in the village, she had become, in the school of affliction and loss, as a little child, and the relations between herself and Christine had been in many cases almost reversed. She now accepted the sweet authority of Christine with pleasure, and while she held tenaciously to her own likings and opinions, she no longer bluffed away the opinions of others with that verbal contempt few were able to reply to. Her whole nature had sweetened, and risen into a mental and spiritual region too high for angry or scornful personalities.

Her physical failure and decay had been very slow, and at first exceedingly painful, but as her strength left her, and her power to resist and struggle was taken away with it, she had traveled through the Valley of the Shadow of Death almost cheerfully, for the Lord was with her, and her own dear daughter was the rod that protected, and the staff that comforted her.

They had a day of wonderful peace and pleasure, and after they had had their tea, and Margot had been prepared for the night, Christine had a long sweet session with her regarding her own affairs. She told her mother that Cluny was coming to see her anent their marriage. "He really thinks, Mither, he can be a great help and comfort to us baith," she said, "and it is but three or four days in a month he could be awa' from the ship."

"Do you want him here, dearie?"

"It would be a great pleasure to me, Mither. I spend many anxious hours about Cluny, when the weather is bad." And Margot remembered how rarely she spoke of this anxiety, or indeed of Cluny at all. For the first time she seemed to realize the girl's unselfish love, and she looked at Christine with eyes full of tears, and said:

"Write and tell Cluny to come hame. He is welcome, and I'll gie ye baith my blessing!" And Christine kissed and twice kissed her mother, and in that hour there was a great peace in the cottage.

This concession regarding Cluny was the breaking down of Margot's last individual bulwark. Not by assault, or even by prudence, was it taken. A long service of love and patience made the first breach, and then Christine's sweet, uncomplaining reticence about her lover and her own hopes threw wide the gates, and the enemy was told to "come hame and welcome." It was a great moral triumph, it brought a great satisfaction, and after her surrender, Margot fell into a deep, restful sleep, and Christine wrote a joyful letter to Cluny, and began to calculate the number of days that must wear away before Cluny would receive the happy news.

A few days after this event Christine began to read to her mother "Lady Audley's Secret," and she was much astonished to find her sleepy and indifferent. She continued in this mood for some days, and when she finally threw off this drowsy attitude, Christine noticed a very marked change. What had taken place during that somnolent pause in life? Had the silver cord been loosed, or the golden bowl broken, or the pitcher broken at the fountain? Something had happened beyond human ken, and though Margot made no complaint, and related no unusual experience, Christine knew that her spirit was ready to return unto God who gave it. And she said to herself:


"As I work, my heart must watch,
For the door is on the latch,
In her room;
And it may be in the morning,
He will come."


In the afternoon little Jamie came in, and Christine told him to go very quietly to his grandmother, and speak to her. She smiled when he did so, and slowly opened her eyes. "Good-by, Jamie," she said. "Be a good boy, be a good man, till I see ye again."

"I will, Grandmother. I will! I promise you."

"What do you think o' her, Jamie?" asked Christine.

"I