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

to my husband. Christine has told me where he is. He loves me yet, and I want to go, and help, and comfort him."

"That is right. It is converting love into action. If this is not done, love is indolent and unbelieving. It is not enough for Neil to love you, your love must flow out to him in return, or your married life will be barren as sand."

"I shall forgive him everything. He is longing to explain all to me."

"Forgive him before he explains. Have no explanations, they turn to arguments, and an argument is a more hopeless barrier than a vigorous quarrel, or an indignant contradiction. You do not want to judge whether he is right or wrong. The more you judge, the less you love. Take him just as he is, and begin your lives over again. Will you do this?"

"I will try."

"Roberta, you have a great work before you--the saving of a man--the lifting of him up from despair and ruin to confidence and hope, and success. He is well worth your effort. Neil has fine traits, he comes of a religiously royal ancestry, and true nobility is virtue of race. You can save this man. Some women could not, others would not, you can do it."

"I will do it, Sir, God helping me."

"Now I will go to Glasgow, and do all you require. You must take some money with you, the bank----"

"I have a thousand pounds in my purse."

"You extravagant woman!"

"Money is necessary, in saving souls, Sir."

"I believe you. Where shall I meet you in Glasgow?"

"At the Victoria Hotel--dinner at six."

To these words the Doctor disappeared, and Roberta began to amplify and explain and justify her position and her intentions. She talked to Christine, while Christine cooked their meals and did all the necessary housework. She begged her to lock the doors against all intruders, and then making herself comfortable in the large cushioned chair by the fireside, she took off her tight shoes, and divested her hair of all its pads, and combs, and rats, and with a sigh of relief said, "Now we can talk comfortably." They talked all day long, and they talked of Neil. A little later, she was eager to tell Christine all about her brother's unaccountable marriage. "I was really ashamed of the affair, Christine," she said. "No consideration for others, scarcely time to make the wedding-dress, and I think she asked everyone she saw to come to her marriage. She talked the slang of every country she had visited, and the men all thought it 'so funny' when she kicked up her dress with her heel, and treated them to a bit of London or New York slang. The perfectly silly and easy way in which men are caught, and tied fast, always amazes me, Christine. It is just like walking up to a horse's head, with a dish full of corn in one hand and a bridle in the other. This little Sabrina Wales walked up to Reginald Rath with a bit of London slang on her lips, and a wedding ring hid in the palm of her hand, and the poor man is her slave for life."

"Not necessarily a slave for life, Roberta."

"Necessarily. No remission. No redemption. The contract reads 'until death us part.'"

They discussed Sabrina from head to feet--her hair, her eyes, her complexion, her carriage, her way of dressing, her gowns--all short in front and long behind--"can you guess what for, Christine?"

"Perhaps she has pretty feet."

"She has very small ones. I do not know whether they are pretty or not. But the effect is striking, if you watch her from the front--you can't help thinking of a turkey gobbler."

The hours went happily enough, Christine enjoyed them. After her paper heroine, this all-alive, scornful, loving and hating, talking and laughing woman was a great pleasure. Christine baked delicious scones, and scalloped some fine oysters in bread crumbs and chopped parsley, and made one or two pots of Pekoe and Young Hyson tea, and they nibbled and sipped, and talked over the whole sacred druidical family of the Raths, even to Aunt Agatha, who was worth half a million pounds--"which I threw away for a good joke," said Roberta.

"Look at the clock, it is near midnight! We must go to bed."

"Well, then, I have had the loveliest day. I shall never forget it, and I will tell Neil all about it before long. Dear Christine, I am glad you are my sister, it lets me take nice little liberties with you; and you know, I love you, but that is inevitable. No one can help it."

When Roberta went, she seemed to take the sunshine with her. The summer of All Saints, and the melancholy of its long fine weather was over, and there was the touch of winter in the frosty nights and mornings, but for five weeks Christine heeded nothing but her new novel. For the time being, it fully absorbed her; and for the next few weeks she made great progress. Then one morning Norman came to see her. "Christine," he said. "I am in great trouble. Jessy is vera ill with scarlet fever, and I am anxious about the children."

"Bring them all here, Norman."

"They'll mebbe hinder you i' your writing."

"But what is my writing worth, when the children are in danger? Go and bring them here at once. Get Judith to come with them. With her help I can manage. I will come in the afternoon, and sit with Jessy awhile."

"No, you willna be permitted. The doctors say there are o'er many cases. They hae ordered the school closed, and they are marking every house in which there is sickness."

This epidemic prostrated the village until the middle of January, taking a death toll from the little community, of nearly eighty, mostly women and children. But this loss was connected with wonderful acts of kindness, and self-denial. The men left their boats and nursed each other's children, the women who were well went from house to house, caring tenderly even for those they supposed themselves to be unfriends with. If the fever triumphed over its victims, love triumphed over the fever. In the Valley of the Shadow of Death, they had forgotten everything but that they were fellow-sufferers. Christine's house had been a home for children without a home, and she had spent a great part of her time in preparing strengthening and appetizing food for those who needed it more than any other thing. No one, now, had a word wrong to say of Christine Ruleson. She had been a helping and comforting angel in their trouble, and if there had been a woman or child more suffering and destitute than all the rest, Christine had always taken her to her home. For in such times of sorrow, God reveals Himself to the heart, not to the reason. Oh, how far it is, from knowing God, to loving Him!

Well, then, Sorrow may endure for a night, but Joy cometh in the morning. And the mornings grew to be spring mornings, full of that sunshine that goes not only to the heart of man, but to the roots of every green thing. The silence of the receding hills was broken by streams glancing and dancing down the glens. The "incalculable laughter of the sea" was full of good promise, for those who had been sick, and for those who had perforce been long idle. The roar of angry billows was hushed, and it came up to the land, hard-edged with stiff, tinkling waves, and the convalescents rested on the shingles beside them, taking life with every breath, and enjoying that perfect rest that shingle knows how to give, because it takes the shape of the sleeper, whether he be young or old, or short or long.

The days were of soft, delicate radiance, the nights full of stars. The moon in all her stages was clear as silver, the dawns came streaming up from the throbbing breast of the ocean. The springtime songs were bubbling in the birds' throats, they sang as if they never would grow old, and the honey bees were busy among the cherry blooms, delirious with delight.

Who speaks of sadness in such days?

Certainly Christine did not. All the troubles of the hard winter were past, and her heart was running over with a new joy. Cluny was coming home. Very soon, the long waiting would be over. This thought made her restlessly busy. Her home had to be renovated thoroughly. Altogether twenty-eight children had been sheltered for short or longer periods there, and they had all left their mark on its usually spotless walls and floors. Well, then, they must be cleaned--and men quickly appeared with lime and white paint, and women with soap and scrubbing brushes. And Christine went through the rooms, and through the rooms, with them, directing and helping forward the beautifying work.

She had also to think of her wedding-dress, and her wedding-breakfast, but these cheerful, lengthening days gave her time for everything. When the house pleased even her particular idea of what it ought to be, she turned to the garden. The seeds of the annuals were sown, and the roses trimmed, and not a weed left in the sacred little spot.

Then day after day added to all this beauty and purity, and one happy morning Jamie brought the letter. Cluny was in Glasgow, and his letter was like the shout of a victor. He would be in Culraine on Thursday--first train he could make--they would be married Saturday morning. Christine could not put him off any longer. He had been waiting twenty-one years--for he had loved her when he was only nine years old--and he had fulfilled every obligation laid on him. And now! Now! Now! She was his wife, his very own! there was no one, and no circumstance, to dispute his claim! and so on, in sentences which stumbled over each other, because it was impossible for humanity to invent words for feelings transcending its comprehension.

Christine laughed softly and sweetly, kissed the incoherent letter, and put it in her breast. Then she walked through the house and garden, and found everything as it should be. Even the dress in which she would meet her lover, with its ribbons and ornaments, was laid out ready to put on the next morning. Judith was in the kitchen. The wedding dress, and the wedding cake, would be brought home on Friday morning.

However, a woman, on such an occasion, wants to make the perfect still more perfect. She wondered if it would not be well to go and give her last directions and orders that afternoon, and finally decided to do so.

She was just leaving the baker's, when Colonel Ballister entered. He met her with respectful effusiveness, and asked permission to walk home with her. And as they walked to the village together, the Colonel said, "I spent four, long, delightful hours with Captain Macpherson last night. He is to be here tomorrow."

"I didna ken you was acquaint wi' him, Colonel."

"Mr. Henderson introduced me to him, and then asked us both to dinner. We had a delightful three hours at Henderson's, then the captain and I walked round and round the square for an hour, and we liked each other so well, that I got permission from him, to ask a great favor from you."

"I dinna see how I can favor you, Colonel, but if I can do sae, I'll be gey glad to do it."

"I want you