Christine by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (top 5 ebook reader txt) 📕

rose while it was yet dark, and leaving word with a servant that he was going to Dalkeith and might be away four days, or longer, he left in the gloom of fog and rain, and early twilight, the home he was never to enter again. He had grown accustomed to every luxury and refinement in its well-ordered plenty, and he had not the slightest intention of resigning its comfortable conditions, but he had no conception of the kind of woman with whom he had now to deal. The wives of Culraine, while dominant in business, gave to their men, in the household, almost an unquestioned authority; and Neil had no experience which could lead him to expect Roberta would, in any essential thing, dare to disobey him. He even flattered himself that in leaving her alone he had left her to anxiety and unhappiness, and of course, repentance.

"I will just give her a little lesson," he said to himself, complacently. "She gave me until this morning. I will give her four or five days of solitary reflection, and no letters. No letters, Neil Ruleson! I think that treatment will teach her other people have rights, as well as herself."

Roberta did not appear to be disquieted by his absence. She sent a messenger for her brother, and ate a leisurely, pleasant meal, with the _Glasgow Herald_ for a companion; and before she had quite finished it, Reginald appeared.

"Your early message alarmed me, Roberta," he said. "I hope all is well with you, dear?"

"Indeed, Reggie, I don't know whether it is well, or ill. Sit down and I will tell you exactly how my life stands." Then she related circumstantially all that had occurred--Neil's first request for ninety pounds at his father's death--his appropriation of that sum, and his refusal to say what had been done with it--Christine's letter of recent date which she now handed to her brother. Reginald read it with emotion, and said as he handed it back to his sister: "It is a sweet, pitiful, noble letter. Of course he answered it properly."

Then Roberta told him all the circumstances of her visit to Culraine, and when she had finished her narration, her brother's eyes were full of tears.

"Now, Reginald," she asked, "did I do wrong in going myself with the money?"

"Up to the receipt of Christine's letter, you supposed it had been paid?"

"Certainly I did, and I thought Neil's family rude and unmannerly for never making any allusion to its payment."

"So you paid it again, resolving to fight the affair out with Neil, when he came home. You really accepted the debt, and made it your own, and be sure that Neil will find out a way to make you responsible for its payment in law. In point of truth and honor, and every holy affection, it was Neil's obligation, and every good man and woman would cry shame on his shirking it. Roberta, you have made the supreme mistake! You have allied yourself with a mean, dishonorable caitiff--a creature in whose character baseness and wickedness meet; and who has no natural affections. As I have told you before, and often, Neil Ruleson has one idea--money. All the comforts and refinements of this home would be instantly abandoned, if he had them to pay for. He has a miserly nature, and only his love of himself prevents him from living on a crust, or a few potato parings."

"Oh, Reginald, you go too far."

"I do not. When a man can grudge his good, loving mother on her death-bed anything, or all that he has, he is no longer fit for human companionship. He should go to a cave, or a garret, and live alone. What are you going to do? My dear, dear sister, what are you going to do?"

"What you advise, Reginald. For this reason I sent for you."

"Then listen. I knew a crisis of some kind must soon come between you and that--creature, and this is what I say--you must leave him. Every day you stay with him insults your humanity, and your womanhood. He says he will be four or five days away, we will have plenty of time for my plan. Before noon I will have here wagons and men in sufficient number to empty this house into Menzie's granite storage in two days. Send the silver to the bank. I will put it in a cab, and take it myself. Pack things you value highly in one trunk, which can be specially insured. Our pictures we will place in the Ludin Picture Gallery. We can clear the house in three days, and on the morning of the fourth day, young Bruce Kinlock will move into it. If Neil can face Kinlock, it will be the worse for him, for Kinlock's temper blazes if he but hear Neil's name, and his hand goes to his side, for the dirk with which his fathers always answered an enemy."

"Then, Reginald, when I have turned myself out of house and home, what follows?"

"We will take a passage to New Orleans."

"New Orleans! Why there? Such an out-of-the-way place."

"Exactly. That creature will argue thus--they have gone to some place on the Continent--very likely France. And he will probably try to make you a deal of trouble. I have never named New Orleans to anyone. Even our friends will never suspect our destination, for we shall go first to France, and take a steamer from some French port, for New Orleans. When we arrive there, we have a new world before us, and can please ourselves where we go, and where we stay. Now, Roberta, decide at once. We have time, but none too much, and I will work night and day to get you out of the power of such a husband."

"He may repent."

"We will give him time and reason to do so. He has been too comfortable. You have given him constant temptation to wrong you. He will not repent until he feels the pinch of poverty and the want of a home. Then he may seek you in earnest, and I suppose you will forgive him."

"What else could I do? Would not God forgive him?"

"That is a subject for later consideration. If you will take my advice you must do it with all your heart, and be as busy as I will be. We want no altercation with him just yet."

"I give you my word, Reggie, that for two years I will do as you advise. Then we will reconsider the question."

Then Reginald clasped her hand, and drew her to his side. "It is for your salvation, dear, every way, and loneliness and deprivation may be for his good. We will hope so."

"You once liked him, Reggie."

"Yes, I did. He betrayed me in every way he could. He purposely quarreled with me. He wanted a free hand to follow out his own business ideas--which were not mine. But this is now idle talk. Neil will never be saved by people helping him. He must be left to help himself."

"That is hope enough to work on. Tell me now, exactly what to do."

Reginald's plans had long been perfected, and by the noon of the third day the beautiful home was nothing but bare walls and bare floors. That same night, Reginald Rath and his sister left Glasgow by the midnight train, and the following morning, Bruce Kinlock, with his wife and five children, moved into the dismantled house, and in two days it was in a fairly habitable condition. There was, of course, confusion and a multitude of bustling servants and helpers, and a pretty, frail-looking little lady, sitting helplessly in a large chair, and Bruce ordering round, and five children in every place they ought not be, but there was universal good temper, and pleasurable excitement, and a brilliantly lighted house, when on the following Saturday night, Neil drove up to his residence.

He thought, at first, that Mrs. Ruleson had a dinner party, then he remembered Roberta's reverence for the Sabbath, and knew she would not permit any dancing and feasting so near its daybreaking. The Sabbath observance was also his own strong religious tenet, he was an ardent supporter of Doctor Agnew and his extremist views, and therefore this illumination in the Ruleson mansion, so near to the Sabbath-day, offended him.

"Roberta knows that I am particular about my good name, and that I am jealously careful of the honor of the Sabbath, and yet--yet! Look at my house! It is lit up as if for a carnival of witches!" Then he hurried the cab man, and his keys being in his hand, he applied the latch-key to the lock. It would not move it, and the noise in the house amazed him. He rang the bell violently, and no one answered it. He raged, and rang it again. There was plenty of movement in the house, and he could plainly hear a man's voice, and a guffaw of laughter. He kept the bell ringing, and kicked the door with his foot.

Then a passionate voice asked what he wanted.

"I want to get in. This is my house."

"It is not your house. It never was your house."

"What number is this?"

"Twenty-three, Western Crescent. What Tomfool asks?"

"This is my house. Open the door, or I will call the police." He did call the policeman on the beat, and the man said, "A new family moved in yesterday, Sir, and I was taken from Hillside Crescent, only two days ago. I am on the night watch. I havena seen any o' them yet, but there seems to be a big lot o' them."

"Do you know where the family went, who lived in twenty-three previous to this new tenant?"

"I heard they went abroad--left in a great hurry, as it were."

Then Neil went back to the house, and rang the door bell with polite consideration. "The new-comers will certainly know more than the policeman," he thought, "and I can get no letter till Monday morning. It will be very annoying to be in this doubt until then."

He had plenty of time for these reflections, for the bell was not noticed, and he rang again with a little more impetuosity. This time it was answered by a huge Highlander, with a dog by a leash, and a dogwhip in his hand; and Neil trembled with fear. He knew the man. He had once been his lawyer, and lost his case, and the man had accused him of selling his case. There was no proof of the wrong, none at all, and it was not believed by anyone except Reginald Rath, and even Roberta allowed he was too prejudiced to be fair. These circumstances passed like a flash through Neil's heart, as Bruce Kinlock glared at him.

"How dare you show your face at my door?" he asked. "Be off, you whippersnapper, or I'll set the dog on you."

"I have always believed, until the present moment, that this was my house. Can you tell me where my family has removed to?"

"You never had any right in this house but the right of sufferance. Honest Reginald Rath has taken your wife away--he's done right. Ye know well you are not fit company for the lady Roberta. As for your family, they have the pity of everyone. What kind of a brute is it that has not a shilling for a dying mother, though he's owing his family ninety pounds, and far more love than he deserves. Go, or it will be worse for