Christine: A Fife Fisher Girl

“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 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.”