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Kitty Carstairs. J. J. Bell
Читать онлайн.Название Kitty Carstairs
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4064066122676
Автор произведения J. J. Bell
Жанр Языкознание
Издательство Bookwire
Kitty mastered the quiver of her pretty mouth, and with a quick movement brushed the tears from her dark eyes, and looked straight at her uncle.
“Please tell me at once,” she said, “what Mr. Symington wanted with me.”
The directness of the question had a disconcerting effect on Mr. Corrie.
“Maybe you could guess,” he mumbled at last.
Kitty ignored the invitation.
“Ye’d best tell her, Rachel,” said Mr. Corrie.
“Mr. Symington is anxious to marry ye,” the woman said in little more than a whisper.
Without haste Kitty got up and moved to the door. Turning there, she faced them both. Her voice was clear and steady—
“I would not marry Mr. Symington for—for twenty thousand pounds.”
The man sprang to his feet, but she was gone, the door closed behind her.
“Almighty!” he gasped, sinking back into his chair.
“What’s wrong wi’ ye?” cried his sister. “I warned ye she would never consent.”
“She’ll consent yet!” he said, with a suppressed oath. “But—but what made her name twenty thousand pounds?”
* * * * *
It was nearly an hour later when Colin reached his father’s house. Hayward Senior was not precisely a heartless man, but he was totally without imagination.
Seated—one dares to say “posed”—at an extremely orderly writing-table in his fine old library—he received his youngest son with a stern look and motioned him to be seated. He was in evening dress, and you would never have taken him for anything but a gentleman—in the narrow sense of the word.
“You are late,” he said presently. “Where have you been?”
“Walking about. It’s a lovely night.”
Mr. Hayward smiled bitterly. “Were you alone?”
“Most of the time.” Colin looked at his father. “I met Miss Carstairs, and we talked for a little while.”
“Who on earth is Miss Carstairs?” Mr. Hayward did not wait for an answer to his ironic question. “You mean the young woman in the local post-office, I presume; the young woman, in fact, with whom your wretched philanderings—”
“That’s enough, father!” The young man rose quickly. “Let us leave Miss Carstairs out of—”
“Well, I trust you have informed her as to your income and prospects.”
“Why should I do that?”
“Usual thing in the circumstances—is it not?”
“I don’t understand you. What circumstances?”
“Tut!” exclaimed Mr. Hayward, “don’t you intend to marry the grocer’s daughter—beg her pardon—niece—”
Colin barely restrained the fury that paled his face. “You may take my word for it,” he said, “that Miss Carstair’s certainly does not intend to marry me.”
“Really! She must be a generous young person to give her kisses for nothing.”
There was an ugly silence. The son took a step forward, his hands clenched at his sides.
“Since when,” he asked at length, “have you been employing a private detective?”
A dull flush overran the older man’s countenance. “Be careful! The information was not sought by me.”
“Who gave it?”
“You are welcome to guess.” He flicked a folded note across the table. It was addressed in pencil to “T. H. Hayward, Esq.,” marked “Urgent,” had evidently been torn from a notebook, and had been sealed with a scrap of stamp paper. “The servant found it under the hall door, about an hour ago. That’s all I can tell you.”
Colin opened it, and his face burned as he read—
“A friend advises you that your youngest son and the post-office girl were kissing in the wood to-night.”
“Well,” said Mr. Hayward, “do you know the writing?”
His son made a gesture of negation. “May I keep this?” he managed to say presently.
“No,” said the other, holding out his hand for the paper. “I will keep it—and God help the person who wrote it, when I find him or her!” Next moment he resumed his cold manner and incisive tone. “All that, however, does not exonerate you, though I am not going to dwell on the unsavoury subject of your disgrace—”
“There is no disgrace!” hotly cried Colin.
His father smiled wearily. “Apparently we shall not agree on the meaning of the word. Now may I ask: what are you going to do?”
“As I told you, I am going to London,” replied Colin, holding himself in.
“And then?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Very well.” Mr. Hayward opened a drawer and took out a small bundle of notes. He threw them on to the table, saying, “A hundred pounds. Do as you like, but don’t ask for more—for your own sake.”
“Father,” cried Colin, his anger lost in bitter humiliation. “I swear I did my best at college, only I wasn’t fitted for—”
“We have already discussed that. By the way, I would suggest that you make it convenient to leave here early in the morning instead of to-morrow night, and so spare, in some measure, the feelings of your mother and sisters—”
“You are heartless! I will leave the house now!”
“Please no, unless you desire to start a scandal among the servants, and another in the village.”
“Oh, you are worse than heartless; you are unjust. … But I will wait till the morning. Good-bye.” Colin turned and moved towards the door.
“Stay! You have forgotten your money.”
Without looking back Colin went out.
When Mr. Hayward went to bed, half-an-hour later, he left—deliberately—the notes lying on his writing-table.
At 6.30 a.m. Colin entered a closed carriage, and with his modest baggage was driven to the station. There had been no farewells, and on the whole he did not regret their absence, for he knew they would have been highly seasoned with reproaches and unwelcome advice. He took a ticket for Glasgow.
Having heard the carriage drive away, Mr. Hayward in his dressing gown came down to the library. Where the notes had been he found a scrap of paper—
I.O.U.
One hundred pounds.
C. H. Hayward.
He smiled sardonically, muttering, “I thought he would climb down,” and put the I.O.U. beside the anonymous note of last night, in his safe.
CHAPTER III
The morning mail for Dunford was usually in the post-office by a quarter to seven. It was conveyed from the train by Sam, the postman, a little stout person with a grey military moustache, whose age, according to his own statement, was “forty-nine and a bit.” It had been that for