CHAPTER XXXII.
A DREAM
“Come and see who we have got here,” wrote my uncle, not quite grammatically; but the relatives are enough to puzzle any one who has not had Latin antecedents – if on the strength of good spirits I may venture upon a very ancient joke. I knew who it was; there could be no suspense or doubt. With those very brief words of his came a little note, in the hand that always made my hand shake.
“Darling Kit,” it said; “I am so sorry to hear of your long and fearful illness. But thank God you are getting better now, and will soon be as well as ever, I do hope. I cannot tell you what has happened, till you come, for it would only excite and worry you. It really seems as if there was something always to keep us from one another. But we must try to get over it, my dear; and if we keep our trust in a Good Providence, we shall. Your uncle is the kindest of the kind to me; and I am ever so much better, though I only came last night. I feel that I could wander all day long in these lovely gardens, with the blossoms, and the birds, and be as happy and as free from care as they are. But I am not to stay here, as your uncle thinks it better that I should have two pretty rooms at Widow Cutthumb’s, which are to be let very reasonably indeed, and I mean to write to ask my father for the money. You must not come back one day sooner, on account of my being here; mind that, or I shall be very angry with you. This is not because I do not long to see you, for you know better than that, dear Kit; but because I want you to get quite well, which is a great deal more to me than my own health. And so it always should be, if people love one another. Give my best regards to your aunt, Miss Parslow, and tell her that I love dogs quite as much as she does. And I once had a dear little dog of my own, but he was taken from me. Now, mind what I say; for I will be obeyed; at any rate until I have to swear to the contrary, which is never carried out by the ladies nowadays. My dear dear, I shall be afraid to look at you. They tell me you are so different from what you were. And I get long wrinkles up and down my forehead, if I ever allow myself to think of it; and though I try not to do it, it will come back again. But never mind; you will be as strong as ever when you have a good kiss from
“Your own Kitty.”
“Well, I call that something like a true love-letter;” my Aunt Parslow said, when she had contrived almost to compel me to show it to her, which I did not feel sure that I had any right to do. “That’s a true woman, though I never saw her. She thinks of you ten times as much as of herself; and no man can pretend to say that he repays it; even when he happens to deserve it; which has never happened to any gentleman I knew. You write, and you talk, and you go on with fine words, till people who listen to you believe, that you mean to give up your own ways altogether. And perhaps you do believe it, at the time, for you never know your own minds at all. But about three days of it – that’s all there is. I know it from friends of my own; though, thank God, I had sense enough never to try it myself. And then it is, ‘Mary, could you fill my pipe? It would be so sweet, dear, if you did it!’ Or – ‘Louisa, I must have left my handkerchief upstairs. Did you happen to notice where I put it, dear?’ And she is fool enough to run for it, and kisses him on the bottom step; and her life is a treadmill afterwards. Your Kitty is quite of that sort, mind. I can see it in every word she writes.”
“Well, Aunt Parslow, and you would have been the same, if any gentleman had had the luck to offer you upon his altar.”
“I believe I should,” she answered, with a snap at first; and then she smiled slowly, and said, “No doubt I should, Kit. But try to be no worse than you can help with her.”
If anything can rouse a lover’s indignation – and there are too many things that do so – such a calm assumption of his levity and ferocity is the first to set it boiling. “What are you thinking of?” I asked, without even adding, “Aunt Parslow.”
“I am pleased to see you in that state of mind,” she continued; when gratitude alone preserved me, without even a half-glance at her twenty thousand pounds, from the murderous speech that was on my tongue. “But you are very young, Kit. You will come to know better, when you have had enough of this sweet Kitty. Enough very soon becomes too much. And then what do you do? You neglect them, and think that you are very good indeed, if you do no worse.”
Miss Parslow was not at all a spiteful woman; even too much the other way, if that can be. And of such things she could have no experience, because she had never risked it. But being deeply hurt, I said – “You know best.”
She turned back into the house, with all her dogs at her heels; for none of them cared a bit for the air of heaven, in comparison with their own food and footstools. And I rather hoped that she would come out, and say – “You have been very rude to me; get you back to Sunbury.”
Being in a fine large frame of mind – though the frame was too large for its contents, I trow – what did I do, but pull out my Kitty’s letter, and begin it all again; just as if every word of it were not in my heart already? But it adds sometimes to the satisfaction of the heart, to be assured once more by the eyes and brain, that they knew what they were doing, when they brought it the good news.
The valley of the Mole was very lovely, in this flush of the fair Spring-tide. Bend after bend, bud after bud, tint upon tint, all as soft to the eye as the sense of them is to the spirit within; with the twinkle of the sun stealing through them shyly, as a youth, in the morning of his love, quivers as he glances at the beauty of his maiden. All these delights double their enchantment to the weak, as the lights of heaven multiply, when the eyes are full of tears.
Jupiter (who was the greatest light, at least of the earth, to Miss Parslow) ran up and sniffed at me, and said “Look out!” as clearly as the dog of a most observant and genial writer has learned to say it – up to the last advices. And after him came his mistress, no longer didactic, but deprecative. The beauty of woman is that they change so rapidly. Who does not love a Kaleidoscope?
“I have been thinking over your affairs,” she said, that she might seem consistent; “and I find my first opinion quite confirmed. The moment I knew what your condition was, I said – as you must remember, Kit – ‘There is only one thing to do, and the sooner we get it done the better.’ I will not place myself under any obligation to Mr. Henderson, though I feel that he has behaved very well, in not coming over to bother me. I have sent down and ordered the fly with a pole – I forget what they call it, I daresay you know – and I have ordered the green room to be got ready. She must not think at all of her complexion in the glass. It will be as right as ever, when she gets downstairs.”
“I have no idea what you mean, Aunt Parslow. But you must not be put out, because I was always slow.”
“And they talk of the masculine mind! Oh dear, any girl of your age would have known in a second. There is such a place as Leatherhead. Isn’t there now?”
“Beyond a doubt. And you the first lady in it.”
“Very well. And there is such a place as Sunbury, and a road between them, though not at all a good one. Well then, at Leatherhead there is a young man, crotchety, grumpy, whatever you like to call him, but horribly stubborn, and possessed with one idea. And at Sunbury there is a young lady to be found, very little better, I daresay, and possessed with the same idea, only upside down, as women are supposed to see everything. They have got it into their stupid heads, that they cannot live without one another. It would cost more to take the young man to her, and perhaps he would never come back again. It is cheaper to fetch the young lady to him; though it can’t he done under a guinea. And the fly with two horses will start in half an hour.”
I told her she was the best woman in the world; and she answered that I was a hypocrite, yet seemed pleased with my hypocrisy. Then we had a debate whether Kitty would come, in which I maintained the negative, for the sake of being convinced, not against my will.
“You are a perfect stupe,” said my aunt, with sound judgment; “you don’t know what a woman is, half so well as Jupiter. Not to talk of affection, or any of that stuff, a woman thinks ten times as much as a man does of the wickedness of wasting money. If I went myself, she would think I came for a drive, and her conscience would be easy. If I sent one horse, she would hesitate a great deal, if she did not want to come. But when she sees two horses and an empty carriage, do you think she would let the man get all the money for nothing? It would take four horses going the other way, to prevent her jumping in and saying, ‘Well, I suppose I must.’ I shall write her a very pretty note, of course. You had better not be well enough to send anything but your love.”
I was only afraid that Uncle Corny might take it as rather a slur upon him, to have his new visitor stolen like this. But Miss Parslow (who was always extremely desirous to have her own way, when her mind was made up) declared that she would make that all right with him. And so she did by reasoning which I did not try to penetrate, and which she put vaguely in her note to him. For it was something about clothing, and deficiency of wardrobe, which men cannot understand, and are impressed with readily, when the duty of paying for it falls on some one else.
“Not that I intend to pay,” said Miss Parslow, in confidence to me, though my uncle was led by her letter to a contrary conclusion; “but my credit is good in Leatherhead. I shall get a few things of a becoming style and tone for her, and have the bill made out to Professor Fairthorn. Messrs. Flounce and Furbelow may have only got one window, but they get their goods direct from Paris; and I see from their circular they expect a large consignment of very chaste articles, and the latest mode, to-morrow. It will be most fatiguing at my time of life. But if I like the girl, as I know I shall, I can scarcely refuse her the benefit of my judgment.”
“I think I shall go down the hill a little way, and see what they have got in the window now,” I answered, for the two horses now had been gone some four hours; “and then I shall know the old stuff, if they attempt to mix it with the latest mode. You can scarcely be too sharp in these little places. It is not that they want to cheat anybody, and they would rather not do it to a native. But I should just like to see how much they have got now.”
“Ah, there is a fine view from the pavement there. You can see right into Middlesex, and even Berkshire, I am told, when the day is unusually fine. But I never knew it fine enough to see five miles. You might as well go and play with the dogs, my dear.”
To play with the dogs was very well in its way, and had lightened many a listless hour, when the body was slack for its to and fro of action, and the mind could take no food, except as a dog bites grass. Then the tricks of the doggies, their sprightly flashing eyes, and perception of one’s meaning almost before it knew itself, as well as their good nature and enjoyment of a joke, and readiness to time their wits by the slower pulse of mine – take it as I would or might, here was always something to teach me that one is not every one.
But I could not see the beauty of this lesson now. Selfish love had got me by the button-hole, and there never is much humour in the tale he tells. It is all about himself, and the celestial one who sent him; and he is so much in earnest that he cannot bear a laugh. Even the crinolines in the little narrow window of Messrs. Flounce and Co., where they had to hang alternate, one high and one low, not to poke each other’s ribs, although they reminded me of what I had seen in church, suggested it without a single smile to follow; for my mind, in the reverence of love, was able to people them with the sacred form inside. And yet at any other time I must have laughed, recalling as it did the ingenuity of ladies, who contrived in our narrow pews to reconcile their worship of a Higher Power with that of their own frocks. And the ladies who now go limp may be glad – when fashion comes round in its cycle – to remember how their mothers made the best of it. Each lady alternate stood on a high hassock, each lady intermediate upon the church boards; and so their cages underlapped or overlapped each other; and when it came to kneeling one could hear them all contract. There were quite as clever women then in balloons, as those who end in serpents now.
Vainly I looked down the hill, and vainly back at the crinolines. The only way to get the thing desired is to leave off hoping for it. When the sun was gone, and the silver mist was gliding like a slow-worm up the vale, and all the good people of Leatherhead had lit their pipes and come out to talk, I went back slowly to Valley-view, with many a futile turn of head, and ears too ready to be deceived. But the only wheels I heard were those of the fishmonger’s cart going quite the wrong way, for I knew that he had been with a middle cut of salmon to the hospitable gate of Miss Parslow.
“You had better go to sleep. Here is Betty, nearly wild,” my aunt cried as she pushed me in; “that blessed butcher has only just sent the lamb, and the boy let it fall in the middle of the road. I hope to goodness she won’t come for two hours. If she does, she will want sandwiches; and there is nothing in the house to make them of. Go and lie down, Kit; don’t you see you are in the way? What a lucky thing I told the man to rest the horses for at least two hours at the Flowerpot. When he gets into the tap, he is pretty sure to make it four. You look as white as a ghost, poor boy! Bother that love, it spoils everybody’s dinner! I haven’t got a bit of appetite myself; and the first bit of salmon for the season, except one! Go in, get in; lie down there and roll. Why, you couldn’t even tell where to find the mint!”
This was all the sympathy I got in my distress; and when she had poked me into the little room, or lobby, with a horsehair sofa, where to roll meant to roll off, she locked me up, as if I had been a pot of jam; and all I could hear was the rattle of the dripping-pan, or the clink of the plates in the warmer. It was worse than useless to repine; so I turned my back to everything and went to sleep.
In sleep, as it has been said of old, the fairest and sweetest gifts of heaven descend upon helpless mortals. Then alone is a man devoid of harm, and gone back to his innocence, and the peopling of his mind is not an array of greed and selfishness. Then only is he far away from malice, and corrupting care, and small impatience of the wrongs (which only sting, when they strike himself), and bitter sense of having failed through the jealousy of others. And only then – if his angel still returns, though seared and scouted – does he know the taste of simple joys, and smile the smile of childhood. What wonder, then, that his Father comes, with returning love to him, while he sleeps?
Then if the greatest gift of God to man, that he can see and feel while in this lower world of life, is that which was the first vouchsafed, – the love of one, who thinks and tries to make him nobler than herself – though she generally fails in that – how can it come more gently to him than as it came, the first time of all, when he has been cast into deep sleep?
It seemed to be no time for words, and even thoughts found little room. Without a whisper or a thought, my cheeks were wet with loving tears, and gentle sobs came to my heart, and faithful hands were locked in mine. A sweeter dream never came from heaven; and if sleep were always so endowed, it would be well to sleep for ever.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
URGENT MEASURES
Miss Parslow, although she pretended to be rough, and to love dogs better than the human race (for which she could give fifty reasons), was as truly soft of heart as the gentlest woman that ever shed a tear. She kept her own history to herself; and it never struck me that she had any. That is to say, as concerning us men; who are always supposed to be, but are not always, the side to be blamed, when things go amiss in the matter of sweethearting. She had passed through some trouble in her early days, as I found out long afterwards; but had not been soured thereby, any more than a river has been poisoned by its tumbles in the hills.
The spell of Kitty’s beauty and true goodness fell upon her. At first she strove hard to make light of her, and then pretended still to do so, when the effort was in vain; but in three days’ time it was all over; and I felt that with all my claims of kindred, and the proud Parslow extract of tea in my veins, I was chiefly regarded as Kitty’s sweetheart. It was – “Where is Kitty? What would Kitty like for dinner? Did Kitty tell you what she thought of this parasol? Tell Kitty that I am waiting for her down the garden.” And so on, until I began to smile, and to fear that I should never have my Kitty to myself. And the beauty of it was that Miss Parslow seemed to think that I was not so attentive as I should be to Miss Fairthorn.
“What did you mean, by carrying on as you did with that girl, Sally Chalker?” she inquired one day in a very stern voice, when I had only asked Miss Chalker if she was fond of roses. “Are you such an oaf as to think that Sally Chalker is fit to wipe the shoes of Kitty Fairthorn? And if it is her money that tempts you, remember that her father is a most determined man. And there used to be such a thing as honour among young men. What will Mr. Henderson say, when I tell him, as I shall at the first opportunity, that you take advantage of being on the spot, to try to cut him out with his precious Sally? And I believe that he really is attached to her.”
There is no end of the bubbles that ladies blow, when they once begin to dabble in love-affairs. They never can let well alone, and they have such a knack of setting one another’s hackles up, that when I hear now of any match being off, where I knew that the young people loved each other, I never inquire about stern parents, but ask who the sisters and female cousins are.
Even Kitty, the best and most sensible girl that ever wore a bonnet, began to think at last that there must be something in all this rubbish. I observed that she coloured, and glanced at me, whenever Miss Chalker’s name came up, as it did pretty often, entirely through my aunt, who would toss it about, as a dog throws a bone, when he has exhausted all its grease. And I used to look down, as if I were thinking very deeply. Perhaps she would love me more, if she grew jealous.
Then she began to sigh, softly at first, and not enough for me to be sure of it; but by-and-by more deeply, as she found me too polite to be aware of this exertion of an undoubted private right. And she used to say – “Oh, I do admire her, so much! I think she is so lovely. Don’t you quite agree with me, Kit?” And I used to say – “Most perfect. Can there be any doubt about it?” And then she would not look at me, perhaps for half an hour.
I know that this was very wrong of me – as wrong as well could be. And I used to steal a glance at Kitty, when she was not watching, and ask myself if any man with two eyes in his head could turn them twice on Sally Chalker, after such a view as that. However, I did not say so; for I felt that my darling should know better, and if she chose to be like that, why she must, until she came to reason; and that was her place, more than mine. But I could not bear to hear her sigh.
Miss Parslow rather enjoyed this business, which was a great deal worse of her than anything that I did. For she herself had set it going, with no consideration for my feelings, and no right whatever. And I think that she ought to have healed the mischief, which she could have done at any moment; whereas she pretended not to see it, although she was much too sharp for that.
However, it could not go on long, and I had made up my mind to clear it up, when I was saved the trouble. For as I sat in my favourite place, with the lovely valley before me, and the sun sinking into a bed of roses far beyond the Surrey hills, I heard the little pit-a-pat that was dearer than my pulse to me, and down the winding walk came Kitty, carrying an ugly yellow book. She had no hat on, and her hair was tied back, as if it had been troubling her; and as soon as she saw me she turned away her head, and hastily passed her hand over her cheeks, as if to be sure that they were dry. Then she looked at me bravely, though her mouth was twitching, and said – “Oh, will you do it for me, if you please?”
“Do what?” I asked very reasonably, though I began to guess what she was thinking of; for the ugly book was a Railway Guide.
“Miss Parslow told me to ask you. She cannot make it out any more than I can. It is very stupid, of course; but she says that she never met a woman who could make out Bradshaw, and she would strictly avoid her, if she ever did.”
“But what is it I am to make out? We can’t get to Sunbury, by any line, my darling.” When I called her that, her dear eyes shone; but she went on, as if she were correcting them.
“What I want to make out is a good quick train, without any extra fare to pay, from London to Glasgow; and it must arrive by daylight, though I suppose it would have to start at night for that. But I am not at all afraid.”
“What on earth has got into this lovely little head?” I made offer to take it between my two hands, as I had been allowed to do, once or twice, when apparently falling back in health. But it seemed to prefer its own support just now.
“You must be aware, if you will take the trouble to think for a minute about it, that I cannot remain here in this sort of way, living upon a perfect stranger, although she is goodness and kindness itself; and running into debt in a country place like this, just because I have got no money. The only thing for me is to find out my father. He may be delighted to receive me now, and I may even be able to help him there. Miss Parslow has promised most kindly to lend me quite money enough to get to Glasgow. I must write to my father by this evening’s post, and then I shall be able to start to-morrow; only I must let him know what train I am likely to arrive by, for his time is always occupied.”
“A very nice programme!” I exclaimed, as she smiled, or tried to smile, at her own powers of arrangement. “But if you please, Miss Fairthorn, what am I to do?”
“You must not ask me,” she said, turning away; “there are so many things for you to do. Soon you will be able to be at work again. And if you don’t like that, you can marry some one with plenty of money, and keep racehorses. I dare say it is a nice life, for those who like it.”
“I cannot make out a word of this,” I answered; “people with money, and racehorses! And going to Glasgow by the train all night! Do try to tell me, dear, what it is all about.”
“It is only natural that I should go to my father, when nobody wants me. I am not blaming any one. You must not imagine that. I have only myself to blame, for believing that I was a great deal more than I was.”
“When nobody wants you! Oh, Kitty, Kitty, I must be gone off my head again; and that is why you want to run away from me. Look at me honestly, and say that it is so. I would rather give you up, dear, and go mad by myself; than marry you, if that has once got into your mind.”
She looked at me with terror, and deep amazement; then fell into my arms, and threw her own around me, and put up her lips as a cure for every evil.
“How can you say such wicked things?” she whispered, as soon as I allowed her sweet lips room. “You can have no idea what I am, if you suppose that I should ask whether you were off your head, or on it, when once I had given all my heart to you. But you must not have anybody else in your head.”
“As if I ever could!”
“Oh, but yes, you might.”
“I should like to know who it could be then. As if there were any one in all the world fit to hold a candle to my own Kitty.”
“There’s a much prettier girl in this very place, if she did not stick her elbows out so sadly, as she walks, and put her heels on the ground before her toes. And if she had not got – well, not quite green eyes.”
“Somebody else has green eyes, I should say, if they were not as blue as heaven. Sally Chalker? Why, I would not touch her with a pair of tongs. And if I did, Sam Henderson would take the poker to me.”
“Oh, Kit, can you assure me, upon your word of honour, that there is nothing between you and Miss Chalker?”
“No, I can’t. Because there is the whole world between us, and what is more than ten times the whole world to me, a certain little Kitty, who has no fault whatever – except that she is desperately jealous.”
“Jealous indeed! You must never think that. I hope I have a little too much faith in you,” she said, as she came and coaxed me with her hand, making me tremble with her love and loveliness.
But I said, “Confess, or I will never let you go;” and she looked up and laughed, and whispered, —
“Well then, perhaps – but only ever such a wee bit.”
Miss Chalker’s ears must have tingled after that; for I called her a vulgar and common-place girl – which was not at all true – and a showy dressy thing, and I know not what, until Kitty came warmly to the rescue; for she seemed to like her very greatly, all of a sudden, and found out that she walked quite gracefully. Then I took the hateful Bradshaw, and tied a flat stone in it, and flung it over the tops of the trees into the Mole. And when we went in, as the dinner-bell rang – for Miss Parslow kept fashionable hours now – that good lady looked very knowing, and asked with a smile which was meant to be facetious, whether I had seen Miss Chalker lately.
“I saw her sticking her elbows out down the street, and putting her heels to the ground before her toes,” I answered; and true enough it was, though I had never observed those little truths before. Miss Parslow stared, and Kitty gave me such a glance, that I resolved to have honourable amends, or do worse.
“You won’t have much more chance of running down our local belles,” said my aunt, as she handed me a letter; “Mr. Henderson passed in his dog-cart just now, to see the young lady who does such dreadful things, and he kindly brought this letter from your uncle to me. He seems in a great hurry; how unreasonable men are! I think he might have come and paid his respects to Miss Fairthorn, even if he did not think me worthy of that honour. Read it aloud. He is a diamond, no doubt; but I think he should be treated as the Koh-i-noor has been.”
Knowing Uncle Corny’s style, I read without surprise: —
“Dear Madam,
“Kit has had quite time enough to get well. I am tired of being here all by myself, and I want him in the garden, for at least three weeks before he is married, which I mean him to be then, if Miss Fairthorn will kindly agree to it. Placed as she is, she will see the sense of that; for it is the only way to make her safe. And I wish her to be married here at Sunbury, in our old church, where I have always had a pew. I shall send the tax-cart for Kit to-morrow, and he will arrange with the lady to come before Sunday to Widow Cutthumb’s, where I will take uncommonly good care that nobody molests her. On Sunday the banns will be read for the first time, with Miss Fairthorn’s full permission, and nobody else’s so far as I care. We shall hope for the honour of your presence, when the young people are joined together. Thanking you, Madam, for your kindness to my nephew, and with my best respects,
“I am faithfully yours,“Cornelius Orchardson.”
“Well, my dear Kitty,” said my aunt, when I had finished; “he disposes of you as calmly as if you were a bushel of apples, or a sack of potatoes. I thought it was the lady’s place to fix the auspicious day.”
“You cannot expect a bachelor to be at home among such questions;” I came to my love’s rescue, for she knew not what to say, and was blushing, and looking down, and wondering what to make of it. “But I must go to-morrow, if he sends for me. If old Spanker came for nothing, I should never hear the last of it. My uncle has heard something, which we do not know of. He is prompt, and to the purpose; but I never knew him rash.”
“I see, I see;” Miss Parslow’s voice was much subdued, for she loved a bit of mystery, and saw tokens of it here. “Don’t let us talk about it now, until we’ve had our dinner. Kit’s last bachelor dinner here! We’ll have a bottle of champagne, to make us laugh a little at this peremptory wedlock. Your uncle is a curious man; but if it comes to that, all men are very curious beings.”
“And ladies are so, in the other sense, and the active one of the word; but we are never known to complain of that.”
“Of course you never have any secrets. Take your everlasting in to dinner, and I will follow you. All the world will have to do that by-and-by, if you only keep up to this high mark of constancy and devotion.”
Kitty smiled at me, and I smiled at Kitty; for we knew that any lower mark might do for other people.
Lofty and good as she was, my aunt could scarcely be expected to see things thus. A lady who has never been up a ladder, is afraid of her skirts, even more than of her head. Aunt Parslow was not at all strait-laced – for she had given up caring about her figure now – but she did think that Kitty and I were almost too much wrapped up in one another; and perhaps that was why, in her feminine style, she had brought Miss Chalker, or vainly tried to bring her, in between us.
On the following day, the spring-cart arrived, with Selsey Bill’s biggest boy sitting up to drive; and away I went, with nothing truly settled, but everything left elastic; as happens nearly always, when the women have their way. I promised to bring Uncle Corny to reason (as the ladies viewed that substance), and to come back the next day but one, if wet bandages enabled the old horse to do it again. He was wiry enough, but his wire was stiff, and some of the connections rickety.