Kit and Kitty: A Story of West Middlesex

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.

“Kit, you are a fool,” Mr. Orchardson said, as soon as he had done the outside talk; “do you mean to have that girl, or not?”

I assured him that I hoped quite as warmly and wholly to marry my beautiful darling, as I did to be alive for the purpose of doing it, now that the Lord had restored my health.

“Then look alive,” he answered, “or you will never do it. She is not safe even where she is. I am not going to tell you what I know, because you would think me fanciful! only I say that if it was my case, I would not lose a day that is not demanded by manners and decency. You have her father’s consent, and hers. You are surrounded by wily foes. I have explained everything to Mr. Golightly! he is a sensible man, and he does not care twopence for Miss Coldpepper, for she never gives a sixpence she can help towards the church. Widow Cutthumb will take fourteen shillings a week including coals and candles. Two weeks done properly will make three Sundays, and you will be both in the parish. I have got an old door, which I mean to put up, to keep people from landing in her garden, and I defy them to get into the house from the street. I believe they don’t know where your Kitty is at present; but they will find out; and what can that old maid, with all her lap-dogs, do to protect her? If you mean your Kitty to be ever Mrs. Kit, you must look sharp, and no mistake.”

I was much surprised at his urgency, but could get no more reasons out of him. Being equally urged by love, and strong distrust of coming dangers, I did not lose a single day, but wrote to Miss Parslow by the very next post, because she required, and indeed deserved, to have a voice in all we did. Then I took the young horse on the following day, for old Spanker found himself a little stiff, and brought back my darling to her beloved Sunbury, where she had made up her mind to dwell. Widow Cutthumb received her with curtseys and smiles, and a very strong sense of her own importance. For the whole village now was on tiptoe about us, and everybody seemed to take our side.

But if I stopped to tell a thousandth part of what was said, I should never get married, which is the main point.

It must not be supposed that my Kitty all this time had neglected her dear father. She had written to him several times from Leatherhead, enclosing a note or two from Miss Parslow, as well as a few little bills for soft goods. And he had replied in the most affectionate manner, and enclosed some cash. This encouraged her now to write for more; and he behaved most handsomely, considering how the other party had been making boot upon the products of his brain. But he was a true philosopher, and money to him was not the motive power of life, nor even the shaft, but only the lubricator. He promised to be with us, if he could; and his wife being still away in North Wales, there seemed to be no sound reason why he should fear to come to London. Indeed it seemed natural that he should come, before leaving England upon his long cruise, for the Archytas– as the ship was called – had now been completed in every detail, and was trying her engines at Greenock. And so we hoped to see him upon the blissful day.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

TWO TO ONE

“Never wur any luck in a wadding, as wur put off from app’inted day. For why? Why, because it be flying in the vace of the Lard, as hath app’inted ’un.”

Knowing that Tabby was very often right in her prophecies, and could prove them right – even when they were wrong – as most prophets can, I begged her not to say a word about that to my darling; because she was a little superstitious, although sprung from the very highest form of science. But science very seldom keeps its dates; and to make them tally, we had postponed our day from Tuesday even till Thursday. For Captain Fairthorn had written again, to say that he could not be with us on the Tuesday, but was almost sure that he could manage it, if we would only leave it till two days later. My uncle had frowned and said – “Not a single hour. If his wheels and his wires are more to him than his only child, let him stop with them. But you must leave it to Kitty. Such a question is for her.”

Vexed as I was, I could not deny this. And she pleaded so well, though with reason on her side, that we vented our anger on the absent man, and only our affection and good will on her.

But the one who made the greatest grievance of it was my aunt, Miss Parslow. She had hurried her dressmaker to the verge of mutiny, and made her sit up (either in person, or by deputy) two whole nights, and she felt that she would have to pay deeply for this, and now here it was all needless! “I have the greatest mind not to come at all,” she wrote; “and if it were for anything but pure compassion, you may be quite sure that I would wash my hands of you. Men manage everything in this world, even the things that they understand least; and you will see what comes of it. If I come on Thursday, I shall be quite unprepared; though I should have been in perfect readiness on Tuesday.”

This was a hard saying; but we agreed that she knew what she meant, and could explain it to her liking. And seeing that the ladies were now so full of reason, I thought that I would have another try at Miss Coldpepper.

I had ventured to call upon that lady once, while the preparations were in full swing; but she had said that she was not at home, and of course she must know best, though I had seen her walking in her great Camelia-house. My Uncle Cornelius had been of opinion that, even if she would not honour our church with her presence, she could scarcely escape from the duty of sending her former visitor and favourite something very handsome as a wedding present. A silver tea-service was the least thing he could think of, but unluckily the last thing that occurred to her as needful. She had made it a grievance, as she wanted one, that Miss Fairthorn should have dared to go to Widow Cutthumb’s, when everybody in the village knew how shockingly the widow had behaved to Mrs. Marker.

But all this appeared to me to be very small talk now; for I was in a generous and large condition, such as is only too apt to credit all fellow-creatures with the like expansion. It should never be said of me, that any petty pride had prevented me from holding out the olive-branch – whether to be gilded, or even to be peeled – at a time when I was hoping to be crowned with myrtle. Scorning all considerations of a silver teapot, I went to Coldpepper Manor, and rang gently.

“Missus will see you this time,” said my friend Charles, who had tasted our strawberries many a time, when he durst not steal any more at home; “she is all agog about you, sir, though she shams to know nothing. Happiness to you and dear Miss Kitty, sir!”

The least I could do was to give him half a crown, for he had always appeared to me to be a worthy fellow. He slipped it into his hornet-coloured waistcoat, and bawled out, “Mr. Christopher Orchardson,” as if I had come in a coach and four.

“I am pleased to see you, Mr. Orchardson,” said the lady of the Hall, as I made a low bow; “take a chair, and tell me what you are doing. I never hear anything that happens in the village.”

I am not at all certain what reply I made, being fluttered by the force of habit in her stately presence. But she was better pleased by this, than she would have been by any assumption of ease and self-command.

“Although I hear so little, a report has reached me,” she went on with a smile which was not at all disdainful, “that you are about to marry Kitty Fairthorn. If so, you are a wonderfully fortunate young man.”

“It would add very greatly to our happiness, madam,” I ventured to say, though with some misgivings, “if you would be kind enough to give us your good wishes. Miss Fairthorn has not been to call upon you, because – because she was not sure that you would wish it. And she is acting entirely without the consent of her step-mother, who is your sister. I hope you will not think the worse of her for that. The lady has never been very kind to her.”

“Kitty was quite right in not coming here; it would have placed me in an unpleasant position. I have not seen much of my sister for years. But I cannot enter into such matters. And you have done right in coming to me thus. Certainly you both have my good wishes. And though Kitty might have looked for a much higher marriage – I may say that without any disrespect to you – I believe that she will be happier in a very simple life. You will understand that I cannot be present – under the peculiar circumstances. Neither will you expect me to receive Kitty here, when she is Mrs. Orchardson; she is no relative of mine, and she has chosen her own path. But I like her none the less, and you may tell her that. She has plenty of proper pride, and would resent my patronage. I was told that the wedding was to be to-day. Why have you put it off? You are unwise.”

She looked as if she knew something which would alarm me, if declared; but I did not presume to ask about it, and simply told her the cause of the delay.

“You may expect him; but you will not see him,” she answered, as if she knew more than we did; “don’t put it off another day, if you wish it to be at all. But it is no affair of mine. Good morning to you.”

I returned in an anxious state of mind, for she had clearly dismissed me, that I might ask no questions. And instead of going straight to my uncle’s house, I hurried to that of the widow, to make sure that my darling was safe, and all due care observed. After what had been already done to Kitty, how could I tell that there was no plot yet in store? My bodily strength was restored by this time, and I felt myself a match for almost any man; and surely intense and incessant devotion must vanquish unholy pursuit and vile designs. All we knew of our enemies at present was that they had retired from the scene of their defeat, and locked up the cottage where they had felt so sure of victory. But my Uncle Cornelius had good reason for believing that his premises were watched; and a couple of his men had been tempted to drink by some mysterious stranger, who showed the greatest interest in our ways, and works, and manners. And the worst of it was that the river (being almost at our doors, and not frequented then as it is now) afforded such a space for roguish travel, that there ought to be a paling put up against it, with tenter-hooks, and wire-netting on the top, if any man desired to keep his garden to himself. For the people who come up, as they get away from London, seem to claim the country more and more, and to think that it was made for nothing else except to be a change for them; and they reason that as a river must have banks, those banks are a part of it, and the whole belongs to them.

My beloved (who was both my banks, and the channel of all my life as well) had not been left alone all this time, with only Widow Cutthumb to amuse her. Otherwise she would have had a sorry time; for that widow had but two subjects of discourse – the merits of her late husband, and the scarcity of all vegetables. But a very sharp young lady, Miss Gertrude Triggs, about three years older than my Kitty, being in need of country air after an attack of nettle-rash, had kindly consented to come and occupy the best room at Widow Cutthumb’s. At first I was uneasy, for if Kitty were to catch that complaint, after all her other troubles, was she likely to look well upon the bridal day? But Dr. Sippets said that he would warrant no infection; and so Miss Triggs came and occupied. And certainly she helped to set off the complexion, upon which it was impossible to imagine any rash. At first, I was not fond of Miss Triggs, for she had too much sting in her words and ways; and I made no allowance for what she had been through. And to my mind women should never try to sting, being apt to get the worst of it (as even do the bees), and intended more by nature to do the honey-making. But my poor ideas have always been old-fashioned; and I am sorry (for the sake of others) that it should be so.

But when I came to understand Gerty Triggs, and to value her real friendship for my dear one, I acknowledged (as a man should do) that I had been a gaby. Not only had she protected Kitty at school, and even lent her under-clothing when she got no supplies from her step-mother, but she had actually made an inroad into Bulwrag Castle, to try a round with the great lady herself, on behalf of the innocent captive. She was rapidly discomfited, of course; she had resolved to show the truth, but she was quickly shown the door; and though she maintained that she had triumphed, it may have been in logic, but it was not so in fact; and the result to herself had been this nasty nettle-rash. However, as she got over that, and put the air of our garden upon her cheeks, I began to esteem her, and to find her rather pretty.

It was settled by the laws of nature that she should be bridesmaid; and Uncle Corny found another not connected much with trade, yet able to provide her own outfit. My uncle said, though not to Kitty – for he was quite a gentleman to her throughout – that he could not discover any call on him to fit everybody up with gew-gaws. It was her father’s place, if he wanted things to be done in proper style, to come and see to them himself, or at any rate to send directions, and the money to have them carried out. Instead of that, he had left everything to us, kept us in trouble about the day, and perhaps driven off Miss Parslow and her twenty thousand pounds. It was plain that he thought it a higher duty to fit out his ship than his only child. Considering all this, Uncle Corny was only surprised at his own generosity; but when I joined him in that surprise, he cut me very short, and asked what I knew about him. It was natural enough that he should be cross; and I told him so, which only made him worse.

Nevertheless when the true day came, which I always recall with gratitude and wonder at a grace so far beyond my merits, everybody behaved as if there were nothing but peace and good will in the world. We received a telegram quite early that the ship was ordered to sail that day, and the Captain could only send his blessing. Kitty shed some tears, but all the rest of us were pleased, because it fulfilled our predictions. And my uncle was proud to give the bride away, and at the same time to keep her, as he neatly said.

Miss Parslow came over in style, with a mass of white flowers piled high on the seat before her, and wearing her silver gray silk dress, which set her off to great advantage. And she presented the bride with a silver basket, fit either for flowers or fruit, and containing a very neat cheque for a hundred guineas. Sam Henderson acted as my best man, and did everything better than I did, for I scarcely knew my right hand from my left. Mrs. Wilcox was present, and so was Mrs. Rowles, without whom we should never have been there, and Selsey Bill of course, and every man who possessed a top hat in the parish. And to our amazement, Miss Coldpepper was sitting in her curtained pew, although she had said that she would not come. And after the service she kissed my Kitty, and said that she would give her something by-and-by.

What my darling wore I have not the least idea, or at least I had not on that day, though I came to know too well afterwards. But all the men said, and nearly all the women too, that she was the fairest, and sweetest, and most lovely of all the brides ever seen in Sunbury, which was no little thing to say; for our village is celebrated in that way. And she behaved with such grace and goodness, that it seemed as if those blessings must be multiplied upon her.

Several women cried to think that she should look so Christian after all the treatment that she had received – for Mrs. Rowles declared that she had been in a wire cage – and if I were to try to straighten half the crooked tales they told, I never should find any time for a separate word with Kitty.

Only I remember that when she came and kissed me in her simple, and loving, and bewitching way, I saw the gleam of tears in her deep blue eyes; and when I asked (without words) what it was, she answered, —

“I should have liked to have one kiss from father.”

This proof of her tenderness increased my adoration; for an affectionate daughter must become a loving wife. Then I took away my treasure to be mine alone; and Kit and Kitty, for the time, are one.

CHAPTER XXXV.

UNDER THE GARDEN WALL

Not much time could we have together in the land of Goshen, where the boils and blains of the ungodly world are not yet sprinkled in the radiant air. Uncle Corny gave us for our honeymoon one week – which has often proved much longer than the silver cord would stretch – but we, intending all our lives to be of sparkling sweetness, cared very little where we spent the hours, if only with each other. And perhaps we scarcely deserved to be in a place so calmly beautiful, not so far away as to take a cliff of money to get there, and yet having fine brave crags of its own. Perhaps it may be found in ancient charts as Baycliff, although it is such a quiet, homely place, without any railway to advertise it, and I have seen some maps which were too good to give the name. But they could not annihilate it by such petty silence; and a pleasant seaside village is like a pleasing woman; the less it is talked about the more it keeps its charms.

For my part, I could not see the need of going back in such hot haste to Sunbury, dearly as I loved that desirable village. For here were many things that we could never have there, the level space and leisure of the many-coloured sea, the majesty of cliffs white-browed with centuries of tempest, the gliding of white sails across the gleaming ruffle of the cove, and the crisp, elastic sands that kept the fairy trace of Kitty’s feet close to my great clumsy prints.

“Let us steal another week,” I said; “it is but a fleeting holiday, and we shall never know such a time again.”

But my beloved, growing dearer every day, if that could be, gave good advice, against her own delight, that we should not begin our married life with selfishness. We had been so kindly treated that we must not slur our gratitude, and forget our duties in our joys.

“And I want to see our little home,” she said, to make the best of it; “the house that is to be all our own; where I shall keep you in order, Kit, and make you as happy as the day is long.”

So with many a backward glance, we left that bower of bliss, and returned to the world of work and action. And when we found what had been done, to welcome and to please us, we could not help confessing that our virtue was well rewarded. For Honeysuckle Cottage looked as bright and fresh as sunrise, and the first half of May is not the time to find much fault with nature. The earth was damp and clammy yet, in places where the wind and sun could not get fairly into it; and the spring was late and shivered still among the gaps it had to stop. For one might look through a big tree yet, and see a lamp in the road beyond it; and many of those that were being scarfed wore spangles rather than patins. And people, who pay little heed, might stop in doubt – if they stopped at all – and wonder if what they saw coming might prove in the end to be a blossom or a leaf.

In our little house I had the bud, the blossom, and the fruit combined. The bud of youth scarce come to prime, the blossom of fair womanhood, and the fruit of sweet and golden peace, not sleepy, but sprightly flavoured. It was a fair view from the window, but inside ten times as fair, without the chance of adverse weather nipping hope and bright content.

An ancient writer (whom I had just been scholar enough to understand, when he is easy, in his native tongue) assures us that this perfect state is never long allowed by Heaven. According to him, and others whom he considers wiser than himself, all the powers that govern man are stung with envy when they see him happier than he ought to be. Generally they take good care to have no occasion for this grudge; but when, by any slip of theirs, a mortal has attained such pitch of comfort and prosperity, there is no peace in Olympus, till this robber of delight is crushed. And the more he has flourished and rejoiced, the deeper shall his misery be.

Having only thirty shillings a week, without counting our presents which had been put by, and paying five and sixpence out of that for the rent and rates of our small Paradise, we scarcely can have affronted Heaven by any gorgeous insolence. And without daring to impugn the wisdom of true philosophers, I venture still to hold by that which we find in larger and nobler Writ, that when the Heavenly Power stoops to cut off our brief happiness, it is to make it more abiding, where there is no brevity.

But we did not think of such things then; and who would be sad enough to say that we were bound to do so? Care would come quite soon enough, we did not care to beckon him. He must have been a doleful wight, and born with black crape round his eyes, who could have looked at my merry Kitty, without catching her bright smile. In the morning, when I went to work, I carried it with me like a charm, and whenever I came back at night, it put my memory to the blush.