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Kit and Kitty: A Story of West Middlesex
For we had settled with one accord, that until I had overtaken the large arrears of work which had lapsed behind through my long illness and absence, there should be no time lost by any return for early dinner. And this was better for my wife too, inasmuch as she had only Polly Tompkins to assist her, the eldest daughter of Selsey Bill, a very clean and tidy girl, but of small experience in cookery. I was busy at a long peach-wall, not the red-brick one, but further down, and the trees being large and sadly out of order, patient as well as skilful hands were required urgently. There was a very fine crop yet unthinned, feeble wood to be removed, robber shoots to be docked or tamed, green-fly to be dipped or dusted, and all the other crying needs of neglected trees to be made good. And Kitty used to appear exactly as the old church clock struck one, with a basket of bread and meat, a pint of ale, and a pipe filled by her own fair hands, which she used to light for me, and then trip home, singing merrily among the trees, to see to the business of the afternoon.
Dare anybody tell me that a wife like this would leave her dear husband of her own accord, without a word, without a letter, leave him to wonder, and mourn, and rage, and despair of his own life and hers? Yet this is what all the world believed, and impressed upon me, till my spirit failed.
“Now this is all very fine,” exclaimed my uncle, as he came round the corner of the wall one day, and caught me in the very act of hugging Kitty, as she was preparing to light my pipe. She was looking up and laughing, and pretending to pull my hair, when the deepening of her blush showed that an enemy was nigh. “This is all very fine; but how long will it last? How many quarrels have you had already? I suppose you are making up one of them now.”
“Uncle Corny, you are a disgrace,” cried Kitty, “a disgrace to the name of humanity. Mayn’t I even whisper in my husband’s ear, without being accused of quarrelling? We have never had a single word. Have we, Kit?”
“Then perhaps you will now. Here’s a telegram for you. I was going to send Kit home with it. But as you are so uncommonly close together, why, it saves the trouble. Hope some of your enemies are dead, my dear.”
“Hush! Don’t be so wicked,” she said, as she handed it to me, and I opened it with my pruning-knife, and held it for her to read first. But this required our united efforts, for it was badly written, as so often happens, and some of the words were run together. At last we made it out as follows: —
“Spoke All Kites off Scilly May 7th. Captain Fairshort desires love and best wishes to his daughter. Will be away two years perhaps. From Jenkins, s.s. Hibernia, Falmouth.”
“All Kites!” said my uncle, who had read some of the Georgics, as rendered by Dryden with lofty looseness, but never a line of Horace; “what a name for a ship, if it is a ship! Kitty, my dear, is that the proper word?”
“No, Uncle Corny, it should be Archytas. I am not sure who he was, but rather think that he must have been a king of Sparta.”
“I know who he was,” I said, to show how much I had learned at Hampton, though I never was much of a hand at Horace, and had only found this out in the dictionary; “a great man of science, who measured the seas, and the sand, and all that, but could not get to heaven, because nobody would throw a pinch of dust upon his body. And he lay upon the shore, imploring somebody to do it.”
“If he could call out, he could have done it for himself,” replied my uncle, who was not poetical. “Serve him right, at any rate, for having such a name. But I hope that your father won’t do that, my dear.”
“I think it was very kind of him, when he could not help going, and was far away at sea, to get this kind captain of a ship they met, if we understand it properly, to send me this farewell message from the deep. And it makes my mind ever so much more comfortable, because I shall have another message by-and-by, I dare say. If he meets one ship he must meet others: and I shall always have a good idea where he is, and have my mind relieved, when there has been a stormy night. Thank you, Uncle Corny, you have brought me pleasant news. Kit, it is high time for you to go on with your wall.”
In this sort of way, by making the best of everything, and thanking everybody, even if they did not mean to do her any good, she established in a week a sweet dominion, not over us, but within us. My uncle, though he liked to have his little cut at her – for old men treat young ladies as chicks to be carved – got into the habit of coming up every night of his life to have his pipe at Honeysuckle Cottage. It may seem very ungrateful of me, and I now feel ashamed when I think of it, but after being hard at work all day, and having a bit of cold duck under the wall, I thought that I might have been allowed when I came home to tell my dear wife all my thoughts about her, and how many times I had hammered my thumb-nail through that. But there Uncle Corny sat, carrying on, as if I had cut off my tongue with my pruning-knife!
Kitty used to laugh, and ask me who was jealous now. But I answered, with good reason, that the case was widely different. Miss Sally Chalker never crossed her legs, and sat with a long pipe blowing over a supper-table, neither did she go on talking, as if I were nobody; but rather put me foremost, even when Kitty herself was present, and asked what my opinion was, before she gave her own almost.
However, I made the best of my uncle’s conduct at our cottage; for it was not only my duty, but my important interest to do so. What was to become of us if Uncle Corny (who might be called a huffy man, and stuck to a huff, whenever he contracted it) should take it into his head that I was not what he used to take me for? I know that he was full of truth and justice, according to his own view of them; but if anything went against his liking, so did truth and justice. So I had to sink my opinions often, even when they agreed with his, for he never liked to have them put into any other language than his own. Kitty was clever enough to see this, and she always praised me afterwards; but it went against one’s sense of right, that she might say exactly what I had said, and from her lips it became true wisdom, when it had been simple silliness from mine. But Kitty smiled at him, and laughed at me, and went into his heart more deeply every time she filled his pipe.
Then a new anxiety arose, and Uncle Corny had more than he could do to lay down the law for his own affairs. The wind went into the east, with a hard blue sky, and not a cloud in it. We had passed the date of the “icy Saints,” as they are called in Germany, when a cold wave of air is said to flow over hundreds of leagues of smiling land, and smite it all into one dark frown. If I can remember, without an almanac, that date is about the seventh of May; but I have never found it quite so punctual here; and according to my observation, the bloom of England hovers in nightly peril, from the middle of April to the very end of May. It is one of the many sad things we meet, but can only fold our hands and watch, that for nearly six weeks of the year, and in early seasons even more, through all our level southern lands, the fruit-crop trembles on the hazard of a single night’s caprice. The bright sun and the lovely day delude the folk who know no better; these are the very things that lead to the starry night, and the quiet cold, and the white sheet over the grass at five a.m., and the black death following. The barren grower walks between his rows of wounded blossom; there is little harm to be seen at first, some of the petals are as fair as ever, others are just tipped with brown; and perhaps his wife runs up and says – “Oh, you need not be in a fright, my dear; why, they all look as well as ever.”
But he, with deeper wisdom, and the smile of prophetic silence, pulls out his budding-knife, and nips the fairest truss he can find of bloom. Then he lays it in his palm, and haply with keen edge bisects the pips. A keener edge has been there before him; a little black line passes up from the baby stalk to the pistil. The ovary is dead and shrunken, though the anthers still may be tipped with pink. Never shall a fruit grow there, to swell and stripe itself with sun, to flood a plate with sprightly juice, and in its dissolution hear some sweet voice say – “Oh, I never did taste such a lovely pear!”
All these horrors threatened now, in spite of the lateness of the spring. In a forward spring, they more than threaten, they come down and smash everything. But being now so late, we began to have some confidence, misplaced as it might be, in the meaning of the sky. And now for the wind to go back to the east (after living there so many months, that it ought to be downright sick of it), and the sun to go down red and clear, like a well-grown turnip-radish, and the stars to come out small and sharp like a lot of glaziers’ diamonds, and the mercury in the thermometer to drop, as if the bulb had been tapped about six o’clock, and scarcely a breath of wind to stir the fans of radiation – it was more than enough to make any grower fetch a groan at the day when himself was grown.
But my uncle was not of the groaning order, neither did he even hang himself; as one of our very best neighbours did, when he saw his thermometer at twenty-two degrees, one radiant May morning; but his wife, who could enter into his feelings, cut him down with a gooseberry-knife, and enabled him to grow out of it. My uncle used to read the gardening papers; which always bloom with fine advice; and one of them had lately been telling largely how, in Continental vineyards, these cold freaks of heaven are met by the sacrificial smoke of earth. To wit, a hundred pyres are raised of the rakings and refuse of the long vine-alleys, and ready for kindling on the frosty verge. Then a wisp of lighted straw is applied to each, when the sparkling shafts of frost impend, and a genial smoke is wafted through, and Sagittarius has his eyes obscured. I told my uncle that this was rubbish, at least as regarded our level lands; though it might be of service upon a hillside. That if there were wind enough to spread the smoke, there must also be enough to prevent the hoar-frost, which alone need be feared at this season. But he told me to stick to what I understood; for these scientific things were beyond me, and my business was to tend the fires.
But in spite of all this brave talk, he was afraid of casting a slur upon his old experience by a new experiment. For the British workman disdains new ideas, and there was not a man upon our place but would say that the governor was turned cranky, if he got any inkling of this strange scheme.
“I shall have all the stuff put there,” said Uncle Corny, “ready for lighting, when they are gone. Those thick-heads will never suspect that I want to do anything more than burn up the weeds, as we generally do at this time of the year. Then as soon as we see the danger coming, you and I will go out and attend to it, my boy. Not that I place any great faith in it, although it seems very sensible, to those who understand the principles, which young fellows cannot be supposed to do. At any rate, I mean to try it. It can do no harm, if it does no good. You need not say another word; but do just what I tell you. I wasn’t born yesterday, as you ought to know by this time.”
I knew that well; for it takes many years to root a man into such obstinacy. As a rule, I was much more inclined to give fair trial to anything new than he was, and much more ready to risk money on it. But this would cost nothing, except a little work, and that I could not grudge him. So I told my dear wife not to be uneasy, if I did not come home till after dark some night, for our doings depended of course upon the weather; and the quarter of young pear-trees, which my uncle meant to smoke, was the furthest part almost of all the premises from Honeysuckle Cottage. Kitty smiled, and said she would come down and see it, and roast a potato or two for our supper, and we would go home together, when the work was done, and make Uncle Corny come with us. Alas, how differently it all turned out!
CHAPTER XXXVI.
FROST IN MAY
It was on Wednesday, the fifteenth of May, as fine a day as ever shone from heaven, that my Uncle Corny came up to our cottage, soon after we had finished breakfast. I had done my two hours of early work, according to agreement, and was ready to start for the long day now, and do my best among the trees, until it should be “blind-man’s holiday.” It had been arranged between my wife and me that I was not to expect her with my noonday meal, but should carry it with me, because she was to be busy at home with a grand turn-out. We had now been home from our bridal trip, for ten days of bliss and perfect peace, and Kitty had declared that it was high time to give our little rooms a thorough cleaning. So far as I could see, they might go another month as they were, and be all the better for it; but in all such matters the wife is supreme, and the wise man never attempts to gainsay, but only hopes to find some of his property surviving. I had always been most particular about scraping my shoes and then rubbing them on the mat, not as some men do, like a dog’s feet scratching, but attending to the welting, and the heels, and toes, until they were as clean as a dinner plate. This trifle I mention, because some women said that we had a misunderstanding about the mud I brought in.
Now as Kitty had declared that there must be a turn-out for she was wonderfully fond already of our little home, I had never even asked whether it would not do next week – as many men do, and get a sharp reply – but feeling quite certain that she must know best, made up my mind accordingly. Only I suggested that she ought to have Mrs. Tompkins in to help her, instead of her daughter, our Polly, who was as nice a girl as could be, but scarcely knew the door-knocker from the boiler-tap. I suspect (perhaps basely) that my darling was afraid that she would have to play second fiddle, if Mrs. Tompkins came; but be that as it may, she would not have her; and simply asked, “How much did I give you back on Monday, dear?” The sum had been ninepence halfpenny, a handsome residue of the fifteen shillings, which under her own scheme of finance, she had drawn from our revenue for the week’s consumption. I had said that she ought to take a pound at least, but she stuck to her figure, and would have shown a balance even more considerable, if Uncle Corny had not dropped in with such geniality for supper. “Your frugality is beyond belief,” said I.
“Halloa!” cried Uncle Corny, as he came in after breakfast, without even scraping his boots, and carrying a suckering iron, which he poked into a rose – or at least we had determined that it must be a rose – of our new and artistic paper – “signs of it already! I expected it last week. Going to have a turn-out, and knock everything to pieces.”
“But we don’t carry long iron hoes,” answered Kitty, pointing to the rose which he had suckered off the wall; and he laughed and shook hands, and said, “I had better hold my tongue.”
I quite agreed in this, for he always got the worst of it, when he attempted to make light of Kitty; she never said anything rude, but contrived to roll him up in his own rudeness. And perhaps it was the liberty of saying what she pleased, after so many years of snubbing – for the freedom of their voice must be fresh air to women – which had now set her up in a liveliness of health, such as no one had ever seen her show before. For instance, she had always had a soft, clear colour, not to be quenched by her step-mother’s slaps, nor even by anxiety about her own Kit; but now ever since she had married me, there was a richness of bloom on her cheeks, and a delicate gloss you might almost call it, such as may be seen in a Tea rose only, when it has been thoroughly well managed. And now she was wearing her pink chintz wrapper, which showed the perfection of her form, with little sprigs of flowers climbing up it, just as if they vied with one another, for the honour and delight of clinging closer into her. I thought that I had never seen her look so lovely; and she knew what I thought, and her soft eyes sparkled.
“Can’t stop while you look at one another; should have to stop all day, if it came to that.” Uncle Corny was crisp in his style, this morning, because of the frost he expected; “Now, Mrs. Kit, don’t expect him, till you see him. He will have to keep the fires up, till ten o’clock, for all I know; and Tabby will have something good for supper at my place. If you can come too, it will be all the better; but after all this kick-up of dust, you will be tired. I never can understand why women are always dusting; they only make more.”
“We are not going dusting; that shows how little you know about it, Uncle Corny,” my Kitty replied with proper spirit; “we are going to have a fine good cleaning, such as you give your wall-trees with the engine. You insist upon keeping your trees clean; but you don’t care how dirty your boards are.”
“Boards don’t grow,” my uncle replied, as if that shut her up altogether.
“Yes, they grow dirty,” she answered in his own short style; and he only said, “Come along, Kit.”
But he turned back, and kissed her; for he loved her dearly. And both he and I were glad of it, when we talked about it afterwards.
Then, as he started with his swinging walk, for he was proud of his flat back and sound joints, my dear wife came to the door, and threw her round white arms about my neck. She had turned up her sleeves, to show the earnest purpose in her figure, and her scolloped apron, trimmed with pink, came nestling into my waistcoat.
“We have never been apart so long, my pet, since our wedding-day,” she whispered, and her eyes looked wistful; “don’t expect me down there now; for I don’t think that he wants me much. And I shall have something ready for you, and your new pipe filled, my dear, the one I gave you at Baycliff. I shall be lonely, I dare say; but I shall have the clock to tell me when you are certain to be home again. And it is high time for us to learn to do without one another.”
People talk of presentiments, as if nothing could happen without them. I only know that I had none; but it almost seemed as if she had some, being of a quicker mind than I. And I was glad for many a long day that I kissed her with true tenderness, and looking back caught one sweet smile from the corner where the white lilac stood.
All that day I was hard at work, attending to what I had in hand, with enough of mind to do it well, or at least as well as in me lay. And these things, when they suit the nature both enlarge and purify it; so that a man who takes delight in all these little turns of life, although he may be tried and harassed by the pest of plaguesome insects, and the shifts of weather, yet shall do his own heart good, by doing good to what he loves. Neither shall he find himself in the humour to believe half the evil that he hears of his old friends; or even to be sure when he goes to his letter-box, that the bill which he finds there a month after he has paid it, may not have been sent in again by pure mistake.
“How you are mooning!” said my Uncle Corny, who often pretended to be rougher than he was; “that bottom branch should be at least three inches lower. And do you call that leader straight? Why, I call it a ram’s horn. How often must I tell you, that to make sure of your work, you must step back, and see how it looks across the border? And here’s a great batch of scale left to hatch at its leisure. A pretty wife spoiled the best gardener I ever knew. You have been thinking of Kitty, all the blessed day, I see. But put away your nail-bag, and let the net down from the coping. What do you suppose the thermometer is now?”
“Well, perhaps about forty,” I replied, looking round, for the sun was gone down in a rich red sky, and the air was very shrewd, and my fingers getting cold.
“Thirty-six already, and will be thirty very soon; and twenty-two at four o’clock, as sure as I’m a sinner. If we only pull through this, we shall be all right. There’s a change of weather coming within twenty-four hours. Come and have a glass of ale; and then we’ll go and do the bonfires. When we have done, Tabby will give us a hot chop, and then you will be home, before Kitty breaks her heart.”
I knew that our bloom, which was now beyond its prime, had escaped very narrowly the night before, and would be in still greater peril to-night; for these frosts always strengthen, until there comes a change. So while he set off with his five-tined fork, I ran to the house for my glass of beer (which I really wanted after that long day), and another box of matches, for he thought that his were damp. And when Mrs. Tapscott handed me the ale, she asked in a tone which made me feel uncomfortable —
“Have’e got the gearden door locked vast?”
“What garden door do you mean?” I inquired. “There are two gates, and there are three doors, Tabby. And what makes you ask, in that ominous voice?”
“Dun’now what hominous manes,” she replied; “but I knows what door manes, and so ought you. Old lead-coloured door, to the back of your ouze.”
“Well, I suppose it must be locked. It always is. None of our men go that way, you know. But what makes you put such a question to-night?”
“Dun’now, no more than the dead,” she answered, “only come into my head, as such things will. Heer’d zummat down town, as zet me a-thinking. You zee her be locked, when you goes home.”
Before I could ask her what she had heard, the sound of my uncle’s impatient shout came through the still air; and I hurried off to help him, for he had more than he could well do by himself.
It was deep dusk now, and the night was falling fast. Venus, on duty as the evening star, shone with unusual size and sparkle, above the faint gleam which had succeeded the yellow glow after the red sundown. And a little white vapour was rising here and there, where the low ground leaned into the gentle slope; but there was not enough of air on the move to draw the slow mist into lines, or even to breathe it into any shape at all.
“Now look sharp!” exclaimed Uncle Corny, who was not at all concerned with Nature’s doings, except as they concerned his pocket.
“I understand things; and you don’t. You will see, if you know north from south, that I have arranged all this in a most scientific manner. Here are fifty piles on the eastern side of all these Bonlewin, and fifty on the north. The wind must be either north or east, when it freezes. We light up, according to the direction of the wind.”
He wetted one finger at his lips, and held it up according to some old woman’s nostrum for discovering what way the wind blows. And I said – “But supposing there is no wind at all?”
“Very well. It doesn’t matter what way it is;” he had made up his mind, and meant to have it out. “You are full of objections, because you know nothing. There is no cure for that, but to do as you are told. You begin at that corner, and let the air go through. I shall take this line, and see who does it best.”
“You could never have smoked that Old Arkerate out, in this sort of weather,” I said; and he laughed, as he always did, when that triumph was recalled.
“I heard something about him, the other day,” he shouted, as he was going down the row of piles; “but I can’t stop to tell you now. Remind me at supper.”
In spite of all that we both could do, and of all his long preparations, not a whiff of smoke would go near the trees, but all went up as straight as the trees themselves. And I laughed very heartily – the last hearty laugh I was to enjoy for many a day, at the excuses Uncle Corny made for the fume that would only come into his mouth. But he would not confess himself beaten; too genuine a Briton was he for that. He stamped about, and used strong words, and even strove with his broad-flapped hat, to waft the smoke, which was as stubborn as himself, into the track it should take; till I told him that he was like the wise man of Gotham, who shovelled the sunshine into his barn. Then he laughed, and said, —
“Well, it will be all right, by-and-by. As the frost draws along, this blessed smoke must come with it. You never understand the true principles of things. Just come in and have some supper, and we will have another look at it. You must never expect a thing to work at first. Other people have done it, and I mean to do it. It is nothing but downright obstinacy. Ah there, it begins to go right already! All it wants is a little common sense and patience.”