Kit and Kitty: A Story of West Middlesex

These were my sentiments to a hair, coming straight to me from Uncle Corny; and at any other time I should have struck in boldly, with larger capacity of speech than thought. But to him who has no home to defend, politics are as a tinkling cymbal, instead of a loaded cannon.

“What part of the world was it in?” Sam Henderson asked, that the subject might not slip away; “that sort of thing would never do in our part of the world; though we call ourselves pretty rural still.”

“Well, I don’t know exactly where it was. And we had better not say any more about it.” Sir Cumberleigh became suspicious at the first sign of direct inquiry. “After all, I dare say there was no harm done. And perhaps the young fellow was glad to be quit of all, before she had time to run up any bills. Although she was a devilish nice girl, I believe. But who could want more than three weeks of any woman? Except for the sake of her tin, of course. Mr. Johnson, you agree with me about that, I can see.”

“Nothing of the sort,” I answered sternly, forgetting how I wrecked my purpose by my indignation; “a good wife is the greatest blessing any man can have. And the man who robs him of her is no man, but is a Divil.”

“You had better set Johnson after your friend Downy;” Sam Henderson struck in, as Sir Cumberleigh stared at me. “You see how a Benedict regards the subject. And I shall have to be of his opinion soon. Next week I shall lead to the Hymeneal halter, who do you think? – give you three guesses, and lay a fiver you don’t hit it.”

“Done with you!” cried our host, for I believe he knew. “Three chances, Mr. Johnson, you heard what he said. No. 1, Violet Hunter, such a stunning girl.”

“Wrong. Try again. No Vi Hunter for me. Wouldn’t have her, if she was dipped in diamonds.”

“Well then, it must be Gerty Triggs, a fine young woman, and five thousand pounds.”

“Wrong again. Only one go more. Have your flimsy ready.”

“Oh, I say, it can’t be Sally Chalker. That would be too much luck for a chap like you.”

“It is Sally Chalker, and no mistake. Though I’ll trouble you to call her Miss Chalker, Pots, until she is Mrs. Henderson. And I’d like to see any fellow come between us.”

“Hand over,” said Sir Cumberleigh; “well, Sam, you are in luck. What a lot of things you will put us up to then! Here’s to your happiness! Well, this is good news indeed. Stop to dinner; we can have it early.”

But Sam declined the honour; and we soon set forth for home, as nothing more could be extracted from our host, concerning the matter which had brought us there. And Sam, who understood him pretty thoroughly, felt sure that he had already told us all he knew, and perhaps even more in the way of mere suspicion.

CHAPTER XLVI.

TONY TONKS

Once I met a man who was a mighty swimmer, spending half his waking time in the water, and even sleeping there sometimes, according to his own account; though I found it rather hard to believe that altogether. But one thing he told me, which I do believe, because it is not so far out of the way, and the same thing might have happened to myself almost.

He had made a wager to swim across one of those inlets, or arms of the sea, which may be found upon our western coast, where the tide runs in with great force and speed, over a vast expanse of sands.

The distance from headland to headland was less than he had often been able to traverse; but, being a stranger on that coast, he had not reckoned, as he should have done, upon the power and strong swirl of the tide. By these he was soon so swung about, and almost carried under, that the sand-hills, where the people stood to watch him, stood still themselves, instead of slowly gliding by. And the yellow current flaked with white, across which he was striving, seemed to be the only thing that moved.

He began to doubt about his destination, whether in this world or the next; for the cup of his hands, as he fetched them back, and the concave impulse of his feet as he spread his toes behind him, seemed to tell nothing upon the vast body of water he was involved in; there was no slide of surface along his shoulder-blades, and his chin rose and fell at each labouring stroke, without budging an inch from the dip or the rise. He began to feel that he was beaten, and a quiet resignation sank into the stoutness of his heart, such as a brave man feels at death. And he never would have lived to tell the tale, except for a big voice from the shore, the voice of the very man who had the money hanging on it.

“Put your feet down, Tom,” he cried; “for God’s sake put your feet down.”

The vanquished swimmer put his feet down, though he thought it was his death to do it; and there he felt firm sand, and stood, with the tide which had threatened to engulf him, rippling round his panting breast, and lapping his poor weary arms. There happened to be a spit of sand there, far away from shore and rock, and known to the boatmen only. There he stood, and renewed his strength, with cheers of encouragement from the shore; and then, as the rush of the tide was slackening, after filling the depths inshore, he threw his chest forward upon the water, and fought his way safely to the landing-place.

“But I would not take the money,” he said; “if I had taken that man’s money, I should have deserved to be drowned next time.”

This appeared to me to be a noble tale, showing goodness on both sides, which is the true nobility. And it came to my memory now, because it seemed to apply to my present state. I had battled long with unknown waters, and against a tide too strong for me; and now, though still far away from land, I had obtained firm footing. By what cross purpose and crooked inrush, my power and pride had been washed away, was a question still as dark as ever; but now I could rest on the firm conviction, which had been only faith before, that my Kitty still was true to me, though beguiled by some low stratagem. And I knew pretty surely who had done it, though it might be very hard to prove.

“Don’t lose a day,” said Uncle Corny, when I told him all we had done and heard; “never mind me, or the garden. You can make up for all that by-and-by; and you have left your part in first-rate order. That scoundrel follows in his mother’s track; but he is ten times worse than she is, because he keeps his temper. You must try to do the same, my lad. It would never do to have a row with him, and to take him by the throat, as he deserves. There is nothing you can prove at present. And the moment he knows that you suspect him, he will double all his wiles and dodges. He might even make away with your poor wife. He would rather do that, than let you regain her, and convict him of his tricks.”

“Bad as he is, he could never do that. I cannot believe that any person living, who knows what Kitty is, could raise his hand against her. But the wonder is, where can he have put her? Gentle as she is, she is not a fool; and she would never submit to be restrained by force. And all that sort of thing is quite out of date now, at any rate in England.”

“So people suppose; but stranger things are done, even in this country still. He may even have got her in a lunatic asylum, after driving her out of her senses first. Or more likely still, on the Continent somewhere. Why, they do worse things than that in Spain, and in Italy, too, from what I have heard. And as for Turkey – why, bless my heart, they keep the women in sacks and feed them, till they are fat enough for the Sultan. And you heard that he has gone abroad. Mrs. Wilcox said so. That is what he has done with her; you may depend upon it.”

“But she would not have travelled with him, uncle. He would not have dared to take her into any public place. But don’t talk about it; it drives me wild. I see nothing to do, but to force him to confess, to get him away somewhere by himself, and hold a pistol to his head. A blackguard is always a coward, you know.”

“Nine out of ten are, but the tenth is not,” my uncle replied sententiously; “no sort of violence will serve our turn. We must try to be crafty as he is. The only plan I can see is to have him watched, followed everywhere without his knowledge, and not put upon his guard by a syllable from us. We had no reason to do that till now; but now we have, for I feel pretty sure that old Hotchpot was right. You ought to have got more out of him.”

“It was not to be done. We tried everything. And I believe he knows no more than this – that before they quarrelled, the younger villain made a boast of it that he would have his revenge, but never let out what his plan was. And when Hotchpot heard that it had been done, he naturally concluded who had done it. When we compared notes, Sam and I agreed that in all probability there is nothing more than that.”

“It is very unlucky for us,” said my uncle, “that Henderson is going to be married so soon. We cannot expect him to help us any more, for a long time to come; and he has twice the head that you have. I don’t mean to say for useful work, for there you would beat him hollow, but for plotting, and scheming, and all sorts of dirty tricks. He has been brought up to those things from the cradle, and he can tell a lie splendidly, which you cannot. You are much too simple and truthful, Kit, just as I am, for dealing with rogues and knaves. And he knows a lot more of the bad world than we do. He is hand in glove also with a host of swells, such as you and I never spoke to. Why, I never shook hands with a lord in my life, although I should do it like a man – if he offered, mind, for I should wait for that. And you are in the same condition.”

“Not a bit of it. I shook hands with two at Newmarket, and they seemed to think very well of me. But that reminds me that I met the very man for our job, if he would undertake it. And I believe he would, if we paid him well.”

“For spying upon Bulwrag, you mean, Kit. I can’t bear the idea of spying, even on that fellow. But I fear we must make up our minds to it, just as the police watch a murderer. And as for the cost of it, I would go half, and I am sure your Aunt Parslow would pay the other half. But what makes you think that he would suit? A very sharp fellow is wanted, mind. Not a bit like Selsey Bill.”

“If it must be done, he is the very man. But you shall not pay a farthing, Uncle Corny; you have plenty to do with your money. At any rate I will not ask you, until I have spent all I have for the purpose. Your advice is quite enough for you to give, and it is worth more than money. See what I should have done without you now! I had made up my mind to pursue that fellow, and seize him, and shake the truth out of him. But I should only have shaken out a heap of lies, and probably got locked up for my trouble. But I see that your plan is the only wise one.”

“You are a sensible young fellow, Kit, when you have good advisers. But who is this man of craft you were speaking of, and how has he got experience for a job like this?”

“He has been brought up to every kind of nasty work; and the nastier it is, the more he likes it. He is a spy on horses, to watch them in their trials, and sneak into their boxes, and learn everything they think of. It seems to be a regular profession, where they keep racehorses; and Sam knows all about this man. They call them Touts, or Ditch-frogs, or Sky-blinkers, or half-a-dozen other names; but they get well paid, and they don’t care. His name, or nick-name, is Tony Tonks, which he takes from some story-book, I believe. He is a very queer sort of fellow; if you saw him once, you would know him always; not a bit like any of our folk down here. Sam says he could canter round any of his chaps, and he would try to afford him, if he did crooked work; but Tony is a costly luxury.”

“Never mind the cost. Your aunt shall pay; she has nothing to do with all her cash, except to blow out a lot of dogs, like footballs. But is this Tony to be trusted? He might be a Jack of both sides.”

“That is just what he isn’t. And that is how he gets double the wages of any other Tout. He puts his whole heart into anything he takes up; and yet he is cool as a weazle. He makes a point of honour of winning, Sam told me; and he would rather pay money out of his own pocket, than be beaten, whenever he takes up a job. And he is very small; he can slip in and out, while people say – ‘Oh, what boy was that?’ But I doubt whether he would take up this. He would have made a wonderful jockey, I was told; and he rides as well as the best of them. But he loses his head, when he is put upon a horse, or he might be now making ten thousand a year. Nobody can explain such things.”

“Nobody can explain anything;” my uncle replied with his usual wisdom; “look at me. I have been in a garden all my life, and I have kept my eyes open, and I am no fool. But if you ask what canker is in an apple-tree or pear, or blister in a peach, or silver-leaf, or shanking in grapes, or sudden death in a Moorpark, or fifty other things that we meet with every day, all I can say is – ‘Go and ask the men of science, and if two of them tell you the same thing, believe it.’ No, my lad, we know nothing yet, though we find bigger words than used to serve the turn. Have you told young Henderson, that you would like to try this fellow, Tony Tonks?”

“No, I never thought of it, until just now, when you suggested that the villain should be watched, to find out where he goes, and all his dirty doings. It is fair play with such a deadly sneak. But for all that, I hate the thought of it.”

“We must meet the devil with his own weapons. Sam is going to be married at Ludred, I suppose.”

“Yes, next Thursday. And I have promised to be there. Although it will be a bad time for me.”

“Never mind, Kit. You shall have your time again. As I have told you more than once. I am an old man now, and have seen a lot of wickedness. But I never knew it triumph in the end. Go up at once to Halliford, and get your friend to write to this fellow by the afternoon post. We might have him here to-morrow night, and settle matters with him, while we have Henderson to help us.”

I was lucky enough to find Henderson at home, and he entered into our plan with zeal; for he had his own grudge with Bulwrag. But he told me that we must be prepared to part with a heap of money, if we began it; and he could not tell how long it might last. I answered that we had a good bank to draw on, and that I should be able to repay it in the end out of my own little property, which I should insist upon doing.

“Tony will want five pounds a week, and all expenses covered; and you may put that probably at five pounds more.” Sam looked as if he thought I could not afford it. “And then if he does any good, he will expect a handsome tip. And you must let him have his own head. He is the best man in England for the job, if he will take it. And perhaps he will. There is nothing on now in his line of business much, till the Leger comes on. Tony will do a good deal for me. I shall put it as a personal favour, you know. But we won’t tell him what it is, until he comes to see.”

Busy as he was with his own affairs, Henderson wrote to the great horse-watcher, and receiving reply by telegraph, met him at Feltham the following afternoon; and after showing him all over his own places, brought him to supper with us at my uncle’s cottage at nine o’clock, as had been arranged in the morning. And it was as good as a play – as we express it – and better than most of the French plays now in vogue, to see my solid uncle, with his English contempt for a spy, and strong habit of speaking his mind, yet doing his utmost to be hospitable, and checking himself in his blunt deliveries, and catching up any words that might be too honest for the convenience of his visitor. He told me afterwards that he felt like a rogue, and was afraid of sitting square to his own table.

The visitor, however, did not in the least appreciate these exertions, or even perceive their existence. He was perfectly contented with his own moral state, and although he said little, I could almost have believed that he regarded my good uncle with as much superiority, as was felt – but not shown – towards himself. And his principal ambition was to take in a good supper.

Being concerned more than all the rest in his qualities, I observed him closely, and became disappointed when he said nothing of any particular astuteness. But perhaps, like most men who have to work their brains hard, he allowed them a holiday when off duty, and cared very little what was thought of them then, if they came up to the scratch at signal. And although he said little, what he said was to the point, and he did not expend great ability in proving, as most men do, that two and two make four.

His outer man was of such puny build, that when he sat by my uncle’s elbow, it seemed as if he might have jumped into the big pocket, wherein the fruit-grower was wont to carry a hammer, a stick of string, a twist of bast, a spectacle-case full of wall-nails, a peach-knife, a pair of clips, a little copper wire, and a few other things to suit the season, according to its latest needs. Tony Tonks glanced every now and then with great curiosity at my uncle, and at this pocket which was hanging with its weight under the arm of a curved Windsor chair; as a fisherman likes to see his bag hang down, but only once in his lifetime has that pleasure.

But though Tony Tonks might go (more readily than the fish who won’t come at all) into that pocket, Nature had provided him with compensation for his want of magnitude. There never lived a very small man yet, who was not in his own opinion big. Great qualities combine in him, of mind and soul, and even of the body for the sake of paradox; so that no one knows what he can amount to, but himself. And as the looking-glass presents us with ourselves set wrong; so the mirror of the man who weighs but half the proper weight, may exalt him to the ceiling, if he slopes it to his mind.

Tony spoke little, but he spoke with weight, and expected to be followed closely, when he gave us anything. And it became pleasant to behold my uncle gradually forming a great opinion of him, because he was not offered much to build it on. Sam Henderson nodded very knowingly to me, and I returned it with a wink behind my Uncle Corny’s head, when the pipes were put upon the table, and the grower took the clean one he intended for himself, and gave it (with a grunt at his own generosity) to Tonks.

“Now we all know where we are,” began my uncle, as if a puffing pipe had been the cloudy pillar; “the best thing, as I have always found in life, is for people to know what they are at, before they do it.”

Tony Tonks nodded, and my uncle was well pleased, both to have the discourse to himself, and to perceive that the visitor smoked slowly, and could dwell upon good things.

“You give us your experience and skill, for the period of one month at least if needful, for the sum of five pounds a week payable in advance, as well as travelling expenses, if required, and lodgings. You report to us by post, when there is anything to tell, and you come down at the end of every week, to let us know how you get on, and to draw your money for the next week. And you attend to nothing else, but the job you are engaged on.”

“Nothing else. Never take two things in hand at once.”

“And the business you undertake for us is to find out everything that can be found about the doings of Donovan Bulwrag. Where he goes, who his companions are, what messages he receives or sends, how he employs his time, what he is up to, everything about him that is of interest to us. It seems a nasty, shabby thing, but he has brought it on himself. We can’t bear doing it; but it must be done.”

“Nothing shabby in it,” Tonks exclaimed with spirit, and a quick flash in his small gray eyes; “trickey people must be tricked.”

“A man who has wronged another man,” said my uncle, putting it on a larger footing, “as that low scoundrel has wronged us, has put himself outside of all honour. You know the man very well by sight, I believe.”

“And by more than sight;” answered Tony, in a voice that made us look at him. But as he offered no explanation, we did not ask him what he meant, but concluded that he had his own bone to pick with this crafty enemy.

CHAPTER XLVII.

TOADSTOOLS

We arranged that our watchman – as my uncle called him, thinking it much more respectable than spy – should hire a room from our friend Mrs. Wilcox, who could help him in many ways. For she knew all the habits of the house of Bulwrag, and had useful friends in the kitchen there, and could introduce Tonks to a distant view of the adversary’s mother and sisters.

All this being settled, and everybody else in good spirits about it, I fell suddenly into deep dejection, not on account of Sam Henderson’s good luck, for that I rejoiced in and would not think of, but simply from dwelling on my own hard fate, and the sympathy aroused by it among all who knew me. For as time went on, I was pitied more and more, and our neighbours one and all made up their minds, that there never had been a more unlucky fellow. And especially the women looked at me in such a way, that when I could avoid them without rudeness, it seemed to be a comfort to have business round the corner.

This began to tell upon me more and more; for as no man can see all the world for himself, but must take his view of it from other people’s eyes; so even in his own affairs he finds their colour affected by the light or shade that others cast upon them. And labour as I might to think that every one was wrong, and ought to be compelled to keep his mind to his own business, yet when I had made all this most certain to myself, a frosty fog and gloom of doubt would settle on my spirits, and wrap me in a world of wonder having no straight road in it. And what with one state of mind and another, sometimes the pangs of memory, and sometimes the stings of fury, and worst of all the heavy ache of listlessness and loneliness, upon the whole it seemed less harm to be out of life than in it.

How it might have ended I know not, if it had not been for something which I took to be an accident, and of no importance to me more than any other meeting. One evening after sunset, as the days were drawing in, though the summer was still in its power and beauty, I was taking my usual lonely walk in “Love Lane,” as the young people called it. There had not been a night, whether fine or wet, from the time of my loss to this moment, when I had failed of this lonely walk, unless I was far from Sunbury. It was some little comfort to end the day in pacing to and fro where last, so far at least as knowledge went, my Kitty’s footsteps must have been.

And now, when the sunset tint was gone, and the sky could be looked into like clear glass, and in the tranquillity of summer night the flutter of a leaf might almost seem to be caused by the twinkle of a star, I, the only unquiet creature – according to the laws of man – was treading the same restless round, and thinking the same endless thoughts, as when the storm of evil fortune had been fresh upon me. Wrapt in my own cares alone, and breathing only for myself – for absorbing love in small men is but selfishness by deputy, and I in all but outward form have been a small man always – here I plodded without heed of grandeur, goodness, or the will of God.

But things are strangely brought about; and any one not remembering this might laugh to hear how I was enlarged, and for the moment more ennobled than by all the stars of heaven, through the sight of a white cotton handkerchief. A man climbed over a gate into the lane, stiffly raising one leg first, and then after a little pause the other, as if his active days were gone. And probably I should not have seen him, for all his clothes were black, unless he carried a white handkerchief. This was conspicuous in the dark of the overhanging foliage; and it seemed to be doubled up by the corners, and bulging with some bulk inside.

“What can he have got in that?” thought I, and hastened my steps to see, although it was no concern by rights of mine.

“Good evening, Mr. Kit – excuse me, Mr. Orchardson I mean.” This was said in a kind and gentle voice; and I took off my hat, for I saw that it was our parson, the Rev. Peter Golightly, not our vicar, who was absent for the summer, but the curate in charge of our parish.

“What a calm and beautiful night!” he resumed; “it takes one out of one’s self almost. It makes our sorrows seem so small.”