Kit and Kitty: A Story of West Middlesex

I saw that my uncle had been overdone, brave, and strong-hearted, and stout as he was. People who complain, can support that habit; and a habit it becomes, never touching them inside. But he was of a hardy and courageous fibre; yet now he leant over his long pipe-stem, and his pipe had gone out, like the vapours of the past.

CHAPTER LIX.

A COOL REQUEST

It was natural that my hatred of that heinous race should be doubled. Violence and falsehood in the fiercer times, cunning and falsehood in these latter days had robbed two generations of honest growers of all that they valued most on earth. No one, however light and careless, could help being struck with the strange resemblance between my uncle’s sad history and my own. It was now quite manifest why he had striven against my affection for Kitty at first, and then when he saw that it could not be checked, had sympathized with me in the dark results. His wrongs must be avenged, as well as mine; and the sweet repose of Christian contentment must not be indulged in, till justice had been fed. The fatal point was that I could see no way; but the way was being paved for it, without my knowledge.

It was out of my power, and outside my nature, to play the spy upon anybody; but we managed through good Mrs. Wilcox to keep a sharp eye upon Downy Bulwrag. I rode up to see her at least once a week, fearing above all things that he might give me the slip, and be off to some foreign quarters, possibly even to my darling’s prison. That she was immured in some out-of-the-way place was now my settled conviction, and I pondered a thousand wild plans for roaming the world at large in search of her. The money would have been at my disposal, for Aunt Parslow was most generous; but where to begin was a boundless question, and where to end would have been endless.

The only thing possible was to wait; and the thing most reasonable was to hope, though impatience vowed it otherwise. The spring came back to a heavy heart, and there was no spring in my voice or gait.

One April evening I went down to the Halliford brook for watercress for my Uncle Corny’s supper. He had not been very well of late, and fancied this, or disliked that, in a manner quite unusual with him. I was uneasy, and begged him daily to seek the advice of Dr. Sippets, but he only laughed, or bristled up, as stubborn as a rusty nail in heart of oak. Then I told him not to smoke so much, and he replied by filling his biggest pipe.

I passed the place where I first had Kitty in my arms, a year and a half ago. Then all had been storm, and flood, and roar. Now all was calm, and sunny silence, broken only by the lapping of the brook. I leaned against the old carved stone, from which she had leaped into my embrace, and the budding shadows of the alder bush, like bars of sad music, stole over me. It seemed to me, in my disconsolate mood, that the young leaf had better spring back into the bud, and the flower get quickly through its work, and die. But my thoughts were interrupted by a grating voice.

“Halloa, young man, you look down in the mouth! Not much luck for you in my house, by all accounts. Ha, that was a scurvy trick?”

I answered not a word, for I disliked the man, an ill-conditioned, evil-omened fellow – old Harker, who had meant to live rent-free for ever in Honeysuckle Cottage. He looked very shabby, and shaky, and uncombed, as if he slept in a hay-rick, and washed himself with it.

“Ah, you wouldn’t be quite so uppish, my brave young cock, if you knew all that I could tell you. Give my love to old bonfire-raker. Hear he’ll come to ashes himself pretty soon.”

This was so mean and ungrateful of him, after all my uncle’s forbearance, that I seized him by the collar, as he stepped upon the bridge, and brought him back and made him look at me.

“Now, Harker, you’ll just have the kindness,” I said, “to speak out, like a man, what your meaning is. I am not going to hurt you, if you do the right thing. Otherwise you shall have a wash, and not before you want it. Out with it. Out with everything that you can tell me; though I don’t believe there’s much of it.”

“Very likely not. And I would not say a word of it – such as it is – for any fear of you; but only because he has treated me shabby. Promised me five pounds, and only gave me one. That wasn’t arkerate, you know. Why it hardly paid for shoe-leather. What will you give me, Master Kit, to tell you all I know of him, and all his tricks about you?”

“That depends upon what I find it worth. In the first place, who is the he you talk of?”

“As if you didn’t know? Well you are a pretty muff, if you don’t know when a man hates you. I have no love for you, mind, because of the scurvy way I was treated; but I would not go out of my way to hurt you, without being paid for it. What will you give? You will be glad to know it; though I don’t promise you it will help you much. I am always arkerate, I am.”

I promised him a pound, if it should prove to be of value, or a crown if I could make no use of it; and although it could help me but little for the future, I considered it worth the larger sum, when I had heard the whole of it; because it cleared up so many little points which had puzzled me up to that moment. This man Harker, by his own confession, had been employed for weeks to keep close watch upon us, and report all our doings to Bulwrag. That demon discovered that this low fellow bore a grudge against us, because of his expulsion from the cottage; and what better spy could he wish for than one who had lived in the place, and knew every twig and stone? It is awful for a simple man (who lives without much thought, and says and does everything without looking round) to find that all his little doings have been watched, by an eye that was anything except the eye of God. We had kept a very distant sort of outlook upon Bulwrag; but that was different altogether, and as a rogue he must long have been accustomed to it. To think that in our gardens (where every tree knew me, and the line of every shadow was known to me) I could not even move without somebody behind me, was enough to scatter all delight, and simplicity, and carelessness.

Harker told me all about the secret of the door into Love Lane. I knew that it was bolted, I was sure it had been bolted, I could almost swear that it had not been opened by any honest person from the inside, for a long time before Kitty vanished through it. It ought to have been locked as well, of course; as Tabby Tapscott (who had the true feminine knack of hitting a blot) observed. But now all that became plain as a pikestaff. That sneak of a Harker knew a dodge for undoing the bolt from the outside, by tapping on a sprung piece of tongued board, when the bolt (which was loose in the socket) would glide back.

I remembered what appeared to be a pretty turn of Kitty’s, when I asked her to come and take a walk in Love Lane. “Not unless you seem to want it, my dear. We have our love inside, and it is not a gloomy lane.” For she always loved fruit-trees, and fair alleys, and the way one looks up at the sky through balls of gold.

However, that sort of thing was out of Harker’s line; and I asked him a few questions, with a sovereign in my hand; at which he kept glancing, as a dog of better manners assures his master that he loves the hand ever so much more than the tit-bit inside it. He told me – for his mind was made up now – that he had suspected Bulwrag’s scheme, but had nothing to do with the final stroke, except that he had opened the road for it. I conjured him by all that he valued – if he valued anything besides himself – to tell me where my dear wife was likely to be now, if indeed she were in the world at all.

He had no fine feeling to be appealed to, and having had a bad wife – his own fault, I dare say – could not at all enter into my concern. But he took a great weight from my heart by declaring that there was no fear of Kitty being made away with.

“’Tis a bit of revenge, and nothing more,” he said; “the man is so deep and slippery that you can never circumvent him. You are a baby altogether to him. Although he employed me for weeks together, he never let me into any one of his devices. He never does anything as you expect it. When you find out this, if you live long enough to do it, you will find it come contrary to all your guesses. If you ask what I think is the best way, I will tell you. But it might be quite wrong for all that, you know.”

“Very well,” he said, when I had asked most earnestly, and promised him five pounds, if it turned out well; “you just do this, and see what comes of it. Collect all your money, and get your uncle to sell a good piece of his land for building, they are talking of that sort of thing, you know; and there is sure to be a railway by-and-by, and the old Topper’s land is the best in the parish. Then when you have raised a thousand pounds, take it in a bag, or a purse with open meshes, and lay it on his table – not too near him, mind – and then be very humble, and say, ‘Mr. So and So, you have beaten me out and out, and I give in. You shall have all this, and I’ll cry quits, and give you any undertaking you require, as soon as I get my wife back again.’ It is my belief, Master Kit, that you would have her in a week; for that sort of man will do anything for money.”

This was altogether a new view to me, and I began to suspect things immediately. Possibly this man had even been sent to propose a bargain in this sly way. I could raise the thousand pounds, by selling out what I possessed; and my wife was worth more than all the money in the world, or even than my own life to me. But my pride, and sense of right, swelled against the low idea; and I knew that even Kitty would condemn so vile a bargain.

“If that is the only way to do it, it will never be done,” I answered sternly; “but tell me one thing – did you see her go? Did you see the man who came to fetch her?”

“No. It was managed too well for that. They got all they could out of me, and trusted me no further. I did not even know that it was going to be done. I was ordered off to Hampton, on that very day.”

Seeing some one in the distance coming towards us from the village, I gave the man his sovereign, and let him go, after learning where he might be found in case of being needed. And before I could even think the matter over, Mrs. Marker was crossing the planks towards me, dressed very prettily, and smiling at me pleasantly.

“What memories this spot does evoke!” She had taken to rather fine language lately, and seemed to become more and more romantic. “Oh, Mr. Kit, Mr. Kit, is it possible that I meet you here again? Alas, I fear that you seek this spot, to heave the sad sigh, and to shed the briny tear.”

I replied that I was only come to look for watercress, but was very glad to meet her; for we always had been friends, and perhaps she could tell me many things I wished to know.

“Whatever I know is at your command. My deep and heartfelt but unavailing pity has followed your fortunes for many a long month. Why the bridal morn seems but yesterday, so to speak; and yet a rolling year has passed over us since then! Robbed of your bride in less than half the honeymoon, and before she understood the price of sugar – you remember that she was to have laid it in cheap, second whites before it went up for preserving. Oh, Mr. Kit, we well may say inscrutable are the decrees of Heaven. But all shall be well yet, all must be well, if we trust in the Lord, and gird up our loins with trembling. Excuse the remark if too personal, but my heart does bleed for you. Any new light shed upon this dark dispensation?”

“That is the very thing I was going to ask you. But first of all, tell me, dear Mrs. Marker, are you convinced, are you absolutely certain, that my Kitty would never prove false to me?”

I never put this question to any of my own sex. But it always did me good to receive from a woman, who must understand women so much better, the strong confirmation of my own strong faith. To their credit be it said that not one of them refused it.

“Fie, fie! How can you ever bring yourself to ask the question? Though I am sure, I am not surprised, after all that has happened. But I will tell your Kitty of it, and we will have a laugh together. For the triumph of the wicked cannot last much longer. I suppose you have heard what the wretch is doing?”

“Not very lately. I was going to ask you. We were told in the autumn, by a lady who seemed to know, that everything was settled, and even the day fixed for his marriage with a very rich young lady, the only child of a very wealthy Earl? But it seems to hang fire, and I cannot discover that anything is settled even now. Do tell me what you have heard of it. Miss Coldpepper surely ought to know.”

“I should think she ought, considering what he has done. It appears that the lady is quite willing; she is under some foolish spell, and thinks him such a hero. But her father, though he seemed to give in at first, heard something, which induced him to change his mind. And now he insists, as is only fair, upon something being brought in by the gentleman as well. They are doing all they can to get over the hitch. And what do you suppose he had the impudence to do? He came down here about a week ago – drove down in a handsome cab all the way; nobody was to know it of course, but I did; and then and there he had the face to ask his aunt to declare him the heir, and to bind herself to it, of all her estates and property. It quite took my breath away when I heard it – that any one should have such assurance. And after all that has happened in the family.”

“A nice lord of the manor he would make. Did his mother come down with him?”

“Not she. He was too wide awake for that. The sisters can never be in one room half an hour without fighting. He went on about the honour of the family, and adding to the estates with the old Earl’s wealth, and taking the name of Coldpepper, and I don’t know what else – for of course I was not there; but she told me of it afterwards, and she laughed very heartily I can tell you. ‘It is a mere business arrangement,’ she replied, ‘and it must be done in business form, if at all. Write to my solicitors on the subject, proposing exactly what you have proposed to me. Give your reasons for wishing that it may be settled so, and add that there could have been no occasion for it, if your mother had not run away with your aunt’s lover, after locking her in a dark hole where she might have died. You may be quite certain of my consent, as your mother was, when she turned the key on me. Don’t let me detain you, for fear of losing time. Solicitors are never very rapid in their work.’ He could scarcely have been disappointed, but Charles said he did look savage, when he showed him out. And now, what do you think his next card is?”

“How can I tell? Perhaps he’ll come to Uncle Corny, and ask him to sell his garden, and settle it upon him.”

“You are not so very far out after all. Your Kitty has a very rich aunt in the north – no relative of his in any way, not even a connection, for she is related to Kitty on her mother’s side. But she has the reputation of being rather soft, and so off he goes without telling anybody. But we heard of it; we hear a great deal more now; because we’ve got a maid whose sister lives there, and waits upon the two young ladies who are always chattering about their brother; and our Mary can’t do without her Anne, for more than a week, because they are twins. Every Sunday our Mary goes up to the Park, or their Anne comes down to the Manor. And perhaps you may know what ladies’-maids are, Mr. Kit. They really seem to take a deeper interest in the family they serve than the one they belong to. So we know all the young ladies know, and perhaps more than their mother knows; for being so masterful she has things kept from her, as is only natural. And I can tell you one thing, Mr. Kit, which you won’t be sorry to hear perhaps, or at any rate didn’t ought to be. Mr. Downy Bulwrag is in more trouble; not about money I mean, but something worse, or at any rate deeper than money is. His sisters know this; but they don’t know what it is, or else they are afraid to speak of it.”

I thought of Tony Tonks, and the man called Migwell Bengoose, who appeared to Tony to be an English sailor, fallen into foreign ways; and I thought it very likely that he might have brought bad news.

“He goes away at night,” continued Mrs. Marker, “without a word of notice to anybody, and he sneers, or is grumpy, if they ask him about it; and he has been seen with very shabby-looking people, though he used to be so particular about that. And he carries one of those new-fangled pistols, that go off a dozen times with one load, and every one is afraid to go near him almost, because of his temper and all that. From all I am told, you may depend upon it, he is not enjoying himself, Mr. Kit, so very much more than you are. And that is not very much, to go by your face; sorry as I am to see it, sir, after saving me from the jaws of death.”

“Nonsense, Mrs. Marker; you saved yourself, by your presence of mind, and a light young foot.”

“You say things beautifully, Mr. Kit. It was always your gift as a child, I have heard, though not old enough here to remember it. And now, sir, remember that you have one good friend, who will never be happy, till you are. A feeble friend, but a warm one, and able perhaps to do more than you think. Nothing shall go by me that you ought to hear of. Good-bye, sir, good-bye. Everything will come right, and you shall pay me, for telling your fortune.”

CHAPTER LX.

ALIVE IN DEATH

Downy Bulwrag was indeed in trouble – not brought on by his evil deeds, as good people might have imagined; or at any rate not so caused directly, according to present knowledge, although in the end it proved otherwise. It had seemed an astonishing thing to me, considering his haughtiness and shrewd perception, that he should have deigned to expose himself to that quiet rebuff from Miss Coldpepper. And then that he had gone upon another quest of money, even more humiliating, showed that there must be some terrible strait, some crushing urgency in his affairs.

He was not a man who lived extravagantly; he was rather of the mean and close-fisted order, even in his self-indulgence. From what had been said at Sam Henderson’s dinner, it would seem that he had fallen into certain racing debts; but I could not believe that these were crippling him, for he generally managed to work them off, and come out with a balance in his favour. But there was another thing in the background, of which I had no knowledge yet; and when I speak of it now, it must be understood that I do so from later information.

That account in the Globe, which the clergyman showed me, had been followed by further particulars in the Journals of the following day, and by one or two extracts from private letters brought to England by the Simon Pure. But the ships had been parted by a sudden gale, after a very brief interview, and some despatches, which were not quite ready, had lost their chance of delivery. There was nothing of interest to me, except what I had seen at first; and no letter from the Captain to my wife arrived by post, which surprised me for the moment. But that was explained by the likelihood that he might have been hurried with official reports, while intending to send his private letters with them, and thus had lost the chance of despatching either. And as any such letter must have missed its mark, there was no great disappointment.

But the Simon Pure landed near Liverpool, as I came to know long afterwards, an unhappy and afflicted man, welcome to no person and to no place on the face of the habitable globe. An elderly man of great bodily strength, and bulk of frame, and large stature, he had better have gone beneath the earth – as the father of poets has it – than linger on it, lonesome, loathsome, shunned, abominated, and abhorred.

His sins had been many, and his merits few; he had lived for his own coarse pleasures only; he had never done good to man, woman, or child; yet he might have called any man worse than himself, who refused to grieve for his awful grief – for this man was a leper.

The captain of the Simon Pure was humane as well as resolute. This Spaniard, as he called himself, had lurked under a tarpaulin, till the boat of the Archytas was far away, and the gale began to whistle through the shrouds and chains. Then he came forth and showed himself, holding forth his hands, defying the sailors to throw him overboard. For a month he had been treated well by the crew of the exploring ship, who were all picked men of some education, and ready to listen to reason. He had managed to quit them without their knowledge, and cast his lot among a less enlightened crew.

The boldest feared to touch him, but with nautical skill they encoiled him in ropes from a distance, and were just beginning their yo-heave-oh chant, when the captain rushed up and dashed them right and left. With his own hand he unbound the leper, and led him forward, and allotted him a place on the forecastle, where none might come near him, except to bring him food, and where he must abide, if he cared to live. His chief desire was to get back to England, and finding himself well on the way for that, he indulged in strange antics, and shouted and roared, as if all the ship belonged to him. When the moon was high – for the moon appears to have strange power over those outcasts – the sailors were afraid to keep the deck, with his wild songs flowing aft to them; for he had belonged to a colony of Indian lepers, and had learned their poetry.

As soon as the ship was in the Mersey, he contrived to be quit of her. Perhaps he was afraid that his condition would be made known to the authorities, who might find it their duty to observe him, though they could not legally confine him. At any rate he escaped any such trouble, by dropping into a boat, and landing on the south side of the river. A purse had been made for him by the sailors, not a very heavy one, for they were short of cash, but enough to carry him to London – at once the fountain and the cesspool of diseased humanity.

Donovan Bulwrag had been unable, after his recovery, to put up with the control and order of his mother’s house in Kensington. He had taken private rooms again, in a little street near Berkeley Square; and though his mother was not well pleased, she had now to contend with a will as strong as her own, and even firmer. He must have his own way in this, he must be indulged at every cost, rather than driven to mutiny when all depended on him. If once he were married to Lady Clara, all would be wealth and prosperity. She had hoped to see it done ere now, but a wicked chance had crossed her.

It was nearly twelve o’clock one night, towards the end of February; and Bulwrag, having returned from his club much earlier than usual, was sitting by the fire in his dressing-gown, with a cigar in his mouth and a bottle of very old Cognac on the table. He was not in a pleasant humour, for the luck had been against him, and foreseeing worse he had come away, for he was growing superstitious.

He was dwelling gloomily on the dull necessity before him – the “brilliant prospect,” his mother called it, but he disliked his intended bride; and this good thing (alone perhaps) may be said in his favour – he was not wholly mercenary. I would fain hope, though without much faith, that he may have felt some true regret at the cruel wrong he had done me – for verily the expiation was nigh.

Suddenly the front-door bell rang sharply, and the poor weary maid shuffled down the stairs. She had told him, when he came in that night, that a tall strange-looking gentleman, with his face muffled in a white cravat, had called about nine o’clock and left word that he would come again that evening. He had given his name as “Senhor Diaz,” and Bulwrag, after wondering vainly, concluded that it must be some one connected with the sailor Migwell, whom he had seen in the autumn.

Slow heavy steps approached his door, and the maid was dismissed with some gruff words in a foreign language quite unknown to Donovan. Then the door was opened without a knock, and a big man stood and looked at him.

“Who are you? And what do you mean by coming at this time of night?” Bulwrag spoke in his roughest tone, for the man was shabby and repulsive.

The visitor coolly took a chair, handling it in a peculiar manner, for he seemed to have bags on, instead of gloves. Then he crossed a pair of gigantic legs; and Bulwrag saw that he wore no boots, but loose slops of hide with the hair on, in size and shape much like the nosebag of a horse. His hat was flapped over his ears and forehead, and he spoke not a word, but gazed at Downy with large red eyes, having never a hair of lash or brow to shade them. Bulwrag shuddered, and drew his chair away; he had never been looked at like this, and could not meet it.