Kit and Kitty: A Story of West Middlesex

This I promised very readily; not only to keep him on my side, but because I saw that he knew much, not generally known in Sunbury, of the family matters which concerned my love, and therefore myself, even more than my own. And while he was busy with his books, which he kept in a fashion known only to himself, I strolled down the village in the feeble hope of picking up some tidings. It was pleasant to find, without saying much, that our neighbours felt a very keen and kind interest in our doings. There was scarcely a woman who was not ready to tell me a great deal more than she knew; and certainly not one who did not consider me badly treated. Miss Fairthorn, by her sweet appearance and gentle manner, had made friends in every shop she entered; and the story of her sudden and compulsory departure became so unsatisfactory, that deep discredit befell our two policemen. But the only new point I discovered, bearing at all upon my case, was gained from Widow Cutthumb. This good lady was now in bitter feud with the house of Coldpepper, although she made it clear that the loss of their custom had nothing to do with it, being rather a benefit than otherwise.

She told me, with much dramatic force, some anecdotes of Miss Monica, the younger daughter of Squire Nicholas, and a daughter by no means dutiful. She had married, against her father’s wish, the Honourable Tom Bulwrag, a gambler, and a drunkard, and, if reports were true, a forger. As this appears in my Uncle’s tale, it need not have been referred to, but to show that the lady’s early records were not fair among us. After impressing upon me the stern necessity of silence, as to these and other facts, Mrs. Cutthumb ended with a practical exhortation, dependent upon the question whether I had a spark of manhood in me. I replied that I hoped so, but as yet had few opportunities for testing it.

“Then, Mr. Kit,” she proceeded, with her head thrown back and one fat hand clenched, “there is only one thing for you to do – to run away with the young lady. Don’t stop me, if you please, Master Kit; you have no call to look as if I spoke treason. Better men than you has done it; and better young ladies has had to bear it. It is what the Lord has ordained, whenever He has made two innocent young people, and the wicked hold counsel together against them. You go home, and dwell upon it. Sure as I am talking to you now, you’ll be sorry till your dying day, if you don’t behave a little spirity. Do you think I would ever give such advice to a wild young man with no principles, to a fellow I mean like Sam Henderson? But I know what you are well enough; and every girl in Sunbury knows. ’Tis not for me to praise you to your face; but you are that solid and thick-built, that a woman might trust you with her only daughter. And that makes you slow to look into women. If I may be so bold to ask, how do you take the meaning of it for that sweet Miss Kitty to be fetched home so promiscuous?”

“Mrs. Cutthumb,” I answered, with a penetrating look, to show her that she underrated me, “I fear it must be that some mischief-maker has written up to say that I, that I – you know what I mean, Mrs. Cutthumb.”

“Yes, sir, and you means well so far, and everything straight-forrard; but you ain’t got near the heart of it, Master Kit; nor your Uncle neither, I’ll be bound. Wants a woman’s wits for that.”

“What on earth do you mean? It is bad enough. I don’t see how even a woman can make it any worse than it is. Speak out what you mean, since you have begun.”

“Well, sir, it is no more than this, and you mustn’t be put out by it. Suppose there is another young gent in the case – a young gent in London, they means her to marry.”

The goodnatured woman looked so knowing, that I thought she must have solid proof; and perhaps the deed was done already. I tried to laugh, but could only stare, and wonder what was coming next.

“Oh, Master Kit,” she went on with her apron to her eyes, or she was kind of heart, “you used to come, and play down here, when your head wasn’t up to the counter. And I had my Cutthumb then, and he gave you a penny, because you was so natural. Don’t you be struck of a heap like that, or I shall come to think that all women is wicked. It was only a bad thought of my own. I have nothing to go by, if I were to die this minute; and the same thought might come across any one. Don’t think no more about it, there’s a dear young man. Only keep your eyes open, and if you can manage to come across that stuck-up Jenny Marker, the least she can do, after saving her life, is to tell you all she knows, and to take your part. But don’t you believe more than half she says. I never would say a single word against her, there’s no call for that, being known as she is to every true woman in Sunbury; but if she’s not a double-faced gossiping hussy, as fancies that a gold chain makes a lady of her, and very likely no gold after all, why I should deserve to be taken up, and there’s no one has ever said that of me.”

Here Mrs. Cutthumb began to cry, at the thought of being taken to the station; and I saw that time alone could comfort her, yet ventured to say a few earnest words, about her position and high character. And presently she was quite brisk again.

“Why bless my heart,” she said, looking about for a box of matches on the onion shelf; “I ought to have stuck up my candle in the window, pretty well half an hour agone. Not that no customer comes after dark, nor many by daylight for that matter. Ah, Master Kit, I am a poor lone widow; but you are the nicest young man in Sunbury; and I wish you well, with all my heart I do. And mind one thing, whatever you do; if you ever carries out what I was saying, here’s the one as will help you to it, in a humble way, and without much money. A nice front drawing-room over the shop, bedroom, and chamber-suit to match. Only twelve shillings a week for it all, and the use of the kitchen fire for nothing. And the window on the landing looks on the river Thames, and the boats, and the barges, and the fishermen. Oh, Mr. Kit, with Mrs. Kitty now and then, it would be like the Garden of Eden.”

CHAPTER XIII.

MY UNCLE BEGINS

That last suggestion was most delicious, but it came too late to relieve the pang of the horrible idea first presented. I could not help wondering at my own slow wit, which ought to have told me that such a treasure as my heart was set upon, must have been coveted long ere now, by many with higher claims to it. Was it likely that I, a mere stupid fellow, half a rustic, and of no position, birth or property, should be preferred to the wealthy, accomplished, and brilliant men, who were sure to be gathering round such a prize? Black depression overcame me; even as the smoke of London, when the air is muggy, falls upon some country village, wrapping in funereal gloom the church, the trees, the cattle by the pond, and the man at the window with his newspaper. I could not see my way to eat much supper, and my Uncle was crusty with me.

“Can’t stand this much more,” he said, as he finished the beer that was meant for me; “a plague on all girls, and the muffs as well that go spooning after them! Why, the Lord might just as well never have made a Williams pear, or a cat’s-head codlin. S’pose you don’t even want to hear my story; you don’t deserve it anyhow. Better put it off, till you look brighter, for there isn’t much to laugh at in it, unless it is the dunder-headed folly of a very clever man.”

However, I begged him to begin at once; for he had hinted that his tale would throw some light on the subject most important in the world to me; so I filled him five pipes that he might not hunt about, and made his glass of rum and water rather strong, and put the black stool for his legs to rest on, and drew the red curtains behind his head, for the evening was chilly, and the fire cheerful.

“Like to do things for myself,” he muttered, while accepting these little duties. “Nobody else ever does them right, though meaning it naturally for the best. Well, you want to hear about those people; and you shall hear all I know, my lad; though I don’t pretend to know half of all; but what I know I do know, and don’t talk at random, like the old women here. We’ll take them in branches – male and female – until they unite, or pretend to do it; but a very poor splice; the same as you see, if you send for Camelias to Portugal, a great clumsy stick-out at the heel of the graft, and the bark grinning open all along. Bah! There’s no gardeners like Englishmen, though we run ’em down for fear of boasting. Did you ever hear why Professor Fairthorn would ever so much rather be called ‘Captain,’ though ‘Professor’ sounds ever so much better?”

“Perhaps he has a legal right to be called ‘Captain,’ but not to the other title. I have heard that hundreds of people call themselves Professors, without any right to do it. And I am sure he would never like to be one of them.”

“That has got nothing to do with it. He has held some appointment that gave him the right to the title, if he liked it. The reason is that his wife always calls him ‘Professor’; and so it reminds him of her. Ah, don’t you be in this outrageous hurry for a wife of your own, Master Kit, I say. For all I know, the Captain may have been as wild for her, some time, as you are for your Kitty. What can you say to that, my lad?”

“Why, simply that you don’t know at all what you are talking about, Uncle Corny. My Miss Fairthorn is not that lady’s daughter, and is not to be blamed for the whole of her sex, any more than you are for the whole of yours.”

“There is something in that, when one comes to see it,” my Uncle replied; for his mind was generally fair, when it cost him nothing. “But you must not keep on breaking in like this, or you won’t have heard half of it, this side of Christmas. Well, I was going to take them according to their sexes, the same as the Lord made them. And first comes the lady, as she hath a right to do, being at the bottom of the mischief.

“When I was a young man, thirty year or more agone, there used to be a lot of talk about the two handsome Miss Coldpeppers, of the Manor Hall down here. There used to be a lot also of coaches running, not so much through Sunbury, which lay to one side of the road, though some used to pass here on their way to Chertsey; and there was tootle-tootle along father’s walls, three or four times a day. But the most of them went further back, along the Staines and Windsor road, where the noise was something wonderful; and it’s my opinion that these Railway things will never be able to compare with it. They may make as much noise for the time, but it seems to be over, before the boys can holloa.

“Lots of young sparks, and bucks, and dandies, and Corinthians, and I forget what else, but all much finer than you can see now, used to come down by the coaches then, some of them driving, some blowing the horn, some upon the roof like merry-Andrews, making fools of themselves as we should call it now, and not be far wrong either. They were much bigger men than I see now, in their size, and their way of going on, and their spirits, and their strength of life, and likewise in their language. And the manners of the time were as different as can be, more frolicsome like, and more free and jovial; and they talked about the ladies, and to them also, ten times as much as they do now; and things were altogether merrier for them that had the money, and no worse for them that hadn’t got it, so far as I can see. Ah, there was something to be done in growing then – pineapples ordered at a guinea a pound, and grapes at fifteen shillings, though of course you didn’t always get your money. I’m blest if I won’t have another glass of rum and water.

“Well, old Squire Nicholas, as they call him now, was as proud as Punch of his two fine daughters, and expected them to marry at least an earl apiece, by their faces and fine figures. And they went about with great folk in Town, and to Court, and all that sort of thing, looking fit to marry the King almost, in their velvets, and their satin furbelows. The eldest daughter was Arabella, our Miss Coldpepper to this day, and the other was Miss Monica; as fine a pair of women as the Lord ever made. But for all that, see what they come to!

“There was no love lost between them even then, jealous of one another no doubt, like two cats over a fish-bone. Some said that one was the handsomer of them, and some said the other. There was a good bit of difference between them too, though any fool could tell they were sisters. Such eyes and noses as you won’t see now, and hair that would fall to their knees, I’ve been told, and complexions as clear as a white-heart cherry, and a cock of the chin, and a lordly walk – they deserved the name they went by in London, ‘the two Bright Suns of Sunbury.’ But after all, what good came of it? One is an old maid, and the other – well, not very likely to go to heaven, though she hasn’t had much of that yet on earth. Kit, I have seen a deal of women, as much as is good for any mortal man; and I tell you the first thing, and the second, and the third, and the whole to the end of the chapter of them depends upon their tempers. Ah, those two beauties were beauties at that; but Miss Monica ever so much the worse.

“It seems that they both might have married very well, if it had not been for that stumbling-block. Many young women go on so soft, and eye you so pleasant, and blush so sweet, that you’d fancy almost there was no such thing as a cross word, or a spitfire look, or a puckered forehead in their constitution; and angels is the name for them, until it is too late to fly away. But these two Misses had never learned how to keep their tempers under for a week together; and it seems that they never cared enough for any one to try to do it. Till there came a man with a temper ten times as bad as both of theirs put together; and then they fell in love with him hot and hearty. This was a younger son of Lord Roarmore, a nobleman living in North Wales, or Ireland – I won’t be certain which – and he was known as the Honourable Tom Bulwrag. He used to drive the Windsor coach from London down to Hounslow; for the passengers could stand him, while the stones and air were noisy; but there he was forced to get down from the box; for nothing that lived, neither man, nor horse, nor cow in the ditch, could endure this gentleman’s language, when there was too much silence to hear it in.

“I suppose he was quiet among the ladies, as many men are, who can speak no good. And perhaps our two ladies fell in love with him, because he was a bigger sample of themselves. Not that they ever used swearing words, only thought them, as it were, and let other people know it. Any way, both of them took a fancy to him, though their father would not hear of it; for the gentleman was not wealthy enough to have any right to such wickedness. Perhaps that made them like him all the more, for they always flew in the face of Providence. And for doing of that, they both paid out, as generally happens here, that we may see it.

“So far as I can tell, and I had better chances of knowing than any one else outside the house, everything was settled for the Honourable Tom to run away to Bath with Miss Arabella, with special licence, and everything square. But whether she was touched in heart about her father (whose favourite she had always been), or whether her lover came out too strong in his usual style, or whether her sister Monica had egged her on to it, sure enough she blazed out into such a fury, just when they were starting, and carried on so reckless, that the Honourable Tom, who had never quite made up his mind, was frightened of what she would be by-and-by, and locked her in a tool-house at the bottom of the grounds, and set off with Miss Monica that same hour, changing the name in the licence, and married her.

“Without being too particular, you might fairly suppose that a job of this kind was not likely to end well. Miss Monica had taken with her one – what shall I say? Certainly not servant, nor attendant, nor inferior in any way – ”

My uncle here seemed to feel a certain want of power to express himself; and I knew that he was beating about the bush of the one and only one romance of his dry and steady life. He turned away, so that I could not see his eyes, and I did not wish to look at them.

“Well, that is neither here nor there,” he continued, after pushing more tobacco into a pipe too full already; “but she took away a young lady of this neighbourhood, to whom she appeared to be much attached, and who alone had any power to control her furious outbreaks, just because she always smiled at them, as soon as they were over. The sweet-tempered girl could never quite believe that the Fury was in earnest, because it was so far beyond her own possibilities; and the woman of fury did a far worse thing than the wrecking of her own stormy life, she also wrecked a sweet, and gentle, loving, and reasonable heart. Never mind that; it often happens, and what does the selfish Fury care? Miss Monica became, as I have said, the Honourable Mrs. Bulwrag, and then she reaped the harvest she had sown.

“For in the first place Viscount Roarmore, being a hot-headed man likewise, stopped every farthing of his son’s allowance, and said – ‘Go to your new father. Your pretty cousin Rose, with five thousand pounds a year, was ready to marry you, in spite of all your sins, and you had promised to marry her. You have taken one of those two girls, who were called the “Bright Suns of Sunbury,” till people found out what they were, and called them the two “Raging Suns.” Now rage her down, if you can, and you ought to be more than a match for a woman. In any case, expect no more from me.’

“Then the young man came to Squire Nicholas, and screwed himself down to eat humble pie. But the Squire said, ‘Sir, you have married my daughter without asking my leave, and against it. I still have a dutiful daughter left. She is my only one henceforth.’ Then the young man broke into the strongest language ever yet heard at Coldpepper Hall, although it had never been weak in that line. He was very soon shown the outside of the door, and got drunk for the night at the ‘Bell and Dragon.’

“Then began the rough-and-tumble work between those two – the hugging and the hating, the billing and the bullying, the kissing and the kicking, all and every up and down of laughing, sobbing, scratching, screeching, that might be in a wild hyena’s den. How they contrived to hold together so long as they did, Heaven only knows, or perhaps the opposite place to Heaven. There must have been some fierce love between them, some strange suitability; as if each perceived the worst part of himself or herself in the other, and flew to it, as well as flew at it. What kept them together was a mystery; but what kept them alive was a darker one. Without friends, or money, or credit, or visible robbery, they fought on together, for five or even six years, now here and now there. Three children they had, and fought over them of course, and perhaps began to teach them to fight each other, at least so far as example goes.

“But suddenly this queer union was broken up for ever. Mr. Bulwrag did something which risked his neck; he believed that Squire Nicholas was bound to contribute to the support of his grandchildren, and he made him do his duty, without knowing it. Then, having arranged for a three-days’ start, he was well upon his voyage before pursuit began. It is not very easy to catch a man now, when he has a good start, and knows the world; but five and twenty years ago, it was generally given up as a bad job; unless the reward was astounding. No reward was offered, and the Honourable Tom was next heard of from South America, where there seemed to be a lot of little States, which never allow their civil wars to abate their wars with one another. This condition of things was exactly to his taste; his courage and strong language made their way; he commanded the forces of one great Republic, with the title of ‘Marshal Torobelle,’ and he promised to send some money home in the last letter ever received from him.

“His deserted wife said after that, that she truly would believe in everything, if she ever saw a ten-pound note from her beloved husband. But she never was put to the trial, for the next news was that he was dead. He had found it much to his advantage to learn to swear in Spanish; and being proud of this, because he had little other gift of lingo, he tried it upon a young Spanish officer, who did not take it cordially. After parade, they had a private fight, and Marshal Torobelle could swear no more, even in his native language. His friends, for he seems to have been liked out there, wrote a very kind letter in bad French, telling how grand he had been, and how faithful, but grieving that he had left no affairs, to place them in a state to remember him. Then the Marshal’s widow bought expensive mourning, for he had left with her a thousand pounds of the proceeds of his forgery, and wrote to his father, Lord Roarmore.

“Kit, I have found that one can generally tell what a man will do, in certain cases, from a rough outline of his character. What a woman will do, no man can tell, though he fancies he knows her thoroughly. My Lord Roarmore was a violent man, and hot more than hard in his resolution. And he took it very kindly that his son, when driven hard, had forged the name of the father-in-law, and not of the father, as he might have done. He was beginning to relent already, and finding it too late, naturally relented altogether. He talked of his noble and gallant son, and although himself in difficulties, bravely settled five hundred pounds a year upon the widow and the little ones.

“I dare say you are surprised, my lad, that I should have come to know so much of this unhappy story; more I believe than is even known by the lady’s own sister – our Miss Coldpepper. Women are slower to forgive than men, and slower in beginning to be forgiven. Arabella has never forgiven her sister for running away with her lover; and Monica has never forgiven her sister for making such a fuss about it. They may try to pull together, when it suits their purpose; but the less they see of one another, the greater the chance of their reconciliation. But I am not come to the poor Captain yet; and, bless my heart, it is ten o’clock! What a time to stay up about other people’s business! If you want to hear the rest, you must have it to-morrow.”

CHAPTER XIV.

AND ENDS WITH A MORAL

All through the following day, we were forced to be hard at work, whether we liked it or not, gathering a large lot of early apples, such as Keswick, Sugarloaf, and Julien, which would have been under the trees by this time in an early season. But this, through the chill and continual rain of the time that should have been summer, was the latest season within human memory; which (like its owners) is not very long. And now a break-up of the weather was threatened, at which we could not grumble, having now enjoyed ten days without any rain – a remarkable thing in much better years than this. And in this year it truly was a God-send, helping us to make some little push, before the winter closed over us, and comforting us to look up to Heaven, without being almost beaten down. The people who live in great cities, where they need only go a few yards all day long, and can get beneath an awning or an archway, if a drop of rain disturbs their hats, give the weather ten bad words for every one we give it; though we are bound to work in it, and worse than that, have our livelihood hanging upon it. Not that we are better pleased than they; only that our more wholesome life, and the strength of the trees, and the unexhausted air, perhaps put into us a kinder spirit to make the best of things that are ordered from above.

Few things in the manner of ordinary work become more wearisome after a while than the long-continued gathering of fruit. The scent, which is delightful to those who catch a mere whiff of it in going by, becomes most cloying and even irksome to those who have it all day in their nostrils. And the beauty of the form and colour too, and the sleek gloss of each fine sample, lose all their delight in the crowd of their coming, and make us even long to see the last of them. Every man of us, even Uncle Corny, to whom every basket was grist for the mill, felt heartily glad when streaky sunset faded softly into dusk, when flat leaf looked as round as fruit, and apples knocked our heads instead of gliding into the ready hand.

“Now mind one thing,” said my uncle with a yawn, when after a supper of liver and bacon knowingly fried by Mrs. Tabby, his pipe was between his teeth and all his other needs were toward; “if I go on with my tale to-night, I am likely enough to leave out something which may be the gist of it. For I feel that sleepy, after all this job, that I can scarcely keep my pipe alight. However, you have worked well to-day, and shown no white feather for your sweetheart’s sake; and of course you want to know most about her, and how she comes into this queer tale. Poor young thing, she smiles as sweetly, as if she trod a path of roses, instead of nettles, and briars, and flint! Ah, I suppose she forgets her troubles, whenever she looks at you, my lad.” This made my heart beat faster than any words of his tale I had heard till now.