MY KITTY.
THE shape of a tree is not decided by the pruner only. When the leader
is stopped, with an eye towards the wind, and the branches clipped to a
nicety of experience and of forethought, and the happy owner has said
to it—“Now I defy you to go amiss this season”—before he is up in the
morning perhaps, his lecture is flown, and his labour lost.
My wise Uncle Corny had said to me, more times than I can
remember—“Kit, you are a good boy, a very good boy, and likely to be
useful in my business by-and-by. But of one thing beware—never say a
word to women. They never know what they want themselves; and they like
to bring a man into the same condition. What wonderful things I have
seen among the women! And the only way out of it is never to get into
it.”
In answer to this I never said a word, being unable to contradict,
though doubtful how far he was right. But it made me more shy than I
was already, while at the same time it seemed to fill me with interest
in the matter. But the only woman I had much to do with went a long way
to confirm my Uncle’s words. This was no other than Tabitha Tapscott,
a widow from the West of England, who did all our cleaning and cooking
for us, coming into the house at six o’clock in the summer, and seven
in the winter time. A strange little creature she appeared to me, so
different from us in all her ways, making mountains of things that we
never noticed, and not at all given to silence.
Once or twice my Uncle Corny, after a glass of hot rum and water (which
he usually had on a Saturday night, to restore him after paying wages)
had spoken, in a strange mysterious style, of having “had his time,”
or as he sometimes put it—“paid his footing.” It was not easy to make
out his drift, or the hint at the bottom of it; and if any one tried
to follow him home, sometimes he would fly off into rudeness, or if in
a better vein, convey that he held his tongue for the good of younger
people. Such words used to stir me sadly, because I could get no more
of them.
However, I began to feel more and more, as youth perhaps is sure to do
when it listens to dark experience, as if I should like almost to go
through some of it on my own behalf. Not expecting at all to leave it
as a lesson for those who come after me, but simply desiring to enter
into some knowledge of the thing forbidden. For I knew not as yet that
there is no pleasure rich enough to satisfy the interest of pain.
It was on the first Sunday of September in the year 1860, that I first
left all my peaceful ways, and fell into joy and misery. And strangely
enough, as some may think, it was in the quiet evening service that
the sudden change befell me. That summer had been the wettest ever
known, or at any rate for four and forty years; as the old men said,
who recalled the time when the loaves served out to their fathers and
mothers stuck fast, like clay, upon the churchyard wall. Now the river
was up to the mark of the road, and the meadows on the other side were
lakes, and even a young man was well pleased to feel a flint under
his foot as he walked. For the road was washed with torrents, and all
the hedges reeking, and the solid trunks of ancient elms seemed to be
channelled with perpetual drip.
But the sun began to shine out of the clouds, at his very last
opportunity; and weak and watery though he looked, with a bank of haze
beneath him, a soft relief of hope and comfort filled the flooded
valley. And into our old western porch a pleasant light came quivering,
and showed us who our neighbours were, and made us smile at one
another.
As it happened now, my mind was full of a certain bed of onions, which
had grown so rank and sappy, that we had not dared to harvest them.
And instead of right thoughts upon entering church, I was saying to
myself—“We shall have a dry week, I do believe. I will pull them
to-morrow, and chance it.” This will show that what now befell me came
without any fault of mine.
For just as the last bell struck its stroke, and the ringer swang down
on the heel of it, and the murmur went floating among the trees, I drew
back a little to let the women pass, having sense of their feeling
about their dresses, which is to be respected by every man. And in
those days they wore lovely flounces, like a bee-hive trimmed with
Venetian blinds. They had learned a fine manner of twitching up these,
whenever they came to steps and stairs; and while they were at it, they
always looked round, to make sure of no disarrangement. My respect for
them made me gaze over their heads, as if without knowledge of their
being there at all. Yet they whispered freely to one another, desiring
to know if their ribands were right for the worship of the Almighty.
Now as I gazed in a general style, being timid about looking
especially, there came into my eyes, without any sense of moment, but
stealing unawares as in a vision, the fairest and purest and sweetest
picture that ever went yet from the eyes to the heart. To those who
have never known the like, it is hopeless to try to explain it; and
even to myself I cannot render, by word or by thought, a mere jot of
it. And many would say, that to let things so happen, the wits for the
time must be out of their duty.
It may have been only a glance, or a turn of the head, or the toss of
a love-lock—whatever it was, for me the world was a different place
thereafter. It was a lovely and gentle face, making light in the gloom
of the tower arch, and touched with no thought of its own appearance,
as other pretty faces were. I had never dreamed that any maiden could
have said so much to me, as now came to me without a word.
Wondering only about her, and feeling abashed at my own footsteps, I
followed softly up the church, and scarcely knew the button of our own
pew door. For Uncle Corny owned a pew, and insisted upon having it,
and would allow no one to sit there, without his own grace and written
order. He never found it needful to go to church on his own account,
being a most upright man; but if ever he heard of any other Christian
being shown into his pew, he put on his best clothes the next Sunday
morning, and repaired to the sacred building, with a black-thorn staff
which had a knob of obsidian. Such a thing would now be considered
out of date; but the church was the church, in those more established
times. Here I sat down in my usual manner, to the best of my power,
because I knew how my neighbours would be watching me; and saying my
prayers into the bottom of my hat, I resolved to remember where I was,
and nothing else. But this was much easier said than done; for the
first face I met, upon looking round, was that of Sam Henderson the
racer, the owner of the paddocks at Halliford, a young man who thought
a great deal of himself, and tried to bring others to a like opinion.
He was not altogether a favourite of mine, although I knew nothing
against him; for he loved showy colours, and indulged in large fancies
that all the young women were in love with him. Now he gave me a nod,
although the clergyman was speaking, and following the turn of his eyes
I was vexed yet more with his behaviour. He was gazing, as though with
a lofty approval, and no sort of fear in his bright black eyes, at the
face which had made me feel just now so lowly and so worthless.
In the Manor pew, which had been empty nearly all the summer—for the
weather had driven our ladies abroad—there she sat, and it made me feel
as if hope was almost gone from me. For I could not help knowing that
Mrs. Sheppard, who arranged all the worshippers according to their
rank, would never have shown the young lady in there, unless she had
been of high standing. And almost before I was out of that thought
my wits being quicker than usual, it became quite clear to me, who
she was—or at any rate who was with her. From the corner of the pew
there came and stood before her, as if to take general attention off,
a highly esteemed and very well dressed lady, Mrs. Jenny Marker. This
was the “lady housekeeper,” as everybody was bound to call her who
hoped to get orders, at Coldpepper Hall, herself a very well bred and
most kind-hearted woman, to all who considered her dignity. Having
always done this, I felt sure of her good word, and hoping much too
hastily that the young lady was her niece, I made it feel perhaps less
presumptuous on my part, to try to steal a glance at her, whenever luck
afforded.
Herein I found tumultuous bliss, until my heart fell heavily. I was
heeding very scantily the reading of the minister, and voices of the
clerk and faithful of the congregation, when suddenly there came the
words,—“the dignity of Princes.” And then I knew, without thinking
twice, that this young lady could never have won the dignity of the
Manor-pew, unless she had been a great deal more than the niece
of Jenny Marker. In a moment, too, my senses came to back up this
perception, and I began to revile myself for thinking such a thought
of her. Not that Mrs. Marker was of any low condition, for she wore
two rings and a gold watch-chain, and was highly respected by every
one; but she cheapened all the goods she bought, even down to an old
red herring, and she had been known to make people take garden-stuff
in exchange for goods, or else forego her custom. The memory of these
things grieved me with my own imagination.
I was very loth to go—as you will see was natural—without so much as
one good look at the sweet face which had blessed me; but everything
seemed to turn against me, and the light grew worse and worse. Moreover
Sam Henderson stared so boldly, having none of my diffidence, that Mrs.
Marker came forward sharply, and jerked the rings of the red baize
curtain, so that he could see only that. At this he turned red, and
pulled up his collar, and I felt within myself a glow of good-will for
the punching of his head. And perhaps he had grounds for some warm
feeling toward me, for the reason that I being more to the left could
still get a glimpse round the corner of the curtain, which acted as a
total drop of scenery for him.
When the sermon was finished in its natural course, the sky was getting
very dark outside, and the young men and women were on best behaviour
to take no advantage of the gloom in going out. For as yet we had no
great gas-works, such as impair in the present generation the romance
and enlargement of an evening service. So that when we came forth, we
were in a frame of mind for thinking the best of one another.