THERE SAT KITTY.
WHILE these things thus were growing near me, as I learned soon
afterwards, in our place there was no sign yet of anything encouraging.
My Uncle Corny, who had always vowed that he never would bet a
farthing, was now in a highly grumbling state, because he had not
backed _Nutmeg-grater_.
“A horse bred and born in our own fields—a colt I have seen through the
hedge fifty times, without caring to count his legs almost, and he goes
and wins five thousand pounds, and how much do I get? Not a penny. I
think it was very unkind of Sam; unnatural, and not neighbourly, to
let Ludred get all the good of that, and not a threepenny bit come to
Sunbury!”
“Now, Uncle Corny, you talk of justice, and every one calls you a
superior man;” I said, with the desire to mollify him, but the method
misdirected; “how many times have I heard Sam Henderson tell you to
put a bit of money on that horse? But you said—‘None of your gambling
for me!’ And now, because the horse has won, you think you have been
ill-treated!”
“Kit, you stick to your own affairs. What do you know about things
like this? I want none of their dirty money. I pay my way, by honest
work. They are a set of rogues, all together. You never see anything
clearly now. Your wits are always gone wool-gathering. Why, your own
Aunt Parslow won a box of gloves. And you are satisfied with my getting
nothing.”
It was true that my wits were wool-gathering now, but they travelled
a long way for nothing. Ever since Sam, and Major Monkhouse, brought
me the story of that strange vision, it seemed to be dwelling in my
brain, and driving every solid sense out of it. All day long, and all
night too, the same thing was before me—a ship with white sails piled
on one another, like a tower of marble arches, the blue water breaking
into silver at her steps, and upon the forefront a figure standing,
with arms extended and bright eyes yearning, and red lips opened to
say—“here I am!”
I went to the post, three times a day, for we now had three deliveries,
and who could wait for old Bob’s slow round? And often in the middle
of a mutton-chop, which Tabby would grind into my listless mouth, at a
shadow on the window, or the creaking of a door, I was up, and had my
hat on, and was listening in the lane.
Any one would laugh at the foolish things I did. I kept the kettle
boiling, day and night, until there was a hole in it, and I had to buy
another; I dusted all the chairs three times a day; I kept a bunch of
roses on the window-sill, and cut a fresh tea-rose, every morn and
evening, to go into Kitty’s bosom, when she should appear. I ordered a
cold chicken every day from Mr. Rasp, and garnished it with parsley,
and handed it over with a sigh to Mrs. Tompkins, when nobody came to
taste it; and I made Polly Tompkins sleep with a string round her arm,
and the end hanging out of the window. Every man on the place swore
that I was cracked, except Selsey Bill, who stuck a spade up at my door.
“Afore the rust cometh down the blade of that there tool, you’ll be a
happy man, Master Kit,” he said; and as he spoke, his little squinny
eyes were bright with something that removes the rust of human nature’s
metal.
At last I was truly getting genuinely cracked. Another week of burning
hope and weltering dejection, of tossing to the sky and tumbling to the
depths of darkness, must have left my dull brain empty of the little
gift God put in it.
When a whole month had expired from the day when hope awoke, reason
fell upon me like a flail, and hope was chaff. I made my usual
preparations, with a bitter grin at them, and set the roses in the
window, with contempt of their loveliness.
“The last time of all this tomfoolery,” I said; “to-morrow I shall work
hard again. Everything is lies, and tricks, and rot. Kitty has taken up
with some fellow, and they are laughing at me in some gambling-den. I
have a great mind to smash it up altogether. I shall sleep where that
_Regulus_ slept to-night. Much good I did by stealing him. Hard work is
the only thing worth doing.”
It was the first time that I had ever dared to think such a shameful
thing of my pure wife; and I hope that I did not think it now, but said
it by the devil’s prompting. If any one had said it in my hearing, he
would have said little else for another month. And I could have knocked
my own self on the head, with great pleasure, when I came to think of
it.
We laugh very nicely—when they cannot hear us—at women, for not knowing
their own minds; but no woman ever born, since they began to bear us,
could have gainsayed herself, as a man did, that day. I wandered about
and lay under trees, for now it was the 15th of June, and the weather
warm and sunny; then I climbed up trees and watched the river, and the
roads, and even the meadow-path, where the cows were, and the mushrooms
grew. Then I went and had a talk with Widow Cutthumb, and when she
began to run down the race of women, I went so much further, that she
grew quite sharp, and extolled them, and put all the blame upon us. It
was waste of time to reason with her; so I let her have her own way, as
they always do.
Then I went to the butcher’s, and saw a fine sweet-bread, the very
thing for any one just come from a long journey, and perhaps a little
giddy from the rolling of a ship. With a sigh of despair I pulled out
half a crown, and made him lend me a basket and a clean white napkin.
Then I could not run home with it quick enough, for it seemed as if
some one would be dying without it; but as soon as I got to our door,
I set it down, and could not bring myself even to enter the house.
Away I went, and got into the loneliest place I could find; and being
rather light of head from grief and want of food, fell over an old
apple-trunk, and fell asleep beside it.
When I awoke, the sun was set; and the men (who were now working
overtime, to be ready for the strawberries) were all gone home with
their frails upon their backs, and their little ones coming down the
road to meet them. Dizzily I pushed my way into a grassy alley, and
sauntered homeward, wishing only to go home for ever.
The front-door was open, which did not surprise me, for I often left it
so, and the basket containing the sweet-bread was gone, and the roses
were moved from the window. The sound of my boots did not ring as it
used, and the air seemed less empty, and softer. In a stupefied hurry,
I opened the door of the parlour—and there sat Kitty!
Kitty looking at me, with a strange and timid look. As if she were not
certain that I would be glad to see her. As if she doubted whether I
could love her any more; as if her soul in earth and heaven hung on the
next moment.
I could not go to her, and I could not say a word; and to tell the
truth, I don’t know what I did. But I must have spread my arms, by
some gift of nature; for before I could think of it, there she was;
weeping—as I never could have thought it possible for any one, even in
this world of tears, to weep.
Then she put up her hand, with the fingers thrown back, and stroked my
cheeks gently, and said—“How thin! How thin!” Then she threw both arms
around my neck, and drew my face down to her lips, and covered every
inch of it with sobbing kisses. I pressed her sweet bosom to mine, and
our hearts seemed to beat into one another.
“Oh, Kit, my own, own dear old Kit! Can you ever forgive me? Ever?”
She said this I dare say fifty times, scarcely allowing me to speak,
for she said it was not good for me; withdrawing and feigning to be
ashamed of her passionate love every now and then; and then rushing
into my embrace again. Then she stood up, and threw back her beautiful
hair, and said with the glance which she knew I adored—
“Well, how do you think I am looking, love? Don’t you think it is high
time to tell me?”
She was wearing some foreign dress, beautifully cut, which set off her
figure; and she knew it very well.
“I never saw you looking half so lovely,” I replied; “though I thought
it impossible to improve you.”
“Sun-burnt, and freckled, and mosquito-bitten. But never mind, dear,
if you love your own wife. We’ll soon make all that right again. Oh, I
have been too wild! Feel how my heart is jumping.”
She was threatened with hysterics; but I soothed her gently, and she
rested on my breast with her eyes half closed. As I looked at her, I
felt that in this rapture I could die.
“Darling, I can hardly believe it yet;” she whispered, playing with
my fingers to make sure; “see, this is my wedding-ring, I never took
it off. What fine gold it is, not to tarnish with my tears. The drops
that have fallen on it—oh, I wonder there is any blue left in my eyes
at all! Do you think they are as blue, dear, as when you used to love
them?”
“They are bluer, heart of hearts. They are larger and deeper. The tears
of true love have made them still more lovely.”
“But yours are so worn, and sad, and harassed! That can’t be from
loving me more than I love you; because that is simply impossible. But
you never have been—tell me, tell me all the truth. Was there any truth
whatever in that horrible tale? Remember I shall love you just the
same. If you tore me to pieces I should love you.”
“What horrible tale? I have never heard of any horrible tale, except
your going away.”
“And you don’t know the reason! Oh Kit, oh Kit, have you taken me back
like this, without even knowing why I went?”
“Darling I have not the least idea why you went. I was too glad to get
you back, to think of anything else.”
“Well, you are a true love! You are a husband such as no woman on the
earth deserves. I don’t think even I could have taken you back so, if
you had run away from me, and I knew nothing of the cause.”
“Oh yes, you would, Kitty; I am sure you would. I believe in you, just
as you would in me, and talking has nothing to do with it. But how did
you expect me to know all about it?”
“Why, of course, by the letter I sent you from Ascension. The moment we
got your letter—the moment I could stop crying, crying, crying—I wrote
you such a letter, darling. Oh, I thought it would have killed me with
wonder, and with joy. It was almost as sweet as this—not quite, not
quite; nothing else can ever be quite so sweet as this.”
“Then were you with your father? Were you with him all the time.”
“To be sure I was, dearest. Do you think I would have gone with any one
else, away from you—away from my own husband?”
“But I thought it quite impossible for you to be with him. He was far
in the Atlantic, dear, before you ran away.”
“Before I ran away! Oh Kit, oh Kit! And you thought I had run away with
somebody else! Oh, what has my misery been, compared with yours? No
wonder you are thin, dear; no wonder you are gaunt. Why, I can’t think
how you can have managed to keep alive. I am sure I should have been
dead, buried, and forgotten. Thirteen months, a year and a month, to be
thinking your own new-married wife had run away, like a bad woman! Oh
dear! Don’t stop me; I must cry again, or I may do something worse. And
you have not even got my letter yet.”
“No. But I dare say it will come by-and-by. I expected no letter from
you, of course, because I had no idea where you were; but every day
I hoped for one from your father. But they told me the mails from
Ascension are uncertain, because they take their chance of passing
ships. Sometimes they don’t come for months together.
“Now will you read this?” she cried, jumping up with her old
impetuosity; “I am very glad I kept it, though it makes me creep every
time I touch it. That explains everything. Who wrote that?”
“It is like my writing; but I never wrote a word of it, and never saw,
or dreamed of it before.”
“Whoever wrote that letter, Kit,” my wife said very solemnly, “ought
to have his portion for ever and ever in the bottomless pit, where the
fire is not quenched. I could never have believed that any human being
could possibly have conceived such wickedness. But don’t read it now;
it would take too long, and spoil our perfect happiness, darling. We
must not be so selfish. No more kisses, until we have done our duty.
Just put me into trim again, and let me do my hair up, and we must both
run down to Uncle Corny’s. Nobody has seen me yet, but you. What do you
think I did? I was quite resolved that no one should see me, but my own
husband. So I left my things at Feltham, and ran all the way—flew all
the way, I ought to say, and came through Love Lane all alone. Oh, we
will never part again, not even for a day, Kit, or half a day. You must
never let me out of your sight any more.”
“And not out of my arms, when I can help it,” I said, as with my dear
wife still enclasped, and her hair waving over my bounding heart, I
took her through the quiet alleys of the summer night, just to show her
for a minute—for I could not spare her more—to the loyal and good Uncle
Corny.