Kitty had never had many advantages, but there had been a time when to
be Kitty was in itself an advantage. Her mother died at her birth, and
her father, though she was the only human being he really loved, was
very little with her; he preferred his caprices to his affections. But
Kitty did not miss either of her natural protectors very deeply. She had
Peckham, and though Peckham was only an old nurse, she was a selfless
fount of love; from a bump to a dead bird she was all attention,
consolation, and reward.
Nothing that Kitty cared for escaped Peckham, and she stood solid and
aggressive between Kitty and her occasional fears. Peckham was unable
always to provide Kitty with what she wanted—the brass eagle off the
lectern and the housekeeper’s blue beads were a case in point—but she
strained every nerve to procure substitutes. In all her happy childhood
Kitty never knew what it was to be deliberately thwarted.
And then there was Dick. One said one’s prayers to God, but everything
else one said to Dick. Dick was the eldest son of the retired rector, an
enchanting personage who did not preach sermons and who always went
about with sweets in his pocket. He was the only pillar of the church
who ever attracted Kitty.
Dick’s people lived across the river, at the foot of the garden. There
was an island in the river, and Dick made a bridge from his garden to
the island, and from the island to Kitty’s garden. Long before the
bridge was built, when they were only babies, they were taken solemnly
by the road to tea, to play with each other.
Whenever Kitty fell down, Dick, who was a year older, picked her up; and
whatever Dick was given, he gave half of it to Kitty. Even his catapult
he lent her. It was one of those strange affections which transcend
relationship and never alter except to deepen as the years pass.
They took their first plunge into life together, hand in hand, and it
never occurred to either of them to have a separate thought. They played
together every day until Dick went to school, and they broke their
hearts over the agonizing separations, between the golden flashes of the
holidays. The gloom was slightly lifted for Kitty by Dick’s rabbits
(they were carefully transferred to her across the bridge, hutch by
hutch) and to Dick by her scrawled bulletins as to their increasing and
pervasive families.
When he came back they still played together. Other boys had entered
into Dick’s life to war with feminine influences, but they did not touch
his feelings for Kitty.
Kitty had none of the distinctive markings of a girl; she might just as
well have been another boy. Dick’s favorite pursuits were hers. There
was no tree she feared to climb, she ran like a deer, and her high jumps
cleared her own height. She was more unexpected than boys usually are,
but she was just as truthful, just as loyal, just as plucky.
She did not stop being a comrade until Dick was eighteen, and then she
became everything else. The comrade was still there, but submerged in
something so tremendous and inspiring, so exciting and yet so intensely
secure, that Dick found no words to explain even to Kitty what he felt
for her.
But Kitty didn’t need Dick’s words. What happened first to Dick happened
as a matter of course afterward to Kitty. When Peckham, unable to bear
the responsibility of the situation, reported upon it to Mr. Costrelle,
he listened to her with amused attention. Then he said:
“Have they been allowed to see as much as they liked of each other till
now, no opposition at all, eh?”
Peckham in a flutter answered that they had.
“You see, sir,” she explained, “Miss Kitty being such a tomboy, and
Master Dick’s mother an invalid and never out of the house, I was hard
put to it to think of a reason why they shouldn’t be together.”
“Well, continue not to think of a reason,” replied Mr. Costrelle,
calmly. “Allow them to be together as much as ever they choose. They’ll
soon get over it. When young people are permitted to do exactly as they
like, they seldom continue to like it for any length of time.”
Not long after this conversation Mr. Costrelle decided to take Kitty
abroad. He was in the habit of frequent and prolonged visits to Paris
and Monte Carlo. Kitty, accompanied by intermittent governesses,
wouldn’t be a bother, and Mr. Costrelle wanted her to be taught to speak
French and how to put her clothes on properly. He did not think these
two subjects easily mastered in his own country.
“The only thing a girl need bother her head about,” Mr. Costrelle
explained to Kitty, “is how to amuse a man and how to get a bit of her
own back. Lots of old women will cram you up with nonsense; they’ll say
a woman needs education, freedom, equal rights, and what not. Don’t you
believe ’em. Men are what matter to women, and women are what matter to
men.
“A clever girl hasn’t got equal rights; she’s got ’em _all_, and a girl
isn’t clever if she’s read half the London Library and can’t make a man
who looked at her once want to look at her again. Make ’em want and keep
’em wanting. You can’t begin too early, but don’t lose your head over
it. That’s where women make such awful fools of themselves. They start
caring about some fellow and running him down as if they were a Paris
cabby after a foot-passenger. No man’ll stand it. Don’t you ever budge,
however much you care for a fellow. Get him keen and then hold him. Good
artificial fly, invisible line, firm hand at the end of it, feet well
against the bank, and you’ll have your fish landed. D’you see my point?”
Kitty saw her parent’s point; she listened gravely out of the depths of
her seventeen-year-old wisdom and innocence. She was never quite so old
again.
“You won’t mind, will you,” she said consideringly, “if I marry Dick
instead, and don’t play any particular kind of game? You see, I’d rather
marry Dick.”
“Marry whom you like,” said her father, promptly, “provided he can
support you. I can’t, as you know, and what your mother wanted to leave
you three hundred a year for God only knows. You can’t even dress on it.
She always was penny wise and pound foolish. But take my advice. If you
want to keep your husband, learn to play your game. Any fool can get a
husband; look at the sights who do. ’Pon my word, I saw a woman the
other day with a cast in her eye and a harelip, with a wedding-ring on.
Of course you’d think there was money back of it, but there wasn’t.
Sheer will power. She’d been after him like a boa constrictor gets a
rabbit. But that’s not enough to keep a man faithful for a fortnight.
You must learn the ropes.”
“But Dick,” Kitty said reflectively—“couldn’t I keep Dick without
playing a game? You see, there never have been any particular ropes with
Dick.”
“I never met a man yet,” said Mr. Costrelle, emphatically, “who didn’t
like a woman better because other men were after her. Besides, you’ve
got yourself to think of. Life’s chancy. You want to have something to
fall back on.
“I dare say a lot of people—all your mother’s relations and that stuffy
set at Rochett—would say I ought to have had you educated to some
profession. Well, what I’m teaching you will pay you better than _any_
profession. You never need be at a loss. If you’re happy with Dick, or
whoever you pick out to be happy with, you can _stay_ happy; and if
you’re not, by Jove! you can make ’em pay for it.”
“But I’m going to be happy, of course,” said Kitty, calmly. “I settled
all that long ago, and I sha’n’t want anybody to pay for it.”
“Well, make damned sure you can _make_ them pay for it if you ever do
want it,” urged Mr. Costrelle. “No use thinking you’ll have a shy at it
later on, when your looks are going. You might as well race a horse
that’s never learned to start. You take my word for it, girls and horses
need training while they’re young.”
“All right,” said Kitty, thoughtfully; “I’ll train.”
It amused Mr. Costrelle extremely to watch Kitty training, and it didn’t
do Kitty any particular harm then.
Her heart was safe, and she learned point by point, sometimes from a
lightly dropped reflection of her father’s, and more often from the
varied experiences that presented themselves, the mastery of her
subject.
Mr. Costrelle knew men of all sorts and of all ages, and they all became
sooner or later the declared admirers of Kitty. Peckham, perturbed and
powerless, watched the strange procession. She could not interfere with
Kitty’s freedom, but she never left her alone. She sat and knitted on
benches at Monte Carlo, she reluctantly attended the most risqué of
French plays, she was seasick on board yachts, and giddy in
racing-motors; but Peckham was always there. Perhaps, owing to this
adamant protection, Kitty flirted serenely on without disaster. She
learned the ways of men, and little by little she learned the powers of
women. Dick didn’t like it, but he fell deeper in love.
They argued and quarreled about Kitty’s adventures, but neither of them
ever doubted the other. Their future was plain before them, and in the
depths of their hearts they knew that there were no other men or any
other women.
When Kitty was eighteen Mr. Costrelle insisted on her spending six weeks
in London with an aunt. Kitty didn’t want to go. She didn’t like her
aunt, with whom she had occasionally lunched in an awe-inspiring, dark
London dining-room where she had been stared at reflectively and without
kindness by three girl cousins.
The Mallards were a dull family; still, they had a large house and a
wide acquaintance. They were modern enough to know what to go and see,
though none of it adhered to them. No member of the family had ever said
anything worth remembering or had done anything it was necessary to
forget. London spoke of them as “the dull Mallards,” but it did speak of
them.
Mr. Costrelle, who hardly ever urged any course of action upon Kitty,
virtually insisted upon the Mallards.
“Yes, of course you’ll be bored,” he agreed; “but, my dear child, at
your age what else can you expect? Young people must learn to be bored,
and the sooner the better. I’ve been bored for fifty years, but I’ve
learned how. I quite admit that your aunt’s a dowd and your cousins
three young and very undistinguished frumps, but that’s precisely why
they’re so valuable. If you have one good frump at your side, you have a
margin; with three or four, any future is virtually open to you.
“You know all the men you need to know now, and none of the women you’ve
met with me can be of the slightest use to you. It’s high time you
should square a few frumps. Otherwise the men’ll do you harm. You’ll be
considered fast.”
“But aren’t I fast?” Kitty inquired. “I thought knowing a lot of men was
always fast.”
“So it is,” said her father, with a chuckle, “damned fast and damned
convenient, but you’ll have to slow up over it. Sprinkle a few of these
Mallard women across your track, and then you can do what you like.
See?”
Kitty didn’t see, but she did what she liked.
It was, after all, quite an amusing time. Many of the men she knew
turned up, and invitations were showered upon her, backed by flowers and
chocolates. Her cousins didn’t like her even though she religiously
shared all the chocolates and flowers with them, and her aunt stared
rather hard at some of Kitty’s callers.
Kitty’s French clothes were a great success, but her French manners had
to be toned down. Dick hated them, and the other men were sometimes a
little tiresome. Kitty had long ago learned to deal with men who were
tiresome. She did it with laughter and good humor and a little touch of
decision, and she very seldom needed any other weapon.
A good many of the men she had met in Monte Carlo and met again in
London were tiresome; and in the middle of the six weeks Dick wanted to
marry her. He said quite suddenly he _must_ marry her. The Mallards sent
Kitty back to her father with expedition and without cordiality.
Mr. Costrelle shrugged his shoulders and said it was a pity.
“You’ve had a very short run for your money,” he observed to Kitty, “but
do as you like. Dick’s a good fellow. I suppose you can pig it on nine
hundred a year, which, I understand, you’ll scrape up between you, and
Dick’ll have money some day. I dare say domesticity is best taken young.
You can make a fresh start later on if you want to, now you’ve got the
swing of it.”
They were to be married in a month, and two weeks later Dick was
crossing the channel with the First Expeditionary Force.
He hadn’t expected to be called up so soon. A telegram to Kitty
miscarried, and in the end they hadn’t time for marriage, only for a
strange half-hour, in which they said nothing at all except queer,
fragmentary things out of the tops of their minds; but of course they
expected the war to be over in three months.
There was no time for anything but jokes, little clumsy jokes about
Berlin and the kaiser; and then there seemed nothing left but
interminable terror.
A few weeks later the rector came to Alington Farm to tell Kitty that
Dick was missing. Kitty was spraying the second crop of roses against
blight. They were Gloire de Dijon roses, growing low over the porch,
full of heavy scent.
The rector said to her: “My dear, will you come and see my wife? She’s
almost your mother now, you know.”
He wished that Kitty had had a real mother. She faced him for a moment
speechlessly; her eyes slipped past his words to his fears. He answered
them quickly.
“I do not know that he is dead,” he said, showing her the telegram.
Kitty was afraid the rector was going to say something about God, but he
didn’t. He looked all about him vaguely, down to the garden’s edge, and
across the rickety bridge.
“We don’t know what it means,” he said dully; he kept his eyes turned
away from Kitty.
She stood quite still, holding the telegram, as if she could not make up
her mind to give it back to him. It did not seem to Kitty that Dick
belonged to either his father or his mother. They were old; they had had
him. He had been their child. They were lucky people whose relationship
was complete; no one could stop Dick having been their son. They could
afford to know that he was dead.
“No,” she said at last, “I won’t go and see his mother.”
She turned and went into the house. The rector did nothing to retain
her, and he never told any one what Kitty had said.
Kitty went to her room and locked the door. She lay on the bed, face
downward, till the dark came.
Her body felt dry and as if it were broken. She shed no tears. Peckham
came to her door crying, but Kitty told her to go away.
“Please,” she said quietly, “go right away, Peckham.”
The next day her father came down from London. Kitty unlocked the door
for him. She knew he wouldn’t say anything to bother her. He brought her
a cup of tea, and when she had drunk it, he said to her:
“’Member my telling you life was chancy? Well! it is, you see, damned
chancy. If I were you, I should just sit tight and make the best of it.”
“So I would if I were sure he was dead,” explained Kitty. “You see, if
he’s there,—anywhere at all, I mean,—I want to be what he wants—that
kind of woman; and if he isn’t, well, then, I don’t care what I am.”
“Well, give the thing time,” urged her father. “Wait a bit; you’re very
young. You can only be innocent once, you know; you can always be the
other thing.”
“Oh, I’m not thinking of all that,” said Kitty, impatiently. “Men don’t
matter. I’m wondering what to be—myself, you see, if things don’t come
right.”
“No, of course you’re not now,” agreed her father. “But you will, you
know, my dear. Dreams are what we all start out with, and it’s pretty
tough when they get broken. But it’s facts we end up on, and when we
want the facts, we want them worse than we wanted the dreams.”
“You talk as if Dick hadn’t been a fact,” said Kitty, bitterly; and then
she began to cry, because she herself had spoken as if Dick were no
longer a fact.
Mr. Costrelle helped her to go to France. He couldn’t go himself because
three relentless doctors refused to pass him for active service.
“If I were you,” he said to Kitty as he saw her off, “I should wait two
years. The war won’t end any sooner. People say it will, but it won’t.
You’ll have a hell of a time, but you can afford it at eighteen. So
shall I, of course, and at my age it’s more serious. I shall simply be
bored stiff with people all around me doing things for their country,
the kind of people, I mean, who will take this war as if it were a new
sort of lap-dog.
“I sha’n’t turn a hair myself. If my country doesn’t want me to fight,
it can leave me alone. I’m not going to turn myself into a Red Cross
pin-cushion to please anybody.
“When you want to come back, you’ll find me just as you left me—except
for what they get out of me in the way of taxes.”
“I wonder what you’ll find me,” said Kitty.