KITTY.
Winter had come to our cold northern isles. The snow lay thick upon the
ground, but a sharp frost had made it hard and crisp. It sparkled in a
flood of brilliant sunshine; the air was fresh and exhilarating, the sky
transparently blue. It was a pleasant day for walking, and one that Miss
Kitty Heron seemed thoroughly to enjoy, as she trod the white carpet
with which nature had provided the world.
She carried a little basket on her arm: a basket filled with good things
for some children in a cottage not far from Strathleckie. The good
things were of Elizabeth's providing; but Kitty acted as her almoner.
Kitty was a very charming almoner, with her slight, graceful little
figure and _mignonne_ face set off by a great deal of brown fur and a
dress of deep Indian red. The sharpness in the air brought a faint
colour to her cheeks--Kitty was generally rather pale--and a new
brightness to her pretty eyes. There was something delightfully
bewitching about her: something provoking and coquettish: something of
which Hugo Luttrell was pleasantly conscious as he came down the road to
meet her and then walked for a little way at her side.
They did not say very much. There were a few ardent speeches from him, a
vehement sort of love-making, which Kitty parried with a good deal of
laughing adroitness, some saucy speeches from her which all the world
might have heard, and then the cottage was reached.
"Let me go in with you," said Hugo.
"Certainly not. You would frighten the children."
"Am I so very terrible? Not to you; don't say that I frighten you."
"I should think not," said Kitty, with a little toss sideways of her
dainty head. "I am frightened of nothing."
"I should think not. I should think that you were the bravest of women,
as you are the most charming."
"Oh, please! I am not accustomed to these compliments. I must take my
cakes to the children. Good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Hugo, taking her hand, and keeping it in his own while
he spoke. "I may wait for you here and go back with you to Strathleckie,
may I not?"
"Oh, dear, no," said Kitty. "You'll catch cold."
Then she looked down at her imprisoned hand, and up into his face,
sweetly smiling all the time, and, if they had not been within sight of
the cottage windows, Hugo would have taken her in his arms and kissed
her there and then.
"I never catch cold. I shall walk about here till you come back. You
don't dislike my company, I hope?"
It was said vehemently, with a sudden kindling of his dark eyes.
"Oh, no," answered Kitty, feeling rather frightened, in spite of her
previous professions of courage, though she did not quite know why. "I
shall be very pleased. I must go now." And then she vanished hastily
into the cottage.
Hugo waited for some time, little guessing the fact that she was
protracting her visit as much as possible, and furtively peeping through
the blinds now and then in order to see if he were gone. Kitty had had
some experience of his present mood, and was not certain that she liked
it. But his patience was greater than hers. She was forced to come out
at last, and before she had gone two steps he was at her side.
"I thought you were never going to leave that wretched hole," he said.
"Don't call it a wretched hole. It is very clean and nice. I often think
that I should like to live in a cottage like that."
"With someone who loved you," said Hugo, coming nearer, and gazing into
her face.
Kitty made a little _moue_.
"The cottage would only hold one person comfortably," she said.
"Then you shall not live in a cottage. You shall live in a far
pleasanter place. What should you say to a little villa on the shores of
the Mediterranean, with orange groves behind it, and the beautiful blue
sea before? Should you like that, Kitty? You have only to say the word,
and you know that it will be yours."
"Then I won't say the word," said Kitty, turning away her head. "I like
Scotland better than the Mediterranean."
"Then let it be Scotland. What should you say to Netherglen?"
"I prefer Strathleckie," replied the girl, with her most provoking
smile.
"That is no answer. You must give me an answer some day," said Hugo,
whose voice was beginning to tremble. "You know what I mean: you
know----"
"Oh, what a lovely bit of bramble in the hedge!" cried Kitty, making
believe that she had not been listening. "Look, it has still a leaf or
two, and the stem is frosted all over and the veins traced in silver! Do
get it for me: I must take it home."
Hugo did her bidding rather unwillingly; but his sombre eyes were
lighted with a reluctant smile, or a sort of glow that did duty for a
smile, as she thanked him.
"It is beautiful: it is like a piece of fairies' embroidery; far more
beautiful than jewels would be. Oh, I wonder how people can make such a
fuss about jewels, when they are so much less beautiful than these
simple, natural things."
"These will soon melt away; jewels won't melt," said Hugo. "I should
like to see you with jewels on your neck and arms--you ought to be
covered with diamonds."
"That is not complimentary," laughed Kitty, "it sounds as if you thought
they would make me better-looking. Now, you should compliment a person
on what she is, and not on what she might be."
"I have got beyond the complimentary stage," said Hugo. "What is the use
of telling you that you are the most beautiful girl I ever met, or the
most charming, or anything of that kind? The only thing I know"--and he
lowered his voice almost to a whisper, and spoke with a fierce intensity
that made Kitty shrink away from him--"the only thing I know is that you
are the one woman in the world for me, and that I would sooner see you
dead at my feet than married to another man!"
Kitty had turned pale: how was she to reply? She cast her eyes up and
down the road in search of some suggestion. Oh, joy and relief! she saw
a figure in the distance. Perhaps it was somebody from Strathleckie;
they were not far from the lodge now. She spoke with renewed courage,
but she did not know exactly what she said.
"Who is this coming down the road? He is going up to Strathleckie, I
believe; he seems to be pausing at the gates. Oh, I hope it is a
visitor. I do like having the house full; and we have been so melancholy
since Percival went on that horrid expedition to Brazil. Who can it be?"
"What does it matter?" said Hugo. "Can you not listen to me for one
moment? Kitty--darling--wait!"
"I can't; I really can't!" said Kitty, quickening her pace
almost to a run. "Oh, Hugo--Mr. Luttrell--you must not say such
things--besides--look, it's Mr. Vivian; it really is! I haven't seen him
for two years."
And she actually ran away from him, coming face to face with her old
friend, at the Strathleckie gates.
Hugo followed sullenly. He did not like to be repulsed in that way. And
he had reasons for wishing to gain Kitty's consent to a speedy marriage.
He wanted to leave the country before the return of Percival Heron,
whose errand to South America he guessed pretty accurately, although Mr.
Colquhoun had thought fit to leave him in the dark about it. Hugo
surmised, moreover, that Dino had told Brian Luttrell the history of
Hugo's conduct to him in London: if so, Brian Luttrell was the last man
whom Hugo desired to meet. And if Brian returned to England with
Percival, the story would probably become known to the Herons; and then
how could he hope to marry Kitty? With Brian's return, too, some
alteration in Mrs. Luttrell's will might possibly be expected. The old
lady's health had lately shown signs of improvement: if she were to
recover sufficiently to indicate her wishes to her son, Hugo might find
himself deprived of all chance of Netherglen. For these reasons he was
disposed to press for a speedy conclusion to the matter.
He came up to the gates, and found Kitty engaged in an animated
conversation with Mr. Vivian; her cheeks were carnation, and her eyes
brilliant. She was laughing with rather forced vivacity as he
approached. In his opinion she had seldom appeared to more advantage;
while to Rupert's eyes she seemed to have altered for the worse.
Dangerously, insidiously pretty, she was, indeed; but a vain little
thing, no doubt; a finished coquette by the way she talked and lifted
her eyes to Hugo's handsome face; possibly even a trifle fast and
vulgar. Not the simple child of sixteen whom he had last seen in
Gower-street.
"Won't you come in, Hugo? I am sure everybody would be pleased to see
you," said poor Kitty, unconscious of being judged, as she tried to
propitiate Hugo by a pleading look. She did not like him to go away with
such a cross look upon his face--that was all. But as she did not say
that she would be pleased to see him, Hugo only sulked the more.
"How cross he looks! I am rather glad he is not coming in," said Kitty,
confidentially, as Hugo walked away, and she escorted Rupert up the long
and winding drive. "And where did you come from? I did not know that you
were near us."
"I have been staying at Lord Cecil's, thirty miles from Dunmuir. I
thought that I should like to call, as you were still in this
neighbourhood. I wrote to Mrs. Heron about it. I hope she received my
note?"
"I see you don't know the family news," said Kitty, with a beaming
smile. "I have a new stepsister, just three weeks old, and Isabel is
already far too much occupied with the higher education of women to
attend to such trifles as notes. She generally hands them over to
Elizabeth or papa. Then, you know, papa broke one of his ribs and his
collar-bone a fortnight ago, and I expect that this accident will keep
us at Strathleckie for another month or two."
"That accounts for you being here so late in the year."
"Or so early! This is January, not December. But I think we may stay
until the spring. It is not worth while to take a London house now."
Kitty spoke so dolefully that Rupert was obliged to smile. "You are
sorry for that?" he said.
"Yes. We are all rather dull; we want something to enliven us. I hope
you will enliven us, Mr. Vivian."
"I am afraid I can hardly hope to do so," said Rupert, coldly. "Of
course, you have not the occupation that you used to have when you were
in London."
"When I went to school! No, I should think not," said Kitty, with her
giddiest laugh. "I have locked up my lesson books and thrown away the
key. So you must not lecture me on my studies as you used to do, Mr.
Vivian."
"I should not presume to do so," he said, with rather unnecessary
stiffness.
"But you used to do it! Have you forgotten?" asked Kitty, peeping up at
him archly from under her long, curling eyelashes. There was a momentary
smile upon his lips, but it disappeared as he answered quietly:--
"What was allowable when you were a child, would justly be resented by
you now, Miss Heron."
"I should not resent it; indeed I should not mind," said Kitty, eagerly.
"I should like it: I always like being lectured, and told what I ought
to do. I should be glad if you would scold me again about my reading; I
have nobody to tell me anything now."
"I could not possibly take the responsibility," said Rupert. "If you
have thrown away the key of your book-box, Miss Heron, I don't think
that you will be anxious to find it again."
"Oh, but the lock could be picked!" cried Kitty, and then repented her
words, for Rupert's impassive face showed no interest beyond that
required by politeness. The tears were very near her eyes, but she got
rid of them somehow, and plunged into a neat and frosty style of
conversation which she heartily detested. "This is Strathleckie; you
have never seen it before, I think? It is on the Leckie property, but it
is not an old place like Netherglen. I think it was built in 1840."
"Not a very good style of architecture," said Rupert, scanning it with
an attentive eye.
"A good style of architecture, indeed!" commented Kitty to herself, as
she ran away to her own room, after committing Mr. Vivian to the care of
her step-mother, who was lying on a sofa in the drawing-room, quite
ready to unfold her views about the higher education of girls. "What a
piece of ice he is! He used not to be so frigid. I wonder if we offended
him in any way before we left London. He has never been nice since then.
Nice? He is simply hateful!" and Kitty stamped on the floor of her
bed-room with alarming vehemence, but the crystal drops that had been so
long repressed were trembling on her eyelashes, and giving to her face
the grieved look of a child.
Meanwhile Vivian was thinking:--"What a pity she is so spoilt! A
coquettish, hare-brained flirt: that is all that she is now, and she
promised to be a sweet little woman two years ago! What business had she
to be out walking with Hugo Luttrell? I should have heard of it if they
were going to be married. I suppose she has had nobody to look after
her. And yet Miss Murray always struck me as a sensible, staid kind of
girl. Why can she not keep her cousin in order?" And then Rupert was
conscious of a certain sense of impatience for Kitty's return, much as
he disapproved of her alluring ways.
He was prevailed on to stay the night, and his visit was prolonged day
after day, until it was accepted as a settled thing that he would remain
for some time--perhaps even until Percival came home. It had been
calculated that Percival might easily be home in February.
He could not easily maintain the coldness and reserve with which he had
begun to treat Kitty Heron. There was something so winning and so
childlike about her at times, that he dropped unconsciously into the old
familiar tone. Then he would try to draw back, and would succeed,
perhaps, in saying something positively rude or unkind, which would
bring the tears to her eyes, and the flush of vexation to her face. At
least, if it was not really unkind it sounded so to Kitty, and that came
to the same thing. And when she was vexed, he was illogical enough to
feel uncomfortable.
But Kitty's crowning offence was her behaviour at a dinner-party, on the
occasion of the christening of Mrs. Heron's little girl. Hugo Luttrell
and the two young Grants from Dunmuir were amongst the guests; and with
them Kitty amused herself. She did not mean any harm, poor child; she
chattered gaily and looked up into their faces, with a gleeful
consciousness that Rupert was watching her, and that she could show him
now that some people admired her if he did not. Archie Grant certainly
admired her prodigiously; he haunted her steps all through the evening,
hung over the piano when she sang a gay little French _chanson_; turned
over a portfolio of Mr. Heron's sketches with her in a corner. On the
other hand, Hugo, who took her in to dinner, whispered things to her
that made her start and blush. Vivian would have liked very much to know
what he said. He did not approve of that darkly handsome face, with the
haggard, evil-looking eyes, being thrust so close to Kitty's soft cheeks
and pretty flower-decked head. He was glad to think that he had
prevailed on Angela to leave Netherglen. He was not fond of Hugo
Luttrell.
He was stiffer and graver than usual that evening; not even the
appearance of the newly-christened Dorothy Elizabeth, in a very long
white robe, won a smile from him. He never approached Kitty--never said
a word to her--until he was obliged to say good-night. And then she
looked up to him with her dancing eyes and pretty smile, and said:--
"You never came near me all the evening, and you had promised to sing a
duet with me."
"Is the little coquette trying her wiles on me!" thought Rupert,
sternly; but aloud he answered, with grave indifference,
"You were better employed. You had your own friends."
"And are you not a friend?" cried Kitty, biting her lip.
"I am not your contemporary. I cannot enter into competition with these
younger men," he answered, quietly.
Kitty quitted him in a rage. Elizabeth encountered her as she ran
upstairs, her cheeks crimson, her lips quivering, her eyes filled with
tears.
"My dear Kitty, what is the matter?" she said, laying a gently detaining
hand on the girl's arm.
"Nothing--nothing at all," declared Kitty; but she suffered herself to
be drawn into Elizabeth's room, and there, sinking into a low seat by
the fire, she detailed her wrongs. "He hates me; I know he does, and I
hate him! He thinks me a horrid, frivolous girl; and so I am! But he
needn't tell me that he does not want to be a friend of mine!"
"Well, perhaps, you are rather too old to take him for a friend in the
way you used to do," said Elizabeth, smiling a little. "You were a child
then; and you are eighteen now, you know, Kitty. He treats you as a
woman: that is all. It is a compliment."
"Then I don't like his compliments: I hate them!" Kitty asseverated. "I
would rather he let me alone."
"Don't think about him, dear. If he does not want to be friendly with
you, don't try to be friendly with him."
"I won't," said Kitty, in the tone of one who has taken a solemn
resolution. Then she rose, and surveyed herself critically in
Elizabeth's long mirror. "I am sure I looked very nice," she said. "This
pink dress suits me to perfection and the lace is lovely. And then the
silver ornaments! I'm glad I did not wear anything that he gave me, at
any rate. I nearly put on the necklace he sent me when I was seventeen;
I'm glad I did not."
"Dearest Kitty, why should you mind what he thinks?" said Elizabeth,
coming to her side, and looking at the exquisitely-pretty little figure
reflected in the glass, a figure to which her own, draped in black lace,
formed a striking contrast. But she was almost sorry that she had said
the words, for Kitty immediately threw herself on her cousin's shoulder
and burst into tears. The fit of crying did not last long, and Kitty was
unfeignedly ashamed of it: she dried her tears with a very
useless-looking lace handkerchief, laughed at herself hysterically, and
then ran away to her own room, leaving Elizabeth to wish that the sense
and spirit that really existed underneath that butterfly-like exterior
would show itself on the surface a little more distinctly.
But the last thing she dreamed of was that Kitty, with all her little
follies, would outrage Rupert's sense of the proprieties in the way she
did in the course of the following morning.
Rupert was standing alone in the drawing-room, looking out of a window
which commanded an extensive view. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Heron had come
downstairs. Kitty had breakfasted in her own room; Elizabeth was busy.
Mr. Vivian was wondering whether it might not be as well to go back to
London. It vexed him to see little Kitty Heron flirting with
half-a-dozen men at once.
A voice at the door caused him to turn round. Kitty was entering, and as
her hands were full, she had some difficulty in turning the handle.
Rupert moved forward to assist her, and uttered a courteous
good-morning, but Kitty only looked at him with flushed cheeks and
wide-open resentful eyes, and made no answer.
She was wearing an embroidered apron over her dark morning frock, and
this apron, gathered up by the corners in her hands, was full of various
articles which Rupert could not see. He was thoroughly taken aback,
therefore, when she poured its contents in an indiscriminate heap upon
the sofa, and said, in a decided tone:--
"There are all the things you ever gave me; and I would rather not keep
them any longer. I take presents only from my friends."
Foolish Kitty!