The front windows of Brightwater Cottage look out on a quiet green lane
in Middlesex, which joins the highroad within a few miles of the market
town of Uxbridge. Through the pretty garden at the back runs a little
brook, winding its merry way to a distant river. The few rooms in this
pleasant place of residence are well (too well) furnished, having regard
to the limits of a building which is a cottage in the strictest sense
of the word. Water-color drawings by the old English masters of the
art ornament the dining-room. The parlor has been transformed into a
library. From floor to ceiling all four of its walls are covered with
books. Their old and well-chosen bindings, seen in the mass, present
nothing less than a feast of color to the eye. The library and the works
of art are described as heirlooms, which have passed into the possession
of the present proprietor--one more among the hundreds of Englishmen who
are ruined every year by betting on the Turf.
So sorely in need of a little ready money was this victim of
gambling--tacitly permitted or conveniently ignored by the audacious
hypocrisy of a country which rejoiced in the extinction of Baden, and
which still shudders at the name of Monaco--that he was ready to let his
pretty cottage for no longer a term than one month certain; and he even
allowed the elderly lady, who drove the hardest of hard bargains with
him, to lessen by one guinea the house-rent paid for each week. He
took his revenge by means of an ironical compliment, addressed to Mrs.
Presty. “What a saving it would be to the country, ma’am, if you were
Chancellor of the Exchequer!” With perfect gravity Mrs. Presty accepted
that well-earned tribute of praise. “You are quite right, sir; I should
be the first official person known to the history of England who took
proper care of the public money.”
Within two days of the time when they had left the hotel at Sydenham,
Catherine and her little family circle had taken possession of the
cottage.
The two ladies were sitting in the library each occupied with a book
chosen from the well-stocked shelves. Catherine’s reading appeared to
be more than once interrupted by Catherine’s thoughts. Noticing this
circumstance, Mrs. Presty asked if some remarkable event had happened,
and if it was weighing heavily on her daughter’s mind.
Catherine answered that she was thinking of Kitty, and that anxiety
connected with the child did weigh heavily on her mind.
Some days had passed (she reminded Mrs. Presty) since the interview at
which Herbert Linley had bidden her farewell. On that occasion he had
referred to her proposed marriage (never to be a marriage now!) in terms
of forbearance and generosity which claimed her sincerest admiration.
It might be possible for her to show a grateful appreciation of his
conduct. Devotedly fond of his little daughter, he must have felt
acutely his long separation from her; and it was quite likely that he
might ask to see Kitty. But there was an obstacle in the way of her
willing compliance with that request, which it was impossible to think
of without remorse, and which it was imperatively necessary to remove.
Mrs. Presty would understand that she alluded to the shameful falsehood
which had led the child to suppose that her father was dead.
Strongly disapproving of the language in which her daughter had done
justice to the conduct of the divorced husband, Mrs. Presty merely
replied: “You are Kitty’s mother; I leave it to you”--and returned to
her reading.
Catherine could not feel that she had deserved such an answer as this.
“Did I plan the deception?” she asked. “Did I tell the lie?”
Mrs. Presty was not in the least offended. “You are comparatively
innocent, my dear,” she admitted, with an air of satirical indulgence.
“You only consented to the deception, and profited by the lie. Suppose
we own the truth? You are afraid.”
Catherine owned the truth in the plainest terms:
“Yes, I _am_ afraid.”
“And you leave it to me?”
“I leave it to you.”
Mrs. Presty complacently closed her book. “I was quite prepared to hear
it,” she said; “all the unpleasant complications since your Divorce--and
Heaven only knows how many of them have presented themselves--have
been left for me to unravel. It so happens--though I was too modest to
mention it prematurely--that I have unraveled _this_ complication. If
one only has eyes to see it, there is a way out of every difficulty
that can possibly happen.” She pushed the book that she had been reading
across the table to Catherine. “Turn to page two hundred and forty,” she
said. “There is the way out.”
The title of the book was “Disasters at Sea”; and the page contained
the narrative of a shipwreck. On evidence apparently irresistible,
the drowning of every soul on board the lost vessel had been taken for
granted--when a remnant of the passengers and crew had been discovered
on a desert island, and had been safely restored to their friends.
Having read this record of suffering and suspense, Catherine looked at
her mother, and waited for an explanation.
“Don’t you see it?” Mrs. Presty asked.
“I can’t say that I do.”
The old lady’s excellent temper was not in the least ruffled, even by
this.
“Quite inexcusable on my part,” she acknowledged; “I ought to have
remembered that you don’t inherit your mother’s vivid imagination. Age
has left me in full possession of those powers of invention which used
to amaze your poor father. He wondered how it was that I never wrote a
novel. Mr. Presty’s appreciation of my intellect was equally sincere;
but he took a different view. ‘Beware, my dear,’ he said, ‘of trifling
with the distinction which you now enjoy: you are one of the most
remarkable women in England--you have never written a novel.’ Pardon
me; I am wandering into the region of literary anecdote, when I ought to
explain myself. Now pray attend to this:--I propose to tell Kitty that I
have found a book which is sure to interest her; and I shall direct her
attention to the lamentable story which you have just read. She is quite
sharp enough (there are sparks of my intellectual fire in Kitty) to
ask if the friends of the poor shipwrecked people were not very much
surprised to see them again. To this I shall answer: ‘Very much, indeed,
for their friends thought they were dead.’ Ah, you dear dull child, you
see it now!”
Catherine saw it so plainly that she was eager to put the first part of
the experiment to an immediate trial.
Kitty was sent for, and made her appearance with a fishing-rod over her
shoulder. “I’m going to the brook,” she announced; “expect some fish for
dinner to-day.”
A wary old hand stopped Catherine, in the act of presenting “Disasters
at Sea,” to Kitty’s notice; and a voice, distinguished by insinuating
kindness, said to the child: “When you have done fishing, my dear, come
to me; I have got a nice book for you to read.--How very absurd of
you, Catherine,” Mrs. Presty continued, when they were alone again, “to
expect the child to read, and draw her own conclusions, while her head
is full of fishing! If there are any fish in the brook, _she_ won’t
catch them. When she comes back disappointed and says: ‘What am I to do
now?’ the ‘Disasters at Sea’ will have a chance. I make it a rule never
to boast; but if there is a thing that I understand, it’s the management
of children. Why didn’t I have a large family?”
Attended by the faithful Susan, Kitty baited her hook, and began to fish
where the waters of the brook were overshadowed by trees.
A little arbor covered by a thatched roof, and having walls of wooden
lattice-work, hidden by creepers climbing over them inside and out,
offered an attractive place of rest on this sheltered side of the
garden. Having brought her work with her, the nursemaid retired to the
summer-house and diligently plied her needle, looking at Kitty from
time to time through the open door. The air was delightfully cool, the
pleasant rippling of the brook fell soothingly on the ear, the seat in
the summer-house received a sitter with the softly-yielding submission
of elastic wires. Susan had just finished her early dinner: in mind and
body alike, this good girl was entirely and deservedly at her ease.
By finely succeeding degrees, her eyelids began to show a tendency
downward; her truant needle-work escaped from her fingers, and lay
lazily on her lap. She snatched it up with a start, and sewed with
severe resolution until her thread was exhausted. The reel was ready at
her side; she took it up for a fresh supply, and innocently rested her
head against the leafy and flowery wall of the arbor. Was it thought
that gradually closed her eyes again? or was it sleep? In either case,
Susan was lost to all sense of passing events; and Susan’s breathing
became musically regular, emulous of the musical regularity of the
brook.
As a lesson in patience, the art of angling pursued in a shallow brook
has its moral uses. Kitty fished, and waited, and renewed the bait and
tried again, with a command of temper which would have been a novelty in
Susan’s experience, if Susan had been awake. But the end which comes to
all things came also to Kitty’s patience. Leaving her rod on the bank,
she let the line and hook take care of themselves, and wandered away in
search of some new amusement.
Lingering here and there to gather flowers from the beds as she passed
them, Kitty was stopped by a shrubbery, with a rustic seat placed near
it, which marked the limits of the garden on that side. The path that
she had been following led her further and further away from the brook,
but still left it well in view. She could see, on her right hand, the
clumsy old wooden bridge which crossed the stream, and served as a means
of communication for the servants and the tradespeople, between the
cottage and the village on the lower ground a mile away.
The child felt hot and tired. She rested herself on the bench, and,
spreading the flowers by her side, began to arrange them in the form of
a nosegay. Still true to her love for Sydney, she had planned to present
the nosegay to her mother, offering the gift as an excuse for returning
to the forbidden subject of her governess, and for asking when they
might hope to see each other again.
Choosing flowers and then rejecting them, trying other colors and
wondering whether she had accomplished a change for the better, Kitty
was startled by the sound of a voice calling to her from the direction
of the brook.
She looked round, and saw a gentleman crossing the bridge. He asked the
way to Brightwater Cottage.
There was something in his voice that attracted her--how or why, at her
age, she never thought of inquiring. Eager and excited, she ran across
the lawn which lay between her and the brook, before she answered the
gentleman’s question.
As they approached each other, his eyes sparkled, his face flushed;
he cried out joyfully, “Here she is!”--and then changed again in an
instant. A horrid pallor overspread his face as the child stood looking
at him with innocent curiosity. He startled Kitty, not because he seemed
to be shocked and distressed, she hardly noticed that; but because he
was so like--although he was thinner and paler and older--oh, so like
her lost father!
“This is the cottage, sir,” she said faintly.
His sorrowful eyes rested kindly on her. And yet, it seemed as if she
had in some way disappointed him. The child ventured to say: “Do you
know me, sir?”
He answered in the saddest voice that Kitty had ever heard: “My little
girl, what makes you think I know you?”
She was at a loss how to reply, fearing to distress him. She could only
say: “You are so like my poor papa.”
He shook and shuddered, as if she had said something to frighten him.
He took her hand. On that hot day, his fingers felt as cold as if it had
been winter time. He led her back to the seat that she had left. “I’m
tired, my dear,” he said. “Shall we sit down?” It was surely true that
he was tired. He seemed hardly able to lift one foot after the other;
Kitty pitied him. “I think you must be ill;” she said, as they took
their places, side by side, on the bench.
“No; not ill. Only weary, and perhaps a little afraid of frightening
you.” He kept her hand in his hand, and patted it from time to time. “My
dear, why did you say ‘_poor_ papa,’ when you spoke of your father just
now?”
“My father is dead, sir.”
He turned his face away from her, and pressed both hands on his breast,
as if he had felt some dreadful pain there, and was trying to hide
it. But he mastered the pain; and he said a strange thing to her--very
gently, but still it was strange. He wished to know who had told her
that her father was dead.
“Grandmamma told me.”
“Do you remember what grandmamma said?”
“Yes--she told me papa was drowned at sea.”
He said something to himself, and said it twice over. “Not her mother!
Thank God, not her mother!” What did he mean?
Kitty looked and looked at him, and wondered and wondered. He put his
arm round her. “Come near to me,” he said. “Don’t be afraid of me, my
dear.” She moved nearer and showed him that she was not afraid. The poor
man seemed hardly to understand her. His eyes grew dim; he sighed like a
person in distress; he said: “Your father would have kissed you, little
one, if he had been alive. You say I am like your father. May I kiss
you?”
She put her hands on his shoulder and lifted her face to him. In the
instant when he kissed her, the child knew him. Her heart beat suddenly
with an overpowering delight; she started back from his embrace. “That’s
how papa used to kiss me!” she cried. “Oh! you _are_ papa! Not drowned!
not drowned!” She flung her arms round his neck, and held him as if she
would never let him go again. “Dear papa! Poor lost papa!” His tears
fell on her face; he sobbed over her. “My sweet darling! my own little
Kitty!”
The hysterical passion that had overcome her father filled her with
piteous surprise. How strange, how dreadful that he should cry--that
he should be so sorry when she was so glad! She took her little
handkerchief out of the pocket of her pinafore, and dried his eyes. “Are
you thinking of the cruel sea, papa? No! the good sea, the kind, bright,
beautiful sea that has given you back to me, and to mamma--!”
They had forgotten her mother!--and Kitty only discovered it now. She
caught at one of her father’s hands hanging helpless at his side, and
pulled at it as if her little strength could force him to his feet.
“Come,” she cried, “and make mamma as happy as I am!”
He hesitated. She sprang on his knee; she pressed her cheek against his
cheek with the caressing tenderness, familiar to him in the first happy
days when she was an infant. “Oh, papa, are you going to be unkind to me
for the first time in your life?”
His momentary resistance was at an end. He was as weak in her hands now
as if he had been the child and she had been the man.
Laughing and singing and dancing round him, Kitty led the way to the
window of the room that opened on the garden. Some one had closed it on
the inner side. She tapped impatiently at the glass. Her mother heard
the tapping; her mother came to the window; her mother ran out to meet
them. Since the miserable time when they left Mount Morven, since the
long unnatural separation of the parents and the child, those three were
together once more!
AFTER THE STORY
1.--The Lawyer’s Apology.
That a woman of my wife’s mature years should be jealous of one of the
most exemplary husbands that the records of matrimony can produce is,
to say the least of it, a discouraging circumstance. A man forgets
that virtue is its own reward, and asks, What is the use of conjugal
fidelity?
However, the motto of married life is (or ought to be): Peace at any
price. I have been this day relieved from the condition of secrecy that
has been imposed on me. You insisted on an explanation some time since.
Here it is at last.
For the ten-thousandth time, my dear, in our joint lives, you are again
right. That letter, marked private, which I received at the domestic
tea-table, was what you positively declared it to be, a letter from a
lady--a charming lady, plunged in the deepest perplexity. We had been
well known to each other for many years, as lawyer and client. She
wanted advice on this occasion also--and wanted it in the strictest
confidence. Was it consistent with my professional duty to show her
letter to my wife? Mrs. Sarrazin says Yes; Mrs. Sarrazin’s husband says
No.
Let me add that the lady was a person of unblemished reputation, and
that she was placed in a false position through no fault of her own.
In plain English, she was divorced. Ah, my dear (to speak in the vivid
language of the people), do you smell a rat?
Yes: my client was Mrs. Norman; and to her pretty cottage in the country
I betook myself the next day. There I found my excellent friend Randal
Linley, present by special invitation.
Stop a minute. Why do I write all this, instead of explaining myself
by word of mouth? My love, you are a member of an old and illustrious
family; you honored me when you married me; and you have (as your father
told me on our wedding day) the high and haughty temper of your race.
I foresee an explosion of this temper, and I would rather have my
writing-paper blown up than be blown up myself.
Is this a cowardly confession on my part? All courage, Mrs. Sarrazin, is
relative; the bravest man living has a cowardly side to his character,
though it may not always be found out. Some years ago, at a public
dinner, I sat next to an officer in the British army. At one time in
his life he had led a forlorn hope. At another time, he had picked up a
wounded soldier, and had carried him to the care of the surgeons through
a hail-storm of the enemy’s bullets. Hot courage and cool courage, this
true hero possessed both. _I_ saw the cowardly side of his character. He
lost his color; perspiration broke out on his forehead; he trembled; he
talked nonsense; he was frightened out of his wits. And all for what?
Because he had to get on his legs and make a speech!
Well: Mrs. Norman, and Randal Linley, and I, sat down to our
consultation at the cottage.
What did my fair client want?
She contemplated marrying for the second time, and she wanted my advice
as a lawyer, and my encouragement as an old friend. I was quite ready; I
only waited for particulars. Mrs. Norman became dreadfully embarrassed,
and said: “I refer you to my brother-in-law.”
I looked at Randal. “Once her brother-in-law, no doubt,” I said; “but
after the Divorce--” My friend stopped me there. “After the Divorce,” he
remarked, “I may be her brother-in-law again.”
If this meant anything, it meant that she was actually going to marry
Herbert Linley again. This was too ridiculous. “If it’s a joke,” I said,
“I have heard better fun in my time. If it’s only an assertion, I don’t
believe it.”
“Why not?” Randal asked.
“Saying I do want you, in one breath--and I don’t want you, in
another--seems to be a little hard on Divorce,” I ventured to suggest.
“Don’t expect _me_ to sympathize with Divorce,” Randal said.
I answered that smartly. “No; I’ll wait till you are married.”
He took it seriously. “Don’t misunderstand me,” he replied. “Where there
is absolute cruelty, or where there is deliberate desertion, on the
husband’s part, I see the use and the reason for Divorce. If the unhappy
wife can find an honorable man who will protect her, or an honorable man
who will offer her a home, Society and Law, which are responsible for
the institution of marriage, are bound to allow a woman outraged
under the shelter of their institution to marry again. But, where the
husband’s fault is sexual frailty, I say the English law which refuses
Divorce on that ground alone is right, and the Scotch law which grants
it is wrong. Religion, which rightly condemns the sin, pardons it on the
condition of true penitence. Why is a wife not to pardon it for the
same reason? Why are the lives of a father, a mother, and a child to be
wrecked, when those lives may be saved by the exercise of the first of
Christian virtues--forgiveness of injuries? In such a case as this I
regret that Divorce exists; and I rejoice when husband and wife and
child are one flesh again, re-united by the law of Nature, which is the
law of God.”
I might have disputed with him; but I thought he was right. I also
wanted to make sure of the facts. “Am I really to understand,” I asked,
“that Mr. Herbert Linley is to be this lady’s husband for the second
time?”
“If there is no lawful objection to it,” Randal said--“decidedly Yes.”
My good wife, in all your experience you never saw your husband stare
as he stared at that moment. Here was a lady divorced by her own lawful
desire and at her own personal expense, thinking better of it after no
very long interval, and proposing to marry the man again. Was there ever
anything so grossly improbable? Where is the novelist who would be bold
enough to invent such an incident as this?
Never mind the novelist. How did it end?
Of course it could only end in one way, so far as I was concerned. The
case being without precedent in my experience, I dropped my professional
character at the outset. Speaking next as a friend, I had only to say
to Mrs. Norman: “The Law has declared you and Mr. Herbert Linley to be
single people. Do what other single people do. Buy a license, and give
notice at a church--and by all means send wedding cards to the judge who
divorced you.”
Said; and, in another fortnight, done. Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Linley were
married again this morning; and Randal and I were the only witnesses
present at the ceremony, which was strictly private.
2.--The Lawyer’s Defense.
I wonder whether the foregoing pages of my writing-paper have been torn
to pieces and thrown into the waste-paper basket? You wouldn’t litter
the carpet. No. I may be torn in pieces, but I do you justice for all
that.
What are the objections to the divorced husband and wife becoming
husband and wife again? Mrs. Presty has stated them in the following
order. Am I wrong in assuming that, on this occasion at least, you will
agree with Mrs. Presty?
First Objection: Nobody has ever done such a thing before.
Second Objection: Penitent or not penitent, Mr. Herbert Linley doesn’t
deserve it.
Third Objection: No respectable person will visit them.
First Reply: The question is not whether the thing has been done before,
but whether the doing of the thing is right in itself There is no clause
in the marriage service forbidding a wife to forgive her husband; but
there is a direct prohibition to any separation between them. It is,
therefore, not wrong to forgive Mr. Herbert Linley, and it is absolutely
right to marry him again.
Second Reply: When their child brings him home, and takes it for granted
that her father and mother should live together, _because_ they are her
father and mother, innocent Kitty has appealed from the Law of Divorce
to the Law of Nature. Whether Herbert Linley has deserved it or whether
he has not, there he is in the only fit place for him--and there is an
end of the second objection.
Third Reply: A flat contradiction to the assertion that no respectable
person will visit her. Mrs. Sarrazin will visit her. Yes, you will, my
dear! Not because I insist upon it--Do I ever insist on anything?
No; you will act on your own responsibility, out of compassion for a
misguided old woman. Judge for yourself when you read what follows, if
Mrs. Presty is not sadly in need of the good example of an ornament to
her sex.
The Evil Genius of the family joined us in the cottage parlor when our
consultations had come to an end. I had the honor of communicating the
decision at which we had arrived. Mrs. Presty marched to the door; and,
from that commanding position, addressed a few farewell remarks to her
daughter.
“I have done with you, Catherine. You have reached the limits of my
maternal endurance at last. I shall set up my own establishment, and
live again--in memory--with Mr. Norman and Mr. Presty. May you be happy.
I don’t anticipate it.”
She left the room--and came back again for a last word, addressed this
time to Randal Linley.
“When you next see your friend, Captain Bennydeck, give him my
compliments, Mr. Randal, and say I congratulate him on having been
jilted by my daughter. It would have been a sad thing, indeed, if such a
sensible man had married an idiot. Good-morning.”
She left the room again, and came back again for another last word,
addressed on this occasion to me. Her better nature made an effort to
express itself, not altogether without success.
“I think it is quite likely, Mr. Sarrazin, that some dreadful misfortune
will fall on my daughter, as the punishment of her undutiful disregard
of her mother’s objections. In that case, I shall feel it my duty to
return and administer maternal consolation. When you write, address me
at my banker’s. I make allowances for a lawyer, sir; I don’t blame You.”
She opened the door for the third time--stepped out, and stepped back
again into the room--suddenly gave her daughter a fierce
kiss--returned to the door--shook her fist at Mrs. Linley with a
theatrically-threatening gesture--said, “Unnatural child!”--and, after
this exhibition of her better nature, and her worse, left us at last.
When you visit the remarried pair on their return from their second
honeymoon, take Mrs. Presty with you.
3.--The Lawyer’s Last Word.
“When you force this ridiculous and regrettable affair on my attention”
(I think I hear Mrs. Sarrazin say), “the least you can do is to make
your narrative complete. But perhaps you propose to tell me personally
what has become of Kitty, and what well-deserved retribution has
overtaken Miss Westerfield.”
No: I propose in this case also to communicate my information in
writing--at the safe distance from home of Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
Kitty accompanies her father and mother to the Continent, of course. But
she insisted on first saying good-by to the dear friend, once the dear
governess, whom she loves. Randal and I volunteered to take her (with
her mother’s ready permission) to see Miss Westerfield. Try not to be
angry. Try not to tear me up.
We found Captain Bennydeck and his pretty secretary enjoying a little
rest and refreshment, after a long morning’s work for the good of the
Home. The Captain was carving the chicken; and Sydney, by his side, was
making the salad. The house-cat occupied a third chair, with her eyes
immovably fixed on the movements of the knife and fork. Perhaps I was
thinking of sad past days. Anyway, it seemed to me to be as pretty a
domestic scene as a man could wish to look at. The arrival of Kitty made
the picture complete.
Our visit was necessarily limited by a due remembrance of the hour of
departure, by an early tidal train. Kitty’s last words to Sydney bade
her bear their next meeting in mind, and not be melancholy at only
saying good-by for a time. Like all children, she asks strange
questions. When we were out in the street again, she said to her uncle:
“Do you think my nice Captain will marry Syd?”
Randal had noticed, in Captain Bennydeck’s face, signs which betrayed
that the bitterest disappointment of his life was far from being a
forgotten disappointment yet. If it had been put by any other person,
poor Kitty’s absurd question might have met with a bitter reply. As it
was, her uncle only said: “My dear child, that is no business of yours
or mine.”
Not in the least discouraged, Kitty turned to me. “What do _you_ think,
Samuel?”
I followed Randal’s lead, and answered, “How should I know?”
The child looked from one to the other of us. “Shall I tell you what I
think?” she said, “I think you are both of you humbugs.”