A DISCOVERY.
When Walter came back, having ordered a meal such as was most easily
procurable in those regions, that is to say, tea and stale bread and
fresh oatcakes and a dish of ham and eggs, he found Kitty waiting for
him in a fever of impatience. She had one of the blacksmith’s big
register-books opened out upon the table, and her eyes were dancing with
excitement. She rushed to meet him and caught him by the arm.
‘Wat!’ she said, ‘oh, how soon can we get back?’
‘Get back!’ he cried; ‘but we are not going back.’
‘Oh yes, but we are, as quick as we can fly. Go and order the horses
this minute--oh, I forgot, it’s a train! Can’t we have a train directly?
When is there a train?’
‘For goodness’ sake, Kitty, what do you mean? But we are married! You
can’t be going to turn your back upon me.’
‘Oh, fiddlesticks!’ said Kitty, in her excitement; ‘who talks of turning
their back? I’ve found out something that will make mamma jump; it makes
me jump to begin with!’ exclaimed the girl, performing a dance on the
floor. ‘They’ll never say a word to us. They’ll be struck dumb with
this. Look! look!’
Walter looked with great surprise, without the slightest conception of
what it could be to which his attention was called. His eyes wandered
along the page, seeing nothing. A long array of names: what could there
be in these to call for all this commotion? Kitty pushed him aside in
her excitement. She laid her finger upon one short signature written
very small. He read it, and turned and looked at her aghast.
‘Kitty! what do you mean? Who is it? It can’t--it can’t be----’
‘Well!’ cried Kitty, ‘and who could it be? “Joan Blencarrow”--there’s
only one person of that name in all the world.’
‘Good heavens!’ Walter cried. He had more feeling than she had, for he
stood aghast. Mrs. Blencarrow! He seemed to see her suddenly in all her
dignity and splendour, as he had seen her standing receiving her
guests. Kitty jumped with excitement, but Walter was appalled.
‘Mrs. Blencarrow! I can’t believe it! I don’t believe it!’ he said.
‘What does it matter whether you believe it or not, for there it is?’
said Kitty, triumphant. ‘Oh, what a state mamma will be in! She will
never say a word to us. She will pay no attention, any more than if we
had been out for a walk. Oh, how she will like to pull down Mrs.
Blencarrow!--she that was always so grand, and people thinking there was
nobody like her. And all this time--three years----’
Kitty’s eyes danced with delight. To think that she should be the one to
find out such a wonderful secret intoxicated her with satisfaction and
pleasure.
‘Kitty,’ said Walter, with hesitation, ‘we have found it out by
accident.’
‘Oh, don’t say _we_! _I’ve_ found it out. It would never have come into
your head to look at the books.’
‘Well, _you_ then. You have found it out by accident, and when we’re
happy ourselves, why should we try to make other people miserable?
Kitty!’ He put his arm round her, and pleaded with his lips close to her
ear.
‘Oh, nonsense!’ she said; ‘all men are taken in like that; but I can’t
let her off; I won’t let her off. Why, it wouldn’t be right!’
‘There are some people who would think what we are doing wasn’t right,’
said Walter.
‘Oh, you coward,’ cried Kitty, ‘to turn round on me when we haven’t
been married an hour! As if it was my doing, when you know that but for
you----’
‘I am not turning round on you. I never said it was your doing. Kitty,
darling, don’t let us quarrel. You know I never meant----’
‘I shall quarrel, if I like,’ cried Kitty, bursting into tears; and they
had it out, as they had already done a hundred times, and would a
hundred more, enjoying it thoroughly. It suddenly occurred to Walter,
however, as the little episode drew near a close, that the ham and eggs
must be ready, and he threw in an intimation to this effect with very
telling results. Kitty jumped up, dried her eyes, straightened her hat,
and declared that she was dying of hunger.
‘But whatever happens, and however serious things may be, you always
will go on,’ she said.
He was magnanimous, being very hungry too, and restrained the retort
that was trembling on his tongue, that it was she who would go on; and
they flew across to the little alehouse, arm in arm, and enjoyed their
ham and eggs even more than they had enjoyed their quarrel.
They found out that the next train ‘up’ was not till eleven o’clock,
which set their minds at rest, for they had meant to go to London before
Kitty’s mind had been all unsettled by that discovery. Walter had begun
to hope she had forgotten all about it, when she suddenly jumped up from
the table--not, however, before she had made a very satisfactory meal.
‘Oh, what a fool I am!’ cried Kitty. ‘I never paid any attention to the
man!’
‘What man?’
‘Why, the man she was married to, you goose! A woman can’t be married
all by herself. It was a long name--Everard something. I didn’t know it,
or I should have paid more attention. Haven’t you finished yet?--for I
must run this instant----’
‘Where, Kitty?’
‘Why, to look up the book again!’ she cried.
‘I wish you’d give this up,’ said Walter. ‘Do, to please me. We’ve got
all we wish ourselves, and why should we worry other people, Kitty?’
‘If you have got all you wish, I have not. I want to please them--to
make them do something for us; and when a thing like this turns up--the
very thing!--why, mamma will hug us both--she will forgive us on the
spot. She’ll be so pleased she’ll do anything for us. I don’t know about
Mrs. Lawrence----’
‘It won’t do us any good with my mother,’ said Walter, with a thrill of
dread coming over him, for he did not like to think of his mother and
that terrible trustee.
‘By the way,’ cried Kitty, with a pirouette of delight, ‘it’s I that am
Mrs. Lawrence now, and she’s only the Dowager. Fancy turning a person
who has always made you shake in your shoes into the Dowager! It’s too
delightful--it’s worth all the rest.’
Walter did not like this to be said about his mother. He had deceived
and disappointed her, but he was not without a feeling for her.
‘That is all nonsense,’ he said. ‘It is not as if I had come into the
property and my mother had to turn out; for everything is hers. I hope
you don’t mind being Mrs. Walter, Kitty, for my sake.’
Kitty considered a moment whether she should be angry, but concluded
that it was too soon after the last quarrel, and would be monotonous and
a bore, so she caught up his hat instead and thrust it into his hand.
‘Come along,’ she said; ‘come along. We have sat a long time over
breakfast, and there is no time to lose; I must make out the other name
in that book.’
But here the young lady met with an unexpected check, for the blacksmith
stopped them as they entered his house, striding towards them from the
kitchen, where he, too, had finished a very satisfactory meal.
‘What will ye be wanting?’ he said. ‘Ye will maybe think I can unmarry
ye again? but it’s not possible to do that.’
‘We don’t want to be unmarried,’ said Kitty; ‘we want just to look at
the book again, to see a name.’
‘What book?’
‘The register-book that is in that room,’ said Walter; ‘my wife,’ and he
gave Kitty’s arm a squeeze, ‘saw a name----’
‘My book!’ The blacksmith stood in the doorway like a mountain, not to
be passed by or pushed aside. ‘I’ll have no one spying into the names in
my book.’
‘I don’t want to spy,’ said Kitty;’ it’s somebody I know.’
But the big man would hear no reason; he looked at the little couple
before him, so young and so silly, as if he had been a bishop at least.
‘I couldn’t refuse to marry ye,’ he said; ‘I hadn’t the right. But if I
had followed my own lights, I would just have sent ye home to your
parents to be put back in the nursery; and ye shall see no books of
mine, nor tell tales upon other folk.’
And nothing could move him from this resolution. Kitty nearly cried with
vexation when they got into the train again; her own escapade dwindled
into something quite secondary.
‘It was so silly of me not to make sure of the name. I am sure the first
name was Everard, or something like that. And what a brute that man is,
Walter! If you had really loved me as you say, you would have pushed him
away or knocked him down.’
‘Why, he was six times as big as me, Kitty!’
‘What does that matter,’ she said, ‘when it’s for the sake of someone
you love?’
But perhaps this is rather a feminine view.
There had been, as may be supposed, a great commotion in The Leas when
it was found that Kitty’s room was vacant in the morning. A girl’s
absence is more easily discovered than a boy’s. Mrs. Lawrence thought
that Walter had gone off for the day to see some of his friends, and
would come back to dinner, as he had done many times before; and though
she was angry with him for leaving his work, she was not anxious. But a
young lady does not make escapades of this sort; and when it was
discovered that Kitty’s best things had disappeared, and her favourite
locket, and that she had evidently never gone to bed in a proper and
legitimate way, the house and the neighbourhood was roused. Mrs. Bircham
sent off messengers far and near; and Mr. Bircham himself, though an
easy-minded man, went out on the same errand, visiting, among other
places, Blencarrow, where all the gaiety of a Christmas party was still
going on, and the boys were trying with delight the first faint film of
ice upon the pond to see when it would be likely to bear. Then, after a
hasty but late luncheon, he had gone to see whether Mrs. Lawrence knew
anything about the fugitive; and Mrs. Bircham, at her wits’ end, and
not knowing what to do, was alone in the drawing-room at The Leas,
pondering everything, wishing she had Kitty there to shake her, longing
to pour forth floods of wrath; but at the same time chilled by that
dread of something having happened which will come in even when a mother
is most enraged. She was saying to herself that nothing could have
happened--that it must be that young Lawrence--that the girl was an
idiot--that she washed her hands of her--that she would have nothing to
do with them--that, oh, if she had only thought to lock her up in her
bedroom and stop it all!
‘Oh, Kitty, Kitty! where are you, child?’ she cried nervously at the
conclusion of all.
There was a rustle and a little rush, and Kitty ran in, flinging
herself upon her knees upon the hearthrug, and replied:
‘Here I am--here I am, mamma!’
Mrs. Bircham uttered a shriek. She saw Walter behind, and the situation
in a moment became clear to her.
‘You young fools!’ she said; ‘you disobedient, ungrateful
children--you----’
‘Oh, mamma, one moment. We have been to Gretna Green--Walter and me!’
‘How dared you, sir?’ said Mrs. Bircham, turning upon the hapless
lover--‘how dared you steal my innocent child away? And then you come
here to triumph over us. Begone, sir--begone, sir, out of my house;
begone out of my house!’
Kitty jumped up off her knees and caught Walter by the arm.
‘He does not go a step without me,’ she cried. ‘But, mamma, if you would
have a moment’s patience, you would not think any more about it. We were
going to London; but I came back, though I knew you would scold, to tell
you. Listen to me one moment,’ cried Kitty, running all the words into
one; ‘it’s something about Mrs. Blencarrow.’
Mrs. Bircham had her hands raised, presumably to draw down the curse of
heaven upon the pair, but at this name she paused; her countenance
changed.
‘Mrs. Blencarrow?’ she gasped, and could say no more.
‘You never heard such a thing in your life!’ cried Kitty. She dropped
Walter’s arm, and came forward in front of him. ‘Mamma, I saw her name
in the register; there it is--anyone can see it: Joan Blencarrow--there
couldn’t be another person with such a name.’
‘In the register? What--what do you mean?’
‘Mamma, I mean that Mrs. Blencarrow is married--to somebody else. She’s
been married these three years. I read her name this very day. It’s in
the register at Gretna Green.’
Mrs. Bircham staggered back a few steps and dropped into a chair.
‘Married!’ she cried. ‘Mrs. Blencarrow married!’
‘Three years ago,’ cried Kitty glibly. ‘Fifth January--I saw the
date--three years ago!’
Mrs. Bircham sat with her hands clasped and her eyes glaring, ‘as if,’
Kitty said afterwards, ‘they would come out of her head.’ She uttered a
succession of cries, from little shrieks to breathless exclamations.
‘Married!--Mrs. Blencarrow! Oh, oh, Kitty! Oh, good heavens!--Mrs.
Blencarrow! Three years ago--the time she went off to Scotland to see
her sister. Oh, oh, Kitty! In the register! Get me a glass of water, or
I think I shall die.’
Walter disappeared for the water, thinking that after all his
mother-in-law was a good-hearted woman, and didn’t feel as Kitty said
she would; but when he returned, his admiration of Mrs. Bircham turned
into admiration for his wife, for Kitty and her mother, sitting close as
if they were the dearest friends, were laying their heads together and
talking both at the same time; and the horror and amazement in Mrs.
Bircham’s face had given way to the dancing of a malicious light in her
eyes, and a thrill of eagerness all over her.
‘I am not at all surprised,’ she was saying when Walter came in. ‘I felt
sure something of the kind would come to light sooner or later. I never
would have trusted her--not a step beyond what I saw. I felt sure all
wasn’t right in that house. What a mercy, Kitty, that you saw it!’
‘Wasn’t it a mercy, mamma!’
Kitty gave her young husband a look aside; she had made her peace with
her news. But Mrs. Bircham thought of nothing--neither of her daughter’s
escapade, nor her own just anger--of nothing but this wonderful news,
and what would be the best thing to do.