Kit and Kitty: A Story of West Middlesex

CHAPTER I.

UNCLE CORNY

My name is Christopher Orchardson, of Sunbury in Middlesex; and I have passed through a bitter trouble, which I will try to describe somehow, both for my wife’s sake and my own, as well as to set us straight again in the opinion of our neighbours, which I have always valued highly, though sometimes unable to show it. It has not been in my power always to do the thing that was wisest, and whenever this is brought up against me, I can make no answer, only to beg those who love blame to look at themselves, which will make their eyes grow kinder, before they begin to be turned on me.

For five and twenty years of life I went on very happily, being of an unambitious sort, and knowing neither plague nor pain, through the strength of my constitution and the easiness of my nature. Most of my neighbours seemed to live in perpetual lack of something, and if ever they got it they soon contrived to find something more to hanker for. There were times when I felt that I must be a fool, or to say the least a dullard, for slackness of perception, which kept me satisfied with the life I had to live. But two things may be pleaded well in my excuse on this account; in the first place, all my time was spent among creatures of no ambition – trees, and flowers, and horses, and the like, that have no worry; and what was even to the purpose more, I had no money to enlarge its love.

For my Uncle Cornelius – better known to all who had dealings with him as “Corny, the topper” – took care of me, and his main care was to make me useful, as an orphan should be. My father had been his elder brother, and had married rashly a lady of birth and education far above his own, but gifted with little else to help her, unless it were sweetness of disposition, and warmth of heart, and loveliness. These in a world like ours are not of much account for wearing; and she had no chance to wear them out, being taken away quite suddenly. My life was given at the cost of hers, and my father, after lingering for a few months, took his departure to look for her.

Old people said that my Uncle Corny had been very fond of my mother, looking up to her in his youthful days, as a wonder of grace and goodness. And even now when he spoke about her, as I have known him to do after a tumbler of grog, his hard grey eyes would glisten softly, like the vinery glass of an afternoon, when a spring cloud passes over it. But none the more for that did he ever plant a shilling in my youthful hand. This proves his due estimate of money as a disadvantage to the young.

My uncle possessed an ancient garden, which had once belonged to a monastery; and the times being better than now they are, he was enabled to work it so that he made fair living out of it. We lived in an ancient cottage in the fine old village of Sunbury, or rather to the westward of that village, and higher up the river. Our window looked upon the Thames, with nothing more than the Shepperton Road, and the slope of the bank to look over. What with water-works, grand villas, the railway, and other changes, the place is now so different that a native may scarcely know it. But all was thoroughly simple, quiet, and even dull to lazy folk, in the days of which I am speaking.

My parents had managed to leave me so, or had it so managed by a higher power, that from my very infancy I was thrown upon Uncle Corny. He was a masterful man indeed, being of a resolute disposition, strong body, and stout sentiments. There was no mistaking his meaning when he spoke, and he spoke no more than a man is bound to do, for his own uses. Those who did not understand his nature said a great deal against him, and he let them say it to the width of their mouths. For he felt that he was good inside, and would be none the better for their meddling.

He was now about threescore years of age, and wished himself no younger, having seen enough of the world to know that to pass through it once is quite enough. Few things vexed him much, except to find his things sold below their value; and that far less for the love of money than from the sense of justice. But when he was wronged – as all producers, being one to a thousand, must be – he was not the man to make a to-do, and write to the papers about it. All he did was to drive his stick into the floor, and look up at the ceiling. For his own part he was quite ready to be proved in the wrong, whenever he could see it; and whatever may be said, I can answer for it, there are more men now than can be counted in a year, who are under Uncle Corny’s mark; while an hour would be ample for the names of those who would dare to look over my uncle’s head, when he comes to be judged finally.

All this is too much of a preface for him. His manner was always to speak for himself, and he must become somebody else, ere ever he would let his young nephew do it for him.

CHAPTER II.

MY KITTY

The shape of a tree is not decided by the pruner only. When the leader is stopped, with an eye towards the wind, and the branches clipped to a nicety of experience and of forethought, and the happy owner has said to it – “Now I defy you to go amiss this season” – before he is up in the morning perhaps, his lecture is flown, and his labour lost.

My wise Uncle Corny had said to me, more times than I can remember – “Kit, you are a good boy, a very good boy, and likely to be useful in my business by-and-by. But of one thing beware – never say a word to women. They never know what they want themselves; and they like to bring a man into the same condition. What wonderful things I have seen among the women! And the only way out of it is never to get into it.”

In answer to this I never said a word, being unable to contradict, though doubtful how far he was right. But it made me more shy than I was already, while at the same time it seemed to fill me with interest in the matter. But the only woman I had much to do with went a long way to confirm my Uncle’s words. This was no other than Tabitha Tapscott, a widow from the West of England, who did all our cleaning and cooking for us, coming into the house at six o’clock in the summer, and seven in the winter time. A strange little creature she appeared to me, so different from us in all her ways, making mountains of things that we never noticed, and not at all given to silence.

Once or twice my Uncle Corny, after a glass of hot rum and water (which he usually had on a Saturday night, to restore him after paying wages) had spoken, in a strange mysterious style, of having “had his time,” or as he sometimes put it – “paid his footing.” It was not easy to make out his drift, or the hint at the bottom of it; and if any one tried to follow him home, sometimes he would fly off into rudeness, or if in a better vein, convey that he held his tongue for the good of younger people. Such words used to stir me sadly, because I could get no more of them.

However, I began to feel more and more, as youth perhaps is sure to do when it listens to dark experience, as if I should like almost to go through some of it on my own behalf. Not expecting at all to leave it as a lesson for those who come after me, but simply desiring to enter into some knowledge of the thing forbidden. For I knew not as yet that there is no pleasure rich enough to satisfy the interest of pain.

It was on the first Sunday of September in the year 1860, that I first left all my peaceful ways, and fell into joy and misery. And strangely enough, as some may think, it was in the quiet evening service that the sudden change befell me. That summer had been the wettest ever known, or at any rate for four and forty years; as the old men said, who recalled the time when the loaves served out to their fathers and mothers stuck fast, like clay, upon the churchyard wall. Now the river was up to the mark of the road, and the meadows on the other side were lakes, and even a young man was well pleased to feel a flint under his foot as he walked. For the road was washed with torrents, and all the hedges reeking, and the solid trunks of ancient elms seemed to be channelled with perpetual drip.

But the sun began to shine out of the clouds, at his very last opportunity; and weak and watery though he looked, with a bank of haze beneath him, a soft relief of hope and comfort filled the flooded valley. And into our old western porch a pleasant light came quivering, and showed us who our neighbours were, and made us smile at one another.

As it happened now, my mind was full of a certain bed of onions, which had grown so rank and sappy, that we had not dared to harvest them. And instead of right thoughts upon entering church, I was saying to myself – “We shall have a dry week, I do believe. I will pull them to-morrow, and chance it.” This will show that what now befell me came without any fault of mine.

For just as the last bell struck its stroke, and the ringer swang down on the heel of it, and the murmur went floating among the trees, I drew back a little to let the women pass, having sense of their feeling about their dresses, which is to be respected by every man. And in those days they wore lovely flounces, like a bee-hive trimmed with Venetian blinds. They had learned a fine manner of twitching up these, whenever they came to steps and stairs; and while they were at it, they always looked round, to make sure of no disarrangement. My respect for them made me gaze over their heads, as if without knowledge of their being there at all. Yet they whispered freely to one another, desiring to know if their ribands were right for the worship of the Almighty.

Now as I gazed in a general style, being timid about looking especially, there came into my eyes, without any sense of moment, but stealing unawares as in a vision, the fairest and purest and sweetest picture that ever went yet from the eyes to the heart. To those who have never known the like, it is hopeless to try to explain it; and even to myself I cannot render, by word or by thought, a mere jot of it. And many would say, that to let things so happen, the wits for the time must be out of their duty.

It may have been only a glance, or a turn of the head, or the toss of a love-lock – whatever it was, for me the world was a different place thereafter. It was a lovely and gentle face, making light in the gloom of the tower arch, and touched with no thought of its own appearance, as other pretty faces were. I had never dreamed that any maiden could have said so much to me, as now came to me without a word.

Wondering only about her, and feeling abashed at my own footsteps, I followed softly up the church, and scarcely knew the button of our own pew door. For Uncle Corny owned a pew, and insisted upon having it, and would allow no one to sit there, without his own grace and written order. He never found it needful to go to church on his own account, being a most upright man; but if ever he heard of any other Christian being shown into his pew, he put on his best clothes the next Sunday morning, and repaired to the sacred building, with a black-thorn staff which had a knob of obsidian. Such a thing would now be considered out of date; but the church was the church, in those more established times. Here I sat down in my usual manner, to the best of my power, because I knew how my neighbours would be watching me; and saying my prayers into the bottom of my hat, I resolved to remember where I was, and nothing else. But this was much easier said than done; for the first face I met, upon looking round, was that of Sam Henderson the racer, the owner of the paddocks at Halliford, a young man who thought a great deal of himself, and tried to bring others to a like opinion. He was not altogether a favourite of mine, although I knew nothing against him; for he loved showy colours, and indulged in large fancies that all the young women were in love with him. Now he gave me a nod, although the clergyman was speaking, and following the turn of his eyes I was vexed yet more with his behaviour. He was gazing, as though with a lofty approval, and no sort of fear in his bright black eyes, at the face which had made me feel just now so lowly and so worthless.

In the Manor pew, which had been empty nearly all the summer – for the weather had driven our ladies abroad – there she sat, and it made me feel as if hope was almost gone from me. For I could not help knowing that Mrs. Sheppard, who arranged all the worshippers according to their rank, would never have shown the young lady in there, unless she had been of high standing. And almost before I was out of that thought my wits being quicker than usual, it became quite clear to me, who she was – or at any rate who was with her. From the corner of the pew there came and stood before her, as if to take general attention off, a highly esteemed and very well dressed lady, Mrs. Jenny Marker. This was the “lady housekeeper,” as everybody was bound to call her who hoped to get orders, at Coldpepper Hall, herself a very well bred and most kind-hearted woman, to all who considered her dignity. Having always done this, I felt sure of her good word, and hoping much too hastily that the young lady was her niece, I made it feel perhaps less presumptuous on my part, to try to steal a glance at her, whenever luck afforded.

Herein I found tumultuous bliss, until my heart fell heavily. I was heeding very scantily the reading of the minister, and voices of the clerk and faithful of the congregation, when suddenly there came the words, – “the dignity of Princes.” And then I knew, without thinking twice, that this young lady could never have won the dignity of the Manor-pew, unless she had been a great deal more than the niece of Jenny Marker. In a moment, too, my senses came to back up this perception, and I began to revile myself for thinking such a thought of her. Not that Mrs. Marker was of any low condition, for she wore two rings and a gold watch-chain, and was highly respected by every one; but she cheapened all the goods she bought, even down to an old red herring, and she had been known to make people take garden-stuff in exchange for goods, or else forego her custom. The memory of these things grieved me with my own imagination.

I was very loth to go – as you will see was natural – without so much as one good look at the sweet face which had blessed me; but everything seemed to turn against me, and the light grew worse and worse. Moreover Sam Henderson stared so boldly, having none of my diffidence, that Mrs. Marker came forward sharply, and jerked the rings of the red baize curtain, so that he could see only that. At this he turned red, and pulled up his collar, and I felt within myself a glow of good-will for the punching of his head. And perhaps he had grounds for some warm feeling toward me, for the reason that I being more to the left could still get a glimpse round the corner of the curtain, which acted as a total drop of scenery for him.

When the sermon was finished in its natural course, the sky was getting very dark outside, and the young men and women were on best behaviour to take no advantage of the gloom in going out. For as yet we had no great gas-works, such as impair in the present generation the romance and enlargement of an evening service. So that when we came forth, we were in a frame of mind for thinking the best of one another.

CHAPTER III

THE TIMBER BRIDGE

By this time it had become clear to me, that whatever my thoughts were and my longings – such as those who are free from them call romantic – there was nothing proper for me to do, except to turn in at our own little gate, and be satisfied with my own duty inside. And this I was truly at the point of doing, although with very little satisfaction, when the glancing of the twilight down the road convinced me of a different duty. To the westward there happened just here to be a long stretch of lane without much turn in it, only guided and overhung partly with trees, and tufts of wild hops which were barren this year. And throughout this long course, which was wavering with gloom, a watery gleam from the west set in, partly perhaps from the flooded river, and partly from the last glance of sunset.

My hand was just laid upon our wicket-latch, and my mind made up for no thinking, when the figure of some one in the distance, like a call-back signal, stopped me. I had not returned, you must understand, by the shortest possible way from church, which would have taken me to Uncle Corny’s door opposite the river; but being a little disturbed, perhaps, and desiring to walk it off quietly, had turned up to the right towards the Halliford lane, to escape any gossip, and come back through our garden. And where I stood now, there was a view by daylight of nearly half a mile of lane, and the timber bridge across the brook.

The lane was not quite straight, but still it bent in such an obliging manner, first to the left and then back to the right, that anything happening upon its course would be likely to come into view from our gate. And I saw as plainly as could be, although beyond shouting distance, a man with his arms spread forth, as if to stop or catch anybody going further, and nearer to me the forms of women desirous to go on, but frightened. It is not true that I stopped to think for one moment who those women were; but feeling that they must be in the right, and the man in the wrong as usual, without two endeavours I was running at full speed – and in those days that was something – merely to help the right, and stop the wrong. And in less time than it takes to tell it, I was one of the party. Then I saw that the ladies were Mrs. Marker, and the lovely young maiden, who had been with her in church.

“Oh, Master Orchardson, you will take our part,” Mrs. Marker cried, as she ran up to me; “you will take our part, as every good man must. That bad man says that we shall not cross the bridge, without – without – oh, it is too dreadful!”

“Without paying toll to me – this is kissing-bridge, and the wood is now kissing the water. ’Tis a dangerous job to take ladies across. Kit, you are come just in time to help. Let us have toll at the outset, and double toll upon landing, my boy. You take my lady Marker, Kit, because she is getting heavy; and I will take Miss Fairthorn.”

Sam Henderson spoke these words as if we had nothing to do but obey him. Perhaps as a man who was instructing horses, he had imbibed too much of the upper part. At any rate, I did not find it my duty to fall beneath his ordering. And as if to make me stand to my own thoughts, the sweetest and most pitiful glance that had ever come to meet me, came straight to my heart from a shadowy nook, where the beautiful maid was shrinking.

“Sam Henderson, none of this rubbish!” I shouted, for the roar of the water would have drowned soft words. “It is a coward’s job to frighten women. A man should see first what the danger is.”

Before he could come up to strike me, as his first intention seemed to be, I ran across the timbers, which were bowing and trembling with the strain upon the upright posts, as well as the wash upon their nether sides. And I saw that the risk was increasing with each moment, for the dam at the bottom of Tim Osborne’s meadow, not more than a gunshot above us, was beginning to yield, and the flood checked by it was trembling like a trodden hay-rick. Upon this I ran back, and said, “Now, ladies, if cross you must, you must do it at once.”

“Kit, you are a fool. There is no danger,” Sam Henderson shouted wrathfully. “Who is the coward that frightens ladies now? But if you must poke in your oar without leave, you go first with Mother Marker, and I will come after you, with the young lady.”

The maiden shrank back from his hand, and I saw that good Mrs. Marker was pained by his words. “Mother Marker will go first,” she said, “but with no thanks to you, Mr. Henderson.”

Her spirit was up, but her hands were trembling, as I took her Prayer-book from them.

“I may be a fool, but I am not a cub,” I answered with a gaze that made Henderson scowl; “I would rather frighten ladies than insult them. Now, Mrs. Marker, give me one of your nice little hands, and have no fear.”

The house-keeping lady put forth one hand, with a tender look at it, because it had been praised, and then she put forth one brave foot, and I was only afraid of her going too fast. The water splashed up between the three-inch planks, for the lady was of some substance; but she landed very well, and back I ran to see about her young companion.

“I will not go with you sir; I will go alone. You do not behave like a gentleman,” she was crying in great distress, as I came up, and Sam Henderson had hold of both her hands. This enraged me so that I forgot good manners, for I should not have done what I did before a lady. I struck Sam heavily between the eyes, and if I had not caught him by the collar, nothing could have saved him from falling through the bush, into the deep eddy under the planks. As soon as I had done it, I was angry with myself, for Sam was not a bad fellow at all, when in his best condition. But now there was no time to dwell upon that, for the flood was arising and rolling in loops, like the back of a cat who has descried a dog.

“Now or never, Miss,” I cried; “the dam has given; in a minute, this bridge will be swept clean away.”

She showed such bright sense as I never saw before, and never can hope to see in anybody else, however they may laugh through want of it. Without a word, or even a glance at me, she railed up her dress into a wondrous little circle, and gave me a hand which I had not the strength to think of, for fear of forgetting all the world outside. Taking it gently in my coarse hard palm, I said, “Come,” and she came like an angel.

As I led her across, all my gaze was upon her; and this was a good thing for both of us. For a scream from Mrs. Marker and a dreadful shout from Sam – who came staggering up to the brink and caught the handrail, just as we were shaking upon the middle dip – these, and a great roar coming down the meadows, would probably have taken all my wits away, if they had been within me, as at ordinary times. But heeding only that which I was holding, I went in a leisurely and steady manner which often makes the best of danger, and set the maiden safe upon the high stone at the end, and turned round to see what was coming.

Before I had time to do this, it was upon me, whirling me back with a blow of heavy timber, and washing me with all my best clothes on into the hedge behind the lane. Then a rush of brown water, like a drove of wild cattle leaping on one another’s backs, went by, and the bridge was gone with it, like a straw hat in the wind. But the stone upon which the young lady stood was unmoved although surrounded, and I made signs to her – for to speak was useless – to lay hold of a branch which hung over her head. As she did so, she smiled at me, even in that terror; and I felt that I would go through a thousandfold the peril for the chance of being so rewarded.

Suddenly, as suddenly as it had mounted, the bulk of the roaring flood fell again, and the wreck of the handrail and some lighter spars of the bridge hung dangling by their chains. And soon as the peril was passed, it was hard to believe that there had been much of it. But any one listening to Mrs. Marker, as she came down the hill when it was over, must have believed that I had done something very gallant and almost heroic. But I had done nothing more than I have told; and it is not very likely that I would make too little of it.

“Brave young man!” cried Mrs. Marker, panting, and ready to embrace me, if I had only been dry; “you have saved our lives, and I would say it, if it were my last moment. Miss Kitty, I never saw such valour. Did you ever, in all your life, dear?”

“Never, dear, never! Though I had not the least idea what this gentleman was doing, till he had done it. Oh, he must be sadly knocked about. Let me come down, and help him.”

“He put you up there, and he shall fetch you down. Nobody else has the right to do it. Mr. Orchardson, don’t be afraid; assist her.”

Now this shows how women have their wits about them, even at moments most critical. The housekeeper had fled with no small alacrity, when the flood came roaring; and now with equal promptitude she had returned, and discovered how best to reward me.

“I think you might give me a hand,” said the young lady, still mounted on the high stone with our parish-mark, upon which by some instinct I had placed her.