Kitty

by Beaton, M. C.

  Hetty chattered on, her ringlets bobbing with their familiar bounce. The house looked much the same inside, as Mrs. Harrison had sold the furniture along with it. But at least it was now warm. John Stokes got to his feet when they came into the parlor. His clothes looked even tighter than before.

  “Why, Kitty,” he exclaimed, getting to his feet. “Well, who would have guessed you’d turn out to be such a looker.” He kissed her on the cheek with unnecessary warmth.

  “Now,” said Hetty, excitedly, “I’ll tell the maid to get your old room ready and you can tell us all about your adventures.”

  Kitty looked nervously at John Stokes. She had planned to tell Hetty all about it when they were alone together. But John was leaning forward from his armchair, as eager as his wife.

  So instead of the delicious burst of confidences she had planned, Kitty told her story for the umpteenth time in a tired, flat voice. Hetty clapped her hands and oohed and aahed as if Kitty had become more of a sideshow at a carnival than a friend.

  By the time the pair of them let her go and she wearily climbed the familiar stairs to bed, Kitty felt very lost and tired.

  Everything looked familiar but did not feel familiar. She had returned to her own class and surroundings. Why then was the feeling of homelessness stronger than ever? She stood at the window for a long time looking out across the Heath that was spread out under a large autumn moon.

  The following two days were as bad as being at Lady Mainwaring’s. Hetty filled the house with her friends from morning till night and on one occasion when she had pleaded a headache, Hetty had cried so much and been so disappointed that she had felt obliged to join the company.

  After one such day when she had escaped to her room, Hetty followed her.

  “I’m surprised that your clothes are so simple, Kitty,” pouted Hetty. “I declare I’m better dressed than you are.” She pirouetted in front of Kitty in a creation that was so gored and hemmed and herring-boned and tucked and rucked that she had achieved the rare distinction of making tweed look frivolous.

  “And haven’t you any jewels?” said Hetty. “A tiara or some such thing?”

  “Come now,” smiled Kitty. “I would only wear a tiara to a very grand ball.”

  Hetty stamped her foot. “There you go! Implying that we aren’t good enough for you.”

  Kitty saw a chance for the confidential talk. “Of course I don’t think you’re not good enough for me. It’s just that I’m worried about my husband.”

  Hetty’s wide blue eyes gleamed and her voice dropped to a whisper. “Is he going to divorce you?”

  “No.” said Kitty faintly. “Of course not.”

  “Well, it looks very odd to me,” said Hetty, sitting down in a chair and kicking off her shoes. “Take John and me. We’re always together and ever so lovey-dovey. Anyone would think you had been married for years.”

  Kitty sat forward, anxious to explain. “It’s not that, Hetty. It’s just that our marriage got off to a bad start….”

  “I’ll say it did,” said Hetty rudely. “Him and that Mrs. Jackson. Ought to be ashamed of himself. We hear the society gossip even out here in Hampstead, you know. Is he with her now?”

  Kitty raised her hands to her face and stared at Hetty. “Of course not! Of course not! After what she tried to do to me?”

  “What did she try to do?” asked Hetty eagerly.

  Kitty bit her lip in confusion. She remembered that Mrs. Jackson’s attempt on her life had been hushed up. “Well, she was always trying to take him away from me,” amended Kitty.

  “Is that all,” said Hetty, disappointed. “I’d just like to see someone try to take my John away from me.”

  “But it’s not the same…” began Kitty.

  “Oh, so it’s all different in high society, is it?” sneered Hetty.

  The conversation was not going at all the way Kitty wanted it. In fact it was heading for disaster. Without being aware of it she reverted to one of Hetty’s ruses and put her arms around the angry girl.

  “Now, Hetty, you know I’m your friend. I wouldn’t dream of saying anything to hurt you.”

  Much mollified, Hetty, however, saw that Kitty was in a vulnerable state and was quick to turn it to her advantage.

  “You know, dear Kitty, me and John would like you to stay ever so long. But what with paying the servants and the extra entertaining, we’re having to pinch pennies….”

  Kitty blushed in confusion. “I never thought about money. I’ll arrange some for you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday,” pointed out Hetty quickly.

  “Well, Monday then,” said poor Kitty, feeling thoroughly embarrassed. But Hetty was not. “Ta muchly,” she said, dropping a kiss on the top of Kitty’s head as she prepared to leave. “You mustn’t mind me talking about money, but I’ve always prided myself on being frank and honest.” Picking up her shoes, she left the room without having shown one ounce of concern over Kitty’s obvious worry about her husband.

  Kitty got ready for church the next morning, fighting against a growing feeling of dislike for her hostess. All her old surroundings seemed to have done for her was to reduce her to the former Kitty Harrison, quiet, shy, and unhappy, without any of the feelings of security and comfort she had expected.

  The morning was gray and foggy. The Indian summer had fled and turned the world over to winter. Wreaths of chilly, throat-catching fog shrouded the roads and lanes of Hampstead and snaked their way through the branches of the trees on the Heath. This visit to church was to be the culmination of Hetty’s social triumph and she meant to make the most of it.

  Before they left the house Hetty drew Kitty aside, out of earshot of her husband. “Now, I don’t want any of your die-away airs, Kitty,” said Hetty sharply, surveying her subdued friend. “Lady Worthing will be in church and she will want to talk to you but she will try and cut me. You’re not to let her, mind that! You’re to introduce me properly—in a loud voice.”

  “Yes, Hetty,” said Kitty faintly. She had nearly said, “Yes, Mama!” as Hetty sounded so like her mother. With an unreal feeling of having stepped back in time, Kitty left the house in Hetty’s wake. “Cheer up, Kitty,” said John Stokes, putting an arm around her and squeezing her waist. “The missus gets a bit carried away.” Kitty shrank from him in distaste and he responded with an offended glare and was overly affectionate to his wife all the way to the church.

  Still in a dream Kitty followed the Stokeses into their pew. There was Lady Worthing as of old, attired in an unsuitable hat of garden-party lace which the fog had already soiled at the edge. Her eyes bulged when she saw Kitty and the glass eyes of the little furry animals around her neck seemed to bulge in sympathy. Fog filtered into the church and hung in long, smoky bars over the pulpit where the Reverend James Ponsonby-Smythe again recited the tale of who begat whom. Kitty’s mind wandered away from the Bible readings to the time before her marriage.

  How funny, she thought. I feel that if I turned my head I would see him standing at the back of the church. Then, in a great painful wave, the memories came tumbling one after another into her mind. The way he smiled, the mocking look in his gray eyes when he was amused, the feel of his hands on her body… his kiss. Slowly, she turned around and looked toward the back of the church.

  No one. Only a sooty angel above the entrance, staring at her impassively through the thickening fog.

  Oh, God, no one. What on earth was she doing here in Hampstead? She should be with her husband. She should be home. What an unutterable fool she had been. To have the world and more and to throw it all away, moping around Hampstead with Hetty. Hetty, who did not care one little bit for her. Hetty, who would have shown her the door if Kitty had not been a Baroness.

  Kitty put her gloved hand up to her flushed cheeks. She must have been mad, out of her mind. God! God! What if he wouldn’t take her back?

  Kitty Harrison had entered the church, but as the last sonorous “amen” sounded, the Baroness Reamingto
n got to her feet and marched to the door.

  Lady Worthing was waiting for her on the porch. “My dear, Lady Chesworth,” she positively simpered. “So nice to have you back among us.”

  “She’s staying with me,” said Hetty fiercely.

  Stumbling slightly on her two-and-seven-eighths-of-an-inch heels, Hetty pushed herself in front of Kitty. “Aren’t you going to introduce me, Kitty dear?” said Hetty, pinching her friend’s arm. Kitty politely made the introduction which Lady Worthing ignored. She drew Kitty’s arm through her own and said in a loud voice, “Really, my dear Lady Chesworth, I should have thought you would have cut your connections with trades-people.”

  “Not at all,” said the Baroness sweetly. “I am not like my mother, Lady Worthing. I should never dream of cutting you just because your money comes from trade.”

  Hetty sniggered with delight and to Kitty’s horror, Lady Worthing’s eyes filled with hurt tears. “That’s telling her, Kitty,” crowed Hetty triumphantly. But to her annoyance, Kitty smiled at Lady Worthing and said in a voice loud enough to carry to the ears of the listening congregation, “I would be very honored if you would call on me when I am next in town. I plan to start entertaining and I am sure you would like your daughters to meet suitable beaux.”

  Lady Worthing gave her a look of pure gratitude and muttered gruffly that she would be delighted. Kitty then set off down the hill at a great pace with Hetty stumbling furiously after her.

  “What on earth were you doing—being nice to that old bitch?” raged Hetty.

  Kitty could hardly explain it to herself. She only knew that she had suddenly realized that Lady Worthing was a lonely, silly old woman with nothing but her position as Princess of Hampstead to keep her going. She had felt sorry for her. Still, Kitty could not help understanding Hetty’s rage a little. There had been no need for her to be so kind.

  Instead of replying to Hetty’s-question, Kitty slowed her walk and stated that she would be leaving London for the country. Hetty shrugged. “We were beginning to wonder when you were going to leave. You will remember the money you promised, won’t you, Kitty, dear?”

  “Of course,” said Kitty sharply. “Perhaps as a last favor you could ask your maid to pack for me. I’m going for a walk.” And oblivious of John Stokes’s cry of “What! In this weather?” she left the road and plunged into the Heath, walking straight in front of her until the sounds of the home-going congregation had faded behind her. “What on earth had prompted me to go and stay with Hetty?” she thought savagely.

  • • •

  “What on earth prompted her to go and stay with Hetty?” Lord Peter Chesworth stared at Lady Mainwaring in surprise. “Don’t ask me,” she snapped. “How should I know? Nostalgie de la boue or something like that. She’s been pretty shaken-up by the whole business, of course.

  “I am disappointed,” she went on. “I got so interested in that girl but I suppose I fancied myself a bit of a Pygmalion and got carried away. Kitty seemed to be becoming so sure of herself and sophisticated and then—bam! She was weeping and sniveling.”

  “Don’t be so damned cruel,” said Peter waspishly. “She’s been through a lot. Do you think there’s any chance of her coming back to me?”

  Emily Mainwaring looked at him and took a deep breath. “Not if you mope around here, there isn’t. For God’s sake man, who would ever have thought that Peter Chesworth would need instruction where women are concerned. Forget she’s your wife. Go and kiss her and drag her back by the hair. If you don’t, she’ll potter the rest of her life away, dithering from home to home. To be crude—go and have a try at that long-preserved virginity.”

  Peter Chesworth suddenly grinned. “What a horrible woman you are to be sure. But I’ll try anything. Although I hope I can find her in this weather.”

  His carriage crawled its way through the yellow fog in the direction of Hampstead. When he reached Gospel Oak, there was a delay while Mrs. Carson gave him instructions on how to get to her daughter’s home.

  Then there was a very ruffled and petulant Hetty to deal with, when he finally found the right address. At last she volunteered that Kitty had gone walking on the Heath and if my Lord asked her opinion, his wife had gone off her head.

  No, “my Lord” hadn’t asked her opinion and didn’t want it either. Peter Chesworth slammed his way out of Hetty’s home, leaving her to take her temper out on her husband. John Stokes thought she was angry because he had put his arm around Kitty and assumed Kitty had complained to his wife. “She’s such an attractive little thing,” pleaded John. “I couldn’t resist giving her a bit of a cuddle.”

  Hetty naturally demanded a full explanation and having got it, promptly went into strong hysterics and would have gone on all afternoon, if John Stokes had not, with an unexpected turn of strength, slapped her across the face with the full force of his pudgy hand.

  Kitty sat on a bench on a rise in the middle of the Heath and stared dismally at a wall of fog a few inches in front of her face. In fact, it was all so miserable she felt almost glad. She could not be expected to take any action in a fog like this—any action, that is, like going back and facing the one-time friend she now detested. So although Kitty knew every inch of the Heath and could easily have picked her way to the road, she stayed where she was, looking at her feet and listening to the sound of water dripping from the trees all around her.

  Kitty had often sat on this bench before and could remember the view on a summer’s day when the Heath seemed to roll from beneath one’s feet all the way down to the spires of London Town. How she used to sit and dream that the church spires of Central London were in fact the towers of Camelot and that if she sat very still and waited long enough, she would see her knight riding up the hill toward her.

  She heaved a great sigh that moved the fog slightly in front of her face and, as if in mischievous reply, a small breath of wind rippled through the fog sending it streaming in ribbons across the grass. Then the heavy silence fell again. But the little breeze returned with his playmates and suddenly, all about her, the thick fog started moving and shifting and swirling, making changing shapes and figures dance through the trees like so many ghosts. Mrs. Barlowe-Smellie slid behind a birch with a teacup in her hands, Lady Henley loomed up and dispersed in fragments and Checkers and the housekeeper from Pevvy Chase did a mad sarabande in the bushes. Now she could see several yards in front of her and somewhere high above London the sun must have been shining for the fog began to change to a light, golden yellow.

  Then the little breeze seemed to scamper away leaving a few moments of stillness and quiet until with a great whoo-oo-oo-sh, the east wind swept across the expanse of the Heath like some great bustling mother looking for her naughty children.

  The huge bank of fog rolled away, the sun shone down bravely on the sparkling grass and there, far away, were the spires of Kitty’s Camelot. And walking slowly up the Heath towards her came her husband.

  Kitty slowly got to her feet and walked forward. Both of them were desperately rehearsing in their minds what they would say and do. They had nearly reached each other when a great gust of wind swirled a thick cloud of dead leaves around them. Kitty stumbled and fell down the hill into his arms. Peter collapsed under her weight and they both burst out laughing and giggling as they rolled over and over to the bottom of the hill, Peter Chesworth smothering his wife’s face in kisses. At last, they came to a stop and sat up, both of them covered in grass stains and wet leaves and twigs. Neither one had said a word to the other. Neither had uttered any of the well-rehearsed speech in mind.

  Slowly, Peter reached out his long fingers and took his wife’s chin in his hand. What an infinity of sky, sun, turning leaves, and glittering grass before his lips met hers.

  The sky faded to a deep blue barred with long, thin, crimson and yellow clouds before the Baron and the Baroness left the Heath. The evening star shone out and one by one the twinkling lights of nighttime London began to reflect its beauty. Blissfully unawa
re of the curious stares of passing stragglers, the couple stopped occasionally to kiss, to laugh and, like all lovers the world over, to “do you remember when….”

  Kitty’s trunk was corded ready on the step and the Baroness was told by the terrified little maid that her mistress was “not at home.”

  Hetty twitched the lace curtains as the couple climbed dreamily into the carriage and sank into a long embrace.

  “Just look at that, John! Behaving in that disgraceful way. And on a Sunday too! And they’re all mud and leaves all over. You wouldn’t catch me behaving like that.”

  Her husband said nothing, but he watched the carriage with a wistful expression on his chubby face until it had turned the corner and disappeared from view.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A long wailing scream echoed along the corridor from the rooms allocated to the Hon. Jeremy and Mrs. Thackeray. “Good heavens!” exclaimed Peter Chesworth, putting down his newspaper. He looked across at his wife who was supervising the trimming of the tree. “Don’t tell me you put something in their bed!”

  “Holly. A great big bunch of prickly holly, complete with berries,” said Kitty. “Very seasonal.”

  It was Christmas at Reamington Hall and Kitty was enjoying her first house party. The Thackerays had been the first to arrive and had retired to their rooms for an afternoon nap.

  Colonel Barlowe-Smellie was the next arrival, followed by his twittering wife and apprehensive son, Percy. Percy had not forgotten Kitty’s calling him a rude young man and was obviously determined to be on his best behavior. Dropping various wraps and Christmas parcels, Mrs. Barlowe-Smellie rushed forward to kiss Kitty while her husband’s grumbled monologue ran in and out of her broken sentences.

  “So kind…” said Mrs. Barlowe-Smellie looking around the decorated room with pleasure “… love Christmas… Santa Claus… ‘Hark the Herald Angels’…holly, mistletoe… but so insanitary… kissing just anyone… butler last year… Madeira… embarrassing… tut…”—“Load of pagan rubbish, what?” said the colonel—“… pretty Kitty… such a difference… murder… terrible experience… tut…”—“Never liked that fat old woman,” said the colonel—“… and Veronica Jackson married…”—“Tart! Got a whiskey and soda?” asked the colonel.