Little Kate Kirby

Front matter

VOL. BY F. W. ROBINSON, AUTHOR OF ■' GRANDMOTHER'S MONEY,'' " NO CHURCH," &c. &c. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1873. Tlte right of Translation is reserved LONDON : PRINTED by MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE. CONTENTS OF THE THIRD VOLUME.

BOOK IV.

— Continued. ONE OF THE FAMILY. CHAPTER PAGE VIII. Introductions 3 IX. I grow Cunning 19 X. In the Mist 28 XL Notice to Quit 41 XH. A Stoem Brewing 49 XHI. The Storm Bursts 60 XIV. The Storm Continues 70 XV. The End of the Storm . . . .79 XVI. More Forgiveness 90 XVII. In Deeper Shadow 101 XVIII. On the Cliffs 109 XIX. A Solemn Promise 117 XX. Self-preservation CONTENTS. VI CHAPTER PAGE XXI. Warning Voices 146 XXII. We Three together 155

Chapter I. Vacillation

77ROM this date I pass over many weeks. ■*■ They were like a blank to me, wherein I saw nothing but my grief and isolation. It is only now that I take note of the changes that they brought about, and that occurred within them. I knew that there was much local excitement over my Katie's death, and that all the horror of an inquest was not spared me ; but these were small drops in the full cup of my bitterness. She was dead ! I might have done so much for her — I might have said so much more — I might have made her life so different if I had never left her ! These were my thoughts and my reproaches, taking to myself, in my vanity of grief, all that credit for my power over Kate which I had never had. Hers had been a strange life, ending strangely, and I had not been her ruling genius at any hour of it.

I buried little Kate Kirby in the country churchyard, where came many curious folk and one or two true mourners. My father did not follow his daughter ; on the day he received the news of Katie's death, he sailed away with his yacht and his friends from Lowestoft. He con descended to write to me before he went, for giving my treachery of the preceding night, overlooking everything, and trusting that I would not disturb him any more. He was heart broken, irreparably heart-broken at Katie's loss, he added, and he had not the courage or the power to do anything but go away, knowing that to remain was to strike a death-blow at himself. At the urgent request of his medical adviser, he had resolved to quit the scene of his affliction immediately ; when he was better and more composed he would send me the glad tidings of his convalescence.

Meanwhile, and VACILLATION. 167 despite my unfilial conduct, he was ever my affectionate father, Jonathan Kirby. He said and thought nothing of my future — what was to become of me, and in what way Katie's death would affect me, had not entered into his head. He did not trust me, and of my companionship he was afraid. I knew all this ; I had begun to understand my father's character at last ; but I was not grieved at his neglect. I had only one grief in those early days, and all else I could bear with stony apathy. No one sought to distract me from my grief ; they who knew me best thought that it would be wisest not to attempt it, until time had heal ed the wound a little. Abel left me his daughter for friend and comforter, and promised to return to Lowestoft presently, and Herbert went back to London with his uncle.

Of Richard Simmons I saw no more. He had wished to take the responsibility of Katie's death upon himself, aud, in his mad extravagance, had proclaimed at the inquest that he was her murderer ; but Herbert had related the facts as they occurred, and no one laid a hand upon Dick Simmons. He faced me at Katie's grave, and was a stern and sober mourner with the rest, and after that day he disappeared. This little history has no further record of him. Ettie Westmair was a true friend in my sorrow ; what I should have done without her gentleness, and thoughtful ness, and loving kindness, Heaven knows, not I. For ever after wards I was grateful, for ever afterwards the thought of parting with her — and that thought came to me by degrees as I looked at the world more closely — became a deeper pain.

She seemed to inherit all the love that I had had for Katie, and to be the only one left me in the world. Yes, she was left, and Katie had gone — when would she follow her, I wondered, remembering all that had been prophesied concerning her — all that, in her innocence aud confidence, this strong-souled child was waiting for along with us. Iwas to leave the Westmairs' presently. Ihard ly knew what the position was to be afterwards. Aunt Jane had gone away ; the master of the house had proposed to me, and then given me VACILLATION. " warning," and there was matter for grave con sideration when I came to reflect on my narrow way of life. There was not fair sailing before me. I could not glide away from anxiety, and regret, and that strange bewilderment as of a woman knowing not her own mind, as my father had glided out of Lowestoft Harbour when his troubles had been too much for him.

And Herbert Westmair, the man I was to marry iu good time, and when my love came back, how he took up the picture of my future as the days stole onwards ! Would " the good time" ever dawn for me, and would the love come back, as Kate Kirby had prophesied it would ? It had not returned yet awhile — I was sure of that. The reminiscences of our early courtship were not in his favour; rather they stood between him and me aud deterred me. They assured me that he was not true, or that it was in his power readily to forget ; and that when he had spoken of his affection for me, he must have thought in those old days of her whom he had loved better than myself. Perhaps it was my pride that whispered this, and kept my heart from re-opening, for I was ambitious, and would have had the foremost place or none.

Perhaps they were early days to think of Katie's wish, and to wonder why I shrank from one whom I had loved deeply, and whom I was free to love again. Perhaps Herbert had the same feelings as myself, and Katie's death would rest upon him like a shadow, destroying every thought of me. I did not know ; I had not seen him since his departure ; he was discreet and did not seek me out ; he was merciful and left me to my self. It was late in October when Abel Westmair returned to Lowestoft. " Ettie writes to me that she will be glad to get home," he said as he entered the house ; " I was beginning to think that she had forgotten me," he added with acerbity. This was his first greeting, and it jarred up on me. I had anticipated that he would be kinder and more gentle now, though I hardly knew why I had expected this from him.

" I fear that I have been selfish in detaining VACILLATION. her so long here, Mr. Westmair," I replied " You had no other friend," he answered, " what else was to be done? Besides, you are a fitter companion for Ettie than I — she likes you better than me. I read it in her letters." This odd being was jealous of his daughter's affection for myself. This was a new trait in the character which I should never completely understand. " No, her father stands first," I replied ; " she talks of nothing but you." His face brightened on the instant, and made a different man of him. " I am glad of that," he said ; " I was afraid that she was learning to forget me." " Or that I was teaching her to do so ? " You would not do that, only unwittingly, and you are so much in contrast to my own un amiability — my thoroughly bad temper," he said mournfully ; " Ettie has been many weeks away ; the house has been lonely without her ; and," he added quickly, and with a forced smile, "I haven't improved under solitary confinement."

" Why did you not send for Ettie before ?'■' Because he thought that she would be a com panion for me, I fancied that he was going to say, with as much politeness as he could muster for the occasion, but he said instead — " Because of the paint and whitewash ; I have been doing up the place — and," he added more slowly, " I knew that she was happier with you than she could ever be with me." " There was not much chance of my making her happy," I replied sorrowfully. " I beg pardon," he said, " I had forgotten for the moment. How is Ettie ?" " She is well." " She is stronger 1" "Yes." "I don't believe that she will die, Miss Kirby," he said, with sudden excitement ; " you will remember that I never thought so — that I could never imagine God so merciless as that." " Oh, Mr. Westmair !" " To be left alone — totally without love, friendship, sympathy, to be generally misunder stood, frequently despised, invariably distrust- VACILLATION 173 ed — and only that child to make life worth possessing."

" Your father ?" I suggested. " What does he know of me — or care for me, poor man?" " Your nephew ?" I was almost adding, but I was glad that I had not done so. He had never liked his nephew much, and I could not put him forward as a comfort. " No one but Ettie," he said, letting his hands fall and rise restlessly upon his knees, " only that one in all this weary world." I was at a loss to comprehend the reason for his excitement, or for the unceremonious manner in which he had started a topic of such moment, within a few minutes of his entrance into the house ; later in the afternoon, the motive was apparent. " I have to tell you, Ettie," he said to his child, "that we are not going back to Teddington, immediately." I thought that he looked across the room, as if to note the effect of his communication upon me, and it certainly surprised me.

I was read ing, or affecting to read, by the open window. The boxes were packed, with the exception of my own, for I was unsettled in mind and hardly knew what to do. I did not intend to return to Teddington — something restrained me from thinking of that — Abel Westmair gave me warning weeks ago — his nephew Herbert was at the business, and I could not face him. "Not going home?" cried Ettie. " You and I are going to Germany for a fortnight," he said. " And Faith ?" cried Ettie, at once. "Miss Kirby will not accompany us," said Abel, with solemnity — "she will proceed direct to Teddington !" I could see his watchful eyes bent in my direction, and they did not flinch as I looked up from my book, and he read my protest on my face. "Oh! I cannot part with Faith now," cried Ettie, passionately; " she must go with us, papa.

She is everything to me — what am I to do with out her?" " You must put up with me as a companion for a fortnight," he said, grimly, " and you must VACILLATION. 175 learn now and then to do without Miss Kirby. Why, she may think some day of leaving us, Ettie !" " She will never leave us, unless She paused, and then went on again — " Unless she marries, and then, if I am well enough, I shall stay with her very often. May I not, Faith?" asked the child. " You will be ever a visitor most welcome, whether I am married or unmarried, Ettie," I replied. " There's a dear, good girl for saying that. And as for this nasty German trip " " Ettie," said her father, in a deep voice, " oblige me by withdrawing for awhile. I have some instructions for Miss Kirby." Ettie glanced nervously towards her father, as she rose and left the room.

Mr. Westmair brought his chair with him, and sat facing me, after she had gone. " You have not intimated to Ettie the proba bility of your parting from her ?" were his first words. " Not yet," I answered. " I am glad of that — it tides^ over many diffi culties," he said, quickly, " and I thank you." " But " " Ettie must leave here without more anxiety on her mind than I can help — she is going to Germany on a mission of life and death. There is a chance of life for her, after all, and I am going in search of it, and of one skilful man in Berlin, in whose hands it may rest. You must not excite her by any bad news — and your go ing away would be bad news for her. Surely you understand this ?" "Yes," I answered, to his last petulant inquiry. " The fortnight's absence from you may accustom her to me," he added, almost jealous ly ; " the time is not long, and need not cause you any great uneasiness.

I shall not be at Teddington to annoy you," he added, as his last inducement. I felt the tears spring suddenly to my eyes. I was not strong yet, and his words pained me. He saw this, and added, with an embarrassing frankness, VACILLATION. " For I did annoy you in this very room, and you are right in not forgiving me, Miss Kirby. We were all excited and unlike ourselves that day, and I was the weakest and most foolish. I acted in an unjustifiable manner, and you are right not to trust me any more ; I am unworthy of the confidence which you placed in me by accepting the position. Still for a fortnight put up with my wish that you should return to Teddington, and act as housekeeper in my absence. I am selfish in seeking to exact this concession, but I ask it as a favour to myself — and to my father, whom I leave with no one to care for him."

I could not say No to an appeal conveyed in this fashion ; I did not desire to say it, although I could have wished that he had brought his father to Lowestoft instead. I bowed my head in assent, and he held out his hand with a suddenness that startled me. " You do not bear malice," he said, shaking hands with me — "you are not a woman to treasure up an indignity. Bygones are by gones, then?" VOL. III. N " Yes, Mr. Westmair," I replied, " although I know not of any indignity of which I can com plain." " It is kind of you to say so, but I was an egregious ass — a fool — a raving madman, to act in the manner that I did ! I but there ! I am distressing you again, the very mention of my impertinence takes the colour from your cheeks. All is as it has been, then, Miss Kirby?" " For a fortnight I am willing to remain at Teddington," I said, reservedly.

" Or till I return," he added ; " something may detain me at Berlin for a few extra days. I may have to break the news to Ettie by de grees, or to leave it to you, when she comes back with me — you may think, after all, that, as Ettie's companion, the position would not be — I will say no more," he said, starting to his feet, " we will quarrel again at a more fitting op portunity." He laughed pleasantly ; he was in an amiable mood; he had got his own way, and it is aston ishing how that puts a man into a good temper ! I had no remembrance of Abel West- VACILLATION. - 179 mair's looking like that before ; he was a different being in my eyes. There had come to him a hope of saving Ettie, and it had put him into an amiable frame of mind. And he was not sorry, certainly, that my own formal withdrawal from his service was postponed till his return.

" You must not mind taking my sister-in-law's place as housekeeper whilst I am away," Abel said ; " my father will not trouble you, and the servants have received my orders to obey you. If you can play the old gentleman a game at backgammon now and then, in the evening, Mr. Westmair, senior, will be sufficiently grateful and content. My nephew Herbert is living in apart ments near the factory, and may look in at times to see you." " Oh, I hope not !" I exclaimed hastily, " I could not meet him — I — I do not wish to receive any visitors whilst I am at Teddington •I — I would rather be alone." " The times are early," said Abel Westmair gravely ; "I will drop him a hint. There is no occasion to disturb you at present, although, for my part, I am of opinion What book is N that ?" he asked, suddenly turning his attention to the volume in my lap.

" One that poor Katie took a fancy to," I said, "and that she borrowed from me." " Have you read it ?" he asked curiously. " Not yet. I had just opened it when you arrived." " It belongs to me, I think — will you allow me to look at it ?" I gave him the book, and he inspected it for a few moments, and then put it into his pocket. " I have been wondering where the book was," he said. " There is nothing here that you will care to read, Miss Kirby." " There is nothing in it that I stand much chance of reading now," I answered quietly. " I would rather that you did not read this," he said, " and therefore you will excuse my want of ceremony in taking it away." " Is it the volume of poems which you wrote — and of which you spoke to me one night at Teddington ?" I asked. " It is the veriest trash — the newspapers have begun to inform the public," he added, with a VACILLATION. 181 sudden frown at the plain-speaking of the press, " and I am buying up my copies again.

You see that I have called this in." He went from the room in search of Ettie, and I was left to think that I had not proved my self a strong-minded woman. It was only for a fortnight, but I was going back to his house at Teddington, almost without regret.

Chapter II. Keeping House

. A BEL WESTMAIR and his daughter went to ■£*' Germany, and I took my place in the house wherein I had been happy in my time. If all the happiness had gone, if there were much grief at my heart at Katie's loss, if my faith in man's stability of purpose had vanished, still there was a feeling of pleasure at being in the house — it was more like home to me than any place in England. Certainly it was destitute of company, and there were keen and bitter as sociations connected with it. Here I had been wooed and won, and here I came back a woman who was not likely to be wooed again. Never again, I thought, as the days stole on and brought me courage from reflection. Old Mr. Westmair was no trouble to look after ; his son Abel was right — a little attention pleased him. He was content to doze away his time in the garden, or to play his extempore fantasias on the piano in the drawing-room, and a game at backgammon before he went to bed sent him to his slumbers rejoicing.

He only miss ed Ettie; his son's absence did not cause him any regret that I was able to perceive ; and the house without Aunt Jane was like a paradise, he did not hesitate to affirm. Still it was strange to be alone in the house taking care of this old man, and looking after a staff of servants who had but little to do except quarrel with each other in remote parts of the establishment. Strange, but not unsatisfactory. I dreaded the day of Abel Westmair's return, the making up my mind to go, the necessity for my going, and it was pleasant to be at peace in the big house, with no one to disturb the current of my thoughts. The first week I had been afraid of Herbert's coming, but that wore off as he appeared not. His uncle Abel had evidently written to him, and given him the hint of which he had spoken, and Herbert had seen the advisability of not intruding upon me.

I was left alone, and I was grateful to all who kept away. When I was tired of myself for company, there was Abel Westmair's great library, and all the glorious army of the Immor tals on the shelves. I grew to love the library from which the presence of the master had heretofore kept me ; and yet here were associations that made me flush with the strength of their reminiscence. Here I had first proved to Abel Westmair that I was a suspicious woman ; here I had once declined to place any confidence in him when he was striving for the release of my father. I had a greater faith in the man now, if I did not like him any better ; he was jealous and abrupt, and eccentric, and prone to take offence at every little word ; but if I had wanted a friend in these latter days — a tower of strength between myself and adversity — I should have thought of Abel Westmair first.

Odd it was that this whirligig world should have brought about that little fact to pass, I thought, in the room that was no longer haunted by his presence. Poring over his books, beset by a curiosity to examine each and all of them, I came upon another copy of the poems that he had written. It had been hidden away on a top shelf, to which I had gained, access by means of the library steps ; and there, in his own room, in his own big library chair, I set myself to read his verse, and endeavour to find therefrom the secret of his new objection to my perusal ot it. If Abel Westmair were not a genius of the first water — a man of whom the world was to speak presently, he was at least no common verse-writer to me. There was a something which fascinated me about his book — which tore the veil from his true character at times, and which here and there steeped it in a deeper mystery.

That he was dissatisfied with his calling, with the means by which he had made his money, with himself and his surroundings, with his futile efforts to become a poet, with his poetry itself, was apparent in every line, and throughout each verse ran the sad, solemn strain of an everlasting disappointment. He was a man who had suffered much. Jane Westmair had told me long ago that his first marriage had been an unhappy one, and here was the evidence in his musings upon life's mistakes, and in his hopeful anxiety that all was now forgotten and forgiven, as he forgot and forgave everything. There was a story, in verse also, of a foolish marriage between a youth and a woman older than himself, and I could fancy that it was his own life dimly pencilled out ; and, again, there were little snatches of melody — true poet's music — that told of a fair imagination, and much power to move the feelings by a harmony in which there were no dis cordant notes.

There came many regrets for his own stormy nature, for the passion and pride with which he struggled, and which he was sure would overmaster him some day, unless one deep affection, one rapt devotion, should meet him on his road, and make him a humbler man. He speculated as to what this affection should be like, to exorcise the evil in him as by a charm from heaven, and then there followed many sad verses upon its impossibility and folly. I had read as far as this, and could not detect his objection to my perusal of his poems, unless it were pique at the small extent of public approval which they had met with hitherto. But that which followed certainly startled me — took away my breath, held me spell-bound with its strange magic and its stranger truth. The latter poems were sym bolic of a love growing in his heart, deep, passionate, and hopeless — of a struggle with his passion to subdue it — of a fierce exultation in the knowledge that he alone suffered, and that the woman would never in all her life guess at the extent of the fascination she had cast upon him.

She would meet him, and she would pass away from him as a common friend, and the end would come, and he alone the wiser. The hopelessness of his love for her was painted with a tragic force that dismayed me as I read, he seemed so dreadfully fond of somebody ! The verses seemed almost to fit me on one occasion, though they were contradictory of that which had preceded from his pen ; he had asked me to be his wife, and here in his love-verses he had sworn that he would ask only one woman, and only her, in his rage and despair, when he grew weak some day. But then he had asked me out of pity, or in a futile effort to spite his nephew, who had opposed him. There were verses, too, from this pathetic Damon, bidding long farewells to Chloris, speaking of her as one very happy in a love more natural and bright than his could be.

I could have read all this once as idle poetry, having no deeper meaning than the fancy of the hour ; but since the day when Herbert and I separated, and Herbert had owned that he loved my sister Katie, I saw a significance of misery in every line of the volume. At least, in my new wisdom, I thought so, and I shed tears over the pathos, or the bathos, with which the last pages of the book were full. It was pathos to me, but I was very young, and had not read much poetry, which seemed to rush at me all at once from Abel Westmair's book, and unsettle me for good. I restored the volume carefully to its place, and went back to the arm-chair to wonder at the author more than ever, to make quite sure that he did not mean me to begin with, that it would have been the height of absurdity to couple me with this rhapsodizing, and to puzzle my aching head with the real woman who had worked this change in my grim master's life.

I dismissed myself completely from the idea at last. It had been a little spasm of vanity, which I shook away from my mind ; but I could not guess at Abel's heroine, although I could not see myself in her place. I shuddered once or twice, and thought that I would not have been that woman for the world, to be deluged with poetry in this fashion ; and then I grew confused, and my head ached, and my temples throbbed, for no earthly reason that it was possible to account. Some one came on tip-toe into the room, and put two arms round my neck by way of consolation. Only Ettie would do that, but Ettie was a child, and these were two strong, nervous arms, which nearly took my breath away in the vigour of their clasp. " My poor child, my dear young sufferer !" murmured a voice in my ears, and at the unmis takeable tones of Mrs. Jane Westmair I collapsed a little.

The arms were slowly withdrawn, the thin lips were pressed upon my forehead in a spas modic bite or two, and then Aunt Jane shook me by the hand, and sighed and moaned in a very surprising manner. " Is — is anything the matter ?" I inquired feebly. " My stricken dove, nothing is the matter — but you were alone in this dreadfully dull house, and 1 thought that I would come and comfort you a little." " You are very kind," I murmured, in a vague manner, for I had not yet recovered from the surprise of her appearance, and the warmth of her greeting had been marvellous. " What a wreck you are, my child — how you have grieved — how you are grieving still for your sister !" " I was not grieving for her then," I hastened to say. " No fresh trouble ?" "Oh! no." " Pining for society — for the companionship of old friends — wondering why I did not come to see you ?"