Kitty's Engagement. A novel

Front matter

a moveu BY FLORENCE WARDEN, AUTHOR OF "The House on the Marsh," "Ralph Ryder of Brent," " My Child and I," Etc, Etc. IN ONE VOLUME. LONDON : F. V. WHITE & CO., 14, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C, 1895. PRINTED BY KELLY AND CO. LI1IITED, 182, 183 & 184, HIGH HOLBORN, LONDON, TY.C, AND KINOSTON-ON-THAMES . CONTENTS. CHAP. pAGE I. — A Cold Guardian . . . i II. —The Dreadful Sons ... 6 III. — Kitty's New World . . . 18 IV. — Forbidden Fruit . . . . 27 V. — Farewell ! . . . . -34 VI. — Two Birds with One Stone . 4 1 VII. — Vox Populi 51 VIII. — Doctors Differ . . . . 62 IX. — Wanted — A Motive . . . .69 X. — Two Years After ... 75 XI. — A Magnanimous Lover . . 86 XII. — A Woman Scorned . . 96 XIII. — An Understanding . . . 104 XIV. — A Strange Fancy . . . . 116 XV. — An Introduction . . . .121 XVI.' — An Invitation . . . 130 XVII. — The Mystery of a Watch . . 139 XVIII. — A Nice Little Drive . . . 147 XIX.— A Step Too Far . . . .156 XX. — On a Fresh Track . . .

CONTENTS. VI CHAP. PAGE XXI.— Is He the Man? . . . . 174 XXII. — A Surprise 181 XXIII. — Clive's Dilemma . . . .192 XXIV. — A Witness for Archie Lonsdale 200 XXV. — Dallas Gives Kitty his Views . 209 XXVI. — A Rehearsal . . . . 218 XXVII.— Check ! 227 XXVIII.— The Cloven Foot ... 234 XXIX. — The Little God Cupid . . . 244 XXX. — A Skeleton in the Cupboard . 252 XXXI. — A Change of Tactics . . .261 XXXII. — A Woman's Cunning . . . 270 XXXIII. — A Strange Journey . . .279 XXXIV. — A Dangerous Escort . . . 285 XXXV. — A Faithful Lover . . . .296 XXXVL— The End

Chapter I

A COLD GUARDIAN. " A PRETTY girl perhaps, if you admire that style of face, with no expression, and a perpetual smile ! But there's nothing in her, and that frivolous irre sponsible manner of hers sets my teeth on edge ! All girls with little mouths are like that ! " This was the sort of criticism often passed by her own sex upon Kitty Brynn, but her acquaintances of the less unfair sex were never induced to endorse it except under compulsion. In truth poor Kitty was a harmless creature enough, with no great originality of mind perhaps, no very brilliant accomplishments, and no distinguished tenacity of purpose ; but sunny-natured, tender hearted, and as sweet and bright and pretty as a bunch of Spring flowers gathered in the dew. The daughter of a Lancashire manufacturer as hard featured as he was hard-headed, Kitty had inherited none of her father's ruggedness of feature, and per haps but little of his vigour of mind.

She was rather tall, fair-skinned and blue-eyed, like the dead mother whose sweetness had attracted the rough-mannered manu facturer twenty odd years before. John Brynn had remained a widower ever since his wife had died in giving birth to this girl, their only child. Ever since then he had lived with his daughter in the big Liverpool mansion in which Kitty had been born, or in an equally big country house a little way out of the city, lavishing all the tenderness of his heart upon her, and bestowing upon her every pleasure and every luxury which his money could buy. It was when Kitty had just reached the age of twenty that John Brynn realised that the happy life he had led in the society of his child was drawing to an end. He had been in delicate health for some years, so that Kitty never guessed the seriousness of his condition.

Realising it himself, however, he set about making provision for the future of his idolised daughter. His lawyer was an old friend, privileged to ask questions ; and he expressed some curiosity concerning the Lanertons, the people to whose guardianship Kitty, to the exclusion of her own relations, was to be entrusted. Mr. Brynn's reasons were founded solely on the character of Mrs. Lanerton, who had been a school fellow and great friend of his wife's. " She will be a mother to my little girl," he said decidedly, in explanation of his apparent caprice. " And Mr. Lanerton, will he be a father ? " asked the lawyer with some little dryness. '• Oh, he doesn't count. He is a curiosity-monger, with no eyes for anything that hasn't been buried for at least a century," answered John Brynn with the con tempt of the practical man.

" And the young Lanertons— you say there are some A COLD GUARDIAN. 3 young ones, will they be sisters to her, and — and — h'm — brothers ? " said the lawyer with more dryness still. John Brynn gave a keen glance and pursed up his lips shrewdly. " I think so," said he. " I think so. I've thought of that, and I think I can manage it." The result of John Brynn's management was a will which was read a few months later, after his funeral, and which was listened to with grave attention by Geoffrey Lanerton, who had been summoned to Liver pool for the occasion, and who was regarded with scarcely veiled dislike and suspicion by the dead man's relations, who knew that he had been appointed " over their heads," guardian of the well-provided-for Kitty. Geoffrey Lanerton himself, on the other hand, looked upon the honour as no end of a bore.

A man of good family, very poor, very proud, he had always looked upon the Brynns as mere tradespeople, and had even affected to himself to feel some surprise on finding that Kitty, his newly-appointed ward, had not a squat figure, a red nose, and black ringlets of an obsolete fashion. He was a tall, slim, distinguished looking man, with prematurely silver hair, clear-cut features, and an expression which betrayed a gentle consciousness that Somerset House was greatly in debted to him for being one of its brightest ornaments. Although he had been recently in constant com munication with the late John Brynn, he had never been to Liverpool to see him or his future ward. He knew, however, the conditions of his guardianship, which poverty had compelled him to accept much against his will. For he was sharp-sighted enough i* to see that these conditions were imposed with a view to preventing either of his own penniless sons from marrying the well-dowered Kitty.

John Brynn, who had become rich by his own exertions, was of the opinion of Tennyson's Northern Farmer that " The poor in a loomp is bad," and he had not scrupled to insist, in his communications with Geoffrey Lanerton, upon his determination that his daughter should marry " A warm man," and " not a chap without a rap." To emphasise this determination, and to induce Geoffrey Lanerton to be of the same way of thinking, John Brynn had inserted a clause in his will to the effect that Geoffrey Lanerton was to receive a legacy of two thousand pounds on Kitty's marriage, provided the husband she chose was in possession of an income of not less than two thousand a year. In the meantime the Lanertons were to receive for the care of Kitty, and for the expenses of her board and lodging, an income which they could not afford to despise.

So that Mr. Lanerton, while he accepted his good fortune with a wry face, was yet bound to admit that his guardianship of the young girl was good fortune, and took her back tc his home in London with him in a state of mind in which annoyance at this interference with his domestic arrangements was tempered by pleasant considerations of pecuniary profit. Poor Kitty, taking this miserable journey to a new home, with her heart still very sore over the loss of her beloved father, found in the grave, dapper, and rather fidgety gentleman a very uncongenial com- A COLD GUARDIAN. 5 panion. He almost frightened her with his cold and courteous manners, in striking contrast as they were to the homely heartiness of her dead father. He did his best to be civil and entertaining, and when she put to him certain questions about his family and his home, he tried, in answering, not to make too manifest his hidden purpose of implanting a prejudice in her mind against his sons.

For Geoffrey Lanerton was a fastidiously honourable man, and to do him justice he had no more wish to make himself a mark for invidious comment by marrying her to one of his boys than John Brynn himself had had. "Oh, yes, Gwynne and Lilias are nice girls, and I'm sure you will get on all right with them. Gwynne is a good deal older than you ; she is twenty-four, and goes in for science and art lectures and all that sort of thing. Rather too learned and intellectual, I daresay you might think her. But Lilias is only nineteen, and has hardly forgotten her tomboy period. She is only a few months younger than you, and you ought to be nice companions to each other." " And you have two sons also, have you not ? " asked Kitty rather timidly. She had already been conscious of a certain reserve, both on Mr. Lanerton's part and on that of her late father, in speaking of these members of the family.

At once she noticed a very slight but perceptible change in Mr. Lanerton's appearance. " Yes, but the boys won't come much in your way," said he promptly. " One is in a bank and the other in a merchant's office They are in the City all day, and generally out all the evening. They are not exactly ladies' men, but I daresay you won't have much fault to find with them." " I'm sure I shall not," said innocent Kitty. "You see I have never had any brothers, and I've often thought how much I should have liked to." Mr. Lanerton cleared his throat, glanced at her and then took up his paper, leaving the girl with an indefinable consciousness that she had said some thing which was not quite the right thing. And her interest was roused as to the reason why the subject of the two young men was distasteful even to their own father.

" There must be something very dreadfully wrong about one or both of them ! " thought simple Kitty, as a look of apprehension came into her pretty blue eyes. " They can't be lunatics, or they wouldn't be employed in offices. I suppose they must either be very, very ugly, or else they are very disagreeable, or their manners very bad. At any rate I feel certain that I shan't like them." And Kitty leaned back in her corner with a sigh and a shiver, and planted her feet more firmly on the foot-warmer.

Chapter II. The Dreadful Sons

Now at the end of the journey a great misfortune happened. On alighting from the train at St. Pancras, Mr. Lanerton and his ward discovered that one of the young lady's trunks was missing from the van in which it had been placed. It must have been taken out by mistake either at Leicester or at Peter borough, the guard suggested, as a great deal of luggage had been left at both those places. Mr. Lanerton was furious. That anything belong ing in any sense to him should go astray seemed to him an outrage almost too great to be borne. Dis regarding Kitty's pathetic entreaties not to trouble himself about it, he put her into a hansom, told the driver where to drive to, and insisted upon remaining at the station while enquiries for the missing trunk were telegraphed up the line. It is a long way from St. Pancras to Notting Hill, and Kitty had time to work herself up into a state of frightful anxiety about those members of the Lanerton family whom she had not seen, and the reception she should meet with at their hands.

The young girl would certainly have had nothing to complain of on this score but for an unlucky incident which had dis turbed the peace of the Lanerton household just at the time that the new member of the family was on her way to Little Holland Park Gardens North. Clive and Dallas Lanerton, the two sons of the house, had, while professing the utmost indifference about the young lady's arrival, felt the profoundest interest in the event. That afternoon they had excited consternation in their mother's breast by coming home very early and " chaffing " each other about Miss Brynn. Mrs. Lanerton was in the secret of John Brynn's will and wishes and of her husband's views ; but none of her children shared her knowledge until the good lady, in alarm at what she took for a determined attempt on the part of both her sons, to lay siege at once to the new-comer's heart, or at least to exhibit themselves to her in such colours that she would be unable to resist them, allowed the know ledge of the true state of the case to escape her.

The storm raised by this indiscretion raged furiously ; the two girls joining their indignant voices to those of their brothers, and declaring their amazement that their father and mother could ever have consented to have anything to do with such people as the Brynns. " And who are they that they should think this girl too good for one of our boys ? " said Lilias, the younger daughter, a rosy-cheeked girl with dark hair and bright eyes. " Just cotton people, Lancashire cotton people, whose fathers and uncles wore clogs very likely, while their aunts and mothers had shawls over their heads going backwards and forwards to the mill ! Really, mamma, I don't know how you and papa could ever consent to have her here at all ! I know we shall all be perfectly miserable as long as she stays ! " " And that will be always," said Dallas, the younger son, moodily.

" Unless we can find some fellow who will marry her, clogs and all, for the sake of the brass." " Dallas ! " cried his mother, in gentle reproof. Not all the years that she had been the mother of boys had quite reconciled the dear lady to their innate and terrible tendency towards vulgarity : while she still, with the entire lack of a sense of humour peculiar to British mothers, took her sons' utterances for the most part " at the foot of the letter." " No, Dallas, she won't wear clogs," said Clive gravely, taking a mischievous pleasure in teasing his mother. " No such luck ! If she did, it would be a good spec to marry her, even without a fortune, teach her to dance in them, and send her into the music halls, paragraphed of course, as the reduced Lancashire heiress. Depend upon it, we're not in for such a good thing as that !

" " Don't take any notice of them, mamma," said Gwynne, seeing that her mother was preparing her self for a protest which would only have drawn upon her a fresh avalanche. " They are only talking like that to annoy you. And they need not think that Miss Brynn will be so unsophisticated as they suppose. There is no such thing as a rich rustic now adays. No doubt she will know more about the fashions than we do ourselves ; she will certainly dress a great deal better and make us look shabby, and she will probably have left at least a dozen sweethearts behind in Cottonopolis ; while she will look down upon us for living in such a small house, and patronise everybody and everything, from the vicar to papa's old china." At this there was a great outburst, in which Lilias and the boys emphatically proclaimed their determination not to be patronised, and their indignation at the unknown girl's assumed presumption.

Having thus come to her mother's aid, Gywnne brought the discussion cleverly to an end by taking her mother and sister upstairs to dress for dinner, leaving the boys to simmer down at their leisure. It was a few minutes after this crisis had been reached that Kitty Brynn's hansom drove up to the door. " Is this right, miss ? " asked the cabman, as his fare, instead of getting out, stared at the small, shabby semi-detached house in doubt and perplexity. Little Holland Park Gardens North, in spite of its pretentious name, bore the same relation to the big Holland Park Gardens that the humble poor relation in rusty black, who calls diffidently and envies the servants, bears to the wealthy City man who acknow ledges the cousinship for the sake of the oppor tunities for patronage it affords him.

To Kitty, therefore, accustomed as she was to big houses, and quite unprepared to find that the dis tinguished-looking Geoffrey Lanerton lived in such a very modest dwelling, the discovery came with the shock of a great surprise, and when in answer to her knock and ring, the housemaid appeared and showed her into the drawing-room, Kitty felt like a bird that has been trapped into a cage too small for it to spread its wings out in. For Mr. Lanerton's drawing-room, which was in the front, divided from the dining-room only by closed folding doors, was smaller than the very smallest room in the big Liverpool house or in the great country mansion which had belonged to her father ; and between Mrs. Lanerton's work-tables and nick-nacks, and Mr. Lanerton's cabinets and cases full of old china and curios, she hardly dared to move.

There was a fire in the grate, and a small lamp, which the maid turned up on her entrance, stood on one of the little tables. But the fog, which had made Kitty's eyes smart as she came along, had got into the room, and hung its dark and dreary veil over all that was pretty and all that was bright. To add to the feeling of depression induced by this gloomy and lonely introduction into her new home, the voices of the two young men came to her ears through the folding-doors, both speaking in in dignant and angry tones which jarred upon her, and gave her as unpleasant an impression of the moral atmosphere of the household as the fog had already given her of the physical one. It was possible, un happily, for her to hear even the words they used ; and very few seconds had passed before, to her horror, she became aware that she herself was the subject of their heated and angry talk.

" I can't think how my father could accept the guardianship of the girl after such an insult," said one passionate young man's voice. " It's bad enough to be beastly poor, but to have to put up with this cotton young woman, and her money, and her airs, is ten times worse than anything we've ever had to put up with before ! " " A stuck-up creature who wears quantities of jewellery, I shouldn't wonder, and dresses in the most awfully bad taste ! And who knows no more about cricket, or anything sensible, than if she had come straight from the moon ! " chimed in a still younger voice, in equally angry and excited tones. " Well, / shan't trouble her with much of my society, at any rate ! I shall go and live in chambers " " You can't afford it ! " broke in his younger brother cheerfully. " If you go and live anywhere but here, it will have to be in furnished apartments, with dirty table-cloths and two-pronged forks, and no hot water in the mornings."

" Well, even that would be better than to have to see Miss Brynn's smirking face " " Perhaps it won't be smirking ! " " Sure to be. Than to see her face, I say, every morning and evening, and to have to turn one's head away from her until one had a stiff neck, for fear she should think one wanted to marry her and her miserable money-bags ! " " What on earth did her father want to make our parents her guardians for? And what " Dallas Lanerton, the younger brother, who was speaking at that moment, stopped short, and turned pale. Clive, the elder, .started, and glanced with his brother apprehensively at the folding doors. Some body on the other side had given them a violent shake, and a girl's voice, not loud but earnest, was saying ; " Open, open, please. I — want to see you, to speak to you !

" Dallas murmured in a voice hoarse with excite ment and horror : " It's— it's the girl herself! It's— it's Miss Brynn ! Great Heavens ! I — I — I've got an appointment ! " And, springing over the dining-table when his brother attempted to bar his passage, Dallas rushed out of the room, leaving Clive to face the enemy alone. The door swayed once, twice, and then it burst open, and Kitty, a mournful figure enough in deep black, with her pretty eyes swollen with tears, and her pocket-handkerchief in her hand, stood before the most envenomed of her traducers. For one moment she paused to take stock, as it were, of her antagonist. What she saw was a young, slightly built man, with dark hair, grey eyes, and a particularly open and frank expression of face. Then, with a great sob rising in her throat, she burst out piteously : " Oh, how can you, how can you be so cruel ? so un manly ?

What have I ever done, what have you heard about me that you should say such dreadful things ? " " But — but I — I don't understand, you don't under stand," stammered Clive, who had grown crimson and then white as she spoke. " We, my brother and I, were talking about — about " " About me. Oh, it's absurd to deny it. You haven't dozens of girls coming to stay in the house under your father's guardianship ! You were talking about me, and saying you would leave the house on my account, and lots of the cruellest things. I couldn't help hearing, I couldn't help it. And if it hadn't been so very dreadful I would have pretended I hadn't heard. But as it is, I had to tell you that I would rather die than stay in the house now I know what hateful, heartless people you are, to receive me like this, when I haven't a — haven't a fri — i — ie — end in the world.

I see now how it was that your father tried never to mention your names. He knew what you were like; he knew how wickedly you felt towards me ! But he ought to have warned my poor father, and then I shouldn't have had this dreadful, dreadful journey down here, only to — only to — go — o — o — o back again ! " She turned away abruptly, and, her little remaining self - command suddenly giving way, she sobbed bitterly, leaning against a chair, and burying her face in her handkerchief. Clive was utterly overwhelmed. He stood during her passionate harangue trembling like a leaf, so miserable and so much ashamed of himself as to be incapable of framing any sort of answer to her vehement accusation. But when she broke down his mood suddenly changed. He forgot his prudence as he had already forgotten his indignation.

All he felt was pity, unutterable pity and dismay at the thought that he had unwittingly caused sorrow to the very sweetest creature he had ever had the mis fortune to meet. " Don't, don't be so miserable about it ; it's only a mistake, a stupid mistake, and we're not the terrible persons you think, really we're not. You'll laugh at the notion of such a thing presently. It was only our nonsense, my brother's and mine. How could we mean what we said when we didn't even know what you were like ? And how could we possibly have meant it if we had known ? " He had come quite close to Kitty, who continued to sob, as if his words of comfort had no such power as his words of idle vituperation had had. " You really needn't take the trouble to apologise," she said in a broken voice, without looking at him ; " for I shall only stay here one night, and I shall try not to get in your way, or your brother's, you may be quite sure !

" Clive put his hand on the girl's shoulder, gently but firmly, and made her sit on the chair against which she had been leaning. " Sit down," said he, " and let us talk it out coolly and calmly. We can't quite do as we like in the matter, any of us. But let us, you and me, come to an understanding." His decision of tone and manner had the effect of causing Kitty to dry her eyes, and to listen, in a half-resentful way certainly, but still to listen, to the words of wisdom which, in a judicial manner, he poured into her ear. " Now perhaps you don't know," he began very deliberately, " the exact terms in which your father made my father your guardian." Evidently Kitty did not. She looked up apprehensively into the young man's face, and shook her head, in such a child-like and innocent manner, that Clive for a moment forgot what he was saying, and had to be recalled by the young lady herself to the matter in hand.

" Well, and what were the terms ? " she asked with vivid interest. Clive suddenly felt that he would have a difficulty in telling her. "Oh, well," said he, beginning to stammer, and feeling that he was blushing, " I'm afraid Mr. Brynn had a low opinion of human nature, for he seems to have been afraid that we — that I — that my brother and I — that we should " Kitty was increasing the confusion he felt, by staring steadily at him with astonished blue eyes. " Afraid that you would what ? " asked she. " Why, that we, that we should want to marry you, in fact," blurted out Clive awkwardly, " because you have so much money, and we have so little." During this speech Kitty's sweet face had expressed first interest and curiosity, then surprise ; and finally it had become crimson, and her eyes downcast, for a large variety of obscure reasons.

There was an awkward pause. Clive took up the big newspaper knife which lay on the table, and balanced it care fully on his forefinger. " It is awkward, isn't it?" said he, in as matter of fact a tone as he could assume, while still under the pressure of anxiety as to the way in which Miss Brynn would take his announcement. " It seems to put a barrier up between us all, doesn't it ? And to make us feel — that you must feel — that we are con temptible sort of fellows, against whom you have to be on your guard as you would against pickpockets." Kitty, still blushing very prettily, leaned her arm upon the table and spoke very earnestly : " I'm quite sure," she said, " that my father could never have meant that. Or at least that he could never have meant it if he had known you. I see," she went on, casting down her eyes with a demure little smile, " that it was awkward for you before you knew me.

But now that you have met me, and that you see I'm not all over jewellery, and that while I have to wear these sad black clothes," and again her eyes became dim for a moment, " I can't dress in such very bad taste, you won't want to go away because of me, will you ? Nor make up your mind to dislike me ? Why, I had been thinking to myself how nice it would be to have some brothers ! " " Had you ? " murmured Clive, who was beginning already to feel for this pretty, sweet-mannered girl, a very different sentiment from that which he had for his other sisters. " Well then, our troubles are over. For I install you at once, in the most respectful manner, in my brotherly affections as sister number three. Your hand upon it, please ! " Smiling with the tears scarcely dry in her eyes, Kitty gave him her hand, which looked pathetically small and powerless in its black glove.

"Thank you, thank you very much," she said gratefully, "for being so kind. I am very glad you gave me this explanation, very glad. But, oh ! I'm so sorry my poor father did not know you, that he might have known how absurd it was of him to suppose you would want to marry me ! " Even as these last words slipped hastily out of the young girl's mouth, she was conscious that they were rather badly chosen. And the mischievous smile which flickered on Clive's face for a moment increased this feeling. " Want to marry you for your money," corrected he promptly. " If it had been I who had been rich and you who had been poor, why, it would have been different," he ended somewhat lamely, and with constraint. He was wishing that he had not said these foolish words, and already he was feeling the awkwardness of the position, disguise it as they might.