CHAPTER LXIII.

THERE SAT KITTY.

WHILE these things thus were growing near me, as I learned soon afterwards, in our place there was no sign yet of anything encouraging. My Uncle Corny, who had always vowed that he never would bet a farthing, was now in a highly grumbling state, because he had not backed _Nutmeg-grater_.

“A horse bred and born in our own fields—a colt I have seen through the hedge fifty times, without caring to count his legs almost, and he goes and wins five thousand pounds, and how much do I get? Not a penny. I think it was very unkind of Sam; unnatural, and not neighbourly, to let Ludred get all the good of that, and not a threepenny bit come to Sunbury!”

“Now, Uncle Corny, you talk of justice, and every one calls you a superior man;” I said, with the desire to mollify him, but the method misdirected; “how many times have I heard Sam Henderson tell you to put a bit of money on that horse? But you said—‘None of your gambling for me!’ And now, because the horse has won, you think you have been ill-treated!”

“Kit, you stick to your own affairs. What do you know about things like this? I want none of their dirty money. I pay my way, by honest work. They are a set of rogues, all together. You never see anything clearly now. Your wits are always gone wool-gathering. Why, your own Aunt Parslow won a box of gloves. And you are satisfied with my getting nothing.”

It was true that my wits were wool-gathering now, but they travelled a long way for nothing. Ever since Sam, and Major Monkhouse, brought me the story of that strange vision, it seemed to be dwelling in my brain, and driving every solid sense out of it. All day long, and all night too, the same thing was before me—a ship with white sails piled on one another, like a tower of marble arches, the blue water breaking into silver at her steps, and upon the forefront a figure standing, with arms extended and bright eyes yearning, and red lips opened to say—“here I am!”

I went to the post, three times a day, for we now had three deliveries, and who could wait for old Bob’s slow round? And often in the middle of a mutton-chop, which Tabby would grind into my listless mouth, at a shadow on the window, or the creaking of a door, I was up, and had my hat on, and was listening in the lane.

Any one would laugh at the foolish things I did. I kept the kettle boiling, day and night, until there was a hole in it, and I had to buy another; I dusted all the chairs three times a day; I kept a bunch of roses on the window-sill, and cut a fresh tea-rose, every morn and evening, to go into Kitty’s bosom, when she should appear. I ordered a cold chicken every day from Mr. Rasp, and garnished it with parsley, and handed it over with a sigh to Mrs. Tompkins, when nobody came to taste it; and I made Polly Tompkins sleep with a string round her arm, and the end hanging out of the window. Every man on the place swore that I was cracked, except Selsey Bill, who stuck a spade up at my door.

“Afore the rust cometh down the blade of that there tool, you’ll be a happy man, Master Kit,” he said; and as he spoke, his little squinny eyes were bright with something that removes the rust of human nature’s metal.

At last I was truly getting genuinely cracked. Another week of burning hope and weltering dejection, of tossing to the sky and tumbling to the depths of darkness, must have left my dull brain empty of the little gift God put in it.

When a whole month had expired from the day when hope awoke, reason fell upon me like a flail, and hope was chaff. I made my usual preparations, with a bitter grin at them, and set the roses in the window, with contempt of their loveliness.

“The last time of all this tomfoolery,” I said; “to-morrow I shall work hard again. Everything is lies, and tricks, and rot. Kitty has taken up with some fellow, and they are laughing at me in some gambling-den. I have a great mind to smash it up altogether. I shall sleep where that _Regulus_ slept to-night. Much good I did by stealing him. Hard work is the only thing worth doing.”

It was the first time that I had ever dared to think such a shameful thing of my pure wife; and I hope that I did not think it now, but said it by the devil’s prompting. If any one had said it in my hearing, he would have said little else for another month. And I could have knocked my own self on the head, with great pleasure, when I came to think of it.

We laugh very nicely—when they cannot hear us—at women, for not knowing their own minds; but no woman ever born, since they began to bear us, could have gainsayed herself, as a man did, that day. I wandered about and lay under trees, for now it was the 15th of June, and the weather warm and sunny; then I climbed up trees and watched the river, and the roads, and even the meadow-path, where the cows were, and the mushrooms grew. Then I went and had a talk with Widow Cutthumb, and when she began to run down the race of women, I went so much further, that she grew quite sharp, and extolled them, and put all the blame upon us. It was waste of time to reason with her; so I let her have her own way, as they always do.

Then I went to the butcher’s, and saw a fine sweet-bread, the very thing for any one just come from a long journey, and perhaps a little giddy from the rolling of a ship. With a sigh of despair I pulled out half a crown, and made him lend me a basket and a clean white napkin. Then I could not run home with it quick enough, for it seemed as if some one would be dying without it; but as soon as I got to our door, I set it down, and could not bring myself even to enter the house. Away I went, and got into the loneliest place I could find; and being rather light of head from grief and want of food, fell over an old apple-trunk, and fell asleep beside it.

When I awoke, the sun was set; and the men (who were now working overtime, to be ready for the strawberries) were all gone home with their frails upon their backs, and their little ones coming down the road to meet them. Dizzily I pushed my way into a grassy alley, and sauntered homeward, wishing only to go home for ever.

The front-door was open, which did not surprise me, for I often left it so, and the basket containing the sweet-bread was gone, and the roses were moved from the window. The sound of my boots did not ring as it used, and the air seemed less empty, and softer. In a stupefied hurry, I opened the door of the parlour—and there sat Kitty!

Kitty looking at me, with a strange and timid look. As if she were not certain that I would be glad to see her. As if she doubted whether I could love her any more; as if her soul in earth and heaven hung on the next moment.

I could not go to her, and I could not say a word; and to tell the truth, I don’t know what I did. But I must have spread my arms, by some gift of nature; for before I could think of it, there she was; weeping—as I never could have thought it possible for any one, even in this world of tears, to weep.

Then she put up her hand, with the fingers thrown back, and stroked my cheeks gently, and said—“How thin! How thin!” Then she threw both arms around my neck, and drew my face down to her lips, and covered every inch of it with sobbing kisses. I pressed her sweet bosom to mine, and our hearts seemed to beat into one another.

“Oh, Kit, my own, own dear old Kit! Can you ever forgive me? Ever?”

She said this I dare say fifty times, scarcely allowing me to speak, for she said it was not good for me; withdrawing and feigning to be ashamed of her passionate love every now and then; and then rushing into my embrace again. Then she stood up, and threw back her beautiful hair, and said with the glance which she knew I adored—

“Well, how do you think I am looking, love? Don’t you think it is high time to tell me?”

She was wearing some foreign dress, beautifully cut, which set off her figure; and she knew it very well.

“I never saw you looking half so lovely,” I replied; “though I thought it impossible to improve you.”

“Sun-burnt, and freckled, and mosquito-bitten. But never mind, dear, if you love your own wife. We’ll soon make all that right again. Oh, I have been too wild! Feel how my heart is jumping.”

She was threatened with hysterics; but I soothed her gently, and she rested on my breast with her eyes half closed. As I looked at her, I felt that in this rapture I could die.

“Darling, I can hardly believe it yet;” she whispered, playing with my fingers to make sure; “see, this is my wedding-ring, I never took it off. What fine gold it is, not to tarnish with my tears. The drops that have fallen on it—oh, I wonder there is any blue left in my eyes at all! Do you think they are as blue, dear, as when you used to love them?”

“They are bluer, heart of hearts. They are larger and deeper. The tears of true love have made them still more lovely.”

“But yours are so worn, and sad, and harassed! That can’t be from loving me more than I love you; because that is simply impossible. But you never have been—tell me, tell me all the truth. Was there any truth whatever in that horrible tale? Remember I shall love you just the same. If you tore me to pieces I should love you.”

“What horrible tale? I have never heard of any horrible tale, except your going away.”

“And you don’t know the reason! Oh Kit, oh Kit, have you taken me back like this, without even knowing why I went?”

“Darling I have not the least idea why you went. I was too glad to get you back, to think of anything else.”

“Well, you are a true love! You are a husband such as no woman on the earth deserves. I don’t think even I could have taken you back so, if you had run away from me, and I knew nothing of the cause.”

“Oh yes, you would, Kitty; I am sure you would. I believe in you, just as you would in me, and talking has nothing to do with it. But how did you expect me to know all about it?”

“Why, of course, by the letter I sent you from Ascension. The moment we got your letter—the moment I could stop crying, crying, crying—I wrote you such a letter, darling. Oh, I thought it would have killed me with wonder, and with joy. It was almost as sweet as this—not quite, not quite; nothing else can ever be quite so sweet as this.”

“Then were you with your father? Were you with him all the time.”

“To be sure I was, dearest. Do you think I would have gone with any one else, away from you—away from my own husband?”

“But I thought it quite impossible for you to be with him. He was far in the Atlantic, dear, before you ran away.”

“Before I ran away! Oh Kit, oh Kit! And you thought I had run away with somebody else! Oh, what has my misery been, compared with yours? No wonder you are thin, dear; no wonder you are gaunt. Why, I can’t think how you can have managed to keep alive. I am sure I should have been dead, buried, and forgotten. Thirteen months, a year and a month, to be thinking your own new-married wife had run away, like a bad woman! Oh dear! Don’t stop me; I must cry again, or I may do something worse. And you have not even got my letter yet.”

“No. But I dare say it will come by-and-by. I expected no letter from you, of course, because I had no idea where you were; but every day I hoped for one from your father. But they told me the mails from Ascension are uncertain, because they take their chance of passing ships. Sometimes they don’t come for months together.

“Now will you read this?” she cried, jumping up with her old impetuosity; “I am very glad I kept it, though it makes me creep every time I touch it. That explains everything. Who wrote that?”

“It is like my writing; but I never wrote a word of it, and never saw, or dreamed of it before.”

“Whoever wrote that letter, Kit,” my wife said very solemnly, “ought to have his portion for ever and ever in the bottomless pit, where the fire is not quenched. I could never have believed that any human being could possibly have conceived such wickedness. But don’t read it now; it would take too long, and spoil our perfect happiness, darling. We must not be so selfish. No more kisses, until we have done our duty. Just put me into trim again, and let me do my hair up, and we must both run down to Uncle Corny’s. Nobody has seen me yet, but you. What do you think I did? I was quite resolved that no one should see me, but my own husband. So I left my things at Feltham, and ran all the way—flew all the way, I ought to say, and came through Love Lane all alone. Oh, we will never part again, not even for a day, Kit, or half a day. You must never let me out of your sight any more.”

“And not out of my arms, when I can help it,” I said, as with my dear wife still enclasped, and her hair waving over my bounding heart, I took her through the quiet alleys of the summer night, just to show her for a minute—for I could not spare her more—to the loyal and good Uncle Corny.