“How do you do?”
His face was red and angry; he looked bewildered and younger than he had for a long time, almost as though he could not understand why the world was so unkind to him.
“How good of you to call, George.”
He sprawled on the wooden seat under the chestnut tree, sullen, trying to pretend nothing unusual had happened.
“You will drink a dish of tea, George? Peg will be bringing it -I told her to, when I knew you were here.”
“You’re too good to me, Harriet!”
“Stuff and nonsense! Because I offer you a dish of tea?” She noticed how thick his legs were; she shivered. He had coarsened since the days of her youth when she had built an ideal and called it George Haredon. She believed the stories about him now; yes, she did, and she would admit it. She was angry;! she was hurt; but the feeling of relief was there all the same. I will send for my niece. Where does the girl get to? A lazier, more good-for-nothing creature I never set eyes on, unless it’s Peg or Dolly. Curling her hair, no doubt Of all the empty-headed girls…”
In a way she was trying to comfort him. She was quite sorry for him almost as sorry for him as she was for herself. It was Kitty she blamed; just as she had blamed Bess. You didn’t blame men for being what they were; you blamed women for helping to make them so.
She left him sitting, and went indoors.
“Tell my niece to come down to the garden,” she instructed Peg.
“Tell her I particularly wish her to come.”
Kitty came. On her lovely hair she wore a hat which shaded her eyes and shielded her face. She greeted the squire coldly. Harriet was amazed to see that there was a certain humility if the manner of his greeting to her; she had never seen George Haredon humble before, except perhaps when he was very young and so much in love with Bess. Kitty was almost haughty ridiculous creature, giving herself airs! How she would like to beat Kitty until the blood ran! Once, before the days of Peg an Dolly, she had almost beaten one of her maids to death; a chili of fifteen, a trollop if ever there was one! Got herself with chili by one of Squire Haredon’s grooms. And Harriet had beaten her and beaten her and when she grew big had turned her out. No one knew what had become of her after she left the Bridewell She was probably leading the life most suited to her nature. Well, that was how Harriet would have liked to beat Kitty … only Kitty was no child of fifteen; she was a strong young woman, and probably would not allow herself to be beaten almost to death.
The squire scarcely touched his tea, and he forgot to compliment her on the excellence of her seedcake. He was discomfited, and all because of his carnal desire for a girl who would be a disgrace to his house; why, she had no idea even how to make raspberry jam.
The squire took his leave. Kitty carried in the tea tray and, in her agitation, broke one of the cups.
Harriet screamed at her: “You lazy, careless creature! I wish I had never clapped eyes on you. A pity you did not stay in London where you belonged. Doubtless you would have found the protection of some fine gentleman, as your mother did so admirably for herself!”
Once Kitty would have laughed at that; the words would not have hurt her at all. But now she was jealous of her virtue; Darrell was involved. Her aunt was suggesting that this love she was so willing, so eager to give to Darrell, could have been any fine gentleman’s in exchange for his protection. She turned on her aunt with fury.
“You wicked woman!” she cried.
“And more wicked because you think you are so good. I will not stay here; I shall go away.”
“And where will you go, Miss?”
Kitty faltered. She was ready to blurt out: “I am going to be married. I shall go with my husband.” But even at that moment, hot tempered as she was, she realized what folly that would be.
“I … shall go one day!”
Harriet laughed. And for one moment she knew that her place in the squire’s bed had occupied her imagination more than her place at the head of his table; and she knew that she was a disappointed woman, and felt an insane desire to go to the still-room and smash every one of those neat bottles. She tried to calm herself; but she could not. In a moment she would be sobbing out her disappointment. Angrily she strode to the wall where hung that whip with which she had beaten the fifteen-year-old trollop who had been so free with one of George’s grooms; she seized it. and her fingers were white with the tension of their grip upon it.
“You … you …” she cried, and there was almost a sob in her voice.
“Do you think … I don’t know … your kind! Do you think I haven’t seen the way you led George Haredon on? I believe you let him into your room at night… perhaps others. I believe …”
The pictures were now forming into words, and she must stop herself for shame she must! But Kitty stopped her. Kitty’s eyes were blazing. She walked straight towards her, raised her hand as though to strike her. then dropped it and said in a cold low voice: “You wicked, foul-minded woman! You and George Haredon would make a good pair, that you would.” And she threw back her head so that the fine white voluptuousness of her throat could be seen to advantage. Then she laughed and went swiftly from the room.
Kitty stayed in her room until close on eight o’clock; then silently she left her Aunt Harriet’s house and went to the wood. Darrell was waiting for her in that spot where the trees were thickest. She clung to him, crying.
He said: “My dearest, what has happened?”
She cried out: “I cannot stay here; it is hateful! My aunt thinks hateful things of me. Darrell, she is a cruel woman, for all her piety. How I wish that we were in London and that my mother was alive; she would have helped us.”
He said: “Listen, my lovely one, my darling Kitty, listen! You will not have to stay. Today I have heard from my Uncle Simon.”
Her smile was more brilliant for the tears that still shone in her eyes; her joy the greater for the fear it displaced.
“You have heard… He has said …?”
“He says we must marry. He says we must leave this place and go to London.”
“When… oh, when?”
Darrell hesitated.
“There must be preparations, dear one. In a month, say. Kitty, can you endure this for just one month longer?”
“A month! It is a long time. I have not yet been in my aunt’s house three weeks, and it seems three years. Cannot we go now …this minute?”
He laughed at her impatience. They sat on a bank, and the grass was soft and cool, and the trees made a roof and shut them in in.
“If we could … oh, if we could! But no, dearest, we must do what Uncle Simon says. He is going to make preparations for us. He is going to take me into his business. He is going to find a house for us, and that will take a little time. Then, my darling, we shall take the coach and go to London, and when we get there a priest will marry us and we shall be happy, and all this will seem like a nightmare.”
“Darrell! It is wonderful. How I love your Uncle Simon!”
“You must love no one but me!”
“I should not, of course, except our children, Darrell.”
“Our children!” he said.
How the birds mocked overhead! He thought of their lovemaking on the branches of the trees, building their nests and bringing up their young. It was like a miracle it was the miracle of living. And how much more wonderful to be a man and love a woman, a woman such as Kitty!
She had lain back on the grass now, and her eyes made the sky he could see through the branches look grey. Lovely she was, with her white bosom and fair neck and her hair a little tousled now, and her hands that seemed to be reaching to him.
She was seductive and irresistible: and because she knew it, and because she, Eke the birds, was’ mocking that cautious streak in him, he could no longer bear it. He threw himself down beside her and buried his face in the whiteness of her shoulder.
She said: “What a lovely end to a horrible day! Darrell, that hateful Squire Haredon asked me to marry him today.” Darrell drew himself up and looked at her with horror.