Kitty knew the story of her mother’s flight from the country parsonage; how the atmosphere of piety had stifled her. Morning prayers. Sermons. No laughter. No singing. No acting. And Mother had loved to act. How vividly she had talked! It was possible to have a picture of the grey stone Devon house with the creeper climbing over its walls and the tower of the church looming over it, its graveyard just at the end of the garden, frightening Mother when she was a little girl. Years and years ago that had been. Why, Mother had not seen the place for twenty years, and that took one back to 1763 when another war had just ended. Kitty could picture her growing up, no longer afraid of the grey tombstones, playing in the graveyard with Squire Haredon’s son who was wild and reckless and haughty as Mother herself. She could picture the parsonage dining-room with its big windows and air of cleanliness and the family gathered there for morning prayers, the serving maids at one end of the table in sprigged muslin and mob-caps, and at the other end of the table Grandmother Ramsdale, very pretty and restless like a brightly plumaged bird in a cage, and Grandfather Ramsdale. stern and pious. Jeffry the eldest and Mother the youngest had both taken after Grandmother Ramsdale, but Harriet the middle one took after her father. Kitty thought of Mother and her brother always in mischief, helped by the squire’s boy to tease poor Harriet who had not their gay spirit and attractive charm. Grandfather Ramsdale was of the quality and it was in a mad moment that he had made a most unsuitable match with Grandmother Ramsdale who was the daughter of a blacksmith; she had plagued and tormented him until he, being pious, must marry her. Kitty had seen a miniature of Grandmother Ramsdale, had seen the exquisite little face with its crown of fair hair; had seen the wilful eyes and passionate mouth so like her own and her mother’s, and it was not so difficult then to understand how even a man such as Grandfather Ramsdale had been plagued into marriage. Extraordinary marriage it must have been. She had been unable to endure that country parsonage, and as soon as her youngest was able to walk and button her own clothes, like a bird which has taught her young to fly she no longer felt any ties held her to her nest; she flew off with a young lord who was passing through Exeter and saw her and was plagued by her, just as the parson had been. She was never heard of again. So the children grew in an atmosphere of pious gloom. They were beaten mercilessly by Their father, for he feared his son and younger daughter had inherited their mother’s bad blood. There was no fear in his heart for his favourite, Harriet. She was his daughter. And he was right to fear too, for at the age of eighteen Jeffry went to Oxford and in a year had run himself so deeply into debt that it meant several years of cheeseparing to extricate him; in his last year there he was killed in a tavern fight. And Bess, Kitty’s mother, had grown to look just like the blacksmith’s daughter, with the same fair colouring, the same laughing eyes, the same wanton mouth. A match had been arranged for her with George Haredon, but when a party of players came to Exeter there was among them one Peter Kennedy, and when the players left, Bess went with them.
She often told the story, lying back on her couch with her fair hair flowing about her shoulders and her rich wrap falling open to disclose her over-luscious charms.
“Poor Peter! How I adored him, swaggering on the stage with his red cloak and his moustaches! But, Kit any dear, I was just a country wench then; I soon saw what a mistake I had made. Besides, was I to spend my life with a company of strolling players! But before I could do anything about it you were on the way; I wasn’t sorry-I have never been sorry for anything. And, once I’d set eyes on you, I had a soft spot for Peter Kennedy for evermore. Well, my dear, that’s the secret of life never stop to look back and sigh; go on and find something better. That’s what I did. There was Toby after Peter, and after Toby my Lord James. It has been a good life and we’ve enjoyed it, eh?”
They had enjoyed it. There was always plenty to eat, good clothes to wear. No beggary for them. And Bess grew plumper and more luscious with the years, and Sir Harry took the place of Lord James, and it went on like that. A pleasant little house, a serving maid or two, and many fine gentlemen who always had a friendly pat for Bess’s little girl. There was the academy for young ladies where one learned to read a little and write a little, to speak French and do fine embroidery. Occasionally there were slightly unpleasant incidents. A look, a gesture, a disparaging remark overheard about her mother. Kitty did not care; she was completely insensitive to these things. She was a modern replica of her own mother and the blacksmith’s daughter; she was kindly, gentle, ready to be moulded by a stronger will, and these qualities, coupled with striking physical beauty, were at the root of her appeal to the egoistical male of all types and ages. In her firm, strong, flawless body and her pliable mind they saw perfection. She had her mother’s gift for looking forward, stifling regrets for the past. The old life was done with; the new one, presided over by the stern Aunt Harriet, lay before her. The prospect was not pleasing, yet because she was herself she must always expect good things from life, and here already, on the journey westwards, she had met a young man whose admiration excited her, who was pleasant of countenance, charming of manners, and who was apparently to be a near neighbour.
Her mother had known death was coming to her; a certain breathlessness, a heightening of colour in her face, fainting fits; these were the forerunners of death. The doctors and apothecaries could not save her; perhaps she did not wish them to. She was thirty-eight years old. and that seemed to her no longer young. She had had her life and enjoyed it; she was ready to go. But what of Kitty, who was just on the threshold of life and had much to learn? She, who had never been afraid for herself, was suddenly fearful for her daughter. She thought constantly then, with a never-before-experienced respect, of the sheltered life in a country parsonage. Affectionately she remembered quiet fields and the glistening gold of buttercups in noon-day sunshine; she thought of lanes shaded by leafy trees, of homely fare and morning prayers and strict surveillance. There was safety in these things. She had not heard from her family since leaving it, in the company of Peter Kennedy, but it did not occur to her that her old home was not exactly as she had known it, so she dispatched a letter to her sister Harriet at the parsonage, and waited anxiously for a reply, while the fainting fits grew more frequent and the fight for breath a losing battle. It came at length, but not from the parsonage. There was a new parson now, Harriet wrote, for Their father had been dead ten years. Harriet had her own house; did Bess remember Oaklands? The little house just a stone’s throw from the parsonage, and a mile or so from Haredon? Harriet was far from rich, but however exacting her duty, she could be relied upon to perform it. That letter conjured up such a picture of Harriet that it made Bess laugh until she began to cough so violently that she thought her last moment had come. The same Harriet! Grim and virtuous, determined on duty. However much she disapproved of Bess, Bess’s daughter ; was her niece, and while she, Harriet, lived, it would always be her duty to see that any member of her family did not starve. Bess would have preferred to live a few years longer, to have seen her daughter safely married and settled for life; but that was not to be, and who knew that, by returning to the place from which her mother had escaped, Kitty might not make a more brilliant marriage than her mother would ever have been able to arrange for her in London Town? Respectability counted; Harriet was all respectability, and sometimes some very fine gentlemen went down to Haredon. So Bess began to convince herself that this was probably the best thing possible for Kitty’s welfare, and she died, as she had lived, happily.
And here was Kitty on her way to Aunt Harriet, a little alarmed at the prospect of her new life, but not so very alarmed, because she was so like her mother. And when she at last fell asleep her thought was not of the lost life in London, nor of the new life which lay before her, but of Darrell Grey.