Kitty

by Beaton, M. C.

  Dressed in a loose, flowing teagown and minus stays, Kitty walked out onto a small wooden balcony in front of the window and took a deep breath. Far away, yachts skimmed across the horizon under a freshening breeze. Little puffs of clouds chased each other across the cerulean sky. On the shoreline, the shallow water changed from blue to pale-green and on a stretch of springy turf above the tide line, the cats romped and played, their fur rippling and glistening in the light wind.

  Kitty could not help thinking it would have been the ideal place for a honeymoon. What on earth was her husband doing now?

  • • •

  Peter Chesworth was, at that moment, staring at Lady Mainwaring’s butler as if he could not believe his ears.

  “Gone to the seaside!” repeated his lordship angrily. “Did my wife leave a note?”

  “No, my Lord,” said the butler. “But Lady Mainwaring did.”

  Lord Chesworth removed his gloves, tucked his cane under his arm, and scanned the single sheet of paper. “Dear Peter,” Lady Mainwaring had written, “Kitty was disappointed not to hear from you so we assumed you were still occupied with your work on the estate. We are going to Hadsea for a short holiday. May we hope that you will join us? I enclose the address….”

  He crumpled the note in his hand. No, they may not hope that he would join them. He had never had to chase after any woman in his life and he did not intend to start now—particularly with his wife who ought, by rights, to be sitting by his side warming his slippers and his bed.

  He stood irresolute on the pavement and then, with a slight feeling of being hunted, saw Veronica Jackson’s carriage coming to a stop. The lady herself, to judge from the amount of luggage strapped on the back, had just returned from the country as well.

  Peter Chesworth did not know that Veronica had watched him going into the house from the carriage window and subsequently seen him reemerge a few moments later with a look like thunder on his face.

  “Well, Peter, here we both are back in town,” she said brightly. “Are you running off anywhere?”

  His lordship was absolutely furious with his wife. He was damned if he would go running after her.

  “I’m going nowhere at present,” he said, looking up at her with his attractive mocking smile. “But I’ll take you to the opera this evening if you like.”

  “Not Wagner!” begged Veronica in mock horror. “I can’t stand all that caterwauling.”

  “No, not Wagner,” he assured her. “Bizet.”

  “Till tonight then!” She kissed her fingertips to him and her carriage moved off.

  They arrived mercifully late and the production of Carmen was already halfway through the first act. Peter Chesworth was regretting his impulse. Perhaps if they stayed quietly in the box at the interval, they would not be noticed.

  But as the lights blazed up at the first interval, Veronica was leaning over the edge of the box, waving to her friends. She seemed almost to be going out of her way to attract attention and was wearing a very low-cut dress which seemed to draw all the eyes of the men like a magnet.

  With a shudder, Peter Chesworth saw his mother-in-law and Lady Henley in a box opposite. Lady Henley had her lorgnette positively screwed to her eyes and Mrs. Harrison was directing a pair of opera glasses in the direction of Veronica’s white bosom.

  Well, they could glare all they wanted. He was neither going to explain nor apologize. As Lady Henley made a movement to her feet, the theater was mercifully plunged into darkness as the second act began.

  Lord Chesworth decided to escape. “Let’s go to the Cavendish and drink champagne,” and, as his partner showed signs of protesting, he clasped her hand. “Please, Veronica.”

  Veronica smiled in the darkness. They would by all means go to the Cavendish Hotel and she would make sure that Peter Chesworth did not leave her till the morning.

  Lord Chesworth guided his companion into the public dining room of the Cavendish in an effort to avoid the heavy-drinking crowd who gathered with the proprietress, Mrs. Lewis, in her parlor. But the dining room seemed to be filled to capacity with London society, Mrs. Lewis’s reputation as a cook drawing them from all over.

  Peter Chesworth’s ears burned as glances were thrown in their direction and the feathered headdresses of the ladies bobbed and nodded as they whispered with their heads together. He wished for the first time in his life that he were a woman so that he could faint or, at the very least, complain of a headache. Veronica was drinking steadily and leaving much of the excellent food on her plate. Her eyes held a hectic glitter and her voice became louder and more strident until her personal endearments seemed to be bouncing off the walls. He suddenly thought of his quiet, shy wife and heartily wished he had gone to join her. He would leave for Hadsea in the morning.

  But by the time he had got rid of a very angry Veronica on the doorstep of her home and reached the safety of his own bed, he decided to go in two days’ time instead. He did not want to look as if he were running to heel like a whipped dog.

  Kitty was enjoying the Dwight-Hammonds’ eccentric household immensely. The sisters dithered about cheerfully, Matilda with her cats and Jane with her poems. Lady Mainwaring rested and read and chatted with the sisters, leaving her young friend endless freedom to explore the garden and the beach.

  Playing with the cats, paddling at the edge of the water, collecting shells and seaweed, Kitty was like a child. She even inspired Jane Dwight-Hammond to write a poem in her honor. Jane gathered together Lady Mainwaring, her sister, Kitty, and the cats to listen to it.

  Jane coughed nervously and fingered a long necklace of amber beads as she peered shortsightedly about the room to make sure she had her audience’s full attention. She began:

  “To Kitty.

  Running on the beach

  Seaweed in her hand

  Is she out of reach

  Or just dancing on the sand

  Does she wait a lover, I do ask

  Or is she engaged in some other task…?”

  A sudden clap of thunder shook the drawing room and the poetess threw her papers in the air and bolted out of the room.

  Emily Mainwaring gave a very unladylike grin. “Jane is terrified of storms—thank goodness. I wonder how long that poem was going to be? ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’ is nothing compared to the length of some of Jane’s epistles.”

  Matilda was as angry as that good-natured lady could be. “You are very, very cruel, Emily. Jane has a great talent. She would have been published by now if it weren’t for “Them” Kitty was to learn in due course that “Them” referred to the whole publishing world of men who, Jane and Matilda were firmly convinced, rejected the poems simply on the grounds that they were written by a woman.

  A flash of lightning and another terrible roll of thunder rocked the house and died away leaving a dark, ominous silence, broken only by the faint whimpers of the terrified Jane abovestairs. “I had better go to her,” said Matilda.

  “What a frightful storm,” said Emily. “We’d better go to sleep and have a rest before this evening.”

  The sisters and their guests had been invited to a ball at a country house five miles’ distant. Their hostess, Maria Epworth, was an old schoolfriend of the Dwight-Hammonds.

  Kitty lit the gas in her room and decided to read instead of going to bed, since the noise of the storm howling outside the shutters seemed to make sleep impossible. But for all the heavings and groans and shakes of the house as it rode out the storm, Kitty eyes began to droop. She turned down the gaslight to a faint glimmer and climbed into bed, wriggling her toes down between the cool sheets. Her foot struck something thin and cold at the foot of the bed. It moved! Kitty screamed and leapt out of bed and stood with her bosom heaving. Then she laughed. Obviously the Dwight-Hammonds had gone in for the popular fad of practical jokes.

  She ripped back the bedclothes and found herself staring down at the writhing bodies of two adders. Then she really screamed in earnest, stumbling through the old storm-
rocked house, her terrified cries rising higher and higher over the noise of the thunder.

  Lady Mainwaring was first on the scene to catch the frightened girl in her arms. “It must have been a nightmare, Kitty, but we’d better make sure.”

  The sisters did not keep any menservants except for one very old deaf coachman. Neither the cook nor the housemaids would volunteer to go into Kitty’s bedroom.

  “In that case, I’ll go myself,” snapped Lady Mainwaring. With Kitty clutching her sleeve, she threw open the door of the bedroom. “There you are!” she exclaimed triumphantly. “Why there’s noth—” Her voice broke off as she saw something moving on the floor and she edged into the room in time to see the tail of a snake disappearing as it slithered under the bed.

  “Good God!” gasped Emily Mainwaring, leaning against the doorjamb.

  “What is it?” cried Matilda, materializing behind them with her hair in curl papers.

  “Snakes!” shouted Emily and Kitty together.

  “Snakes! Are you sure?” screamed Matilda. And then without waiting for a reply, she threw back her head and yelled, “Cats. Cats! Come here, at once.”

  There was movement on the stairs and then the cats came bounding along the corridor. “Get the snakies. Get them!” shouted Matilda, dancing in excitement.

  The women turned away and there was a great scuffling and mewing and then the leaders of the pack, who seemed to be Tibbles and Peter, strolled past them, each holding a dead snake triumphantly in its mouth. The other cats ambled past with a “see, there’s nothing to it” attitude.

  Clutching each other for support, the three women made their way downstairs and collapsed in the drawing room.

  “My dear, dear Kitty. I am so sorry,” gasped Matilda. “I’ve never known anything like it. There are adders up on the downs, of course. But in the house—and upstairs! Perhaps the storm drove them in.” She rang for tea.

  “Don’t worry, my dear. My pussies shall patrol your room before you go into it at night.”

  A thin gleam of watery sunlight struck through the slats of the shutters. “There!” said Matilda triumphantly. “The storm is over. Open the shutters, Barker.”

  The housemaid threw open the long shutters and sweet, rain-washed air and sunlight flooded the room. Kitty felt her fears receding. Strange things happened in storms and things always did seem more frightening when the sky was black and the thunder rolled. And snakes were always said to make for the warmest part of a room.

  Early that evening, as they were setting out for the ball, Kitty had almost forgotten about the incident except as a little adventure to tell her husband—if she should ever see him again.

  As they climbed into the Dwight-Hammonds’ elderly carriage, Barker came running out. “If you please, Mum,” she addressed Matilda. “There’s a person here what says you told him to make repairs to the roof.”

  Matilda flushed. Her memory was getting increasingly worse so she did not care to admit she had no recollection of ordering any such repairs. “Tell him to go ahead, Barker. But what an odd time of day to start work. I suppose the storm delayed him.”

  The carriage rolled off. Jane Dwight-Hammond was busily composing a poem about Kitty’s adventure. “What rhymes with snake… hake… ? no, no… fake… perhaps… steak… oh, dear me, no.” By the time they reached the Epworths’ home, she had successfully rhymed adder with badder, found it to be ungrammatical, and was nearly in tears from frustration.

  Kitty entered into the lights and music of the Epworths’ ball with a feeling of anticipation. Mr. and Mrs. Epworth were a kindly middle-aged couple and a good proportion of the young guests were pleasantly unsophisticated and pleased to have a pretty Baroness in their midst. Kitty’s dance card was soon full and she twirled about the ballroom enjoying the novel feeling of success.

  She was emerging from supper later in the evening on the arm of a young army captain who had been invalided home from the South African wars, when she looked across the ballroom and found herself staring at her husband. All thoughts of what had gone on between them on their wedding night, all Lady Mainwaring’s advice, and all conventional behavior fled, as the Baroness Reamington flew across the ballroom and flung her arms around her husband’s neck. Peter Chesworth hugged her slight body and stared down at his wife in surprise.

  She looked incredibly pretty and fresh with her wide gray eyes sparkling with delight and surprise. All his anger at her for having run away, all his fury at finding her gone when he arrived in Hadsea, fled before the warmth of her welcome. He drew her arm into his and led her out onto the terrace.

  A small moon was racing between thin, high clouds as Peter Chesworth turned to his wife and said words she had longed to hear, “I’ve missed you, Kitty.”

  Slowly and confidingly, she put her arms around his neck. She saw the moonlight flashing on his pale eyes under their hooded lids and closed her own. She felt his lips against her mouth, pressing and exploring, his arms holding her closer. Kitty trembled in his arms as a tide of passion swept both of them. Finally, he raised his head.

  “Let’s go home before the others, Kitty,” he whispered. “We have the whole night together in front of us.”

  Walking in a dream, Kitty said her good-byes. The Dwight-Hammond sisters beamed on her fondly, Lady Mainwaring looked worried, as Kitty walked out to her husband’s carriage. All the way back to the Victorian house, he held her hand and told her how much he loved her, really loved her, and Kitty felt almost drunk with so much happiness.

  When they entered her bedroom, she turned and looked at him shyly. “I forgot to open the shutters and it’s so stuffy in here…”

  “Let me do it,” said Peter Chesworth, moving past her.

  “No,” said Kitty. “I’ll open them. It’s my lovely view and I want to show it to you.”

  He sat down on the bed, smiling indulgently, as she threw open the shutters and stepped out onto the small balcony. She held out her hand. “Come and see. It’s the most beautiful view in the world.”

  He moved slowly toward her. One minute she was standing there faintly lit by the moonlight, smiling at him and holding out her arms and the next, there was a hideous cracking sound and the balcony collapsed, hurling Kitty down into the garden.

  For one second, he stood transfixed with shock and then went hurtling down the stairs and out into the night Kitty was lying very white and still on the thick, uncut grass of the lawn. Then she moaned faintly.

  Lights began to go on in the servants’ quarters and the cook was the first to appear. Lord Chesworth shouted to her to send his carriage for the doctor and to fetch blankets. Then he sat down on the lawn beside his half-conscious wife and waited, afraid to touch her or move her in case any of her bones were broken.

  The doctor finally arrived and made a quick examination. He ordered the servants to carry Kitty into the house, but Peter Chesworth would let no one else touch his wife.

  He paced up and down nervously while the doctor made a thorough examination.

  “No bones broken, my Lord,” he said with relief. “A bad sprain and a slight concussion. She’s a very lucky young lady. If the Misses Dwight-Hammond had had their lawn cut, she might be dead. As it is, the thick, long grass acted as a type of cushion.” He gave Kitty a sedative, promised to call in the morning, and took his leave.

  Peter Chesworth carried Kitty to his bedroom and sat holding her hand until the sedative began to take effect. Then he went downstairs to meet Lady Mainwaring and the Dwight-Hammond sisters who had just returned from the ball.

  “First snakes and now this!” screamed Matilda.

  “Snakes!” Peter Chesworth’s thin black brows snapped together. “What snakes?”

  The incident of the adders was explained to him. “Let me examine the bloody room,” he snapped. “It sounds like some sort of death trap,” Jane wailed piteously.

  The women followed him into Kitty’s bedroom, flinching and jumping at every shadow. Lord Chesworth turned up the gasli
ght and walked to the window.

  The supports holding the wooden balcony had been sawed through. “But there was a man here to repair the house only this evening,” wailed Matilda. “I didn’t remember asking any man to repair anything but my memory—you know, Jane—I get tired of saying I can’t remember things.”

  They stood looking at each other in shocked silence. Then Lady Mainwaring summed it up in her clear, light voice.

  “Well, my dear Baron, who do you think is trying to murder your wife?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  The police and local magistrate had made their investigation without success and left by the time Kitty felt well enough to make an appearance downstairs.

  Jane was fluttering around in great excitement. “Everyone in Hadsea has sent you cards and presents,” she exclaimed. “Even Mr. Chambers, the butcher, sent a lovely ham with a heart round it made out of the best pork sausages. Such an imaginative touch. Let me see… there is cologne from the chemist, grapes from the greengrocer, and, this gigantic box of chocolates from—why that’s strange. There is no card. Maybe it fell out. It could be from the souvenir shop but they have already sent you a pretty box made of shells.”

  “How kind they all are,” said Kitty. “I shall write and thank them all.”

  Jane looked timidly at the chocolates. “Do you think I could have just one before Matilda comes in?” she pleaded. “I have such a sweet tooth. My husband—who was in fact the Earl of Somerset,” she added in a whisper, “always teased me and said I wouldn’t have a tooth in my head by the time I was forty. But I have them all!

  “Now Matilda says I will get spotty skin even though I haven’t a mark on it. But, just one teensy one wouldn’t hurt!”

  Kitty smiled and started to take off the wrapping. “Of course. You can have as many as you like.” She lifted the lid of the box. “Why, there is a letter inside. Now we will know who sent them.” Kitty handed Jane the box of chocolates and opened the letter. It was simple and to the point. “Do you know your husband is trying to kill you? A friend.”