Kitty Little

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘I never meant to hurt you, my darling.’

  Charlotte took both his hands in hers and kissed each in turn. ‘I do agree that we should keep a careful eye on Dixie. She is, I accept, still your child for all the pain it causes me to admit as much, but to witness the evidence of this relationship - day in and day out is too much to bear.’ She half turned away in her distress. ‘Couldn’t we - no - you would never agree.’

  ‘Agree to what?’

  A sob broke and Charlotte put a hand to her mouth that trembled just the right degree. ‘To the child leaving this house. She could keep Nanny of course, but be accommodated elsewhere.’

  ‘I really can’t afford to set up two homes. This one is costing me a small fortune.’

  Drat the man. Always money, money, money. Charlotte smiled beguilingly up at him, blue eyes shimmering with tears. ‘Oh I never meant you to provide her with a whole house of her own. She is but a child after all. But there must be good homely accommodation to be found somewhere locally, perhaps in Windermere or Ambleside, or nearby Carreckwater. And you could still visit her whenever you wished.’ But not spend every waking moment with her, or half the damned night.

  Archie gazed upon Charlotte, his face thoughtful but sad. ‘I promised Kitty I’d keep her safe.’

  ‘She still would be safe. Just not in my sight all day, reminding me of my failure. Distressing me.’ Again the sob, with increased anguish this time.

  ‘Would you find that more bearable, dearest?’

  ‘I would.’

  After another long pause, he said, ‘Then how can I object? We must find little Dixie a new foster home. But it must be clean and homely, the people kind and good to her.’

  ‘Dear Archie, of course. Perhaps she will thrive in it, for she seems far from happy here, constantly fretting and screaming. I shall begin making enquiries first thing tomorrow.’

  Yet again she had triumphed. Charlotte kissed him and then remembered the note from the draper and the more pressing concern of her new curtains. ‘Oh, and do remember to pay the draper’s bill, darling. Perhaps you will be less forgetful of such matters, once you no longer have a demanding toddler on your hands.’

  As she swung away down the stairs, Archie watched her go in fond if troubled silence. Then he picked up the letter and paled as he read the amount.

  Once the draper had been pacified and duly put to work measuring and sewing cretonne and voile, Charlotte set about the task of finding a new home for Dixie with enthusiasm. In the end, levering the child out of Repstone had proved far easier than she’d anticipated. Hopefully, this would have the added advantage that the child’s mother would have no reason ever to come here again. Any lingering friendship Charlotte might once have felt for Kitty had long since dissipated. Kitty was now seen as a bitter rival and must be banished from Archie’s life completely.

  After firing off numerous fruitless letters which brought no result, Charlotte had put a small advertisement in the Westmorland Gazette and in this morning’s post had come, at last, a response. The letter was from a Miss Frost who, together with her sister, owned a small “home from home” boarding house idyllically situated on the shores of Carreckwater. The letter stated that they would consider it their Christian duty to provide a home for an orphan while the child’s mother was away in France. Charlotte decided to pay the Misses Frost a visit without delay.

  She drove herself to the tiny village of Carreckwater with its green slate cottages and narrow winding streets. These radiated outwards and ever upwards to the surrounding fells and hills from St Margaret’s church in the village centre. After parking the motor by the old boatyard she strolled along the path by the lake, pulling her warm coat about her in the February chill. The sun was shining, sparkling on the wave tips like diamonds and all around the crags and hills seemed sharp and clear on this bright winter’s day. Charlotte longed for her heart to lift at sight of such beauty but she was shivering, and not simply because of the cold. A cormorant took off as she approached, flying low over the sheen of water, beating its wings till it was a mere speck disappearing in the distance. Sometimes she half wished she could vanish just as easily. Fly away to a new life, a new beginning. But she’d already done that once before, hadn’t she? So what had gone wrong?

  Despite disposing of her rivals, and those who represented a threat to her plans, she still hadn’t attained the riches or status she deserved. Having recklessly left Magnus for what she’d believed would be a more comfortable life, Charlotte now lived in fear of Archie discovering the truth: that their marriage was all a sham. It wasn’t as though she expected, or even asked for great happiness, merely security and a degree of comfort and contentment. Yet now, deep in her heart, Charlotte craved it. Why couldn’t she be happy like everyone else?

  Laburnum House was a tall, grey stone property situated on the corner of the Parade overlooking the lake. In no time, it seemed, Charlotte was seated in a small parlour, heavily furnished in the Victorian style complete with aspidistra standing to attention in the bay window, drinking tea out of dull brown and white china and doing her best to appear interested in what her hosts were saying.

  The Misses Frost had apparently once been debutantes and exceedingly pretty, they assured her, in their day. All suitors had sadly fallen short of their exacting standards however and now, thirty years on, it was far too late to even consider matrimony.

  ‘Though you can never be sure,’ Miss Bebe said and giggled, quite disarmingly.

  Her elder sister cast her a somewhat reproving look before continuing with their life story. ‘When Papa died, leaving us quite comfortably off, we chose to retire to the Lake District and open this boarding house.’

  ‘Where we live somewhat vicariously by sharing the lives of our many guests,’ Miss Bebe concluded and now both sisters glanced at each other before bursting into paroxysms of laughter.

  ‘I beg your pardon Lady Emerson, but we are often fascinated by the eccentricities of our lodgers. Those who keep goldfish in the bath. Others who won’t eat meat, except on Thursdays, or young men who dash off to their employment in odd coloured socks. They are an endless source of entertainment. All quite harmless, you understand.’ Miss Frost seemed a little ashamed of this show of levity while Miss Bebe was still gasping into her handkerchief.

  Charlotte, having suffered more than most from boarding house life during her days with the LTP’s, understood perfectly. She guessed the Players had often provided similar amusement with any number of landladies. Nevertheless, she decided upon this evidence that the two sisters were both quite mad but that they were also honest and well meaning. There was a regal quality about them with their straight-backed posture, high necked old-fashioned gowns and neatly coiffured white hair, which entirely suited their name.

  Miss Bebe’s dress was navy and white polka dots, since today it was a weekday she’d blithely informed Charlotte, though on high days and holidays she claimed to splash out in red or green. Miss Frost, as the elder, more serious sister, clearly thought it more fitting to wear a restrained beige, though she had rather spoiled the elegant effect of this on Charlotte’s arrival by being weighed down with an armful of dirty linen. Even so, she’d managed to maintain dignity as well as her good looks over the years, despite being well past sixty.

  It took no time at all for Charlotte to discover that they’d taken a keen interest in the LTP’s and never missed a show. They congratulated her on her recent marriage and understood perfectly that she would wish to abandon such a racketing, nomadic life style, for the more demanding one as Lady of the Manor.

  They were all getting along so famously that the moment Miss Frost bustled off to the nether regions of the house to refresh the tea pot, Charlotte edged forward in her seat and confessed there was one, rather delicate matter she should mention - that of the child’s status. ‘I must be honest with you, for she is not - not quite...’

  Miss Bebe looked sympathetic. ‘Healthy? Normal?’

  ‘Oh no, she
’s perfectly healthy, and normal. A charming child, only her mother isn’t... She never... I mean...’

  ‘Ah, you’re trying to say that she’s illegitimate, aren’t you? Well, we mustn’t condemn the child for that. It wasn’t her fault after all. And there is a war on.’ As if that excused this loss of morals. ‘Perhaps we can help the poor mother to repent of her immoral ways and be saved.’

  Charlotte put her hand to her mouth and dropped her gaze, as if she were shocked by such bluntness, though in truth she was striving to smother her laughter. The very idea of Kitty being ‘saved’ was an utter delight.

  Miss Bebe’s voice dropped to a confidential whisper. ‘Don’t tell Hetty though. Not yet. She is not quite so liberal minded as myself, do you see? I shall break it to her gently, later.’

  ‘Ah yes. I do see,’ Charlotte whispered back in the same tone, not seeing at all.

  ‘She tends to be a woman of opinions, which is why she never quite caught a man, if you catch my drift. I, of course, had any number of proposals all of which I refused because of my responsibility to Hetty. I couldn’t leave her alone, now could I?’

  ‘No, no. Of course not.’

  ‘Though I could still find a husband tomorrow, had I the inclination.’

  Charlotte agreed that she probably could and smiled for the first time quite genuinely, itching to say that husbands were really so very easy to find, one could even have two, if one wished. She decided there and then that this was the place for Dixie. These two eccentric old dears appeared ideal for a wayward, wilful child. Good, clean living folk who would provide proper bed times, simple, wholesome food and chapel every Sunday; otherwise Archie would be dragging her back home again in no time. ‘Would you like to meet her? May I bring Dixie on a visit?’

  Miss Bebe clapped her hands together in delight and as her sister set down the refilled tea pot, Miss Frost declared she’d been about to suggest the very same thing.

  ‘We are ever of one mind,’ Miss Bebe said, on a note of placid satisfaction.

  There then followed a short discussion on the practicalities of accommodation, costs incurred (which they assured her would be modest) and the Nanny who would naturally be employed by Archie to take care of the child. Charlotte was careful not to give any reason other than that of decent humanity for Archie to be paying for all of this. The two sisters appeared overwhelmed by this evidence of his benevolent generosity to a fellow actor, and spoke movingly of their own Christian endeavours during these dark days of war.

  ‘We have rolled goodness knows how many yards of bandages.’

  ‘And no one can knit balaclavas and mittens as quickly as dear Hetty,’ Miss Bebe informed Charlotte with pride. ‘We are happy to do what we can for our boys in France.’

  ‘There is just one small concern,’ Miss Frost cautiously pointed out. ‘We can’t be doing with a lot of mess about the place. Because of our guests, naturally. Or noise for that matter. I mean, the fact that she’s a girl is the only reason we’re prepared to consider the idea. A boy would be quite inappropriate, you understand.’

  ‘Yes, I do see that.’ Charlotte privately thought that the money might come in rather handy too, judging by the age of the wallpaper and the shabby furniture in the dark parlour, though judiciously refrained from comment. Instead she thanked the sisters for their goodness and charity though even she was beginning to be concerned about the costs involved. The total would amount to a fair sum each month, of which Kitty would contribute nothing. Money was becoming an increasing problem in these inflationary times. Charlotte thought she might be forced to reconsider her position and pay “Mother” another visit after all.

  ‘She is a good, quiet child, isn’t she?’

  ‘You’ll hardly know she’s there,’ Charlotte agreed.

  There was absolutely no danger of the Misses Frost ever forgetting that Dixie was in residence at Laburnham House. Her tantrums and screams whenever Nanny tried to coax her into doing something she didn’t care for, seemed to vibrate through the tall house with alarming frequency throughout the day. She point blank refused to sleep in the cot they provided, choosing instead a mahogany Empire bed, which had to be moved specially from another room.

  They soon abandoned the notion of allowing her to eat with the other guests in the dining room, as Dixie would toss lettuce leaves, which she loathed, over the sides of her high chair, or tip the pudding dish upside down upon her head. This always caused great amusement to the other diners but was not, in Miss Frost’s opinion, conducive to encouraging them to return.

  The child was once found seated quite comfortably in the coal house, crunching on lumps of coal. Her clean frock, impish face, even her little pink tongue and white teeth were caked in black dust.

  But there were rare moments when the child was an absolute delight. She loved to help Miss Bebe make gingerbread men or jam tarts. Or she would deck herself out in the sisters’ beads, and beam at them delightedly. Though even these apparently harmless pursuits could disintegrate into another tantrum if she wasn’t allowed to eat as many as she wished, or the beads taken from her before she was bored.

  And if she didn’t get her way, Dixie would lie on the kitchen floor and drum her heels while the two sisters would wring their hands and wonder what on earth they were doing wrong.

  Nanny, poor girl, seemed entirely out of her depth, constantly apologising for her small charge but quite unable to control her. Miss Frost would insist that the infant required more discipline, though even she could be melted by Dixie’s charms at bath time when her angelic baby face would glow pink with the heat and moisture. Dixie would sit contentedly pouring water from one bottle into another, humming little tunes to herself until the water had gone quite cold.

  ‘Perhaps she will be a chemist when she grows up,’ the sisters would speculate.

  ‘Or a doctor.’

  ‘Or she could become a fine cook for some country gentleman.’

  All speculation was brought to an end the day Miss Frost opened the lid of the piano to play her favourite ditties and Dixie pulled up a kitchen stool, climbed upon it and began to sing. From that moment on, they were her captives, for Dixie had the sweetest, truest voice you could ever hope to hear.

  Chapter Twenty

  The LTP’s travelled fifty miles or more every day, moving from one rest billet to the next. Kitty had attempted to persuade Captain Williams to allow them nearer to the Front, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Passing through the ruin of Arras proved to be dangerous enough, surrounded as they were by coils of barbed wire through which they must negotiate a safe passage. So many of the French towns were little more than skeletal ruins with no hope of ever being rebuilt; smashed houses, hollow-eyed women, children crying, the stink of gas and the sweet sickly odour of decay. And often on the outskirts would be a row of simple wooden crosses - a testament to the bravery of lost youth.

  The roads too were choc-a-bloc with ammunition trucks, supply carts and wagons laden with the detritus of war. Occasionally they would pass encampments seething with men and horses, and everywhere there were guns.

  Nevertheless Kitty was determined to reach as many of the battalions as they could so pushed them ever onward, despite the group’s increasing weariness, making their way parallel to the Front Line. She always found time to stop and talk to any company of men they met along the way, exchanging news, listening to their troubles, agreeing to see that letters would be safely dispatched back home to their loved ones.

  Captain Owen worried if the group on the road got too big, or dallied too long and would urge them to move on before they were noticed by the scouting planes. Sometimes Kitty would heed his fears, at others she’d have Reg unstrap the small piano, for all they were generally short of time, and go straight into an impromptu concert there and then on the muddy road beneath the trees, or even once in a shell crater. The soldiers loved it and would always go on their way singing, their hearts lifted.

  It was after one such performance as they stoo
d in the mud and rain helping to reload the camion, that Kitty ventured to ask the Captain the question which had been bothering her ever since Jacob had mentioned it. ‘Might I ask why you were chosen for this job? It can’t be much fun wet-nursing a troupe of actors.’

  He answered without hesitation. ‘Because I was the best man for the job.’

  Kitty gave a shout of laughter as she tossed a blanket into the back of the truck. The arrogance of the man was beyond belief. ‘And clearly the most modest,’ she mocked, aware that he was prevaricating. As ever, he avoided answering a direct question.

  ‘Maybe I have a fancy for the thespian life myself.’

  ‘You’d be happy to grace any stage, any tin hut or shell-hole in any part I cared to offer, is that the way of it?’ She wiped the rain from her face and pushed back her hair, eyebrows raised in disbelief. ‘So that you can fulfil your fantasies?’

  For a moment he made no reply but simply gazed solemnly down into her face. Kitty was tall, but this man topped her by inches. The collar of his great coat was turned up against the weather, his face blue with cold, deep lines of weariness carved into his cheeks at either side of his mouth. She had a sudden longing to put up her mittened hands to warm them. Then came a rare smile.

  ‘I trust you would never offer me a small part, Miss Little.’

  ‘Kitty Little if you don’t mind. Miss, makes me sound rather like a Sunday School teacher.’

  He laughed. ‘I fear your troupe is tired and in need of some new blood. Who knows, perhaps I could provide it.’

  Kitty felt her cheeks start to burn as she heard murmurs of assent from the others, who were standing around stamping their feet with cold and blatantly eavesdropping on this conversation. The implication that they weren’t up to the task in hand, irritated her enormously, and her response was tart. ‘We certainly lack young men. What acting troupe doesn’t these days?’