“Don’t put it so, papa. That is not half the truth. Say that you never have been allowed, never are, and never will be, to have so much as a barleycorn of your own way.”
“Young people put things in too strong a light,” the man of science answered gently. “But we will not go into that question now. Only you will see, my dear, from what I have said, why I am so anxious that you should be settled in a happy and peaceful home of your own, far away from all those who worry you. This gentleman offers you a wealthy home; but knowing your nature, I do not insist on that. Indeed I should be quite satisfied with a very humble home for my darling, if it were a happy one.”
“Very well, papa, nothing could be nicer. I can please you now exactly, and meet all your wishes, though I cannot bear to hear of your leaving me so long. But you will not leave me to the tender mercies” – here my Kitty beckoned to me to come forward, which I had long been most eager to do, but in obedience to her signals, had remained by the door and behind a tall case of some wheel within wheel-work, almost as complex as human motives – “father, you see that you need not leave me to the tender mercies of anybody, except this gentleman, who saved my life at Sunbury, as you know, and wishes to make it a part of his own, for the rest of it.”
Captain Fairthorn looked at me with extreme surprise; my idea of his character was that nothing upon or below the earth could surprise him. But he had his glasses on; and these always seem to me to treble the marks of astonishment in the eyes that stand behind them. In deference to his large intellect, and fame, and great (though inactive) nobility of nature, I waited for him to begin, though I am sure – now I come to think of it – that he would have been glad for me to take the move.
“Kitty,” he said at last, with some relief at not having to fall upon me yet, “I should like to know a little more of this story. I remember this young man very well. But his name has escaped me for the moment. He will not think me rude. It is one of the many penalties we pay for undue devotion to our own little subjects. If he had been a zoophyte, or a proboscidian, or even one of the constituents – ”
“If he had been a zoophyte, papa, or anything else with a very big name, and a very little meaning,” Miss Fairthorn exclaimed in reproachful tones, “where should I be now? At the bottom of the Thames. And perhaps you would enjoy dredging for me.”
“In spite of all training, she has a temper;” the father addressed this remark to me. “Also she has a deep sense of gratitude – a feeling we find the more largely developed, the further we travel from the human order. But, my dear, you allow yourself vague discursions. In a matter like this you have brought before me, my desire is always to be practical. That great and original investigator, to whom we owe not only knowledge, but what is even more important, the only true course, by which to arrive – ”
“My dear father, if you once begin on that – the knowledge we want, and a quick course to it, is whether you will be so good and so kind, as to make us both happy by your consent. This gentleman loves me; and I love him. He is not wealthy; but he is good. You may leave me in his care, without a doubt. I have not known him long; but I know him as truly as if we had been brought up together. The only fault he has is that he cannot praise himself. And his reverence for you is so strong and deep, that it makes him more diffident than ever. You are dreadfully diffident yourself, papa, you know you are; and that makes me so despise all boastful people. Now fully understand that I won’t have that horrible old Sir Cumbrous Hotchpot, and I will have this Kit Orchardson; that is to say, with your leave, father. And you owe me something, I should think, after all – but I have no right to speak of that. Only, if you don’t give it, mind, I’ll – I’ll – ” As a sample of what she would do, she began to sob deeply; and I caught her in my arms.
“You see, sir,” I said – “oh, don’t, my darling; your father is the kindest man in the world, and he will never have the heart to make you unhappy – you see, sir, how good she is, and how simple, and ready to be satisfied even with me. I am a poor man, and I have my way to make; but with her I could make it to – to – ” I was going to say “heaven,” but substituted, “the top of the tree. And we have a pretty place, where she would be happy as the day is long. And if I don’t protect her, and cherish her, and worship her, and keep her as the apple of my eye, I hope you will take me by the neck, Captain Fairthorn, and put me under this air-pump.”
“How do you know that is an air-pump?” he asked, with admiration of my cleverness.
“By the look, sir,” I replied; “I have seen them before.”
“Well, then, it isn’t; neither does it much resemble one. Kitty, you see what his diffidence is; and another proof, I suppose, is, that he has fallen in love with you?”
“Yes,” said my darling, with a smile so humble, and loving, and confiding, that my eyes grew moist, and her father could not see through his spectacles; “it is a sure proof of his diffidence; for he deserves to have a better wife than I shall ever be; although I will do my best to please him.”
“Well, after that,” replied Captain Fairthorn, “it seems to me, that my opinion matters very little. You appear to have made up your minds; and your minds appear to have been made for one another. I am wholly unable to withstand such facts. Of course I shall make my inquiries, Master Kit. But so far as I can see at present, I will not deny you what you have won. If she is half as good to her husband as she always has been to her father, you will be a happy man, God willing. There kiss me, my pretty dear, and don’t cry any more, till he makes you.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
FALSE MOTHER
Such is the balance of human events – if the phrase be held admissible – that the moment any member of our race is likely to strike the stars with his head sublime, he receives a hard thump upon that protuberance, and comes down with a crown – but a cracked one. As for myself – an unpretentious fellow, and of very simple intellect, though not quite such a fool as the world considered me in my later troubles, – desiring always to tell the truth, I will not deny that I walked on air, when I found myself gifted with my Kitty’s love, and her large-hearted father’s assent to it. It had been arranged that I must wait, and keep my bliss inside my waistcoat, until such time as slower prudence and clearer foresight might prescribe. But all I thought of were the glorious facts that Kitty loved me as I loved her, and that her father, who alone could enter sound denial, would not deny. “What do I care for that old stepmother?” I said to myself, as I buttoned my coat.
That coat was henceforth sacred to me. There may have been smarter and grander coats, coats with more tone of high art about them, and of sleeker and richer substance. But this coat was enriched for ever with at least three tears from Kitty’s eyes, Kitty’s lovely hair had fallen like a vernal shower upon it, and her true heart had quivered to it, when she owned whose heart it was. I knew that it might be my duty now to start a new coat of loftier order, to keep me abreast of my rise in the world, as the son of a celebrated man; nevertheless this would be the coat to look back upon and look up to, as it hung upon a holy peg, with the pockets full of lavender.
I had said farewell to my dear love, and was just beginning to think how I would come it over Uncle Corny, telling him a bit, and then another bit, and leading him on to laugh at me, until I should come out with news which would make him snap his favourite pipe – when suddenly, near the Captain’s gate, I felt a sharp tug from behind. The dusk was gathering, and I meant to put my best