Richard Blackmore - Kit and Kitty - A Story of West Middlesex

“You don’t seem at all astonished, Kit;” my uncle went on with some disappointment at losing his sensation. “You young folk have so little sense, that you make it a point of honour never to be surprised by anything. If anybody had told me, without my knowing it already, that a man of great intellect, like Professor Fairthorn, would make such a fool of himself, and then submit to have no life of his own, I should have said it was a crazy lie. But there is the truth, my boy, not to be got over; and far worse than at first sight appears. A man who robs himself may be forgiven; but not a man who robs his children. It is the difference between suicide and murder.

“Very likely, you are surprised that I, who have not a sixpence at stake, and not even a friend involved in the matter, should get so hot about it, as I can’t help being. There are plenty of viragoes in the world; there are plenty of good men who cower before them, for the sake of their own coward peace; also there are robberies in abundance, of children who cannot defend themselves, and of people who can – so far as that goes. And ninety-nine men in a hundred would say – ‘Well, this is no concern of mine. It is a very sad and shameful thing, but it does not touch my bread and cheese. Great is truth, and it will prevail; and I hope I may live to see it.’ But, Kit, my boy, the worst wrong of all was mine. A deadlier wrong has been done to me, than of money or lands, or household peace. My life has been wrecked by that devil of a woman, as if it were a toy-boat she sunk with her slipper. I did not mean to tell you – an old man cannot bear to talk of such things to young people. Is your whole heart set upon your Kitty?”

I had never seen my uncle so disturbed before; and, to tell the plain truth, I was frightened by it. Sometimes I had seen him in a little passion, when he found a man he trusted robbing him, or the dealers cheated him beyond the right margin, or some favourite plant was kicked over; but he never lost his power then of ending with a smile, and a little turn of words would change his temper. But this was no question of temper now. His solid face was hardened, as if cast in stone; not a feature of it moved, but his grey curls trembled in the draught, and his hand upon the table quivered. I answered that my whole heart was set upon my Kitty, but I knew that I should never win her.

“If she is true to you, you shall. That is, if you behave as a man should do;” he spoke very slowly, and with a low voice, almost as if talking to himself; “if you are wise enough to let no lies, or doubts, or false pride come between you. There is no power but the will of God, that can keep asunder a man and woman who have given their lives to each other. All the craft, and falsehood, and violence of the world melt away like a mist, if they stand firm and faithful, and abide their time. But it must hold good on both sides alike. Both must disdain every word that comes from lying lips, from the lips of all, whether true or false, except one another. Remember, that is the rule, my lad, if rogues and scoundrels, male or female, come between you and the one you love. It has been a black streak in my life. It has kept me lonely in the world. Sometimes it seems to knock me over still. I have not spoken of it for years; and I cannot speak of it even now any more – not any more.”

He rose from his chair, and went about the room, as if it were his life, in which he was searching for something he should never find. To turn his thoughts, and relieve my own, I took a clean pipe and filled it; and began to puff as if I liked it, although in those days I seldom smoked. This had been always a reproach against me; for a smoker seems to love a contribution to his cloud.

“Well done, Kit, you are a sensible fellow;” said my uncle, returning to his usual mood. “Tobacco is the true counterblast to care. You take up your pipe, and I will take up my parable, without going into my own affairs. I never told you how that confounded woman – the Lord forgive me if I bear malice, for I trust that He shares it with me – how she contrived to hook the poor Professor, and, what is still worse, every farthing of his money.

“Not that I believe, to give the devil his due, that she sought him first for the sake of his money. He had not very much of that – for it seldom goes with brains that stamp their own coinage – but through his first wife, a beautiful and loving woman, he owned a nice house with large premises, in a rich part of London, or rather of the outskirts, where values were doubling every year, as the builders began to rage round it. Also he had about five thousand pounds of hers, which was not under settlement, and perhaps about the same amount of his own, not made by himself (for he had no gift of saving) but coming from his own family. Altogether he was worth about twenty thousand pounds; which he justly intended for his only child.

“This was pretty handsome, as you would say, and he took care not to imperil it, by any of his patents, or other wasteful ways. He had been for many years in the Royal Navy, and commanded at one time a new-fangled ship, with iron sheathings, or whatever they are called, which are now superseding the old man-of-war. Here he had seemed to be in his proper element, for he knew the machinery and all that, as well as the makers did, and much better than any of the engineers on board; and he might have been promoted to almost anything, except for his easy-going nature. He had not the sternness, and strength of will, which were needful in his position; and though everybody loved and respected him, the discipline of the ship in minor matters fell abroad, and he was superseded.

“This cut him to the quick, as you may suppose; for he still was brooding over the loss of his first dear wife, which had befallen him, while he was away on some experimental cruise. Between the two blows, he was terribly out of heart, and came back to his lonely London house, in the state of mind, which is apt to lay a man at the mercy of a crafty and designing woman. Unhappily he was introduced just then to Mrs. Bulwrag; and she fell in love with him, I do believe, as far as she was capable of doing it. Though she might have flown, and had been flying at higher game in a certain sense, she abandoned all others, and set the whole strength of her will, which was great, upon conquering him. She displayed the most tender and motherly interest in his little darling daughter; she was breathless with delight at his vast scientific attainments, and noble discoveries; she became the one woman in all the world, who could enter into his mind, and second his lofty ideas for the grandeur of humanity. Unluckily they were so far apart in their natures, that no collision yet ensued, which might have laid bare her true character, and enforced the warnings of his many friends. Not to make too long a story of it, she led him to the matrimonial altar – as the papers call it – without any solicitor for his best man, but a very sharp one behind her. With the carelessness of a man of genius, added to his own noble faith in woman, he had signed a marriage settlement, which gave her not only a life-interest in all his property, but a separate power of disposal by assignment, which might be exercised at any time. And the trustees were old allies of hers, who were not beyond suspicion of having been something even more than that.

“However, she loved her dear Professor – as she insisted on calling him – for a certain time, with the fervour of youth, though she must have been going on for forty, and she led him about in high triumph, and your Kitty was sent to a poor boarding-school. ‘The Honourable Mrs. Bulwrag-Fairthorn,’ as, in defiance of custom, she engraved herself, became quite the fashion among a certain lot, and aspired to climb yet higher. For if she has a weakness, it is to be among great people, and in high society. She changed the name of the poor Professor’s house at South Kensington to ‘Bulwrag Park,’ she thought nothing of paying thirty pounds for a dress, and she gave large parties all the night long. Meanwhile he went about his work, and she took possession of every halfpenny he earned, and spent it on herself and her children. Her boy and two girls were pampered and indulged, while Kitty was starved and threadbare.