Chapter 6 A Bunch of Cherries by L. T. Meade
KITTY AND HER FATHER
Meanwhile the Major and Kitty went away by themselves. As soon as Kitty had hugged her father, one close, passionate, voiceless hug, she released him, stepped back a pace, looked him in the face, and then said eagerly, "Come away quickly, father; there is a meadow at the back of the cherry orchard which we can have quite to ourselves. Come at once. Did Mrs. Clavering send you out here? How good of her to let me see you alone!"
"She does not even know that I have come, Kitty," replied her father. "I met a girl—I don't know what her name is—just as I reached the porch, and she took me to you. I cannot stay very long, my love, as I must get back to Chatham to-night."
"All right," said Kitty; "let us make for the meadow; there is a big oak-tree and we can sit under it and no one need see us. We must be alone all, all during the time that you are here."
The Major said nothing. Kitty linked her hand through his arm. She was feeling wildly excited—her father and she were together. It might be an hour, or it might be two hours, that they were to spend together, but the time was only beginning now. They were together, and she felt all the warm glow of love, all the ecstasy of perfect happiness in their reunion.
They reached the oak-tree in the meadow, the Major sat down, and Kitty threw herself by his side.
"Well, Kitty," he said, "what is this that I hear? I read your letter; it is quite a wonderful letter, little girl. It was the sort of letter a brave girl would write."
"The sort of letter a girl would write whose father was a hero before Sebastopol," said Kitty.
"What has put that in you head, my darling?"
"Sir John Wallis spoke of it. Oh, father dear, won't you go and see Sir John Wallis—he is so nice and so kind? You were both heroes before Sebastopol, were you not, father dearest, you and he?"
"We were in the trenches and we suffered a good bit," said the Major, a grim smile on his face, "but those are bygone times, Kitty."
"All the same they are times that can never be forgotten while English history lasts," said Kitty with a proud sparkle in her eyes.
"Well, no, little girl, I don't suppose England will ever forget the men who fought for her," replied the Major; "but we won't waste time talking on these matters now, my child; we have much else to say."
"What, father?"
"Well, your letter for instance; and you greatly dislike going to stay with Helen Dartmoor?"
Kitty's face turned pale; she had been rosy up to now. The roses faded out of her cheeks, then her lips turned white, and the brightness left her eyes.
"I should hate it," she said; "there are no other words."
"And you think there is just an off chance that you may win this wonderful Scholarship?"
"I mean to have the biggest try a girl ever had, and you know your Kitty," replied the girl.
"Yes, I know my brave, brave Kitty, the girl who has clung to her father through thick and thin, who has always tried to please him, who has a spirit of her own."
"Which I inherit from you," said Kitty. "Oh, I have lots of faults; I can be so cheeky when I like, and so naughty about rules, but somehow nothing, nothing ever frightens me, except the thought of going to Helen Dartmoor. You see, father, dear, it would be so hopeless. You cannot take the hope out of anybody's life and expect the person to do well, can you, father? Do speak, father—can you?"
"No, my child, I know that, but even if you have to go to her, Kitty, remember that I am working very hard for you—that as soon as possible I will make a home for you, and you shall come to me."
"How long will you be in India, father?"
"I do not know, my child. The appointment which I have just received under Government I can, I believe, retain as long as I please. My idea is, darling, to do very good service for our Government, and to induce them to send me into a healthy place."
"But where are you going now?" said Kitty; "Is the place not healthy, is your life to be endangered?"
"No, I am too seasoned for that," replied the Major, in a very cheerful tone which, alas! he was far from feeling. "You need not be a scrap anxious, my love," he added; "the place would not suit a young thing like you, but a seasoned old subject like myself is safe enough. Never you fear, Kitty mine."
"But go on, father; you have more to say, haven't you?"
"Yes, Kitty, I have more to say and the time is very brief. If you win the Scholarship, well and good. You will be well educated, and my mind will be relieved of an untold load of care. But, of course, darling, there is a possibility of your failing, for the Scholarship is an open one, and there are other girls in the school, perhaps as clever, as determined, as full of zeal as you, my Kitty."
"I am afraid, father, dear, there are other girls much cleverer than your Kitty, who know a vast lot more, and who are very full of zeal. But," added the young girl, and now she clasped her hands and sprang to her feet, "there is no one who has the motive I have, and this will carry me through. I mean first of all to come out one of the lucky three—that's certain."
"When is the preliminary examination to take place, Kitty?"
"On the day of the Cherry Feast," replied Kitty.
"Well, dear, I have been thinking matters over. If you fail you fail, but I am determined to give you this chance. I shall see Mrs. Clavering before I leave and arrange that you are to stay with her until October; then if you win the Scholarship your future is arranged; you take your three years' education, and then by hook or by crook, my darling, you come out to me to India, for by then, unless I am vastly mistaken, I shall have got into a hill station where it will be safe for you to stay with me."
"Oh, you darling, how heavenly it will be!" said Kitty. She clung close to her father, flung her arms round his neck, laid her head on his breast, and looked at him with eyes swimming in tears.
"Oh, I am not a bit unhappy, though I cry," she said, "it is only because I feel your goodness so much, for though I would have tried away with Helen Dartmoor I should not have had the chance I shall have here, for Mrs. Clavering is very good, and I know she wants me to get the prize, only she feels that I must compete fairly with the other girls."
"Of course, you must compete fairly with the other girls, Kitty," said her father; "if I thought there was any special favoritism in this, well—" His bronzed cheeks flushed, an indignant light fired his eyes.
"What, father?"
"I am a proud man, Kitty, and Helen Dartmoor is your cousin, and would keep you for the very small sum which it is in my power to offer her."
"Your pride shall not be hurt, father, darling. I will win the Scholarship honorably and in open fight."
"That is my own Kitty."
"I vow I'll win it," said the girl.
The Major smiled at her. "You must not be too sure," he said, "or you will be doubly disappointed if you fail. And now there is one thing more to be said, and then we can talk on other matters. If you do fail, my Kitty, you will go to Helen Dartmoor with a heart and a half."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that you will go to her and not allow hope to die out of your breast; you will go as a brave girl should, making the best of what seems an adverse circumstance. If you do this, Kitty, it will be severe discipline, but not too severe discipline for a soldier's daughter. Never forget that, my dear, and that, one way or other, at the end of the three years you come out to me."
"When I come out to you," said Kitty, "I want you to be proud of me. I want you to say, 'My girl is a lady, my girl knows things, she is not ignorant, she can deport herself well, and act well and she knows things.' But in any case, father, whether I am ignorant or whether I am not, I promise—yes, I promise—to make the best of circumstances."
"Then God bless you, child, you are your mother's own girl."
"And yours—yours," said Kitty, in a low tone of mingled pain and love.
"We will go back to the house, and I will see Mrs. Clavering, and afterwards I will ask her permission to let me take you up to see Sir John Wallis, for, strange as it may seem, I have lost sight of Wallis for quite fifteen years—such are the fortunes of war, my love. We were brothers, standing shoulder to shoulder during a momentous year of our lives, and since then Sir John retired from the service, and I have heard and seen nothing of him. It was almost immediately afterwards, I believe, that he came in for the great property and the title which he now possesses. But come, Kitty, we have not much time to lose."
Kitty never forgot the rest of that afternoon, for she and her father had so much to do, so many people to see, and so many things to arrange, that time flew on wings, and it was not until the last moment when the parting really came that she realized all it meant to her.
There was a hurried clasp in the strongest, bravest arms in all the world, a brief kiss on her cheek, a look in her father's eyes which was enough to stimulate the highest in any girl's heart, and then the parting was over.
The Major had left Cherry Court School, having given all possible directions for his little girl's comfort and well-being, and had gone away sorely broken down, crushed to the earth himself, but leaving Kitty with a courage which did not falter during the days which were to come. For the Major knew that, strong as he was, he was going to a part of India where brave men as strong as he are stricken down year after year by the unhealthy climate, and three years even at the best was a long time to part with a girl like Kitty, particularly when she was the only child he had, the light of his eyes, the darling of his heart.