He said: "That is good.”
"Why good?”
"Because I am returning to my home near Exeter. Perhaps you are staying near my home.”
"Perhaps." She turned her head now. He saw her girl's profile and her woman's throat; there were already signs of a voluptuousness to come.
Where was she going? He wondered. Who was she? She might be a young gentlewoman. Was she a lady's maid? He tried to think of someone in his neighbourhood who might be requiring a lady's maid. The only person who, to his knowledge, had ever had one, was the squire's lady, and she had been dead two years. Mystery surrounded the young woman.
Was she innocent or sophisticated? A gentlewoman or a serving woman dressed in her mistress's clothes? And why was she travelling alone?
He had to find out, and here on Bagshot Heath was the place for boldness.
He said: "My uncle is a lawyer. I work with him.”
"You have no parents?”
He shook his head. His mother had died of the smallpox when he was five, he told her; his father, of he knew not what.
"My father?" she said, and wrinkled her nose very prettily.
"He died long ago. I never knew him. My mother?" Again her mouth trembled.
"She has just died ... of what I know not." She added: "I go to my Aunt Harriet, five miles out of Exeter.”
"Your Aunt Harriet!" he cried excitedly.
"Can it be Miss Harriet Ramsdale who is your aunt?”
"The very same.”
He was laughing, not with amusement but with pleasure, and his pleasure changed suddenly to concern. Harriet Ramsdale the aunt of this charming creature! It was impossible to believe. And she was going to live with her. He was delighted and dismayed.
"Her house," he said, 'is but a few miles from my uncle's. We shall meet, I hope.”
"It is good," she said demurely, 'to have found a neighbour already.”
"It delights me," he told her, leaning forward. This explained everything. Harriet Ramsdale would rather let her young niece face the dangers of lonely travel than spend the money to go and get her. He was filled with tenderness. Poor little girl! To live with Harriet Ramsdale!
She said eagerly: "If you know my aunt, you can tell me something of the life that is before me.”
He answered with a question: "Will you tell me your name?”
"Kitty Kennedy.”
"Mine is Darrell Grey.”
The golden lashes shone against her pale skin for a moment. It fascinated him to see the way she could play coquette and frightened child at the same time.
"I... I am glad we know each other." he said.
"Shall you call on my aunt?”
He smiled, thinking of calling on Harriet Ramsdale.
"We shall meet be sure of that!”
They fell silent, not because they had nothing to say, but because there was so much to say. and they did not know how to begin to say it.
The Heath lay behind them; the passengers had ceased to talk of the terrors of the road; they talked of inns, inns they had heard of and inns they had stayed at. And then they talked of war... and uneasy peace.
The sun was setting as they drew into the yard of the inn.
Kitty was too excited to sleep much that night. The depression of the last weeks had left her suddenly; life was not going to be so dreary after all. She had some idea of what life in Aunt Harriet's house was going to be like. Her mother gay, attractive, clever, beautiful, laughter-loving had told her about her sister. How she had imitated Aunt Harriet! Though, as she said: "Bless you. Kit, it's nigh on twenty years since I last saw her. But I can imagine what twenty years have done to Harry, poor soul!" And she would purse her lips and frown, and her face would cease to be her own, becoming that of another woman, a woman who had not been blessed with her own gay spirit.
"She was good, Harriet was; she was Father's daughter. I was all Mother's.”
Kitty knew the story of her mother's flight from the country parsonage; how the atmosphere of piety had stifled her. Morning prayers. Sermons.
No laughter. No singing. No acting. And Mother had loved to act.
How vividly she had talked! It was possible to have a picture of the grey stone Devon house with the creeper climbing over its walls and the tower of the church looming over it, its graveyard just at the end of the garden, frightening Mother when she was a little girl. Years and years ago that had been. Why, Mother had not seen the place for twenty years, and that took one back to 1763 when another war had just ended. Kitty could picture her growing up, no longer afraid of the grey tombstones, playing in the graveyard with Squire Haredon's son who was wild and reckless and haughty as Mother herself. She could picture the parsonage dining-room with its big windows and air of cleanliness and the family gathered there for morning prayers, the serving maids at one end of the table in sprigged muslin and mob-caps, and at the other end of the table Grandmother Ramsdale, very pretty and restless like a brightly plumaged bird in a cage, and Grandfather Ramsdale. stern and pious. Jeffry the eldest and Mother the youngest had both taken after Grandmother Ramsdale, but Harriet the middle one took after her father.
Kitty thought of Mother and her brother always in mischief, helped by the squire's boy to tease poor Harriet who had not their gay spirit and attractive charm. Grandfather Ramsdale was of the quality and it was in a mad moment that he had made a most unsuitable match with Grandmother Ramsdale who was the daughter of a blacksmith; she had plagued and tormented him until he, being pious, must marry her. Kitty had seen a miniature of Grandmother Ramsdale, had seen the exquisite little face with its crown of fair hair; had seen the wilful eyes and passionate mouth so like her own and her mother's, and it was not so difficult then to understand how even a man such as Grandfather Ramsdale had been plagued into marriage. Extraordinary marriage it must have been. She had been unable to endure that country parsonage, and as soon as her youngest was able to walk and button her own clothes, like a bird which has taught her young to fly she no longer felt any ties held her to her nest; she flew off with a young lord who was passing through Exeter and saw her and was plagued by her, just as the parson had been. She was never heard of again. So the children grew in an atmosphere of pious gloom. They were beaten mercilessly by Their father, for he feared his son and younger daughter had inherited their mother's bad blood. There was no fear in his heart for his favourite, Harriet. She was his daughter. And he was right to fear too, for at the age of eighteen Jeffry went to Oxford and in a year had run himself so deeply into debt that it meant several years of cheeseparing to extricate him; in his last year there he was killed in a tavern fight. And Bess, Kitty's mother, had grown to look just like the blacksmith's daughter, with the same fair colouring, the same laughing eyes, the same wanton mouth. A match had been arranged for her with George Haredon, but when a party of players came to Exeter there was among them one Peter Kennedy, and when the players left, Bess went with them.
She often told the story, lying back on her couch with her fair hair flowing about her shoulders and her rich wrap falling open to disclose her over-luscious charms.
"Poor Peter! How I adored him, swaggering on the stage with his red cloak and his moustaches! But, Kit any dear, I was just a country wench then; I soon saw what a mistake I had made. Besides, was I to spend my life with a company of strolling players! But before I could do anything about it you were on the way; I wasn't sorry- I have never been sorry for anything. And, once I'd set eyes on you, I had a soft spot for Peter Kennedy for evermore. Well, my dear, that's the secret of life never stop to look back and sigh; go on and find something better. That's what I did. There was Toby after Peter, and after Toby my Lord James. It has been a good life and we've enjoyed it, eh?”
They had enjoyed it. There was always plenty to eat, good clothes to wear. No beggary for them. And Bess grew plumper and more luscious with the years, and Sir Harry took the place of Lord James, and it went on like that. A pleasant little house, a serving maid or two, and many fine gentlemen who always had a friendly pat for Bess's little girl.