Kitty (6 page)

The younger wedding guests, their spirits restored, followed them, laughing and chattering, out to the carriage. The sun shone bravely while Kitty made her way shyly to the carriage through a rainstorm of rice and rose petals.

As Lord Chesworth took his place beside her, a group of young people led by a freckled-faced, tomboyish girl placed a large box tied up with ribbon on her lap. “It’s from us—your new friends. You must open it
now.
”

“Don’t,” said Peter Chesworth, laconically.

Kitty looked down at the circle of laughing faces and smiled shyly. She remembered Lady Henley’s defense of her mother. They were not so bad after all.

She untied the pretty ribbons on the parcel, opened it—and screamed. A huge jack-in-the-box leapt out and hung wobbling in front of her, its mocking clown’s face dancing before her tear-filled eyes.

“Drive on,” snapped the Baron, and then turned to Kitty and held out his handkerchief. “You mustn’t take everything so seriously. If you’re ever going to feel comfortable in society, you must learn to take a joke.”

In silence they entered the house in Green Street. Kitty was introduced to the staff who were lined up in the hall. The butler, a fat white man called Checkers, who seemed to have a perpetual cold, made a speech of welcome. Then the happy pair retired to the drawing room and surveyed each other in silence.

“Well, here we are,” said Lord Chesworth crossing over to the looking glass and straightening his stock.

“Yes,” whispered Kitty, wishing he would take her in his arms.

He turned around and looked at her with some irritation. “I’ll stay here and have a drink. Why don’t you go and see your rooms.”

Kitty nodded and went up the stairs, noticing that the house seemed to be very dark. Burne-Jones stained-glass windows filtered the gloomy light down into the hall. Colette was waiting in the bedroom, unpacking the trunks.

She looked up as her mistress came in. “Well, you don’t look much like a new bride,” she commented.

Kitty felt this was an unpardonable piece of insolence, but had no spirit left to reply. She dismissed the maid and stretched out on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and wondering what the night would bring. At last she got to her feet and began to arrange her books on the shelves and a few of her photographs. She unwrapped her precious picture and looked around for a place to hang it. A heavy oil painting, depicting a group of damp, highland cattle looming through mist, hung on the wall facing the end of the bed. Kitty lifted it down and put it on the floor. She hung her painting carefully in its place. At least her new husband would see that she had some artistic taste.

Without ringing for Colette, she changed her dress and descended the stairs to look for her lord.

The house was empty and appeared deserted. A barrel organ was playing at the end of the street and the tinny music seemed to dance through the heavy silence. Timidly, she rang the bell.

Checkers informed her that his lordship had “stepped out.” His watery eyes, sunken in wrinkled flesh, managed to convey that he considered this unsuitable behavior.

Kitty dismissed him and sat on the window seat, staring out into the twilight and longing for the courage to walk away from the house herself. Gradually her eyelids drooped and she fell asleep as the dusk gathered in the corners of the room.

She was awakened three hours later by the sound of the front door slamming and her husband’s voice. “That’s all right, Checkers. I shall be needing nothing further this evening.” Then the door of the drawing room opened and he walked in.

His silk hat was placed at a rakish angle over his black curls and his eyes held a hectic gleam. He bent and kissed her full on the mouth. He smelled strongly of brandy.

“Why don’t you run along and get ready for bed, my dear,” said her new husband. “And I’ll join you shortly.”

Kitty looked at him with troubled eyes and then bent her head and left the room. What was she expected to do? If only she had had the courage to ask somebody.

Trailing her lace shawl behind her, she walked slowly upstairs to her bedroom. Was she to go to her bedroom or his? Well, he was in charge now and would surely let her know.

Colette had laid out a filmy nightdress on the bed. Kitty looked at it doubtfully and decided to wear one of her old flannel ones to give herself a feeling of comfort and protection. She slipped it on, buttoned it high at the throat, and climbed into bed where she sat upright, staring at the door.

After a few minutes it opened and her husband swaggered in. Kitty shrank back against the pillows and watched in dismay as he started to strip off his clothes in the full glare of the electric light. At last he stood naked, his slim, muscular body gleaming like polished marble. Kitty had not only never seen a naked man before, she hadn’t the slightest idea of what one would look like.

Unaware of her distress, and more than a little tipsy, Peter Chesworth put one knee on the bed and prepared to climb in. His eye caught sight of Kitty’s favorite picture on the wall and, with an exclamation, he went to take a closer look at it, standing with his hands on his hips, affording Kitty an excellent view of his naked back.

“Good God,” he said slowly. “How on earth did that get there?”

“It’s my favorite picture,” said Kitty, with a trace of pride in her voice, despite her fright. “I bought it all by myself.”

“So I should hope,” he said, turning around. “For heaven’s sake girl, didn’t Lady Henley cure you of this penchant for chocolate-box art?”

It was the final straw. Her only piece of home, her darling picture, had been scorned by this grinning, naked satyr. She sank into the pillows and let out a whimper of pain.

Lord Chesworth was furious. “Stop acting. You don’t think I’m going to go along with this little comedy, do you? I married you for your money. You married me for my title. And that’s it. So stop squirming away there and let’s make the best of the bargain.”

Kitty couldn’t believe her ears. “But you married me for love,” she almost screamed, raising a tear-stained face from the pillow.

“Love?” said the Baron. “Oh, yes. I said all that when I asked you to marry me because your mama pointed out that you wanted gilt on your gingerbread. Love? There’s about as much love in this game as there ever was in one of your late lamented father’s, business transactions.”

Kitty began to cry in earnest, great, dry, racking sobs. The Baron was unmoved. He started putting on his clothes at full speed.

“Your type never could take honesty.” He turned in the doorway. “Why, you’re nothing but a spoiled brat.”

He marched off down the stairs and, a minute later, Kitty heard the street door slam. She cried until she could cry no more. It could not be true. He must have been drinking. She would ask her mother in the morning. With that, she fell into exhausted sleep, like a very young child.

Lord Chesworth had indeed been drinking and was in a black rage which was, from time to time, fanned by the unpleasant feeling that he had behaved like a cad. Well, he knew where to go for consolation. Shortly afterwards, he was ushered into Mrs. Jackson’s bedroom and, without so much as a word, began taking off his clothes again.

Mrs. Jackson watched him triumphantly from her high, cane-backed bed. “On your wedding night, Peter? Is your little bride aware of what she is missing?”

He slid under the covers and held her close, his head beginning to reel with the effects of all he had drunk. “Miss Kitty expects love along with my title. Love! I swear to you, Veronica, if she were dead I would take her money and marry you without one pang of remorse.” With that, he fell into a drunken stupor leaving his mistress to mull over his words, holding his head against her breast, and looking off into the distance with hard, calculating eyes. Then, she too, fell asleep.

Dawn blazed up over London and the early sun hung in the hot and already humid air. A blackbird sat on a tree outside Mrs. Jackson’s bedroom window and poured his liquid song out over the dusty city streets. The Baron mumbled “Kitty,” and groaned and turned over. He took one horrified look at Veronica Jackson’s beautiful sleeping face and swung his legs over the edge of the bed and buried his feverish forehead in his hands.

Yesterday came back to him through a gray fog of memory, interspersed with bright flashes of total recall—Mrs. Harrison’s angry face at the wedding, the jack-in-the-box, Kitty cowering and sobbing on the bed.

He groaned again, but softly this time, so as not to wake his sleeping partner. He must find out the truth. If Kitty really believed him to be in love with her, then he owed her a humble apology. But she must have been acting. She must.

He suddenly decided to go round to Park Lane and find out. He could not face Kitty again until he knew the truth.

With distaste, he climbed into the soiled clothes of the night before and decided to go to his club for a shave. He slipped from the room while Veronica slept on.

God, what a hangover! He winced in the brassy light and started to walk toward St. James’s. Everything seemed unreal and still; a painful world filled with eye-hurting color. A bunch of roses in a crystal glass on someone’s window ledge made him blink, and a line of scarlet geraniums seemed to positively swear at him from someone else’s window box. He felt unreal and detached. A great black cloud of guilt hung somewhere on the horizon of his mind. A crossing sweeper tipped his cap and grinned at the gentleman in his wedding clothes, showing all of his large, white teeth. To the Baron, his smile seemed to hang in the air, disembodied, like the Cheshire cat’s grin. London was slowly coming to life. A cabby swerved to avoid him and swore loudly.

After being barbered at his club and having changed into a suit of clothes which he kept there for emergencies, he downed a large glass of brandy and port mixed together, prescribed by the steward, and felt better. Of course the girl had been acting! All the same, it would do no harm just to make absolutely sure. Tipping his hat jauntily to the side of his head and carrying his cane under his arm, he made his way toward Park Lane.

Mrs. Harrison and Lady Henley were in the morning room playing backgammon and looked up in surprise as he was announced. “Kitty!” gasped Mrs. Harrison. “Is she all right?”

The Baron drew a chair up to the backgammon table and sat down. “That is what I mean to find out. Does your daughter think that she is in love with me, ma’am, and does she also think that I am in love with her?”

“But—of course,” Mrs. Harrison faltered. “Don’t you remember our agreement?”

Peter took a deep breath. “I am asking you if Kitty has any idea that I have been bought?”

Mrs. Harrison flushed an ugly color and for once was speechless.

Lady Henley slowly masticated a macaroon. “She didn’t know the first thing about it, Peter. I thought with all your experience with women you would know how to handle a gentle filly like that.”

Peter Chesworth regarded both women with horror. The enormity of his behavior rushed into his mind and he nearly writhed with misery.

“How could you do that to the girl?” he said icily. “You are nothing better than a couple of Covent Garden madames.”

Mrs. Harrison hung her head, but Lady Henley eyed him coldly. “There’s a pretty nasty name applies to you. You ain’t nothing but a sort of gigolo yourself.”

Lord Peter Chesworth got to his feet and looked at Lady Henley with icy hauteur. “How dare you. I…” Then a slow grin crossed his face. “Lady Henley, you have just put a backgammon counter into your mouth.”

Lady Henley looked unconcerned. “Wondered why these macaroons were so hard.” She calmly took it from her mouth, placed it on the board, and lifted the macaroon she had been mistakenly using as a counter and popped it in her mouth.

“Sit down again, Peter,” she said. “We’ve all been carried away and have made a mess of things. What are we going to do?”

Lord Chesworth sighed heavily. “At the moment, all I suggest is that I take her to Reamington Hall today as planned and begin to treat her like the innocent young girl she is.”

“That’s it,” said Lady Henley. “Give her a bit of fun too. I don’t think she’s had much so far.”

Mrs. Harrison blushed guiltily. “There, there, Euphemia,” said Lady Henley with surprising kindness. “You can’t go on blaming yourself. We’ll just need to sort things out the way we can.”

Mrs. Harrison was the first person to arouse anything approaching warmth in Lady Henley’s fatty heart. Mrs. Harrison had fed her well, deferred to her and paid her debts. No one had ever done as much before. A strong bond of loyalty and friendship had sprung up between the unlikely pair.

With a heavy heart, Peter Chesworth returned to his new town house and entered his wife’s bedroom on tiptoe, feeling like a criminal.

She lay with her long dark hair fanned out on the pillow. Her cheeks were smudged with tears and she slept heavily like a tired child. He was just about to leave when she opened her eyes wide and stared at him like a cornered animal.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hand in his. “Kitty. I owe you an apology for last night. I was very drunk and did not mean a word I said. Can you forgive me?”

Kitty looked at him doubtfully, in silence.

He went on. “Well go to Reamington today. You’ll like that, won’t you? Well pay calls on all the neighbors and—and—you can have a pony of your own.”

Kitty brightened with excitement. “I would love that, my Lor—I mean, Peter.”

“That’s my girl,” He leaned forward and gave her a brotherly kiss on the cheek, trying not to notice when she flinched.

“Now get dressed, my dear. I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

After he had left, Kitty flew around the room looking for her prettiest dress. The world had miraculously righted itself. She was about to pack her trunks when she remembered that that was the duty of her maid. Perhaps she might even begin to like Colette.

When they were seated in the railway carriage, the Baron handed Kitty a parcel. “I bought you something to read on the train,” he said and, as she unwrapped it, he went on. “It’s a book about all the sorts of birds and animals you’ll find around Reamington.”