"I mean that you believe in me sufficiently to think that any step I should take, any question I should ask, would not be out of mere idle curiosity; but because I thought they would be beneficial to you?"
She nodded her head, and stretched her hand towards the decanter; but seeing Simnel frown, she stopped short, took up the whip which lay close by, and commenced flicking the flowers again.
"I want to ask you about your people,"--the girl started;--"who they are; where you came from; what you know of them."
"You know all that fast enough,--from Yorkshire,--you've heard me say before. What more's wanted to be known? I pay my way, don't I, and who does more? I'm not required to show my christening certificate to every one that wants a horse broke, I suppose?"
"What a fiery child it is!" said Simnel. "No one has a right to ask any thing at all about it,--I least of all; but I think,--and I am not sanguine, you know--that I shall be able, if you will confide in me, to help you very greatly in the most earnest wish of your life."
"Stop!" exclaimed Kate; "do you know what that is?"
"I think I do," said Simnel, looking at her kindling eyes, quivering nostril, and twitching lips.
"If not, I'll tell you; I don't mind telling you: revenge on Charles Beresford! revenge! revenge!" and at each repetition of the word she slashed savagely at the tall flowers near her.
"Well, I think I might say I could help you in that," said Simnel quietly; "but you must be frank. You know I'm a man of the world; and I've made it my business to go a little into this question. So now tell me your life, from the first that you can remember of it."
"You're a cool hand, Simnel but I know you mean running straight, so I don't mind. First thing of all I can recollect is being held out at arm's length by Phil Fox, as the child in his great trick-act of Rolla, or the something of Peru. The circus belonged to old Fox, Phil's father; and I used to live with the Foxes,--the old man and woman and Bella Fox, and Phil and his wife. Bad lot she was: had been a splendid rider, but fell and broke her leg; and was always vicious and snappish, and that irritating, I wonder Phil could put up with her. They were very kind to me, the Foxes, and I was quite like their own child; and I played fairies, and flower-girls, and columbines, and such like, all on horseback, in all the towns we went circuit. I used to ask the old man sometimes about myself; but he never would say more than that I was his little apprentice, and I should find it all right some day. And so I went on with them till I grew quite a big girl, and used to do the barebacked-steed business, and what I liked better, the riding-habit and the highly-trained charger dodge, until old Fox declared there was no better rider in England than me. I was just nineteen, when he sent for me one night,--it was at Warwick, I recollect, and we'd had a stunning house,--and I found him with two gentlemen standing with him. He pointed to one of them, and he said to me: 'Express'--that's the name he used to call me,--'Express, this is the gentleman that bound you 'prentice to me ever so many years ago. He's come to take you away now, and make your fortune.' I cried, and said I didn't want my fortune made, and that I wouldn't go; but after a long talk full of business, I saw it would be for my good, and I agreed. So this place was bought for me in my name, and here I've been ever since."