It was a terribly hard and dreary life she led at first--no friends, very little money, and a child to support. The future looked black enough before her; but she determined to succeed, and Fortune at length favoured her.
She was playing a minor part in a Christmas burlesque, when the lady who acted the principal character suddenly fell ill, and Kitty had to take her place at a very short notice. She, however, acquitted herself so well that, with one bound, she became a popular favourite, and the star still continuing ill for the rest of the run of the piece, she was able to consolidate the favourable impression she had made. She awoke to find herself famous, and played part after part in burlesque and modern comedy, always with great success. In a word, she became the fashion, and found herself both rich and famous.
Ted Mortimer, the manager of the Bon-Bon Theatre, persuaded her to try opera-bouffe, and she made her first appearance in the Grand Duchess with complete success. She followed up her triumph by playing the title rôles in Giroflé Girofla, La Perichole, and Boccaccio, scoring brilliantly each time; and now she had created the part of Prince Carnival, which proved to be her greatest success. Night after night the Bon-Bon was crowded, and the opera had a long and successful run, while Kitty, now at the height of her fame, set herself to work to accomplish her revenge on the world.
She hated women for the way they had scorned her, and she detested men for the free and easy manner in which they approached her; so she made up her mind to ruin all she could, and succeeded admirably. One after another, not only the gilded youth of Melbourne, but staid, sober men became entangled in her meshes, and many a man lived to curse the hour he first met Kitty Marchurst.
Her house at Toorak was furnished like a palace, and her dresses, jewels, horses, and extravagances formed a fruitful topic of conversation in clubs and drawing-rooms. She flung away thousands of pounds in the most reckless manner, and as soon as she had ruined one man, took up with another, and turned her back on the poor one with a cynical sneer. Her greatest delight was to take away other women's husbands, and many happy homes had she broken up by her wiles and fascinations. Consequently, she was hated and feared by all the women in Melbourne, and was wrathfully denounced as a base adventuress, without one redeeming feature. They were wrong: she loved her child.
Kitty simply idolised Meg, and was always in terror lest she should lose her. Consequently, when she heard how Keith had rescued her child from a terrible death, her gratitude knew no bounds. She heard of the young man's ambitions from Ezra, and determined to help him as far as it lay in her power. Thus, for the first time for many years, her conduct was actuated by a kindly feeling.
The drawing-room in Kitty's house at Toorak was a large, lofty apartment, furnished in a most luxurious style. Rich carpets, low lounging chairs, innumerable rugs and heavy velvet curtains. A magnificent grand piano, great masses of tropical foliage in fantastically-coloured jars, priceless cabinets of china, and costly, well-selected pictures. One of her lovers, a rich squatter, had furnished it for her. When he had lost all his money, and found her cold and cruel, he went off to the wilds of South America to try and forget her.
There were three French windows at the end of the room, which led out on to a broad verandah, and beyond was the lawn, girdled by laurels. Kitty sat at a writing-desk reading letters, and the morning sun shining through the window made a halo round her golden head. No one who saw her beautiful, childish face, and sad blue eyes, would have dreamed how cruel and relentless a soul lay beneath that fair exterior.
At her feet sat Meg, dressed in a sage-green frock, with her auburn curls falling over her face, playing with a box of bricks, and every now and then her mother would steal an affectionate glance at her.
Curiously enough, Kitty was reading a letter from the very man who had given her the house, and who was now dying in a pauper hospital in San Francisco.