Kitty Trenire

by Mabel Quiller-Couch

It was a relief to her to hear that the school she was to go to was no farther off than Plymouth, but beyond that she took no interest in it, for the school was of Mrs. Pike's selecting, and wicked Kitty detested it before she even knew anything about it, and made up her mind to go on detesting it, no matter what it turned out to be. To her it was simply a prison, and she could not and would not try to love her jailers. She felt, too, a conviction that her aunt would have told Miss Pidsley, the headmistress, all the story of the suspicion which had rested on her, and told it from her own point of view, of course.

There was one good outcome of the resentment Kitty bore her aunt for "getting her sent away," as she put it—it made her determine not to let Mrs. Pike see how much she felt it, and so helped her to bear up bravely. Helped her, that is, to bear up by day, but oh the nights! Oh, those long, miserable nights of heart-break and homesickness, when the pain was so intense as almost to drive her to appeal on her knees to Aunt Pike to let her stay at home, to promise abjectly to be and do all that she could wish. And there were those other terrible moments, too, when misery nearly drove her to tell the truth about Anna and Lettice.

Those were, perhaps, the hardest impulses of all to fight, for she knew that but to speak would mean, probably, that she would be considered fit to remain in her home, and Anna it would be who would be sent away.

All her life after Kitty was thankful that she had had the strength given her to resist this temptation, but it was a very real one at the time. There was to be no delay in sending her away. She was to go at the end of the Christmas holidays, and active preparations for her outfit began at once. To Betty this was most enthralling, and largely made up for the painful part, but Kitty took no interest in it whatever. Not even the fact of having a new Inverness and umbrella, and four new dresses all at once, not to speak of gloves, and hats, and shoes, and a number of other things, could rouse her to any sense of pleasure.

She was very sorry later, and wept many a bitter tear over the new blotter her father bought her, and the nice muff and boa he gave her. When it was too late, she could never see them without remembering the delight with which he unwrapped them and gave them to her, the expectant look in his kind eyes of the pleasure they would bring to her, and of her own coldness, her unsmilingness, the indifference with which she took them and laid them down with scarcely a glance, yet all the while her heart was breaking, breaking with her love for him and all he did for her. How could she care what she wore, or did, or used, if she was exiled from him!

Then came the day when Mrs. Pike took her to her school and left her. It was a wet, stormy day, and Kitty sat looking through the streaming windows at the rain-swept country with a heart as stormy. But though everything looked old and worn, and as unbeautiful as the day itself, she gained some consolation from the sight. "The next time I see them," she thought, gazing wistfully at the trees and houses, the bridges and fields, "I shall be going home! home! home!"

"Yes, but thirteen long weeks must elapse first," came the next thought.

"But what are thirteen weeks?" said the worn-looking objects cheeringly. "Nothing! We have seen years pass by, and thirteen weeks are but so many moments, flying already."

Then at last they reached their station, and their journey was over; but in all the years to come, never, never again would Kitty Trenire pass the long, ugly rows of squalid backs of houses just outside the station, and dull depressing streets, never again would she enter that station itself, without living through once more and tasting again the misery, the strangeness, the forlornness which filled her heart that afternoon. She might come in the height of happiness, in the company of those she loved best, with hope and joy before and behind her, but never could the sight of it all, the smells, and the sounds, fail to bring back to Kitty memories of that supremely miserable day, and through any happiness make her taste again for a moment the forlornness, the black misery which swamped her as she first stood on that draughty, dingy platform.

There was a smart tussle with the porter over the getting out of Kitty's luggage, for Aunt Pike was one of those unfortunate persons who never fail to come to words with porter or cabman, who, in fact, rub every one the wrong way to start with by taking for granted that they are trying to shirk their duties and to cheat her.