“I don’t care for that, miss,” said Lizzie, disconsolately; “what I want is to better myself. And I know I could, if I were to try. When I’ve tried hard at anything, I’ve allays done it. And, please, I don’t know what Miss Parsons is, as she should be thought that much of—I could do it if I was to try.”
“Then you had better try, I think,” said Kate, with severe politeness, “and let me know when you have succeeded; but in the mean time I will take my gloves, which you are spoiling. I have no more time to talk just now.”
Poor Lizzie found herself left behind, when she had hoped the argument was just beginning. Kate ran down with her gloves in her hand, half annoyed, half amused. The girl was so ready to transplant herself anywhere—to reach out her rash hands to new tools, and to take upon her a succession of unknown duties, that Kate was quite subdued by the thought. “How foolish!” she said to herself. “When she has been brought up to one thing, why should she want to try another? It is so silly. What stupids servants are! If I had been brought up a housemaid, I should have remained a housemaid. And to be willing to leave her good mistress and her home and all her past life—for what?” said Kate, moralising. Had she but known what a very similar strain of reasoning was going on in Mrs Mitford’s mind! “To give up his home, and all his associations, and his prospects in life, and the work God had provided for him—for what?” John’s mother was musing. The school, and the old women in the village, and all her parish work, had slid out of her thoughts. She had shut herself up in her own room, and was brooding over it—working the sword in her wound, and now and then crying out with the pain. And Dr Mitford in his study paused from time to time in the midst of his paper, and wished with a glum countenance that Mr Crediton’s visit was well over, and made up little speeches disowning all complicity in the business; and John had gone down to the river, to the foot of those cliffs where Kate’s horse was carrying her when he saved her, and, with his fishing-rod idle in his hand, tried also to prepare himself for that awful interview with Kate’s father, and for the final argument with his own which must follow. He was in the first day of his lover’s paradise, and had just tasted the sweetness of mutual consultation over those interests and prospects which were now hers as well as his. And he was very happy. But all the same he was wretched, feeling himself torn asunder from his life—feeling that he had lost all independent standing, and had alienated the hearts which loved him most in the world. All this followed upon the privilege of saving Miss Crediton’s life, and her month’s residence at Fanshawe Regis. Was it Kate’s fault? Nobody said so in words, not even Mrs Mitford; and Kate went to meet her father with such a sense of splendid virtue and disinterestedness as never before had swelled her bosom. She was full of the energy and exhilaration which attends the doing of a good action. “I have saved him,” she said to herself, “as he saved me. I have prevented him going and making a sacrifice of himself. He would never have had the courage to stand up for himself without me.” Moved by this glow of delightful complacency, she set out upon the road to the station; and it was not till she heard the jingle of the phaeton in the distance that a thrill of nervousness ran over Kate, and she felt the magnitude and importance of what she was about to do.
Mr Crediton probably was thinking of quite other things—at least, he did not recognise her, though she stood against the green hedgerow in her light summer dress, making signs with her parasol. It was only when the groom drew up that he observed the pretty figure by the roadside. “What, Kate!” he cried, with a flush of pleasure, and jumped out of the phaeton to greet her. “But there is no room for another,” he said, looking comically at the respectable vehicle, when he had kissed his child, and congratulated her on her improved looks—“what is to be done?”
“I wanted to have driven the pony to the station,” said Kate, “but Dr Mitford would not let me. Now you must walk home with me, papa—it is not a mile. James, you may drive on, and say we are coming. Dr Mitford thought the pony would be too much for me,” she added, demurely. “He is so funny, and so precise about everything.” Then Kate remembered suddenly that it was very contrary to her interest to depreciate any of the Mitford family, and changed her tone—“but so nice—you cannot think, papa, how kind, how good they have all been to me: they have made me like their own child.”
“So much the better, my dear,” said Mr Crediton. “I am very grateful to them. I am sure they are very good sort of people. But I hope, Kate, you are not sorry to be going home?”
“I am not sorry to see you, papa,” cried Kate, clasping his arm with both her hands. And then she leaned her head towards him in her caressing way. “Dear papa! I have so much to tell you,” she went on, faltering in spite of herself.
“If you have much to tell me, you must have used your time well,” said Mr Crediton, smiling upon her the smile of fond paternal indulgence. “And I daresay the items are not very important. But you have got back your roses and your bright eyes, my pet, and that is of more consequence than all the news in the world.”
“Papa,” said Kate, moved to a certain solemnity, “you would not say so if you knew what I am going to say. Do you remember what you said to me the morning you left? and I thought it was such nonsense;—but,” here she gave his arm a tender little squeeze between her two clinging hands, “I suppose it was you that knew best.”
“What did I say to you the morning I left?” said Mr Crediton, quite unsuspicious. He was pleased she should remember, pleased she should think he knew best. But he could scarcely realise his saucy Kate in this soft adoring creature, and he put his own hand caressingly upon the two little hands. “Mrs Mitford must have done you a great deal of good,” he added, with a soft laugh; “you did not use to be quite so retentive of what I said.”