Kit and Kitty: A Story of West Middlesex

by R. D. Blackmore

A little touch of this kind took me, when I was full of higher things, or at least was trying so to be. I had not been to church since my day of dole, my day of doom and desolation. How could I go to Sunbury church, and see the spot where Kitty stood and stole my whole devotion, and see the altar-rails where she had knelt and vowed herself mine for ever; and now, with no Kitty at my side, be stared at by a hundred eyes, all asking—“Well, how do you get on?” But now in this strange place, I went to the Sunday morning service, though Kitty had been there too with me, in the happy days not long gone by. My aunt came with me, and with much fine feeling allowed me to sit where my dear had sat, and to put my hat on the selfsame peg on which she had placed it for me.

At first it was a bitter time; but I went through it bravely, though at first I could not bring myself to open the Prayer-book, which I had brought in the bag with my clothes from Sunbury. My wife had given it to me at Baycliff, when I happened to admire it in a window, and I remembered that she had written “Kit,” and nothing else, on the fly-leaf.

But the first psalm for that morning service, being a very sad one, suited my state of mind so well that I opened my book to follow it. And I remember reading with all my heart—“My heart is smitten down, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread. I am become like a pelican in the wilderness; and like an owl that is in the desert.”

Perhaps through the shaking of my thumb, the cover of the book fell back, and showed me some words on the fly-leaf written with a pencil by my own wife. Before the word “Kit,” which was in ink, she had written with a pencil “Darling,” and after it, “God’s will be done.” The writing was faint, as if the pencil wanted cutting, and it seemed to have been dashed off in great haste.

This then was her farewell to me. I was sure that the words had not been there, the last time I used the Prayer-book; and indeed there would have been no meaning in them. Over and over again I read them, forgetting everything else, I fear, and standing up after the first lesson had begun, until my aunt gave my coat a jerk. I longed to rush out of the church and think; and the rest of the service went by me, as a dream.

Though very little light was thrown hereby upon my dark enigma, I found more comfort perhaps than reason would warrant, in this discovery. In the first place, if my wife had left me, in bitterness at some fancied wrong, she would never have addressed me thus; and this alone removed a weight of misery from my bosom. For it had been agony to me to think, as I could not help doing, that my own Kitty all the while was nursing bitterness against me, as if it had been possible for me to wrong her. And again that she should not have gone entirely without a word, was a piece of real comfort to me; though others, who have not been so placed, may think that I was foolish there. Very likely I was; but never mind. The Prayer-book, as we all acknowledge, is a very noble work; and nobody can write such English now, as is to be found in it at every page; and I think that Kitty was quite right in choosing it for her last word to me. But if it comes to that, she was always right; at least according to my ideas.

Strange as it may seem to some—who cannot enter into odd states of mind, such as long had been my lot—I did not say a word, as yet, to my Aunt Parslow about this matter. She had formed her own theory, like everybody else, and I meant to let her go through with it. And so she did, that afternoon, having put great pressure upon herself—for my sake, as she told me—to enable her to hold her tongue, until she could speak with advantage, and without any risk of being taken by any one for a meddler.

For she liked to dine early on Sundays, and she always denied herself the pleasure of going to church in the afternoon, being one of the most unselfish persons I have ever met with. After a dinner not to be gainsaid, at any rate till supper-time, we sat in the garden and listened to the bells, and thought with pleasure of the congregation now going to have a hot time of it. I was full of tender recollections, for this was the very spot where Kitty had shown some delightful want of reason about Sally Chalker. And I told my aunt all about it now, with a sigh at the back of every smile. Then she laughed with superior wisdom, and no longer could contain herself.

“I knew she was a jealous little puss. Every woman has her fault, almost as much as men have. It took me a long time to discover any fault in her, until I started that idea myself. To make up for the want of other faults, she has that one to an extreme, you see. And that is at the bottom of your present trouble, my poor boy. But she has carried it to an extreme, I admit. It seems a little too absurd.”

“It is too absurd to be thought of twice,” I answered rather savagely; “my Kitty is not quite a fool. And she would have been something worse than a fool, if she had acted from that motive. She would have been unjust and cruel, not to afford me so much as a chance of clearing myself from wicked lies. Our married life was short indeed; but long enough for her to learn that I am not a scoundrel.”