Laid up in Lavender

by Stanley John Weyman

The soul of honour! Ay! And what would he think of this? The soul of honour! And his son, his son Jim, had done this! I walked through the streets, lost in amazement. I had loved the boy right well myself, and was ready to choke on my own account when I thought of him. But his father--I knew that his father was wrapped up in him. His father had been a mother to him as well, and that for years--had bought him toys as a lad, and furnished his quarters later with things of which only a mother would have thought. It would kill his father.

I wiped my forehead as I thought of this and put my latchkey into the door in Pont Street. I walked in with a heavy sigh--I do not know that I ever entered with so sad a heart--and the next moment, with a flutter of skirts, Kitty was out of the dining-room, where I do not doubt she had been watching for me, and in my arms. Before Heaven! until I saw her I had not thought of her--I had never considered her at all in connection with this matter! No, nor how I should deal with her, until I heard her say, with her face on my shoulder, and her eyes looking into mine: "Oh, father, father, I am happy! Be the first to wish me joy."

Wish her joy! I could not. I could only mutter, "Wait, girl--wait, wait!" and lead her into the dining-room, and, turning my back on her, go to the window and look out--though for all I saw I might have had my head in a soot-bag. She was alarmed of course--but to save her that I could not face her. She came after me and clung to my arm, asking me again and again what it was.

"Nothing, nothing," I said. "There--wait a minute; don't you know that I shall lose you?"

"Father," she said, trying to look into my face, "it is not that. You know you will not lose me! There is something else the matter. There is something you are hiding from me! Ah! Jim went in a cab, and----"

"Jim is all right." I answered, feeling her hand fall from my arm. "In that way at any rate."

"Then I am not afraid," she answered stoutly, "if you and Jim are all right."

"Look here, Kitty," I said, making up my mind, "sit down, I want to talk to you."

And she did sit down, and I told her all. With some girls it might not have been the best course; but Kitty is not like most of the girls I meet nowadays--of whom one half are blue stockings, with no more fitness for the duties of wives and mothers than the statuettes in a shop window, and the other half are misses in white muslin, who are always giggling pertly or sitting with their thumbs in their mouths. Kitty is a companion, a helpmeet, God bless her! She knows that Wellington did not fight at Blenheim, and she does not think that Lucknow is in the Crimea. She knows so much, though she knows no Greek and she loves dancing--her very eyes dance at the thought of it. But she would rather sit at home with the man she loves than waltz at Marlborough House. And if she has not learned a little fortification on the sly, and does not know how many men stand between Jim and his company--I am a Dutchman! Lord! when I see a man marry a doll with a pretty face--not that Kitty has not a pretty face, and a sweet one too, no thanks to her father--I wonder whether he has considered what it will be to sit opposite my lady at, say, twenty thousand nine hundred meals on an average! That is the test, sir.

So I told Kitty all, and the way she took it showed me that I was right. "What?" she exclaimed, when I had finished the story, to which she had listened, with her face turned from me, and her arm on the mantelpiece, "is that all, father?"