Wild Kitty by L. T. Meade (fun to read .TXT) 📖

id="id01986">"No, no, of course not; pray proceed."

"I was thinking how soon I might tell."

"Nice sort of creature you are!"

"Why will you interrupt me?" said Kitty. "But then I looked at Elma, and I saw that she seemed very anxious and miserable; and wretched as I was, I made up my mind to be kind to her. I said to myself I will keep her secret; and—and I wrote her a note to tell her so. You would not understand if I said any more; but—but immediately after morning school she—she was false to me; utterly false. You ask her when you see her how she received that letter I wrote to her at the risk of getting into terrible trouble myself. I have been angry, furious, beside myself; and now Miss Sherrard knows everything."

"You don't mean it?" said Carrie. Her florid face had turned perfectly white. She bit her lip and looked out of the window. After a time she looked back again at Kitty, and said slowly:

"You are very cruel, and you have ruined Elma; but after all it is partly my fault. I ought not to have taken that money. Now, look here, shall I tell you what I really came for to-day?"

"If you would do so quickly and then go."

"You won't be in such a hurry to part from me when you know the truth. Now, then, listen. You want some money; I think I see a way to getting it for you."

"Do you really?"

"Yes, I do; that is, if you on your part will do what I want."

"I will do anything to get the money. I want to send it to Laurie if I can this evening. There's nothing I would not give you."

"I will remember that small promise presently," said Carrie in a frank voice. "But now let me tell you what my plan is. You have a great many clothes, have you not?"

"Yes; but please don't bother me about them now. I was always fond of pretty dress; but I should not care if I had to wear rags at the present moment if only I might get that eight pounds."

"If them's your sentiments," said Carrie, "you very soon can have your wish."

"What in the world do you mean?"

"Why, this. If you'll just allow me to take the pick of your wardrobe I can take away the things and sell them. I'll soon bring back the eight pounds—yes, and for that matter ten too."

"Sell my clothes?" said Kitty. She stared at the other girl as if she did not believe the evidence of her own senses.

"Yes. Did you never hear of a pawnshop, you dear little wiseacre?"

"A pawnshop! Do you think I would allow my clothes to go to a pawnshop?"

"I know nothing whatever about it; but I make you the proposal. I will transact the business for you if you'll allow me ten per cent, upon it. I can get you the money."

"Oh, Carrie, it seems such a bitter shame," said Kitty. Her face was crimson; she went to the other side of the room, opened the window and put out her head. She wanted the cool air to soothe her scorched cheeks; her heart was thumping in her breast. Had matters indeed come to this, that she, Kitty Malone, was to pawn her pretty dresses, her trinkets, her whatnots! Alas! she could not do it.

"I have often had to do it," said Carrie. "I know just how to manage. If you'll allow me to select the most suitable of your things, I'll bring you back the money in no time."

"You are sure?" said Kitty, beginning to yield.

"Certain—sure—positive. But you must allow me ten per cent."

"I know nothing about percentage; but you may take every scrap that is over after you have got me the eight pounds."

"Very well, that's a liberal offer," said Carrie. "Now, then, I may as well take a look at your clothes."

"Oh, it seems such an awful thing to do," said Kitty. "Are you sure, quite sure, that no one will find it out?"

"Not a bit of it; that is, if you'll be quick and not allow that other girl—Alice, you call her—to come into the room."

"I'll lock the door," said Kitty. She rushed across the room with new hope, turned the key, and came back again to Carrie.

"I never heard of anything quite so extraordinary in my life," she said.
"And you—you call yourself a lady?"

"No, I don't; I call myself a good-natured lump of a girl."

"Well, perhaps you are; but to pawn one's things! Do you mean that I will never see them again?"

"Oh, yes; whenever you like to return the money. They'll be kept safe enough for you. If you don't return the money, of course, they belong to the pawnbroker; but you have lots of time to think of that. Look here, I'll pawn them for a month; that will give you heaps of time to look round."

"So it will," said Kitty. "And are you quite, quite certain that I shall have the money to-night?"

"Oh, yes, if you won't talk so much, only act. Now, then, open your wardrobe."

Kitty unlocked the door of the mahogany wardrobe which she shared with
Alice, and Carrie began to pull her choice little garments about.

Kitty went and stood by the window.

"Don't you want to know what I am taking?" said Carrie. "Don't you want to make a selection?"

"No; I'll leave it all to you. I can't bear to see them. Take—take what you want."

"Goodness, what a girl!" thought Carrie to herself. "Here's an opportunity for me."

She made a hasty and very wise selection, choosing the richest dresses, the most stylish jackets, skirts, shoes, ribbons, gloves—clipping the feathers out of the hats and the flowers from the toques—throwing in some of the finest cambric handkerchiefs; and then, taking a sheet of brown paper which she had put into a basket on her arm when she left home, she folded the things into it and fastened her parcel with stout string.

"Here I am," she said; "and this is my parcel. I have looked through your wardrobe; your clothes are neat, fine, some of them gaudy, but all good. I can get from three to four pounds for this lot."

"But why don't you take enough to get the eight pounds?" said Kitty, who had quite made up her mind by this time.

"I could not carry any more. Now, then, open your jewel-case, quick."

"My jewel-case. Oh! I cannot part with my jewels."

"You must, if you want your eight pounds by to-night. I know my pawnbroker. He won't give five pounds for this little parcel. Now then, be quick. Oh, there I see Alice Denvers coming up the road with that other fine young lady, Bessie Challoner. Where's your jewel-case?"

Kitty's face was like a sheet.

"I have not any jewels," she said; "or scarcely any worth mentioning. I didn't bring any jewels with me. But here's my watch; will that do?"

"Do—rather! Why, it's a beauty. Don't say a word to the others; keep your own counsel. Now, then, I'll be off to the pawnshop, and you shall have the money to-night. Au revoir! an revoir!"

CHAPTER XXI. THE LADY FROM BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.

Mrs. Steward was a great contrast to Mrs. Lewis. Mrs. Steward was a tall, thin, rather refined-looking woman. Mrs. Lewis was fat and dumpy, decidedly untidy in appearance, with a melancholy air and a habit of constantly indulging in low weeping. Mrs. Steward looked as if she had never wept in her life; she sat upright as a dart, her movements were quick, her manners independent; she had a vivacious eye, a somewhat short nose, thin lips, and a very decided manner.

Mrs. Steward and Mrs. Lewis had a long conversation in the untidy, ugly little parlor, while they waited for Elma to return from school. Maggie had been going in and out, glancing with some apprehension at the lady, and then whisking back to her kitchen to sigh profoundly and mourn for the violets which were no longer in her possession.

"I should like something to eat," said Mrs. Steward to her sister. "I thought I would come to you for lunch, Caroline. Have you got anything in the house—a lamb chop or even cold lamb and salad will do quite nicely."

"My dear Charlotte," said Mrs. Lewis, laying her fat, tremulous hand upon her sister's firm but thin arm, "do you think it likely that we often have lamb chops or even cold lamb and salad for lunch? It is true that since the Australian meat came in we can now and then indulge in a very small joint of lamb for Sundays, but certainly on no other day. Ah, Charlotte, you little know the poverty to which your poor sister is subjected."

"I know all about it," said Mrs. Stewart, shaking herself angrily, "and my plain answer to you is this—as you sow you must reap. What else did you expect when you married that fool of a man, James Lewis?"

Mrs. Lewis made a great endeavor to rise from the sofa, she made a further effort to look dignified; but all she could really accomplish was to burst into a fresh wail of low weeping and to murmur under her breath, "Charlotte, you are cruel to me, you are cruel."

"I don't mean to be, my dear; but really, Caroline, you do annoy me. Have you no spunk at all in your composition? Are you still fretting your heart out for that good-for-nothing man?"

"Well, you see, I love him," said the poor wife. "The parting from my dear husband was a terrible trial. I think of him at all hours both day and night. I often have an uncontrollable desire to join him in Australia."

"Pray yield to it," said Mrs. Steward in the calmest of voices, "and when you go, take that great lout of a Caroline with you. She is as like you in appearance as one pea is like another. I am ashamed of you. Now, let us turn to a more congenial topic. Little Elma, I am glad to say, is made of very different stuff."

"Oh, Elma is a good girl," said Mrs. Lewis. At that moment Maggie came into the room.

"Have you ordered your servant to prepare any lunch for me?" said Mrs.
Steward.

"Well, really—" Mrs. Lewis looked imploringly and with a vacant eye at
Maggie.

"There's the remains of the salt beef, mum," said that small worthy, dropping a bob of a courtesy as she spoke.

"I couldn't touch it," said Mrs. Steward with a shudder. "Have you got a fresh egg in the house?"

"Oh, my dear, nothing of the kind—a fresh egg! Fresh eggs are worth their weight in gold. We have a stale egg, if you don't mind that."

Mrs. Steward indulged in another shudder even more violent than the last.

"My good girl," she said then, "pray get me a cup of tea and some thin toast, and be quick about it. See that the tea is really strong and the cream fresh."

"Cream!" murmured Mrs. Lewis; but Maggie had withdrawn.

"Well, now, that is comfortably settled," said Mrs. Steward, "and I can tell you what really brought me to town—I have come about Elma."

"Indeed, and what about her?"

"I mean to take her from you."

"To take Elma away from me, my own dear child?"

"Oh, now, come, Caroline, don't sicken me with your false sentiment. It is a precious good thing for Elma that she has got an aunt ready and willing to help her. I have just arranged to send her to a first-class German school. Her English, I should say, was fair, and she will be taken as pupil-teacher; she will thus have the advantage of learning German. I heard of this through a great friend of mine, Fräulein Van Brunt. She is going to Germany herself next week, and will take Elma, if you can spare her."

"If I can spare her? But it will break my heart—such a sensible girl as she is," said poor Mrs. Lewis.

"Come, come, Carrie, no more nonsense; when I explain all the advantages you will see for yourself how all-important it is that Elma should go. The school is in the Harz Mountains, a splendid place; magnificent air, and all the rest. If Elma stays there for two years,