Seedtime and Harvest

Otago Witness, Issue 3112, 5 November 1913, Page 62

Seedtime and Harvest

By STELLA M. DURING, Author of “Love’s Privilege,” “In Search of Herself,” “Between the Devil and the Deep Sea,” “Malicious Fortune, “Deringham’s Daughter,” etc., etc.

THE KOVBLIST.

(PonLisnKD bv Special Arrangement.J

[Copyright.] CHAPTER XVII. §LLA laughed a little. Had she been a less well-brought-up girl the laugh would have been a giggle. “I don’t know that I meant anything in particular,” she “Except that Kitty has a very pretty taste in gardeners,” put in Etta smoothly.

The colonel rose and came over to where the three were sitting. Kitty looked up at him and irresistibly she reminded him of a little brown robin caught in a trap. Ella looked down, and she was still laughing a little. Etta looked at Kitty, and her smiling blue eyes were bright with malice.

“I should like to understand this a little better,” said the colonel, and his tone was level and very calm. ‘‘What has Kitty’s taste in gardeners to do with the matter one way or the other? What possible interest can any of the gardeners who may or may not bo working in my grounds have for my daughter?” ‘‘That’s just what we should like to know,” said Ella. Had she been alone she dare not have been pert with her stepfather, but her mother and sister were both in the room.

“And do you dare to suggest,” suddenly the colonel’s voice rolled out in full volume, “deliberately and maliciously suggest that a workman to whom I pay a. weekly wage has an interest for rny daughter? That any daughter of mine could so far forget herself as to indulge in a clandestine and degrading flirtation—for that is what your manner implies—with a man-servant in my employ! For shame, Klla. Only a girl with a debased imagination would have put such a construction on the simple courtesy which is all, 1 could swear, that Kathleen has ever shown to any man about the place. Only a girl who is herself not above feeding "her vanity by the admiration of those below her in station would have seen in any chance conversation Kathleen may have had with young Coles a desire on her part to awaken—to awaken . The accusation, for it was an accusation, disgraces you far more than it disgraces her. It was not sisterly, it was not kind, it was not what one" expects from common Christian charity. I shall insist on your apologising ” “Really, Ronald, this is ridiculous. I cannot listen to any more of it !” It was Mrs Calvert, all aruffle like an angry hen. “Unfortunately there is no occasion for apologies. Kitty deserves all that Klla lias said—and more. I hlanie Klla for one

thing. She ought not to have said anything before you.” ‘‘l did not intend papa to hear,” murmured Ella. ‘‘l hoped it would not be necessary to tell him anything at all about it.”

‘‘About what?” put in the colonel sharply'. “I knew, of course, that it would distress you.” It was not easy to check Mrs Calvert when once she h a d got into her stride. ‘T did not intend to give you even a hint of anything so very unpleasant, at least until I had remonstrated with Kitty.”

‘‘Remonstrated with Kitty!” “I have every reason,” with acid decision. ‘‘The fact is, Ronald, Kitty is inclined to indulge in a very decided flirtation with this young man. She takes every opportunity of speaking to him, she positively follows him about. I don’t care what part of the garden he to be working in there you find Kitty! I don’t think the young man presumes; 1 have never seen a sign of it. In fact, Wilson tells me”—Wilson was the upper housemaid—‘‘that he takes great interest in Phoebe Gomersall. Kitty's own maid, a very proper and suitable person for him, too. No, it is Kitty's fault entirely. I’m sorry to have to put It plainly, Ronald, but she really runs after him.”

“I don’t believe it!” The colonel’s voice had deepened to a thunderous growl. “I don’t believe a word of it. Say something, Kitty 1 Defend yourself fit>m the accusations of these evil-minded women 1 Mrs Calvert stiffened all over. Evilminded women, indeed! “There’s no justification for this precious tale 1 It can’t be true!”

“No, daddie, it isn’t true!” Suddenly the paralysis of dismay was loosened, and Kitty sprang to her feet in passionate denial. “I never flirted with him, I never tried to attract him or—or make him admire me. I wouldn’t, I couldn’t do such a thing. I have talked to him, of course; I talk to Truscott, to Jimmy, to all of them ”

“Not quite in the same way, my dear.” Kittv turned and studied her stepmother with bright and frightened eyes. What had she seen or heard ?

“You see, Ronald,’’ went on the pitiless voice, “she can’t deny it. But if you don’t believe what we say, put the matter more plainly. The girl is truthful, or so you have- always told me. Ask her to assure you that the interest she takes in Coles is no different—and no deeper — than that she takes in the other men about the place.” “I won’t!’’ roared the colonel, turning like a bull on his baiter. “I ■would not lower her—or myself—by asking any such thing. And I’ll hear no mure of it, Selina, not a word. I do you the justice of believing that you would never have harboured evil suspicions of this sort if you had been left to yourself. For what has happened this afternoon Kitty has to thank the malicious and mischief-making tongues of her sisters !” “Thank you, papa,” said Ella, beginning to cry. “I can onlv caution her, ’ the colonel went on at white heat, “to be so circumspect in her behaviour in future as to give them no chance to way. It won’t be easy for her. She has always been accustomed to be frankly, freely friendly with all those amongst whom she lives. I’m sure, when she was a child, she was as fond of old Truscott as she was of me. But for the first time in her life she has discovered that innocent impulses may be vilely construed. You will oblige me, my dear, by keeping quite away from the garden whilst that young man is here.” He was going, leaving her to the tender mercies of this most unholy inquisition; but the terrified appeal in Kitty’s eyes when she realised it brought him back. Bending stiffly, he offered her his arm. Kitty seized it as a drowning man seizes a plank, and with what dignity was left her walked out of the room. He led her with old-fashioned courtesy across the hall in the direction of his study. Did this mean further questioning? Kitty dropped his arm as if it were hot and sprang- away up the staircase into safety. But at sight of the surprise in his face she ran down again. Standing on the bottom step she threw her arms round her father's neck and kissed him passionately On both his grizzled cheeks. “Don’t believe it, daddie; oh, don’t!” she begged tragically. “There isn’t a word of truth ni the horrid things they are thinking! Oh, if I could only explain!” “My dear, should I Ive likely to believe it?” asked the colonel indignantly, and it was only when ho had shut nhnself into his study he remembered Kitty’s impulsive : “Oh, if I could only explain!” Meanwhile Kitty in her own room was faced by an entirely new sot uf difficulties. .She was not to go in the garden again “while that young man was there 1” Did this mean that be was to be at once dismissed? Had Ella’s suggestion crystallised the colonel’s indecision into a threat of instant action? Suppose Brian wore dismissed at once, before Kitty had been able to see him, to speak to him again ! How was she to see or speak to him again? The. colonel would not condescend to watch whether or no she obeyed him. He had laid his commands upon her. He trusted bis little girl to respect them. “And in any other circumstances I would have done, oh, 1 would!” Kitty told herself with tears. But though her father might not watch her, Etta and Ella, who had little delicacy and no scruples, very certainly would. How was site to see or speak to Brian when she must not go into the garden again? “I can write,” she told herself with a little gasp. “Ho will guess something is wrong! He will remember what I said about the stone.” And how to get her letter safely hidden under the stone with Ella and Etta waiting. lynx-eyed, for any move on her part that might' justify and excuse their suspicions. “Well, anyhow I can write, Kitty told herself, and forthwith sat down at her writing-table and poured out her soul on to five sheets of paper.

And then arose the question of how to hide it under the mossy stone. There was only one chance, in the early, early morning when Etta and Ella, who were lazily inclined, would both be asleep. Kitty was an early riser; it would excite no remark that she should be up with the birds. On the Monday after the disastrous sharpness of the colonel's hearing had complicated for Kitty a life that was quite sufficiently tangled already she succeeded in slipping her letter under the stone. On Tuesday she was out early again. The letter was still there. On Wednesday the white oblong, a Jutle damp and discoloured now, was the first thing that met her eye when she sw'ept the green curtain of saxifrage aside and peeped into her hiding place. And right in Kitty’s path, in this very moment of indecision and distress, fickle Fortune flung an opportunity, that opportunity that is so often the undoing of impulsive souls. Truscott was coming towards her, limping a little, for his rheumatism was wont to trouble him in the morning, and softly chinking the keys of the hothouses in his hand. He stopped short at sight of Kitty, his weather-reddened face all a smile.

‘‘You be early, little missie!” he said genially. “Yes,” agreed Kitty, adding, -, it is such a nice morning.” Truscott looked at her a little askance. The ground was -damp, the skies were grey and inclined to -weep, the mists of an early autumn hung chill in the corners of the garden. Rut if his ‘‘little missie” thought it was a nice morning, far be it from him to contradict her. ‘‘Be you a-comin’ with me to see a’ter the grapes?” he inquired, for as a littll child Kitty had much appreciated a few grapes before breakfast. “Yes, Truscott,” she said quite gaily. And, indeed, she jumped at the chance In the grapehouse, ventilating, she might see Brian.

But nowhere, cither in hothouses or garden, could she see Brian. This was the third day since Sunday, and in all those three days never once had she caught sight of him. To be sure, except in the early morning, she had rigidly obeyed her father's behest to keep out of the garden; but it was odd she had not seen him somewhere —weeding, grass-cut-ting, watering. Perhaps he was not there at. all. Perhaps already the colonel — Kitty plunged headlong into the pitfall awaiting her. “I wanted to ask you, Truscott, about the new gardener,’’ she began, picking a .spray of fragrant heliotrope and twisting it about in agitated fingers. “Is he any better? Does he do any better, I mean ?”

“Better! No, an’ he nivver will!” The old fellow’s face turned as sour and crabbed as & withered apple. “I can’t abide ’un. Fooils wer’ sent into this warld to try the patience o’ wiser folk, so I’ve always a-heerd. But such a food as yon ! Whv, Job hissen c’uld’n ’a put up with ’un !” “Oh, Truscott!” said Kitty in dismay. “ ’Tisn on’y that he knows nought. Ye can’t larn him owt, either. Wool-gather-in’ half the time his wits sim to be—such wits as he’s a-got. 1 Kip ’im another wik,’ ses the colonel to me; ‘ try’m another wik !’ So I’m a-tryin’ of him. But if the colonel thinks I be a-goin’ to put up wi’ he! No, missie ! Med as well get it over fust as larst, so I say, and be best go afore he does any more mischief.”

“Oh. Truscott!” said Kitty again. But the old man, fairly ambling off on his latest grievance, was deaf to the note of tragedy in her voice. “Do any better!” he echoed bitterly. “Why. ’e can’t do anything at all. He can’t dig, he can’t prune, he can’t warter. Sent ’im to warter mv streptocarnusses, I did, an’ he fair swamped the lot whether they wanted it or they didn’t. Sprayed my gloxinyas over’ead in the full ’eat o’ the sun, and spotted every blossom —yes, ’e did!”

“But, Truscott,” in faltering excuse, “perhaps he didn’t know.” “That’s jest esactlv what I complains of. Miss Kitty. ’E don’t know nawthin’!” . , “But. Truscott, it isn’t everybody who has had the advantage of gardener as clever as you to teach him. Truscott shook Ins head. This was . a position that even Kitty s sweet flatteries could not render tolerable. “Sir William Price’s head gardener, he he a cleverer mau’n me by a long chalk 1 be said sturdily. “Ef 'e c uld n lain off 'im ’o won’t off me.” . “But. Truscott, if you are patient with him a little longer he may improve. Oh, do be patient with him, Truscott,’ m sudden, desperate appeal, “just a little longer. I—l ask it as a favour. IViiscott. I —l am interested in him. He haan t, perhaps, quite as much experience as other gardeners ” . , “Is lie a gardener at all —that s what 1 want to know 1” The old man s shrewd eyes narrowed and looked past her. “Fowerteen years’ experience—that s what Sir William Price’s head man told me he d a-got. Ho must ’a larnt something in fowerteen years. Has lie ever bin a-mgh Sir William Price’s at all? That s what I ask myself sometimes, Miss Kitty, fur ’e dunno Bristol, not a lunch of it. He may be other things. Miss Kitty. ’E may bn a swell cracksman for all we know, waitin’ is chance to gi o some of us a knock on the ’ead and make off with the silver. But ’e ain’t a gardener, an’ never wer’ !’’ , , “ Tnin’t safe, little missie,” the old man went on, cutting his finest bunch and laying it in a gloriously-tinted leaf on Kitty’s lap. “More I think about it more sutten I be. Sir William Price’s gardener he'll be down to Fiat ton fur the show on Thursday. I’ll get ’im to come ower here wi’ mo and hov’ a quiet cup of tea an a crack ”

“Oh, no, Truscott 1” / The words were out before Kitty in her terror remembered that she would have to account for them. Truscott drew back a step, bis jaw falling, bis eyes round with surprise and dismay. “No?” he said.

“No, Truscott; oh, Truscott, you mustn’t!” and suddenly Kitty saw the depth and despair of the trap into which she had tumbled; there was nothing for it now but acknowledgment. “Because you are right, Truscott —he isn’t a gardener at all. He's » friend of mine—in trouble. I persuaded him to do it, Truscott; he didn’t want to at all. Oh, you won’t tell, will you? You have kept secrets for me before, many a time. You won’t tell, for my sake, will you. Truscott?’’ And Kitty put her head down upon the staging and cried bitterly, realising already what she had done. Truscott fell back another step, pushed his battered hat on one side, and scratched his grey head as he contemplated his little mistress.

“Well,” he said below his breath, “well I’m blowed !”

CHAPTER XVIII. Truscott went about his work that chilly morning with a very grave face. His little mistress, who had trotted about the garden at his side ever since she was five, with, to his eyes, an almost visible halo about her pretty head! His little mistress, to whom, since she had grown to gracious girlhood, he had giveif almost worship. “My little missie,” the old man almost groaned. “She—’at might ’a had her pick out o’ arl the warld! She to go through the wood an’ choose the crooked stick I Well, I might ’a knowed. It’s alius the best ’uns as do that,”

He studied his unsatisfactory underling furtively during breakfast, and for once he found no fault with him. Even when cook put a generous helning of chicken on his plate, while the rest had nothing but bacon, he forebore to protest against such flagrant favouritism. The one who protested was Brian, who insisted on giving the larger half of his dainty to Phoebe. Phoebe accepted it. all blushes, and stirred the old man’s gall. “Don’t you be taakin’ too much notice o’ that young feller. He ain’t wuth it,’’ he growled. No one took much heed. Truscott’s opinion of Mr Samuel Coles was no secret. But the snarling criticism made more, startling than it otherwise would have been the bomb-shell that dropped at Brian’s feet just after breakfast.

“Shall I finish planting out those wallflowers this morning, Mr Truscott?’’ he asked humbly enough. “Yes, sir, if you please, sir,” said Truscott, and touched his cap. Brian stood petrified. Was it sarcasm? Was it the outcome of the zenith and apex ‘of the old man’s disgust? As he lingered, unable as yet to his stiffened legs to carry him, he saw Kitty, with a little basket of scraped carrots and green apples in her hand, flit across the yard on her morning visit to the stables. As a rule the colonel was with her; roday she was alone. Crump, the groom, and the lad w-ho helped him, were both loitering over their breakfast in the servants’ hall. The opportunity was too good to be missed, for Brian had seen nothing of Kitty .since Sunday. Careless of possible watchers, he hurried across the cobblestones after her. She made a charming picture. At the first sound of her footsteps Fifine, her mare, had put her pretty head over the half-door of her loose-box, and now Kitty stood, with grave and thoughtful face, choosing her very juiciest carrot for her favourite. She turned with a start at Brian’s voice. “Kitty. I must speak to you,” he began desperately. “Not here!” she said in terror, for all the windows at the back of the house overlooked the stable yarn, and dragged him inside. “I haven’t been able to get a word with you,” he told her with some reproach in his voice. “I haven’t seen you anywhere since Sunday.” “I wrote,” interrupted Kitty, “like I said I would. I hid the letter under the stone, as 1 told you I should !” Brian struck his hands together. “The stone! Of course! Really, I shall begin to think I am the ‘ food ’ that Tnisco°t so often calls me. I had forgotten all about the stone. I only looked and looked for you. Kitty, what is the matter with Truscott? He calls me ‘sir ! He -treats me all at once as though I were a gentleman.” . “Oh,” said Kity with a gasp, “it s my fault. I told him!” “You —told him!” “Yes! I had to. It’s all right, Brian. Truscott would die before he would betray me.” “Intentionally, yes. But “Kitty! Kitty!” It was the colonel’s voice. Kitty seized Brian’s arm. In the dimness at his side rose a ladder. Above it loomed duskily the srpiare trap-door leading to the hayloft. “Up there!” whispered the girl, and Pnssie herself never ran up that ladder quicker than she. Brian followed on swift and silent feet. “Kitty!” called the colonel again, and they heard him pat Fifine’s satin sides. “If he comes up we must hide in the hay,” she breathed. But he did not come up; he walked out into the yard. “Get my letter; it will tell you everything,” whispered .Kitty, and slipp-i down the ladder again. “Dad,” she called over the loose-box door. “Where were you, my pet?” asked the colonel. “Up in the hayloft,” answered Kitty, pushing with her rosy palm a handful of fragrant clover-heads against Fifine's velvet muzzle. Then she turned and kissed him in mute apology. Some day, when Donald M‘Alister was found and Brian’s innocence established, she would tell him why.

And Brian, at his first opportunity, made his way to the mossy stone, swept aside the green curtain of saxifrage, and looked into the hollow. But there was no lettejr.

That night, when Kilty was undressing, there came a light knock at her door.

“Come in,’’ she said brightly, expecting Phcebe, and Ella entered. In her long white wrapper, with a bit>ad blue ribbon about her waist and all her heavy corn-coloured hair hanging loose about her shoulders, she looked like some sweet saint out of a mediaeval glass window. But the saintliness of her look did not deceive Kitty, and - the frosty beam in her eyes meant anything but welcome. “You!” she said on a note of frank disgust. Ella shut the door behind her and came over to where Kitty sat. “Look here, Kitty,” she began with decision, “you are not going to sulk with me any longer. I never meant to get you into trouble, and as for that I’ve got rayself into far worse, for papa has never spoken to me since Sunday. I never intended him to hear; I knew he would be more angry with me than with you it he did, but his ears are sometimes so much sharper than usual that one miscalculates. It isn’t as if I blamed you either I never have done. It’s deadly dull here, we have never seen a soul but our five selves all last week, and one must have a little fun somehow. Of course, jou flirted with him. He’s so nice-looking and so superior altogether to the ordinary run of gardeners, and I don’t in the least mind acknowledging that I’ve done a little that way myself, only he s so taken up with you that I haven’t much chance. “Ella, how dare you!” Kitty sprang to her feet all aflame. “I never flirted with him.” “Kitty, my dear!” in patient remons“And how you can lower yourself to be —familiar —with a man you believe to be, one of the men-servants is more than I can understand.” . “And haven’t you lowered yourselt m exactly the same way ! “No, never!” ~ . ~ “Kitty, look here!” said Ella quietly, and drew from her waist-ribbon—a letter. There was no address upon it. It was simply a large white envelope a good dea. discoloured by mould and damp, and bearing Kitty’s initials, “K.C..” in violet on the flap!' At-sight of it Kitty s eyes widened and her mouth dropped soitly open, while every scrap of colour drained slowly, slowly out of her face. “Give that to me,” she said below her breath. “It’s mine!” But with a little laugh Ella put it behind her. , “No, it isn’t,” she sai<J. You wrote it I know; but it doesn’t belong to you now, it belongs to Mr Samuel Coles. You didn’t address it, which was wise of you, but nn one knows better than I do what I shall find if I look inside. A loveletter Kitty! A love-letter from Colonel Calvert’s daughter to Mr Samuel Coles, her father’s under-gardener. Pretty, isn t it! Papa would be interested if I showed it to him. , ' , “What is it you want me to dor she asked faintly. . , , , Ella drew a chair forward and sat down. The vanquished war, ready to discuss terms with the vanquisher. “I should like to be married,” she said with tranquility. “I am seven-and-twenty, and I’m not too happy here with you 'and papa. I should like to have a home and a husband of my own, and I have chosen the man with whom I think I could be happy. But whether or not I can get him rests with you.” “With me!” echoed Kitty, amazed indeed. “Why,’who is it?” “Not Mr Samuel Coles,” laughed Ella, “though 1 sec the dreadful suspicion in your eye. No, Kitty. Love in a cottage with au under-gardener has attractions for me—as a permanency. The man 1 marry will be my equal and have money. He must be a "son-in-law mamma will accept and with gratitude. He must be a companion I like, and a husband 1 can be proud of ” “Who is it?” asked Kitty again. “Claude Whitmore!” said Ella quietly. Kitty sat back in her chair and stared at her step-sister. “Cousin Claude !” she echoed. “But how can I help you there ? If you think 1 stand in your way, indeed you are mistaken ; Cousin Claude knows I hate him. How could I help it—a dishonourable, mean-spirited little cad !” “Oh, he has his faults,” agreed Ella smoothly. “But I think I should be able to manage both him and—them.” Kitty’s eyes darkened. It was quite possible. “And I should like to marry him.” “Would you?” in astonishment that refused to bo hidden. “But—what can I do—more than 1 have done already ?” “You can do a good deal. I don’t ask you to praise me to him, unless you quite conscientiously can. I don’t ask you to pretend for me an affection you don’t feel. But I do ask you to refrain frcip open hostility, not to drag into notice any little weakness I may have, not to pounce with delight on any manifestation of my faults. Oh, yes, you do, Kitty. You have claws like your namesake.” “I am sorry,” said Kitty quite meekly. “I didn’t know I was so disagreeable. And I'm quite ready to help you, Ella, if you really—really want him. But how am I to do it? Do you want me to write to him?” “Write to him! Of course not. There is no occasion. I only want you to give me a free hand with him, a fair field and no favour, and I’ll keep this, my dear,” tucking the letter inside the front of her kimono, “until I see whether or not you do. I’ll make no use of it whatever: I won’t read it myself or allow anyone else to read it if you don’t put difficulties in the way of my making the best impression I can on Claude Whitmore. You say he knows you don’t like him. Well, snow him a little more than that. Show him 3'ou wouldn’t be sorry if he liked me.” “How can I?” interrupted Kitty with a touch of impatience, “when he is in Scotland and I am here.” “But he isn’t in Scotland. He is coming here, too. Didn’t you know?” “Coming!” echoed Kitty with white lips. “Coming here ! When?” “To-mOrrow,” said Ella in triumphant reply. (To be continued.)