Kitty Little (12 page)

Even so, Kitty felt a pained disappointment that he should class their friendship as akin to siblings. The careless introduction seemed to eradicate those precious intimate moments of the previous night, just as if they’d never taken place.

Feeling bemused and raw with wounded pride, Kitty found herself shaking hands with a tiny, birdlike elderly woman and then a pretty, young, plump one with the most enormous pale grey eyes that peered at her with frank curiosity from behind a pair of spectacles which seemed largely redundant on the end of her small nose.

‘Hello.’ She felt awkward and unwanted, deeply resentful of the way the girl was hanging on his arm and laughing up into his face. In that moment Kitty realised that she’d always thought of Archie as her very own, and, either because of the change in their relationship, or in spite of the damage her recklessness had evidently done to their friendship, she’d really no wish to share him.

Chapter Seven

It was a wonderful healing summer, a period which brought colour to Archie’s sallow cheeks. Kitty decided to adopt a new surname: Little. Why not, it was as accurate as Terry which had been chosen by her mother, and far more fun. Kitty Little. A new persona for a new beginning. Perhaps, she thought, it would bring her better luck.

Esme too was enjoying a new start. Nurtured and cosseted by Mrs Phillips, or Mrs Pips as Archie called her, she positively blossomed. He declared that the three would become firm friends, a triumvirate of unity against the world. Esme and Kitty viewed the notion more judiciously but went along with it as best they could, for Archie’s sake.

Shortly after their arrival, Esme had commenced employment with a Mrs Randle who lived in a tall Edwardian villa that stood on the shore of the lake in the nearby village of Carreckwater. The exercise was not a success. Mrs Randle had a list of rules as long as her arm which, unhappily for Esme, she frequently and unwittingly transgressed. She was expected to cook, clean, and care for her employer from six in the morning till nine at night, with one half day off per fortnight. She was not allowed to have friends in, nor was she permitted to set foot outside of the house, or venture on any errands without Mrs Randle’s express permission. This was carried out to the letter, even to the extent of every door being kept locked both inside and out at all times, which created in her new maid a not unnatural claustrophobia.

‘Anyone would think I was being held prisoner,’ Esme declared, as, after a mere two weeks of this, she packed her bags on her first afternoon off and, leaving a note of explanation, returned to Repstone. ‘I’d rather starve.’

‘Starve you won’t, my lamb,’ Mrs Pips assured her, sliding a large piece of apple pie onto her plate while acknowledging her employer’s part in providing this fare by adding, ‘I’m sure the master would never hear of such a thing.’

‘Absolutely not, sweetie,’ Archie agreed. In truth he hadn’t the faintest idea how much money resided in the various bank accounts and shares left to him by his people, but so long as he had any cash at all, he was more than willing to share it with his friends. What better purpose could there be for it?

‘Thank you, Archie. I do appreciate your hospitality, really I do. Just till I get on my feet, of course.’

‘Heavens, what are friends for?’ Esme’s smile was trusting as she gazed up at him, causing Archie to pat her on the head as if she were still fourteen and had asked if she might borrow his tennis ball. ‘Don’t you fret, old thing. Won’t see you on your uppers.’

Kitty felt oddly neglected. ‘Perhaps Esme would prefer to be independent. She could always try for employment in a bigger house where there are more servants and less for her to do, or in a larger town perhaps. Just because one employer is bad, doesn’t mean they all are, and she obviously needs to earn her keep.’ Even as she uttered these words Kitty was aware of everyone looking at her, as well they might for who was she to speak of independence? Wasn’t she in the same boat? But the jealousy, once having been born, seemed set on growing.

Archie had never once referred to that night of intimacy, and, following his lead, neither had Kitty. Yet despite the strict rules she set herself, she couldn’t help feeling that he belonged exclusively to her. She found herself watching the way he moved, smiled and laughed, and not simply because she was concerned for his health. She sought evidence in his words, and in his frequent glances across to her when they were sharing some joke, that their relationship had changed in some subtle way, had become special; that they shared a bond and it was now Esme who was the outsider.

Yet she found none.

Not that it mattered, the new Kitty told herself stoutly and if she ached with love for him, at least he wasn’t aware of the fact. She should be glad that their friendship at least seemed to have survived her immature advances. Once, since their arrival at Repstone Manor she’d considered going to his room, but then decided that wasn’t such a good idea, not with Esme around. After all, it was surely up to him to come to her. Since he made no effort to do so, Kitty felt oddly rebuffed but also gauche and rather foolish for even wanting him to. The same sort of embarrassment that washed over now. ‘I - I’m sorry, I only meant she might like - that we all should try to contribute something.’

Archie shrugged his shoulders. ‘Let’s enjoy what little is left of this cracking summer first, eh? Plenty of time for earning a crust later.’

And so they did. Each day they would work in the garden, reclaiming it from the wilderness of weeds that had overtaken it, perhaps discovering a hidden statue or shrub flowering beneath a tangle of bindweed. Better still a row of raspberry canes luscious with fruit and, lying on their backs in the sun, would eat them all one by one.

 
They paddled in the beck, cooling their feet in the flow of tingling water, splashing each other and screeching with delight. When they grew tired of that, they took their costumes and towels down to the lake and, gasping against the cold, plunged and dove in the lake, or pottered about in an old clinker-built boat Archie had found in one of the boat houses.

On lazier afternoons they might light a fire on the shingle and fry sausages in a battered old pan Mrs Pips found for them, Archie reciting poetry with his Panama hat tilted over one eye. Wherever they went, whatever they did, it was always a threesome and if there was the slightest competitive edge as to which of the two girls would bring tea, or fetch Archie’s cushion or book, neither remarked upon it. Certainly he didn’t, accepting their attentions as if they were his by due, yet showing nothing more than casual gratitude to either.

At other times their attempts to outdo each other became less subtle.
 

When Kitty stated that she approved of the tighter hobble skirts, Esme dismissed them as cheap and tawdry. If she expressed an interest in the fashionable new game of tennis and regretted that it wasn’t included in the Olympic Games in Stockholm, Esme said it wasn’t quite proper to leap and run about in a silly game showing your ankles.

‘Heavens, you’re a prude.’

‘I certainly am not.’

‘Yes you are.’

‘Am not.’ Esme went quite red in the face with embarrassment; the memory of her father’s touch, and of his ignominious death suddenly looming close.

Archie quietly intervened. ‘She’s a parson’s daughter, old thing,’ as if that explained everything. And they would call a temporary truce in order to please him. It was, after all, more important to enjoy what was left of the summer.

Charlotte had discovered a delightful way to bring joy into her life. Not from the bottle of gin which had graced her mother’s dressing table, nor particularly in the fit lithe bodies of the young men who so often occupied her bed these days. They were given a delectable taste of what they most desired but only because it served her purpose to do so.

Her
purpose. Not anyone else’s.

This was her one triumph over Magnus. She could now choose her own lovers and not have to perform to his direction. Even more satisfying was a strange kind of justice in cheating him, when he himself had taken such care to teach her the tricks of the trade.

This afternoon she let the robe fall into a pool of silk upon the floor and climbed into bed beside today’s chosen candidate. She’d already decided that this must be the last time with Alderman Miles Pickering, who’d been an exciting lover once, imaginative and considerate, but had grown a touch too demanding of late, starting to make assumptions and take liberties.

Today, for instance, it had been reckless of him to arrive so early, before Magnus had eaten supper. She didn’t greatly care whether her husband were aware of her activities or not, for all it was a dangerous game she played, but she’d certainly no wish to be gossiped about by the servants. That could cause irreparable damage to her comfortable way of life.

As she leaned enticingly over him, his hands instantly fastened upon her breasts. Very gently but firmly she disengaged them, casting her eyes down with every appearance of innocence. ‘No teeny proof of your love today, my sweet?’ she pouted. ‘No little solace to compensate me for the risks I take for you.’

Charlotte never named a price with whoever her current lover was, but she managed to make it clear nonetheless that she required continual proof of their devotion; that there were dangers in their coupling for which she deserved due recompense. The ruse never failed, which was most gratifying.

 
‘I’d never forget you, dear Lottie.’ He slid a necklace about her throat, fastening it with fingers that shook with desire. The stones, surely diamonds, winked brilliantly in the light from the bedside lamp.

‘What a darling man you are.’ Older men, she’d discovered, had more class, and usually more brass to go with it. ‘But you must call me Charlotte, not Lottie. Always Charlotte. Like the lady I am. Don’t forget, love.’

Greedy hands gripped her waist to pull her roughly down in a tangle of silken sheets. ‘How could I forget?’ Alderman Pickering panted hotly as he devoured the creamy smoothness of her neck, his impatience getting the better of him. ‘You’re the most beautiful, the most enchanting wom... lady in my life, in all the world.’

Charlotte put back her head and laughed with delight at his exuberance. How delicious he was, how
exciting
!

When he entered her, plunging hard to reach his climax, her laughter turned to cries of carefully orchestrated pleasure. Charlotte writhed and moaned, gasped and groaned with sufficient artifice to convince her lover that he pleased her, while she kept her mind engaged elsewhere. Nothing Charlotte did was ever quite what it seemed. Despite the apparent satisfaction she found in the coupling, her pleasure, and therefore her security, came chiefly from the money which was piling up in a secret store at the back of the mahogany wardrobe, and in the delightful trinkets and gifts from her many admirers that filled the dressing-table drawers. These represented the tangible means by which she would eventually escape this living hell.

Charlotte Gilpin might be ravishingly beautiful, a thoroughly good sport and enormous fun, but above all else, she was a manipulating woman with a hard headed desire to have her way and be free.

The warmth of the summer lingered on into September, the days shortening, the lone cry of the curlew sounding piercingly sad as it soared in the thermals over coppiced oaks, glorious in a blaze of reds and golds. They would go for long healthy walks over Loughrigg or Scaife Heights, and once to Skelwith Force where they nearly did themselves a mischief by plunging over the rocks into the rushing icy water.

Even today with the rain bucketing down they’d walked for miles, entirely circling the lake and had run home soaking wet and giggling, chased by huge flashes of lightening splitting the sky. When they’d finally stood dripping on Mrs Pip’s clean floor it had been Esme who’d run for the towels and, taking them from her, Kitty who’d dried Archie’s hair, fearful he may come down with ‘flu again. He’d tried to fend off both of them, complaining loudly of their fussing.

They toasted crumpets for tea and Kitty said it reminded her of the evenings at Hope View by the fire in Archie’s room. Esme swiftly responded by reminding him how he’d taught her to play cricket. This ability of Esme to prove an earlier claim always gave Kitty a feeling of discomfort. Archie had been Raymond’s friend, not Kitty’s. Only since her twin’s death, during his illness and slow convalescence had he become more than a distant, older figure to her.

‘I recall you were as ham-fisted as any other little girl,’ Archie lazily responded. ‘Once broke the greenhouse windows, I seem to recall. Not with the ball but by letting go of the damned bat. Went like a bullet straight into the peach house,’ making Kitty at least, ache with laughter at the picture this presented.

‘It’s fortunate the cricket season is over,’ he chortled. ‘Though how we shall endeavour to amuse ourselves when the weather turns sour, I cannot think. I’m no lover of the Lakes in winter.’ He eyed Kitty speculatively, for there were other winter pastimes he wouldn’t mind pursuing, and he wondered whether this competitive edge he’d noticed between them, could possibly work in his favour. He was already regretting the remarkably chaste summer. Where was the fun in that?

‘Which only goes to show what a dull townie you’ve turned into,’ Esme retorted, though her tone was teasing.

They did at least agree that empires were crumbling, both in Europe and at home; that the unrest in the Balkans was disturbing. ‘England can expect great change in the years ahead,’ Kitty vehemently stated, always tenacious in debates. ‘Why should women have no say, no vote despite all the efforts of the suffragists? We should be in Parliament as well as men. There should be women judges, women solicitors, women doctors. Why should we always be expected to marry and devote our lives to waiting on a man?’