Mr. Sarrazin reluctantly reminded her that the father had a right. "No person--not even the mother--can take the child out of the father"s custody," he said, "except with the father"s consent. His authority is the supreme authority--unless it happens that the law has deprived him of his privilege, and has expressly confided the child to the mother"s care. Ha!" cried Mr. Sarrazin, twisting round in his chair and fixing his keen eyes on Mrs. Presty, "look at your good mother; _she_ sees what I am coming to."
"I see something more than you think," Mrs. Presty answered. "If I know anything of my daughter"s nature, you will find yourself, before long, on delicate ground."
"What do you mean, mamma?"
Mrs. Presty had lived in the past age when persons occasionally used metaphor as an aid to the expression of their ideas. Being called upon to explain herself, she did it in metaphor, to her own entire satisfaction.
"Our learned friend here reminds me, my dear Catherine, of a traveler exploring a strange town. He takes a turning, in the confident expectation that it will reward him by leading him to some satisfactory result--and he finds himself in a blind alley, or, as the French put it (I speak French fluently), in a _cool de sack_. Do I make my meaning clear, Mr. Sarrazin?"
"Not the least in the world, ma"am."
"How very extraordinary! Perhaps I have been misled by my own vivid imagination. Let me endeavor to express myself plainly--let me say that my fancy looks prophetically at what you are going to do, and sincerely wishes you well out of it. Pray go on."
"And pray speak more plainly than my mother has spoken," Mrs. Linley added. "As I understood what you said just now, there is a law, after all, that will protect me in the possession of my little girl. I don"t care what it costs; I want that law."
"May I ask first," Mr. Sarrazin stipulated, "whether you are positively resolved not to give way to your husband in this matter of Kitty?"
"Positively."
"One more question, if you please, on a matter of fact. I have heard that you were married in Scotland. Is that true?"
"Quite true."
Mr. Sarrazin exhibited himself once more in a highly unprofessional aspect. He clapped his hands, and cried, "Bravo!" as if he had been in a theater.
Mrs. Linley caught the infection of the lawyer"s excitement. "How dull I am!" she exclaimed. "There is a thing they call "incompatibility of temper"--and married people sign a paper at the lawyer"s and promise never to trouble each other again as long as they both live. And they"re readier to do it in Scotland than they are in England. That"s what you mean--isn"t it?"
Mr. Sarrazin found it necessary to rea.s.sume his professional character.
"No, indeed, madam," he said, "I should be unworthy of your confidence if I proposed nothing better than that. You can only secure the sole possession of little Kitty by getting the help of a judge--"
"Get it at once," Mrs. Linley interposed.
"And you can only prevail on the judge to listen to you," Mr. Sarrazin proceeded, "in one way. Summon your courage, madam. Apply for a divorce."
There was a sudden silence. Mrs. Linley rose trembling, as if she saw--not good Mr. Sarrazin--but the devil himself tempting her. "Do you hear that?" she said to her mother.
Mrs. Presty only bowed.
"Think of the dreadful exposure!"
Mrs. Presty bowed again.
The lawyer had his opportunity now.
"Well, Mrs. Linley," he asked, "what do you say?"
"No--never!" She made that positive reply; and disposed beforehand of everything that might have been urged, in the way of remonstrance and persuasion, by leaving the room. The two persons who remained, sitting opposite to each other, took opposite views.
"Mr. Sarrazin, she won"t do it."
"Mrs. Presty, she will."
Chapter XXVI. Decision.
Punctual to his fishing appointment with Kitty, Mr. Sarrazin was out in the early morning, waiting on the pier.
Not a breath of wind was stirring; the lazy mist lay asleep on the further sh.o.r.e of the lake. Here and there only the dim tops of the hills rose like shadows cast by the earth on the faint gray of the sky. Nearer at hand, the waters of the lake showed a gloomy surface; no birds flew over the colorless calm; no pa.s.sing insects tempted the fish to rise. From time to time a last-left leaf on the wooded sh.o.r.e dropped noiselessly and died. No vehicles pa.s.sed as yet on the lonely road; no voices were audible from the village; slow and straight wreaths of smoke stole their way out of the chimneys, and lost their vapor in the misty sky. The one sound that disturbed the sullen repose of the morning was the tramp of the lawyer"s footsteps, as he paced up and down the pier.
He thought of London and its ceaseless traffic, its roaring high tide of life in action--and he said to himself, with the strong conviction of a town-bred man: How miserable this is!
A voice from the garden cheered him, just as he reached the end of the pier for the fiftieth time, and looked with fifty-fold intensity of dislike at the dreary lake.
There stood Kitty behind the garden-gate, with a fishing-rod in each hand. A tin box was strapped on one side of her little body and a basket on the other. Burdened with these impediments, she required a.s.sistance.
Susan had let her out of the house; and Samuel must now open the gate for her. She was pleased to observe that the raw morning had reddened her friend"s nose; and she presented her own nose to notice as exhibiting perfect sympathy in this respect. Feeling a misplaced confidence in Mr. Sarrazin"s knowledge and experience as an angler, she handed the fishing-rods to him. "My fingers are cold," she said; "you bait the hooks." He looked at his young friend in silent perplexity; she pointed to the tin box. "Plenty of bait there, Samuel; we find maggots do best." Mr. Sarrazin eyed the box with undisguised disgust; and Kitty made an unexpected discovery. "You seem to know nothing about it," she said. And Samuel answered, cordially, "Nothing!" In five minutes more he found himself by the side of his young friend--with his hook baited, his line in the water, and strict injunctions to keep an eye on the float.
They began to fish.
Kitty looked at her companion, and looked away again in silence. By way of encouraging her to talk, the good-natured lawyer alluded to what she had said when they parted overnight. "You wanted to ask me something,"
he reminded her. "What is it?"
Without one preliminary word of warning to prepare him for the shock, Kitty answered: "I want you to tell me what has become of papa, and why Syd has gone away and left me. You know who Syd is, don"t you?"
The only alternative left to Mr. Sarrazin was to plead ignorance. While Kitty was instructing him on the subject of her governess, he had time to consider what he should say to her next. The result added one more to the lost opportunities of Mr. Sarrazin"s life.
"You see," the child gravely continued, "you are a clever man; and you have come here to help mamma. I have got that much out of grandmamma, if I have got nothing else. Don"t look at me; look at your float. My papa has gone away and Syd has left me without even saying good-by, and we have given up our nice old house in Scotland and come to live here. I tell you I don"t understand it. If you see your float begin to tremble, and then give a little dip down as if it was going to sink, pull your line out of the water; you will most likely find a fish at the end of it. When I ask mamma what all this means, she says there is a reason, and I am not old enough to understand it, and she looks unhappy, and she gives me a kiss, and it ends in that way. You"ve got a bite; no you haven"t; it"s only a nibble; fish are so sly. And grandmamma is worse still. Sometimes she tells me I"m a spoiled child; and sometimes she says well-behaved little girls don"t ask questions. That"s nonsense--and I think it"s hard on me. You look uncomfortable. Is it my fault? I don"t want to bother you; I only want to know why Syd has gone away. When I was younger I might have thought the fairies had taken her. Oh, no! that won"t do any longer; I"m too old. Now tell me."
Mr. Sarrazin weakly attempted to gain time: he looked at his watch.
Kitty looked over his shoulder: "Oh, we needn"t be in a hurry; breakfast won"t be ready for half an hour yet. Plenty of time to talk of Syd; go on."
Most unwisely (seeing that he had to deal with a clever child, and that child a girl), Mr. Sarrazin tried flat denial as a way out of the difficulty. He said: "I don"t know why she has gone away." The next question followed instantly: "Well, then, what do you _think_ about it?"
In sheer despair, the persecuted friend said the first thing that came into his head.
"I think she has gone to be married."
Kitty was indignant.
"Gone to be married, and not tell me!" she exclaimed. "What do you mean by that?"
Mr. Sarrazin"s professional experience of women and marriages failed to supply him with an answer. In this difficulty he exerted his imagination, and invented something that no woman ever did yet. "She"s waiting," he said, "to see how her marriage succeeds, before she tells anybody about it."
This sounded probable to the mind of a child.
"I hope she hasn"t married a beast," Kitty said, with a serious face and an ominous shake of the head. "When shall I hear from Syd?"
Mr. Sarrazin tried another prevarication--with better results this time. "You will be the first person she writes to, of course." As that excusable lie pa.s.sed his lips, his float began to tremble. Here was a chance of changing the subject--"I"ve got a fish!" he cried.