Least Said, Soonest Mended
Copyright© 2025 by Agnes Giberne
Chapter 4: Twice Good-Bye!
MARY RUSSELL was as near as possible gone that night. I’d better stop calling her “Miss Russell:” for mother always spoke to her as “Mary” by that time, and she had told me to do the same, though I wasn’t altogether in the way of it yet.
Mother would not let me sit up late, but I was down early next morning. Needful enough I should: for there was everything to do, and mother not able to be five minutes out of the sick-room.
The doctor came in before breakfast, and he seemed better satisfied; but she wasn’t to stir nor to speak, and the brother wasn’t to be let in. “No, certainly not! keep him out!” Mr. Baitson said, speaking quite sharp, when mother asked. I was puzzled to hear him, for Mr. Baitson wasn’t given to speaking sharp.
At five o’clock I left my bed, and I worked hard too; so things were well on by the time father had done his breakfast. I had to go upstairs then for a time; and when I came downstairs I wanted a bit of parsley from the garden, and I ran out.
It was a lovely morning; all a blaze of sun-shine, and such a blue sky overhead. Every leaf was sprinkled with big drops of dew wherever there was shade; and the birds were singing like wild. It did seem sad that the poor thing indoors should suffer so much. I stood still a moment, thinking of her, with a feeling as if it was selfish of me to enjoy the sweet air as I did. Then I saw the morning express was signalled, and I waited to see it rush thundering past, though there was no need this time for me to wave a red flag of warning.
When the train was gone, I thought I would take one little run to the end of the path on the top of the embankment, just to freshen up myself for the rest of my work. I was so used to a breath of fresh air early, when mother could spare me.
So I ran, not looking ahead; and all at once I found myself close to Mr. Russell.
He was sitting on the bench beside the gate; the same bench where I had found mother’s red shawl that other day. He seemed perfectly wretched. I never saw any man look more miserable than he did just then, dropping the corners of his mouth, and hanging his head, as if he’d got no spirit to sit up.
The moment when I caught sight of him was just the moment when he caught sight of me, and that wasn’t till I was near.
“Kitty!” says he, and a sort of groan came with the word. He had never called me so before, but I suppose he forgot. “Kitty,” he said, “how is my poor Mary?”
“O I think she’s a little better,” I said. “Not worse, and that is something.”
“Mr. Baitson been again?” he asked.
“Not since breakfast,” I said.
“Poor Mary!” says Mr. Russell, and he sighed like a furnace.
“I hope she is going to get on now,” I said, for I thought he wanted cheering.
Mr. Russell sighed again.
“And I would make her come this journey,” he said, self-reproachful like. “If I had been content to stay at home as she wanted, she might have been all right now, and as merry as a grig.”
Somehow I could not fancy Mary Russell exactly merry. It wasn’t her way.
“You could not know beforehand what would happen,” I said.
“Well, no, that’s true,” he said, and he brightened up. “Nobody can know beforehand what’ll happen. That’s true enough. It’s a horrid thought that if she didn’t get well— But after all, I’d got my reasons for coming away, just as much as she’d got her reasons for wanting to be at home. She needn’t have been with me if she hadn’t wanted. As you say, one can’t tell beforehand how things are going to turn out. Kitty, you’re a little comfort!” and he looked up at me, sitting on the bench still, while I stood on the path. “May I call you Kitty’—sometimes?”
I said, I shouldn’t mind if he did. What else was I to say? Easy enough now to know how I ought to have answered, but not easy at the moment.
“Kitty, I wish I could have you for my little comfort always!” says he, fetching another sigh.
My cheeks got as red as fire, and I didn’t say a word.
“I’ve never seen anybody like you,” says he softly, looking at me again. “No, never! Kitty, do you know how pretty you are?”
“I mustn’t stop. I’ve got all the work to do,” I said, knowing mother wouldn’t like this. And yet I did not want to go. His soft words took hold of me. I thought that to be “his little comfort always” would be the best happiness I could have.
“So busy!” says he. “Ah! I should like you to be where you needn’t work; able to sit still and amuse yourself, and have folks to wait upon you.”
Little goose that I was, I thought this sounded first-rate. As if anybody was ever the happier for being idle! There’s different kinds of work, no doubt; and everybody is happiest doing the sort of work for which he’s best fitted by nature and training. No; I don’t know as I’ve put that rightly either: for everybody’s happiest doing the work which God has set him to do; and if he isn’t fit for it by nature, God can shape him into fitness. But to have no work at all to do means nothing but discontent and unhappiness.
“That’s what I should like,” he said again. “To have lots of money, and a nice house, and you to sit there in a pretty parlour, with pretty dresses, and plenty of servants, and nothing ever to bother you.”
Easy to see he had never kept house. If he had, he wouldn’t have talked in the same breath about “plenty of servants” and “nothing to bother.” But I didn’t see through his words then.
“Well, I may be rich yet one day,” he went on. “Who knows? And when I am—you may be sure I’ll not forget. Kitty,” says he slowly, “supposing some day I was to ask you to cast in your lot with me, when I’m a rich man? Or supposing I didn’t wait to be rich?”
It was not an easy question to answer. For mind you, he didn’t say, “Will you cast in your lot with me?” but only, “Supposing I was to ask you?” That might mean anything or nothing.
My heart went pit-a-pat, and I hung my head. His next words were not what I looked for. “Kitty,” he said, “you mustn’t tell anybody what I said just now. If you do, I shall have to leave by the next train, and never come back. Promise you won’t.”
And I, like a little goose again, frightened at the thought of driving him away, and never waiting to consider what was due to my father and mother, was so in his power that I said, “No, I won’t!”
The moment the words had passed my lips, I knew they were wrong; yet I did not try to take them back.
“That’s my own little Kitty!” he said. He spoke in an undertone, but I heard the words; and I felt as if all the world was changed to me. His own little Kitty! Was I to be that? It wasn’t till later that I noticed he hadn’t asked if I wanted to be anything of the sort. He seemed to take all that for granted, which no man has ever a right to do with any woman. But at the moment I could only be joyful.
The next instant Mr. Russell was saying in a careless loud voice—
“Yes, I’m going for a stroll, and then I shall call again to see how poor Mary is getting on.”
The change of voice gave me a sort of stunned feeling. I couldn’t think what he meant, and all that had gone before looked unreal. Then I understood, for Rupert was walking along the path straight toward us.
“Your mother wants you, Kitty,” he says in a short gruff voice, as he came up. He always spoke to me now in that voice; and he didn’t so much as cast a look at Mr. Russell.
“Indoors?” I asked.
“Where else?” Rupert answered.
“Well, you might speak civil when you bring a message,” I said, foolishly enough, for where was the use of angering him?
“Civil!” burst out Rupert, and something in the tone frightened me, it was so sore and fierce. I just said, “I’m going,” and ran straight off, my cheeks burning still, and a strange new happiness beating at my heart.
Not all happiness, though. It could not be all happiness for a girl to be sought in such a fashion. For it was as if Mr. Russell was afraid or ashamed to speak out.
I could not see why he should fear. Father had taken to him from the first; and if mother didn’t do that, at least she never snubbed him, which was, I suppose, because of his trouble about Mary, for mother could snub, and no mistake!
But why should he not go to them, and say plain out that he wanted me? That was the question.
He had not so much as asked whether I cared for him! I could have been vexed to remember this, if only I had cared for him less. He seemed so sure that he only had to ask me, and I would jump at it. At least he had only said, “Suppose,” in a way that mightn’t mean anything.
And I was not to tell a word to my father or mother. That was hard. I had never had a regular secret from them before; and I was so used to speaking out. It didn’t feel natural to have to hold my tongue.
But I had promised! I had said I wouldn’t tell! And I had been brought up to think a deal of keeping my word.
Many a time mother had said to me, “Mind you, Kitty, a promise is a promise! Don’t you ever make one lightly; and when it is made, don’t you ever break it lightly.”
Right enough too. To my mind there’s judgment on the breaking of a promise; no matter how small a one. It’s “least said, soonest mended,” in the matter of promises, as well as in most other things. A promise once given can’t be taken back, without the consent of the person it’s given to; and a broken promise can’t be mended.
I can remember once, when I was a little child, mother was away for the whole day, and she promised to bring me a packet of pink candy. Somebody said to me, “Oh, you mustn’t count on that; she’s pretty sure to forget!” And I stamped my foot, and said, “Mother won’t forget! Mother always keeps her promise!”
Well, and I was in the right. She kept her promise, and brought the candy. But she did forget for a while; for there was an accident, which upset her, and drove it out of her head. On the way home she recollected. Some would have said, “Oh, it’s too late now! It can’t be helped, and Kitty must wait!” But mother wasn’t that sort. She went near a mile back to the only shop where the pink candy could be got; and we all wondered what was making her so late.
If she hadn’t! Well, of course, she could have said she had forgot, and she was sorry.
You don’t think, though, do you, that I should ever have felt so certain sure again, when she promised? I should always have thought, she might forget!
Ah! mother was a rare one. There’s not many like her. She wasn’t overmuch given to promises at any time; but once she did promise, she’d do it.
And I had promised Mr. Russell not to tell. I had promised lightly—that’s to say, without weighing it first. Was I to break the promise lightly?
Something whispered to me, as I went back, dropping into a slow walk—something whispered, “Tell out plain to Mr. Russell that the promise was wrong, and that you can’t keep it.”
But I did not like the idea. I knew he would be so vexed, and I could not bear to vex him. I feared it might drive him away from me for always. The wish to please him stood out first, not the wish to do what was right.
I began to have a feeling that all my happiness was bound up in him. For days past I had let myself think a deal too much about Mr. Russell; and now the words he had spoken had taken me altogether captive. Rupert was nothing to me any more. I was ready to leave father, mother, home, everything—for him.
It is natural for a girl to feel so; natural and not wrong, when other things are right. If Mr. Russell had been a man of the right stamp, coming openly and honestly to seek me, with my parents’ consent, there was no reason why I shouldn’t be willing.
Only, I didn’t know him at all to be a man of the right stamp; and he had not said a word to my father or mother. He had got me to promise not to tell them either. That was wrong to begin with. And if the first step into a path is wrong, then each step after which takes one along the path is only a going more astray.
Mother saw me pass the window, and she came into the kitchen. I felt her eyes on my face, and I could not look up to meet them.
“Where have you been?” asked she.
“In the garden, mother,” I said, hanging my head, and wishing my cheeks didn’t burn so.
“That’s nothing to be ashamed of, is it?” says she. “What took you into the garden?”
“I—wanted some parsley,” I said. For a moment I couldn’t recollect what had taken me first.
“Did the parsley keep you all this time?” says she, as quiet as anything.
“No, mother,” I said; “it wasn’t only the parsley. It was—I went along the path. And Mr. Russell was there. He came to ask —”
“To ask about Mary, I suppose?” says mother, in her dry-like tone. “Yes; but he heard about her just an hour ago, Kitty. He’s in a great hurry to hear again.”
“She’s so ill,” I said.
“Yes, that’s true. She’s been worse,” mother said.
“And he seemed—he seemed—so unhappy,” I went on. “I just stayed a minute—to—to comfort—” And then the thought of the way he had used that word, calling me “a little comfort,” rushed up, and my cheeks burnt redder than ever.
“To comfort him!” says she. “Yes, that’s very pretty. But you’re a young woman now, Kitty, and he is a young man. So next time you find him unhappy, you had best come straight and tell me, and I’ll do the comforting.”
Mother meant it for a rebuke, I knew, though she didn’t speak angrily; for it never was her way to show anger.
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