Chapter 5: Rupert

“WHAT’S become of Rupert?” father said at breakfast next day.

We always breakfasted at half-past seven, partly because father had to be up so early, and partly because mother liked it. Rupert ought to have been in the ticket-office half-an-hour before, in time for the first passenger-train that stopped at Claxton. Plenty of luggage-trains went by in the night, but happily for father and the men, there wasn’t much shunting of them at our station, like at the next station. They had to work there through a good part of the night.

“Hasn’t he come as usual?” mother asked, in answer to father’s question. Rupert was so regular, it seemed astonishing he should fail.

“Not a sign of him. If it was anybody else, I’d say he was lazy; but Rupert’s not given to laziness. I’m afraid he can’t be well,” father went on. “We shall hear presently.”

Just at the moment I did not remember what Rupert had said to me the evening before. It would be thought more natural for me to remember at once, but I didn’t. My head was so full of the thought of Mr. Russell.

“Anybody come or go?” mother asked. It was the very question I wanted to put, only I had not courage.

“Russell has left. That’s all,” father said.

Then he was really gone! A sick feeling came over me, and I couldn’t eat my breakfast. I knew mother saw, and I knew she wouldn’t say a word: she’d always such a notion of the harm done by too many words. But father happened to look my way. “Why—Kitty!” says he. “The child’s not well.”

“She has had too much to do lately,” said mother. “Kitty’s not overstrong.”

“Why, she’s as white—” father said. “Come here, Kitty, and let’s see what’s wrong.”

I came as I was bidden, and he took hold of me, looking hard. I couldn’t stand that. The next moment I was clinging to him, with my face down on his shoulder.

Maybe mother made him some sort of sign. I shouldn’t wonder if she did; for he cuddled me in his arms as if I’d been a small child again, and whispered— “Poor little kittenkins!” once or twice, which was my old nursery name. But he didn’t ask any more questions.

“She’s been a good girl to help so steady all through Mary’s illness,” mother said presently. “I wish now I’d had a girl in to help; and I might have done it, but I thought I’d lay by what the Russells paid us. Maybe I’ve been penny wise and pound foolish, for once. But I did think, too, the work was good for Kitty.”

“So it is! so it was!” says father. “Good for everybody. And a good thing to lay by a few shillings too! But it isn’t worth while to make our Kitty ill. That ‘ud cost a lot more shillings than we could have laid by. Eh, Kitty? Come, cheer up!” says he. “We’ll see what we can do to make you right again.”

How good they were to me, both father and mother!—and I deceiving them all the while!

“Now I must go and see if Rupert has turned up,” says father. “Kitty must get a run on the common, eh?”

And all at once it darted into my head about Rupert the evening before, and how he had said good-bye. I started up in a moment.

“O father! Oh, see about Rupert!” I cried, hardly able to speak yet, but scared at the thought that had come to me.

“To be sure I will,” says he. “You wouldn’t like Rupert to be ill, eh?”

“I hope he is—I hope it is that—I hope it isn’t anything worse,” I cried, scarce knowing what I said; and father did stare, but, I went on, pretty near out of breath with fright—

“Oh, do make haste and see.”

“To be sure I will,” says father again. “Why, Kitty, what’s come over you to-day?”

That very moment the kitchen door was pushed open, and Mrs. Bowman stood there.

She was a puny sad-faced woman at the best of times, one of those folks who take life hard, and never get any pleasure out of it; but I’d never seen her look so haggard before.

“Where’s—Rupert?” she said, and she fixed her eyes on father.

“That’s the very question I’ve been wanting to ask you,” father said.

“Sit down, Mrs. Bowman,” says mother. “Sit down and tell us what’s gone wrong.”

Mrs. Bowman dropped into a chair, close to where she was standing.

“He came in late last night,” she said. “And he wouldn’t say where he’d been. And he wouldn’t take his supper. And he looked so strange. And this morning he never came to breakfast. And his door was locked. And he didn’t answer. And when we got in he wasn’t there. And his bed wasn’t slept in. And a lot of his things are gone!”

“Poor dear!” mother says, pitying-like, as the “And” got to be a gasp, and then a sob. “I shouldn’t have thought it of Rupert.”

“But you don’t think he’s—gone!” father said.

“Yes, I do think it,” Mrs. Bowman cried, in a weak, broken sort of voice. “I do think it, and I’m sure of it! Kitty knows why! If you ask Kitty she can tell. She’s driven him off, and that’s what she’s done.”

“Kitty!” father said, looking at me.

Then he walked up to Mrs. Bowman.

“Come, come, that’s nonsense, you know,” says he. “Kitty and Rupert are good enough friends, and always have been; but Kitty’s not bound to favour him special, Mrs. Bowman. You can’t say she is. And what’s more, she’s a deal too young for that sort of nonsense; if it’s that you mean. Kitty’s a child still, and Rupert’s another. If he’s got into a huff about Kitty, so much the worse for him; but I don’t see that Kitty’s to blame. However, I hope the lad’s not so silly. I’ve got to go to the station now, and you’d best come along with me. I shouldn’t wonder if we find Rupert there, all right. It’s been a freak, going off early this morning—at least I hope so; and he’ll be back soon, if he isn’t back yet. Come along! If he’s not at the station, I’ll go home with you, and we’ll think what to do.”

Father went off, walking sharp, and Mrs. Bowman trailed after him in a weak way, as if she wasn’t sure whether she’d go or stay. Then mother said—

“What does it mean, Kitty?”

“Rupert has been so—tiresome, lately.”

“Tiresome what way?” says she.

“Oh, just getting cross,” I said.

“What about?” says she.

“He’d got a notion,” I said.

“Yes—a notion?” says she, waiting as quiet as anything, and I knew she didn’t mean to let me off.

“He wanted—wanted me—to—marry him,” I said, crying anew. “And I—couldn’t.”

“How do you know he wanted that?” said she.

“He said it one day. And I ran away and left him, mother.”

“Not a bad plan,” says she. “I wish a few more girls would run away from a few more lads. There’d be a lot of trouble spared. Well, how long ago was it?”

I had to think a moment, before I could remember that it was just before the express train having to be stopped.

“Rupert was wrong to speak to you,” mother said. “He ought to have come first to father and me.”

But I thought of Mr. Russell, and I didn’t say “Yes.”

“He was so vexed,” I said. “And he’s been angry and disagreeable since. And yesterday evening he told me—told me—he meant to go away. I didn’t believe him. I thought it was all nonsense.”

“When did he tell you?”

“Out-of-doors,” I said.

“When, Kitty?” says she again.

“When I was coming back from the shop,” I said, wishing mother wouldn’t put so many questions.

“Ah—was it Rupert who kept you so long?” says mother, looking straight at me, and I felt myself get scarlet.

“I saw Rupert—then,” I said. “And—I met Mr. Russell too—and he told me he was going—and said—good-bye.”