Least Said, Soonest Mended
Copyright© 2025 by Agnes Giberne
Chapter 9: Then—
I was so taken aback with the question, I sat and stared at Mary. For it was about the last thing in the world I looked for, that she should offer to take a message from me to her brother.
“Am I to say—nothing?” she asked.
It rushed over me then how I’d been longing all the morning to let him know that I had kept my promise. And I never waited to think if that was the sort of message Mary had in her mind.
“Yes, please,” I said, trembling. “Please tell Mr. Russell it wasn’t my fault.”
I don’t think I shall soon forget the astonished look that came over Mary’s face. She had got something she didn’t expect; that was clear.
“What wasn’t your fault?” said she.
“About—about its getting known,” I whispered, twisting a corner of the tablecloth into a little rope, and dreadfully afraid mother would come back before I could explain. “I’m afraid he’ll think it was me, and indeed it wasn’t. I never let out a word.”
“Is that all you care for, Kitty?” said she, in a sad tone.
“No,” I said, and I found it hard to speak. “No, I do care, and I am sorry. It’s been wrong, I know. Only—I can’t bear him to think—”
“Walter’s thinking either way is worth very little, poor weak boy that he is,” said she. “Kitty, have you never thought how all this has been in the sight of God?”
I said “Yes,” very low; and it was true, for I had not forgotten that. Only it had weighed second with me, not first; and so Mary understood.
“Perhaps you have thought in a passing way, but you have not cared,” said she. “At least, not much. Not half so much as you have cared about what people may say of you.”
If she had said “Walter” instead of “people,” she would have been in the right.
“I don’t know,” was all I could answer.
After a minute, she began again.
“What am I to say to Walter about your watch?”
I began to see what sort of a message Mary had meant, and I didn’t speak.
“Mind, Kitty,” said she, “your words may have power one way or another—for good or for evil. I don’t say they will have, for I’m not sure whether you have any power at all over Walter; but they may. Most people have some sort of power over pretty nearly every one else. Walter has robbed you. What am I to say?”
“Oh, not robbed,” I said.
“He has robbed you,” she said again firmly. “It is no thanks to Walter that you have the watch again. He has acted with downright dishonesty, and nothing less. He got the watch from you on false pretences—yes, false!” she repeated, as I whispered “O no!” again. “He is my own brother, but that is no reason for explaining away the sin. Because I love him, I am only the more grieved. Loving him can’t make me love evil. I want you to look the truth in the face; not to mince matters. No good is ever gained by saying that black is white. Walter robbed you of your watch, under pretence of borrowing it.”
Yes, she was stern; she could be almost hard. At least, I tried to think so, trying still to defend Walter in my heart.
“But he didn’t mean—” I murmured.
“Didn’t mean to rob you! My dear, he meant to get a certain amount of money somehow; he cared very little how. What you might lose or suffer was quite a small matter. Kitty, —if I could open your eyes to understand him!”
I had a sort of side-peep of mother putting her head round the door, and going away again. It flurried me so, I didn’t know what to say. And I was angry with Mary too. Why must she make the very worst of everything to do with Walter?
“He meant to bring it back to me,” I said.
“To bring back the watch! After he had sold it!”
“Perhaps he didn’t really quite sell it,” I whispered.
“He sold it, quite and really,” says she. “How could he sell it only half? You are fighting against truth, trying to believe in him still,” says she. “Will anything persuade you, short of coming to the jeweller’s with me?”
I said “O no!” to that.
“No, you don’t want to go—is that it? Then will you take my word? He sold the watch and chain for more money than he was in need of, and spent a lot in useless nothings. That is Walter all over! Do you think I don’t know him now, after all these years?”
I didn’t make any answer.
“It is the old story,” says she sorrowfully; “only worse. And I did hope things were going to be better. Kitty, you have been helping him along the downward path, deeper into evil. If you really cared for him, you could not have done so.”
“O no!” I said again. “Not—”
“Helping him downward into evil,” said she. “Nothing less! Helping him farther along the road of deceit and dishonesty, and letting him teach you to deceive. If only you had stood firm when he tempted you, there’d have been sin spared on both sides. It is one of the saddest tales I have ever heard,” said she. “One of the saddest, after the training you have had—and with such a father and mother! Perhaps you fancy you gave in because you like Walter. He’s nice-looking, and he can say pretty things to girls. But it’s a poor sort of ‘liking’ for a person, that can make you help forward the evil in him. And I, his sister, don’t thank you for the harm you have done. Some day you will repent it too.”
Then she stopped, as if to give me time to speak; and I said nothing. I was angry still, and shamed and unhappy; and if I might not defend Walter, I would not answer at all. So after a minute she said softly—
“Good-bye, Kitty. I shall pray for you.”
Then she went away out of the room, leaving me alone; and I didn’t follow nor see her again, for she went by the train that passed in a quarter of an hour.
Mother brought her work in soon, and sat down at the table. We had a lot of mending to got through, and I knew it had to be done. I felt half wild, as the minutes dragged on, and the clock ticked, and not a word was said. It seemed to my fancy as if mother wouldn’t trust me, and was keeping guard. I longed to get away somewhere alone, for a good cry; yet I didn’t dare to stir.
I can remember how mother looked, sitting still sideways towards me, her fingers stitching on and on steady as a machine, and her eyes never lifting themselves. She had such a quietness in her face, as if she was waiting and expecting something.
It must have been near two hours that we kept like that, both of us working, and not saying a word. But at last I couldn’t bear myself any longer. I was aching all over, and restlessness wouldn’t be held down. I dropped the table-cloth I was mending, and leant back in my chair.
Mother looked up then slowly, and fixed her eyes on me, like one coming out of a dream. She didn’t ask if I was poorly, nor say I’d better go for a run, as was her way commonly; but she seemed to be trying to find out something; and all at once she said—
“Kitty, have you promised Mr. Russell to be his wife some day?”
“No, mother,” I said, getting as red as fire.
“He has asked you, I suppose?” said she.
“No, mother,” I said.
Mother gazed at me still, and sighed. “It’s not much use putting questions,” said she. “How am I to know it’s truth you tell me?”
“Oh, but—” I said. “I wouldn’t—”
“You wouldn’t tell more fibs than happens to be convenient,” said she; and I hadn’t often heard harder words from mother. “No, I dare say not,” says she. “But you see I mightn’t know when it was convenient.”
“Mother, I wish you wouldn’t talk so,” I said, feeling wretched.
“I dare say,” says she. “And I wish I had a child again that I could believe in. I could have stood anything better than that—anything, I do think,” said she. “It’s like losing my Kitty that I’ve always trusted, and having somebody else instead.”
“I’ll never tell a story again,” I said earnestly. “Never! I won’t really.”
“No,” said she, sorrowful-like. “You don’t mean to—maybe.”
And I saw she hadn’t a grain of confidence in me. Was it any wonder?
“You say Mr. Russell never asked you to marry him. Then what did go on between you two?” said she. “If you are minded to begin speaking the truth, tell me all out plain now.”
She looked so anxious, leaving her work, and waiting to hear. And I was all in confusion, not knowing what I might or mightn’t say. Perhaps I ought rather to put it, that I was puzzled between my wish to please mother and not to say a word that Mr. Russell could mind.
“He was—so good to me,” I whispered.
“How?” said she.
“He was—kind,” I said.
“That won’t do, Kitty. I must hear more, if I hear anything,” said she. “Did he ever ask you to marry him?”
“No,” I said; and that was true. “He only—”
“Well? He only—what?” said she.
“He only seemed—to think—to think—I liked him,” said I, stumbling.
“That’s truth, I don’t doubt,” said she; and she repeated the words: “Only seemed to think you liked him! I’d like to have seen the man, when I was a girl, who’d have dared to seem to think I liked him, before he’d made it pretty plain how much he liked me! But I don’t know what’s come over the girls nowadays. They haven’t a scrap of self-respect.”
“O but, mother, he did seem—” I began, and stopped.
“Did seem what?” says she. “Did seem to think he liked you too? Is that all?”
I wouldn’t speak, for I remembered how I’d promised not to tell.
“There’s a deal of ‘seeming,’” said she. “Seeming this and seeming that! A few honest-spoken words would be worth a lot more than all the seeming. Kitty, did he ever tell you he loved you?”
“Not—not exactly,” I whispered.
“No, not exactly, I’ll be bound,” says she. “Just enough to win a silly girl’s heart, and just little enough to leave himself free! I know the ways of that sort.”
And wasn’t it true?
“But I’m sure he did mean—” I began, and stopped again.
“Did mean what?” said she.
“He did call me ‘his own little Kitty,’” I whispered, in a shamefaced way. Mother’s questioning put my promise out of my head again. I was getting to feel all in a whirl.
“And you let him!” said she.
I shan’t soon forget the quiet tone, and the contempt of it.
“You let him call you that, before even he’d asked if you would marry him!” says mother.
“I thought—he seemed—” I whispered.
“There you are again, with your thinking and seeming,” said she. “Nothing open nor aboveboard.”
“He did say—something,” I muttered. “He did say something—something about—he hoped some day—and if he was to ask me—”
“If he was to ask you what?” says she.
But I didn’t go on.
“If he was to ask you to marry him?” says she. “But he didn’t ask you! That’s the last thing you said. Whichever am I to believe?”
“He didn’t ask me to marry him—really—truly —mother,” I answered. “He only said something about—he’d like some day—and—and if he was to ask me—would I—”
And then I fell into a fright.
“O I oughtn’t to have said so much. I promised him I wouldn’t.”
“That’s a nice state of things,” says she. “A man making you an offer, and you not to tell your own mother!”
“Only not just yet,” I pleaded. “And it wasn’t—that—it wasn’t truly, mother. He didn’t ask—that! He only said—if he was to ask—by-and-by—”
“Piece of impertinence!” said she.
“Mother! you don’t understand, and I can’t make you,” I said.
“I understand part,” says she; “and that is, he took precious good care to keep himself free. ‘If he was to ask you,’ indeed! Impertinence!” says she again, and I don’t know as I’d ever before seen mother so hot. “Catch a man in my young days,” says she, “asking if I’d hold myself ready to say ‘yes,’ the moment he chose to ask me—if so be he ever did ask! I’m in doubt whether to be most amazed at him or at you, Kitty,” says she.
“I oughtn’t to have told; I promised him I wouldn’t. Mother! don’t tell father,” I begged. She sat looking at me in a sort of wonder.
“Asking me not to tell father!” says she. “Kitty, are you crazy? or d’you suppose I’m crazy?”
Then, between one worry and another, and having had so much on my mind, I turned queer and ill again, worse than the day before. Mother helped me upstairs, and made me lie down on my bed. She was kind as could be, and did all I needed; only there wasn’t the tenderness I was used to, and I did miss it.
I couldn’t go downstairs again that afternoon nor evening. I couldn’t, partly because I felt bad, and partly because I dreaded what father would say. Mother let me do as I wished. She didn’t press me either way. And father never came to my room at all. It was the first time I could remember father not coming to see how I was, when I had not been well.
Next morning I had breakfast in bed, for I couldn’t sleep much; and I didn’t hurry going down after, so father was off first.
Half-way through the morning Mr. Armstrong came in. He had heard from father something of what had happened, and he said he had called to ask me all about it. Mother just said, “Yes, thank you, sir. Kitty ‘ll take you into the parlour.”
I didn’t like that, but I had to go. Mr. Armstrong was very gentle, and never spoke hard words; but all the same—perhaps all the more because of the gentleness—I cared a deal more for what he said than for most people.
He had been a kind friend to me all my life, and he had prepared me for Confirmation only two years sooner. Somehow when he sat down near me, I couldn’t help thinking of the time I had seen him alone just before my Confirmation, and how he had spoken of the life I was to lead as a “servant of Jesus Christ;” and how I was to obey Him, and love Him, and set myself to please Him in everything I did. I had little thought then how soon I was to be led into a crooked path of deceit. It was curious the remembrance of that time coming just then into my head. I expected Mr. Armstrong to begin asking me a lot of questions, and I was determined I wouldn’t let out more than I could help about Walter Russell. But instead of beginning with questions, Mr. Armstrong kept silence a minute, as if he wanted to give me time. And then he said—