Kitty Trenire Part 13

"No, you won't, 'cause you won't have money enough," said Betty; "and-- and I wouldn't accept it if you got it."

"I'll leave you my old one when I go to school, and I advise you to study it well before you go to Miss Richards's. It may save you from putting your foot in it sometimes."

"I wonder," said Betty, with a sudden thought, "if it would tell me what self-confidence is?"

"I can tell you that," said Dan. "Why do you want to know?"

"Oh--oh, because--but tell me first what it means, and then I will tell you--perhaps."

"Well, it means--oh--you know--"

"No, I don't; and--and I don't believe you do either," nodding her head very knowingly at her brother.

"Yes, I do," cried Dan hotly. "It means having a too jolly good opinion of yourself, and thinking you can do anything. Now, tell me why you wanted to know."

But Betty was walking away with her head held very high, and her cheeks very red. "I think it is quite time you started for the station to meet Aunt Pike and Anna," she called back over her shoulder.

"Don't be late, whatever you do."

"But you are coming too, Bet, aren't you?"

"No," she answered frigidly, as she closed the door, "I am not," and to herself she added, with proud indignation, "After Aunt Pike's calling me such a name as that, I shouldn't think of going to meet her."

Kitty, Dan, and Tony were on the platform when the train arrived.

Their father had expressly wished them to go to meet their aunt and cousin, as he was unable to; so they went to please him, they told each other. But they would put up with a good deal for the sake of a jaunt to the station, and there really was some little anxiety and excitement, too, in their hearts as to what Anna would be like.

When she had stayed with them before she had been a little fair, slight thing, with a small face, frightened restless eyes, and a fragile body as restless as her eyes. Anna Pike gave one the impression of being all nerves, and in a perpetual state of tremor. She was said to be very clever and intellectual, and certainly if being always with a book was a proof of it, she was; but there were some who thought she did little with her books beyond holding them, and that it would have been better for her in every way if she had sometimes held a doll, or a skipping-rope, or a branch of a tree instead.

"She was rather pretty, I think, wasn't she?" said Kitty musingly, as they strolled up and down the platform waiting for the train.

"She was awfully skinny," said Dan.

"Will Anna be bigger than me?" asked Tony, who did not remember her.

"Oh yes, she is as old as Dan, I think; but I always feel as though she were older even than I am. She used to seem so grown-up and clever, and she always did the right thing; and, oh dear, how dreadful it will be if she is still the same."

Tony sighed. "I wish there was somebody little, like me, to play with,"

he said wistfully; "somebody as young as me."

"But, Tony darling, you don't feel you want some one else, do you?

Why, we all play with you," cried Kitty reproachfully.

"Yes, I know; but you only pretend. You don't think things are really-truly, like I do."

"But I do, dear, I do, really; only yours are fairies and giants, and mine are knights and kings and ladies," and her thoughts flashed right away from the busy station, with its brick platform and gleaming rails, the ordinary-looking men and women pacing up and down, and the noise and rattle of the place, to the quiet, still woods and hurrying river, with their mystery and calm, and to those other men and women pacing so stately amidst the silence and beauty. But Tony, tugging at her hand, very soon brought her abruptly back to her real surroundings.

"It is coming! it is coming!" he cried. "I hear it."

And a moment later, with a fast-increasing roar, the engine rounded the curve, and gradually slowing down, drew up alongside the platform.

Mrs. Pike was one of those persons who keep their seats until all other pa.s.sengers have left the carriage, and make every one belonging to them do the same; and Kitty and Dan had twice walked the whole length of the train, and were just turning away, not quite certain whether they felt relieved or not at seeing no sign of their travellers, when they heard a well-remembered voice calling to them, and, turning, saw their aunt standing in a carriage doorway, beckoning to them as frantically as an armful of parcels and bags would allow her. She retreated when she had attracted their attention, and in her place there stepped from the carriage a tall, lanky girl, who was evidently very shy and embarra.s.sed at being thrust out alone to greet her strange cousins.

It was Anna. Though she had grown enormously, they knew her in a moment, for the thin white face was the same, the restless eyes, the nervous fidgeting movements of the hands and feet and body.

Her straight, light hair had grown enormously too; it was a perfect mane now, long, and thick, and heavy--too heavy and long, it seemed, for the thin neck and little head. Kitty eyed it enviously, though; her own dark hair was frizzy and thick as could be, but it never had grown, and never would grow more than shoulder length, she feared, and she did so admire long, straight, glossy hair.

But when she looked from her cousin's hair to her cousin, a sudden sense of shyness came over her, and it was awkwardly enough that she advanced.

"Ought I to kiss her," she was asking herself, "on a platform like this, and before a lot of people? She might think it silly;" and while she was still debating the point, she had held out her hand and shaken Anna's stiffly, with a prim "How do you do," and that was all.

Her aunt she had overlooked entirely, until that lady recalled her wandering wits peremptorily. "Well, Katherine, is this the way you greet your aunt and cousin? Have you quite forgotten me? Come and kiss us both in a proper manner.--Well, Daniel, how are you? Yes, I shall be obliged to you if you will go in search of our luggage;" for Dan, fearing that he, too, might be ordered to kiss them both, had shaken hands heartily but hastily, while uttering burning desires to a.s.sist them by finding their boxes.--"Anthony, come and be introduced to your cousin Anna. I dare say you scarcely remember her."

Tony kissed his severe-looking cousin obediently, but his hopes of a playmate died there and then.

"Elizabeth, I do not see her!"

"No--o; she has not come, Aunt Pike," said Kitty lamely. She felt absolutely incapable at that moment of giving any reason why Betty had absented herself, so she said no more.

"Anna was particularly anxious to meet her cousin Elizabeth," continued Mrs. Pike. "Being so near of an age, she hopes to make her her special companion.--Don't you, Anna?"

"Yes, mother," said Anna, rubbing her cotton-gloved hands together nervously, and setting Kitty's teeth on edge to such an extent that she could scarcely speak. But somehow the enthusiasm of Anna's actions was not echoed in her voice.

Dan, who had rejoined them, smiled to himself wickedly as he thought of Betty's last speech about her cousin.

"The porter is taking the luggage out to the omnibus," he said.

"Will you come out and get up?" He led the way, and they all followed.

The big yellow 'bus with its four horses stood in the roadway outside the platform palings. The driver and conductor, who knew the Trenires quite well, beamed on them, and touched their hats.

"I've kept the front seat for you, missie," said Weller, the conductor, to Kitty, and he moved towards the short ladder placed against the 'bus in readiness for her to mount. "Will the other ladies go 'pon top, too?" he asked; and Kitty, with one foot on the lower step, looked round at her aunt to offer her her seat.

"Katherine! Katherine! what _are_ you doing? Come down, child, at once.

You surely aren't thinking of clambering up that ladder? Let Dan do so if he likes, but you will please come inside with Anna and me."

Kitty's face fell visibly. She could hardly believe, though, that she had heard aright. "I feel ill if I go inside, Aunt Pike," she explained. "Father always lets us go on top; he tells us to. He says it is healthier; and it is such a lovely evening, too, and the drive is beautiful. I am sure you would--"

"Katherine, please, I must ask you not to stand there arguing in that rude manner with me," said Mrs. Pike with intense severity, "Get inside the omnibus at once. I will speak to your father on the subject when I get home." And poor Kitty, so long mistress of her own actions, walked, bitterly humiliated, under the eyes of the many onlookers, and got into the hot, close 'bus, where the air was already heavy with the mixed smell of straw and paint and velvet cus.h.i.+ons, which she never could endure.

"Anthony, you may go outside with Daniel if you prefer it, as the 'bus is rather full inside," said Mrs. Pike, stopping him as he clambered in after Kitty. But Tony declined the offer.

"I would rather go with Kitty, please," he said loyally. "I'd--I'd rather." He had a feeling that by so doing he was somehow helping her.

Kitty, with compressed lips and flas.h.i.+ng eyes, took her seat. She did not notice who was beside her; her only object was to get as far as possible from her aunt, for, feeling as she felt then, she could not possibly talk to her.

"It is a _shame_ to make us go inside. It always makes me feel ill too; but I've always got to," whispered a low, indignant voice through the rattling and rumbling of the 'bus. With a start of surprise Kitty turned quickly to see who had spoken, and found that she had seated herself beside her cousin Anna.

For a moment Kitty stared at her, bewildered. It could not have been Anna who spoke, for Anna was staring absorbedly out of the window opposite her, apparently lost in thought, or fascinated by the scenery through which they were pa.s.sing. But just as she had determined that she had made a mistake, a side-long glance from Anna's restless eyes convinced her that she had not.

"Are you feeling ill now?" asked Kitty, but Anna in reply only glanced nervously at her mother, and bestowed on Kitty a warning kick; and Kitty, indignant with them both, could not bring herself to address another remark to her. All through that long, wretched drive home Kitty's indignation waxed hotter and hotter, for she kept her gaze studiously on the window, and the glimpses she got of all the beauty they were pa.s.sing through only served to increase it. Here the way lay through the soft dimness of a plantation of young larches, their green, feathery branches almost meeting across the road; then came a long steep hill, up which the horses walked in a leisurely way--quite delightful if one were outside and able to gaze down at the glorious valley which spread away and away below, until a curve in the road suddenly cut it off from view, but infinitely wearying when every moment was spent in a hot, stuffy atmosphere, with nothing before one's eyes but the hedge or one's fellow-pa.s.sengers.