Little Kate Kirby
Robinson, F. W. (Frederick William), 1830-1901
^^ C3<f^^ ^^r r^^^^^ o c <rc.... ti^ r-f--?^^?fc^ ^ ,-. ^ < \. ^ ^ &k -s- ^% -t -?--' (5CL «r . ^ ^^3^- '. '^■^ : ^ c <■. *^ ^<irr-^r oTc <rc "c ■ ^^- ^•^^•c ^^ ccTcVc ' .-c «'- c; .^^-'^"^ <- '^^^^^--^Cr^ < V < ^^ ic.c c c <r^ «r^ C . > '^^ > 4 eo < < 1 .^ 51 c ^.": <( < l'^ . " < 4 '^-," K- ^ : f r r<3:^ :^.^yc^-^^ :*^ar c c ^^ ^v^ ^»^^\ ■ ^^. m pccx P CC c ^?*' c ^ ^ ^M S-' 4C^ ( c <r <^:^ .d _<7" ; crc^- '.<^C < ^ ^ .c-^ ■£ <:e.. c ( me^ :^^ UNIVERSITY Ui- ILLINOiS LIBRARY TURBANA-CHAMPAIGN B00KSTACK8 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. F. W. ROBIXSOxV, AUTHOR OF "grandmother's money," "no church,' &c. &c. m THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1873. The right of Translation i< reserved LONUO.N -. PRINTED BY WACUONAIOJ A^D TDGWEIX, BLKNHKIM HOU6E, BLENHEIM STREET. OXFORD STREET 2^3 IN V> FRIENDLY GREETING TO EDWARD CLARKE, ESQ. BARRISTER- AT-LAW. ^ CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. BOOK I. A HARD STRUGGLE. COAITER PAGE I. Preparing for a Surprise. 3 II. I AM MORE Surprised than i Bargained for 10 III. I Learn All the Xews 25 IV. Herbert WESTiLvm. 38 V. The Old Lodgings 53 VI. In the Fog again 70 vn. Mrs. Simmons has her Dislikes 77 vm. Dick Simmons 91 IX. At Holloway 104 X. The Prisoner for Felony. 115 XI. Struggling 131 XII. The Hall of Harmons 154 Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XIII. ^' Katie Baskerville'' . . . .163 XIV. Tommy Pounce 177 XV. A Sisters' Meeting .... 190 XVI. Katie's Home 206 BOOK II. THE SISTERS. I. Another Beginning 227 II. Three Letters 243 III. The Ride to Bushey Park . . . .261 IV. I enact the Champion .... 283 BOOK I A HARD STRUGGLE. VOL. I. LITTLE KATE KIRBY. CHAPTER I. PREPARING FOR A SURPRISE. T WONDER if I came back to England any -■- richer than I went away. I had left it in search of peace rather than of riches, and it was with no hope of fortune-making that I had turned my back upon home. I had left home to make one less — that was all. There were fifteen shillings and sixpence and a lock of Katie's hair in my posession when I said good-bye ; there were ten shillings and fourpence-halfpenny and Kate's hair still to the good when I came back again. B 2 4 LITTLE KATE EIRBY. Certainly I had grown no richer in a pecuni- ary sense of the word, but I do not mean that exactly. Riches I had not dreamed of when I went away as uncle's housekeeper and compan- ion, and general help at Pieterraaritzburg. My uncle was a poor missionary, trying to turn Zulus into zealots, and had never known in all his working life how to scrape ten pounds together that he could call his own. I was of use to him a little, and I earned enough to keep myself as teacher out there, and that was the extent of my ambition ; but had I grown what my uncle would have called "richer in grace?'' — richer even in patience and in that art of self-repression of which I understood so little in my first start outwards? Heaven knows I I do not beheve that I returned to London any poorer, and I think that there was a trifle more of that patience which I needed, and of that courage which it is just possible I never lacked. I came back four years older, perhaps four years staider — at least I thought that I was staider; but then what four calm, good years thev had been in the Natal country, where PREPARIXG FOR A SURPRISE. O there had been only the atmosphere to keep aiy blood at fever-heat ! Sometimes I think that those four years were the happiest of my life. If I rebelled secretly against their sweet peace- ful monotony, not knowing what was best for me, I have repented of my youthful restless- ness, and look back yearningly through tear- dimmed eyes at the little African settlement, and the gaunt old uncle whom everybody loved, and whose home I left more lonely than 1 found it — for he bad grown used to my ways^ and was sorry to see the last of me. We had had much conversation about it, and it was his wash, too, that I should go. He con- sidered not only that it was best for me, but that it was my duty to follow in every respect the paternal commands, that I should once more take my place by my father's side and little Kate's. And in my heart I was ungrate- ful, and glad to leave Uncle Jef. He saw it, but he did not reprove me, or seem hurt. It was my natural craving for home ; those whom I loved the best, and who, I hoped, loved m.e the best, were all in England. b LITTLE KATE KIRBY. That is why I left Pietermaritzburg and came to London, wondering if I were any richer than when I went away — wondering, too, whether they would see an improvement in me, and what improvement I should find in them, after fom- years of separation. I did not know where father and Katie were living ; my father in his last note had not supplied the information. His letter had been vague and wandering, as if a sudden chance of riches had bewildered him ex- ceedingly. After telling me all about Kate, which Kate, in her school-girl's hand, had told me for herself, he said : — " I don't know where I shall be when this letter reaches you, dear Faith, or what home I shall possess in which to welcome your return. It will certainly be a bigger and braver home than you anticipate, judging from that dark lit- tle den in Dorset Street, Blackfriars, where you would not stop any longer — and quite right too. I shall be easy to find, child ; from nine a.m. to six p.m., I shall be at my post as prin- cipal cashier to the firm of Westmair and Son, Watling Street, City. All the facts when we PREPARING FOR A SURPRISE. 7 meet: not now. Pray come at once; come straight to Westmair's, where you used to bring my dinner when I was only a poor book-keep- er on an indifferent salary, and we will go forth to the new home together. I shall enjoy your astonishment at all that has changed my life since your absence. I shall have arranged everything ; the coup de theatre will be complete by your arrival. Yon know, Faith, how fond 1 have always been of surprises, and this will in- deed be a great surprise to you. Co:me at ONCE." Then followed a postscript, more bewildering than his letter. *' P.S. — Don't imagine that my lift at West- mair's has anything to do with all that I have said. It is not that. I ought to have had the cashier's berth long ago — you are aware how I have been served by these people, for whom my father wasted his life before me. Katie's love. I have given her strict injunctions not to mention business in any way, but the mail will probably bring you a letter from herself." Of course it brought a letter, that was as full 8 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. of mysterious hints as my father's had been, de- spite my father's injunctions ; and it spoke of new life, and a big fortune, and begged me also to return immediately. Neither in my father's letter nor in Kate's had there been a thought for Uncle Jefs feelings, or how Uncle Jef would bear the idea of parting with me. In the excitement of my father's and Katie's childish exultation, JefFery Kirby had been completely overlooked. He was a little grave for a time, but he did not in any way comment upon the neglect. " Is it a dream ?" I asked. " If your father had not always been one of the most despondent men on the face of the earth, I should have been inclined to think so, Faith," my uncle replied. "What shall I do?" " Go, if my brother wishes it," was the an- swer. " I have no doubt it is for the best." So I collected my savings together ; there was not quite enough to pay my passage back, but uncle found a sovereign to lend me, and away I sailed one morning to take my share PREPARIXG FOR A SURPRISE. 9 of the fortune that had come late in life to the Kirbys. I was sixteen when I left London for NataL I had just passed my twentieth birth- day when, one October afternoon, the steam-tug Ariadne towed the fast-sailing ship The Clipper up the river Thames towards the docks, whence I had started four years since on my apprentice- ship to life. Having served out that apprentice- ship, or my uncle having cancelled my inden- tures, here I was back again like a bad shilling. And here began my life in earnest. 10 CHAPTER 11. I AM MORE SURPRISED THAN I BARGAINED FOR. Tl^ATLING STREET is not the pleasantest ^ ' of thoroughfares when the fog is thick in town, and the hour is close on sunset. It was five o'clock by St. Paul's Cathedral, and the fog was thick enough to eat, when I was once more in the old, narrow, grimy City street which runs parallel w4th bustling Cheapside. Tt was not a fine day to return to the old life, and to feel as I went on slowly in the street's shadow, and in the thick mist of that dying afternoon, that here at least there had been no outward change. They might have been only four hours since I was last in London — indeed, there w^as no difference, save in the fog abroad that day, from the time I AM MORE SURPRISED THAN I BARGAINED FOR. 11 when I was a little child, and carried father's dinner to the office, as he had reminded me in the last letter that he had written. He had been book-keeper then, taken on in charity when his own business had failed — purely out of charity, and with no consideration for the family services, my father had said somewhat ungrate- fully. I could almost imagine that I, a long- limbed bony girl of ten years of age, was once more stalking to the office with my basket of provisions for father, who liked his dinner sent him punctually, and sent hot and well cooked — two desiderata which, he affirmed, no eating- house in the neighbourhood had been ever able to accomplish. But mother was living then, and he had believed that no one could do any- thing so well as mother. Yes, no difference in Watling Street. The houses were as gaunt and dull as ever, and only the lights were flickering in the windows of the warehouses a little while before their time. There were not many people about in the fog ; the street was very quiet ; a few people ran against me, and begged my pardon, as they or 12 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. I slipped from the greasy pavement into the roadway. I could hear coughs of various de- grees of bassness echoing from dusky interiors ; there was a steam on all the windows, as if the clerks had had their hot dinners brought them, and had taken off the covers simultaneously ; there were shadows of humanity darting to and fro from the streets that opened right and left, and led to busier thoroughfares ; there were two waggons blocking up the street, and their drivers arguing with each other as to right of precedence ; and there was a dog which had lost itself, and w^as sniffing in and out of every open doorway. Odd enough it was that I should have passed Westmair's office and gone on as far as Queen Street, for I knew the place thoroughly, and it had not changed much. It might have been the fog that led me astray — it was more likely to have been the crowd of old fancies and old hopes which came to me again, and led me too far over the stones that I knew almost by heart. " How foolish of me !" I soliloquised, and then I walked back to the office on the ground floor. I AM MORE SURPRISED THAN I BARGAINED FOR. 13 and read the name of Westraair and Son on the left hand side of the door-post, and looked in upon a wilderness of packages, and tin cans on narrow shelves, with one jet of gas burning in the shop bj way of protest against the general raurkiness of atmosphere, and not with any idea of illuminating the interior of the premises. They had never cared for much light in West- mair's office — chance customers were rare, and the office-keeper had little to do with people who came in from the street. Westmair's was all connection, correspondence, and commercial travellers' business. Looking at Westmair's from Watling Street, was to set down the great house as not worth its salt. Strangers making a short cut to the Mansion House, or whose offices were in broader thoroughfares, might have passed Westmair's all their lives without knowing it ; it was a strip of a house even where houses ran in strips as a rule. This was only Westmair's London office — a place which was handy for the London folk, but not impera- tive for the Westmairs to possess — a crotchet of the firm, that had always had faith in City 14 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. offices for anything. Westmairs' proper was ten miles from London, and the Westmair's oils and the Westmair's polish, which had made the for- tune of the family, were kept and mixed in large quantities miles away from the shadow of St. Paul's. This was only a house of samples and orders, and general correspondence. I turned the handle of the half-glass door — had the glass been cleaned since I was there last? — and passed into the stuffy shop. All was very misty, scarcely to be accounted for by the fog which had come in with me from the street. Perhaps there were tears in my eyes at the prospect of meeting my father after four long years — at the thought of beginning life again with him from that very moment, as it were. I went cautiously towards the counting- house at the end of the shop ; it went up three or four steps, and was shut from public gaze, when there was any representative of the public to gaze at it, by a second glass front, behind which was a wire blind, behind which was a lamp burning brightly, behind w^hich was some one, with his back towards me, writing at a I AM MORE SURPRISED THAN I BARGAINED FOR. 15 desk. My father in his new post of principal cashier, indubitably ! When I was in London last, he had sat at a little desk below this window, with a gas jet above his premature greyness, and had blown verbal communications through a gutta-percha pipe into the office above him ; but times had changed, and now there was a little bald man with a bent back to blow at my father instead. I had not seen this last-named personage, and was proceeding boldly to the inner sanctum, when he piped out, " What's your business, young ladyf and focussed me with two horn- rimmed spectacles. This old gentleman was the new clerk — the office and book-keeper. I knew all about him at once. My father's rise had left a vacancy in the post w^hich my grandfather had been the first of our family to fill; there had been no more Kirbys to the good, ^ and hence an advertisement, and this worn-out, broken-down man at eighty pounds a year I AVestmair's never gave more than eighty pounds a year for their office-keeper — they called this little, dusky, ill-smelling shop an office ! — and 16 LITTLE KATE KIRBT. possibly the situation was not worth more, for there had been hundreds always ready to jump at it. There had never seemed a great deal to do for the money — I had often caught my father dozing over the books, although it was his fixed idea that Westmair's worked him like a horse, and I believe this old man had been asleep before I had intruded on the premises. He was alive to business very quickly — juniors in office are frequently the most ener- getic of the staff. " What's your business, young lady ?" " Oh, if you please, don't speak so loudly," I said, gesticulating towards the counting-house ; " 1 want to surprise him." The office-keeper looked from me to the window over his head, and then back from the window to me, and glared. It was full a minute ' and a half before the idea seized him, and then he grinned from ear to ear, and turned me a little qualmish with three yellow tusks and a furry tongue, of which he made the most. " Oh, you know Mr. " "Of course I know him. I have come thou- I AM MORE SURPRISED THAX I BARGAINED FOR. 17 sands of miles to see him, all the way from the Cape of Good Hope I" The book-keeper, or office-keeper, looked somewhat amazed at this avowal, for he shut his mouth and glared at me again through his ugly spectacles. " You can go up, then," he said, dipping his pen into the ink and flourishing it towards the counting-house, "if he expects you. Does he expect you ?" " To be sure he does." *'I shouldn't have thought it of him," he muttered ; " in business hours, too — well !" I did not stay to explain more fully my con- duct to one who had evidently set me down for a very forward young woman. 1 was in a hurry to embrace my dear dad, and to hear him murmur forth, "My darling Faith — I am so glad that you have come back !" He would be glad of that, I was very sure. Man of many faults as he was, peevish, discontented, and ec- centric, I had always thought that he had loved his girls in his way. My woollen dress did not betray me by any rustling, as I ascended the VOL. I. C 18 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. steps, OD the top of which my heart began beat- ing nervously — I hardly knew for what reason. The dialogue beneath the counting-house window had not disturbed the studies of the cashier, who was very much bent over his desk, as I pushed open the door and stole in. It was a small counting-house, with an iron safe on one side of the room, that looked respectable and solid. How quickly the Westmairs made money in a quiet way, was evident by that big safe, and by the cheques w^iich had come by the last post, and which the cashier was examining and en- dorsing before locking up for the night, now that banking hours were over. I laid my hands upon his shoulders, and said — " I have come back, dear, as you asked me — back for good ! Don't be very much aft-aid, or very much scared, but take time to think that I am here, your little Faith !" All this was said in a low whisper, for I knew that my father was nervous, and I wished to surprise him, not to frighten him. But before it was all said, or almost before — for I have a faint recollection of going on with a few more words. I AM MORE SURPRISED THAN I BARGAINED FOR. 19 even after my discovery — I had become aware that my hands were not resting on my father's shoulders, which were round shoulders, and weak, and would have given way more, and that in lieu of the scanty grey-flecked hairs of Mr. Kirby, there was rising up before me a curlier, darker, and more vigorous head of hair. "Oh, my !" I gasped forth, and then a sun- burnt face turned round as my hands dropped to my side, and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. He was a young man of some four or five-and-twenty years of age before whom I was standing — a principal probably, a West- mair, or a somebody of importance who had taken ray father's post for a day or two. He was inclined to laugh at me and my embarrass- ment. I saw the curves of his mouth trying hard to keep themselves down, and a pair of big brown eyes seemed laughing already. I was ashamed of myself, and I grew hot and in- dignant and "fussy," and thought that he might have shown more consideration for one who had made so egregious a blunder. He rose from his chair at last, 'c2 20 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. " I beg your pardon," he said, seeing how grave I had become, "but I think this is the wrong office. You — you'll find it higher up the street, perhaps." He was a trifle confused himself now, and gave an odd and impulsive scratch to his head, forcible but inelegant. *' No, it is not the wrong office ; I have been very foolish ; pray forgive my rudeness, sir, but I only expected to find one person here — not you, certainly," I stammered forth. " You have got into the wrong place, I think," was his reply, " unless — oh, dear ! — whose place do you want, may I inquire V^ **Mr. Westmair's." - Oh !" He ran his fingers through his hair again — taking two hands this time, and becoming thereby much fiercer in aspect — and then turned suddenly so pale that I thought he must be a very delicate young man. " You are Mr. Westmair, I presume ? " I said. " My name is Westmair, certainly — not one of I AM MORE SURPRISED THAN I BARGAIXED FOR. ?1 the Westmairs, but an oftshot — a family connec- tion— a hanger-on — a — I hope you follow me — I hope you are — that is, that you are not — may I take the liberty of inquiring what is your name ?" he asked with sudden energy and de- cision. " My name is Kirby ." *' Oh— I see !" He sat down in the chair which he had half pushed towards me a few minutes since, and which I had not occupied, and dashed at his cheques and papers Tsdth extraordinary interest, turning his back upon me and ignoring my presence altogether. It was very strange and startling, and I was beginning to think that all might not be well — that all might be very ill for me — as some of the papers fluttered to the floor without the gentleman taking heed of them. He had been surprised, he was now con- fused. " My name is Kirby," I explained more fully, " and I have called at my father's request. It was his ^-ish that I should come direct to the office." 22 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. " Oh — indeed — confouDd it ! — was it though ?" " Something has happened! — he has left here?" *' Yes — he has left," said Mr. Westmair, slow- ly ; " I'll tell you in a minute — you don't know anything, then?" '' Not anything — save that he was fortunate in life when he wrote to me." "When was that?" " Some months ago, he wrote to me at Pieter- maritzburg. Oh, sir, he has not met with an accident — he is not dead ? You would not keep me in this suspense if he were dead, I am sure I "No, no — he is not dead, I am sorry to say — I mean I am glad to say. Pray sit down — pray compose yourself, I will tell you everything in a minute." He had forgotten that he was occupying the only chair in the room, and that I was leaning for support against a w'ainscot partition, yearn- ing for the news, the bad news, which I knew now was on its way tow^ards me. What could have happened since my father's stroke of good luck to have so wholly changed the scene? Was I AM MORE SURPRISED THAN I BARGAINED FOR. 23 he really mad when he wrote last, and was his fortune only a dream ? " I — I hope that I have been patient, sir — but I — I am very anxious," I hinted at last. He looked round quickly, then rose, snatched up his hat, and walked sharply from the count- ing-house, down the steps into the office, and towards the street. Was he going, to fetch my father, or what ? I peered through the window above the wire blind as he went striding along the shop. The street-door was opened before he had reached it, and a tall, swarthy man entered and regard- ed the cashier with amazement. " What's the matter ?" *' Nothing. That is, only Kirby's daughter from the Cape ; she is in the couting-house." " Well — you have told her, I suppose ?" "No, I haven't — I couldn't; upon my soul, I couldn't — 1 must leave it to you." *' Why, this is cowardice." ** Very likely ; I am naturally a cow^ard. Tell her as gently as you can ; she seems a very nice girl, poor thing." 24 LITTLE KATE KIRBY But- *' But I'm hanged if I do all the dirty work in this place ; it does not suit me ; and 1 can't tell that girl, who came in just now, all life and hope, the truth about her father. Tell her your- self, Abel." The swarthy man seemed more astonished by the excitable behaviour of his cashier than by the news of my presence in his office. He went to the door and looked out in the fog after his refractory subordinate, then with slow, precise steps, he came towards me and my sinking heart. I wished that the other man had stopped to tell me all the truth, though he had taken longer time about it. I did not like this hard- lined face, which seemed advancing towards me like a fate beyond my power to resist. 25 CHAPTER III. I LEARN ALL THE NEWS. THE gentleman who entered the counting- house, and took the place of his eccentric cashier, was a man of thirty years of age, w^ho might have told the world that he was forty- five, without surprising it in the least. He was a tall, stiff-backed man, with one of the saddest countenances I had ever seen ; stern it was as well as sad, in many respects, but it was not so wholly inflexible as I had fancied from my first look at it. He was very dark, with black eyes that seemed cold and unsympathetic, and unlike black eyes in general, and his close-shaven cheeks and chin did not give him one day's younger aspect. If he had shorn himself of all 26 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. hirsute decoration for that purpose, it had been a mistake in art, and had only given him a grim Don Quixote-looking head that was not pleasant to confront. He entered slowly, and after regarding me attentively for an instant, bowed, and pushed the chair more towards me. " You are Miss Kirby," he said. " Sit down, please ; you had better sit down, I think." I sat down, thus adjured. I was in no hurry for the news now. I knew that it would be bad enough, and there came over me the wish, strangely at variance with my late impatience, to delay the revelation which this man, in his cold hard tones, would give me, as the hammer of a bell might strike out its time of day. " My name is Westmair — Abel Westmair, of the firm of Westmair and Son. I am the son," he added, as if by some mischance I should take him for his father. I bowed, but I could not speak to him. I was not awed by the greatness of his position, but by the consciousness of the terrible nature of his forthcoming revelation. I LEARX ALL THE XEWS. 27 '* You are Miss Faith Kirbj, I presume, to whoui I wrote a few weeks since, suggesting that you should remain in Pietermaritzbm-g, and not come to London as your father had pre- viously desired," he continued. " It was his wish too, I believe, that you should stay ; but I was following out my own ideas, certainly not his." *' Is he dead, then ? Oh, he is dead I" I cried very quickly now. " Pardon me, but he is not dead. He How careless!" and Mr. Westmair, junior, stooped under the table, picked up several cheques and papers, and looked over them as he continued, " he is not dead, but in trouble." His black eyes were fixed upon me over the edge of the papers, and he was watching the eflfect with great attention. Was he breaking the news to me kindly or not ? It was impos- sible to guess from his stolid countenance. " In trouble," I repeated mechanically. Mr.gWestmair restored the cheques to their place, from which his cashier had swept them in his hurry to depart, leaned against the table, crossed his legs, clasped his thin hands toge- 28 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. ther, and once more looked at me with fixed intentness. " In trouble by his own acts — and by his own weakness, and consequently there is no one to blame but himself for all the misery that he has brought about." *' Poor father ! Is he very ill — in very great trouble f ' " I don't see that he deserves any pity from you — any more," he added, after a moment's pause — " than he deserves it from me." " Go on, sir." Mr. Westmair, having as he thought suffi- ciently prepared me, or having grown tired of his circumlocutory process of information, or having attended so far as he considered necessary to the injunctions of the young man who had beaten an unceremonious retreat, de- livered the rest of his communication at one shot. " Your father is in prison." There was a sudden singing in my ears, an upheaving of the floor towards the ceiling, a merry-go-round of the iron safe, the counting- I LEARX ALL THE NEWS. 29 house window, and Abel Westmair, and then the mist was very dense and thick about me, as if a grand rush of the fog in Watling Street had streamed into the office, to hide me with my grief and shame from him who had told me all the news. I was quite certain that I had fainted and made a scene, some minutes afterwards. I hated scenes, and to have given way like this, and before this man. was humiliating to reflect upon, when the strength for reflection returned to me. I had always fancied that I was inclined to be firm, but this weakness convinced me that I was only a silly girl after all, unable to bear up against trouble. Should I ever bear up against real trouble again — such real, down- right trouble as this was ? " I shall be better in a minute," I said, though my lips trembled very much, and I am sure were as white as paper ; " it's — it's the long journey. I have been some time on board shijD, and — and the journey was a fatiguing one." LITTLE KATE KIRBY. " It's a considerable distance from the Cape to London," Mr. Westmaii* observed. He had been bending over me along with his book-keeper, whom he had evidently called to my assistance. The cheques were all over the floor again, and at some stage or other of my convalescence I had knocked a water-bottle and glass from his hand, the contents of which were over the cheques. *'Do you feel any better now ?" he inquired, after I had dreamily regarded him for a minute or two. " I don't know ; I — I think I do. I suppose that I fainted away f " Yes." " Because — you told me that my father — Hadn't this gentleman better go now ? I am much obliged to him, but " *' You can go, Simpson," said Mr. Westmair. " Not that it matters," he added, after Simpson had retired, "for he knows the whole story, which he could have- told you much better than I. I am not used to this kind of thing." He said it in an aggrieved tone of voice, as I LEARX ALL THE XEWS. 31 if he had been imposed upon very much that afternoon. He stooped, picked up his cheques, regarded their damp condition ruefully, and finally directed his attention to myself again. " Will you not put your bonnet on ?" he said ; and I became conscious that that article of attire had been removed, and that my hair was rough and tumbled. I made myself as tidy as possible, and as my agitation would allow, keeping my eyes upon him, feehngthat I should flinch no more, and be uncomfortable never again beneath his microscopic stare. "My father in prison !" I said ; " in prison for what?" " For robbing us." " My father turn robber — oh, I don't believe that I My father was honour itself, with all his faults, and do you tell me — do you dare to tell me that he is a thief?" " I would certainly refrain from exciting my- self in this way," said Abel Westmair, coldly ; " it unnerves you." " Tell me all that you know — or, rather, all that you believe against him." 32 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. I daresay that I was -unpleasantly peremp- tory in ray tone, but I was so beset with the conviction that my father had been the victim of a cruel plot, that I did not study the feelings, if he had any, of my companion. Mr. Westmair complied with my request. I was seated in the chair again, and he was lean- ing against the table in his old position. He spoke clearly and precisely, but betrayed no emotion at the story, or any further concern for my feelings. He was one of the great West- mairs, and I was one of the Kirbys — for two generations the Kirbys had been the servants of these people. '* Your father was a clever book-keeper, and an ingenious man at figures. When we made him cashier, and when a great deal of money passed through his hands, he turned his talents to a bad account, and robbed us systematically. We discovered it, and prosecuted him, as we should prosecute on principle anyone guilty of a breach of trust in this establishment. He pleaded guilty, and " " He pleaded guilty !" I cried. I LEARX ALL THE XEWS. dry " Yes — the facts were too clear for any at- tempt at refutation — and he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment." " Where is he now?" " In Hollo way Prison." " God help him ! — he was not guilty, I am sure he was not guilty, Mr. Westmair." Mr. Westmair's face shadowed more at my persistence. " That is a reflection on my word — on the honour of the house. Miss Kirby," he said, slow- ly ; " but you are suffering from a natural excitement. AVhat do you think of doing? You have some money, I suppose, and friends in London, and — so on ? Shall Simpson fetch a cab?" " No, sir, I can walk," said I, rising at this hint — " do not trouble yourself about me in any way. Of what sum were you robbed ?" " Eight hundred pounds." " And when was my father tried for the robbery ?" " The fifteenth of last September."- " I — I must get a newspaper, or something, VOL. I. D 34 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. and understand it for myself. I can't under- stand you," I added, abruptly, " and I do not want." " Just as Miss Kirby pleases," he said, more coldly still. " You never took his part, or thought that he might have been innocent ; you believed every fact against an old servant at once. And yet his father before him had been in the firm." " There was a Kirby here before your father," said Abel Westmair, " but we were not called upon to regard the matter from a sentimental or a dramatic point of view. We were robbed, and we found out the thief, that is all. If he had been our dearest and nearest friend, it would have been still our duty to repay a base act of ingratitude with the law's justice and might. There was no malice in the matter, and, so far as regards yourself, young lady, I, speaking for the firm, will add that we are sorry." He said it with some dignity, perhaps with as much kindness as it was in his nature to evince, but I saw in him only a hard master who had had no mercy on my father. I hated the man ; I LEARN .VLL THE NEWS. 35 I could have cursed him in my desolation, and for all the forced calmness which I had at last assumed. I hated him ; but I was too proud to show that he or his words had any power to move me, and as my reiteration of a belief in my fathers innocence appeared to vex him slightly, I expressed again my firm con\^ction that my father had been w-ronged. He did not defend himself, or offer any farther explanation; he regarded me with his old aggravating stolidity, and, as I moved towards the door, he opened it for me, standing thereat Hke a statue. I was going out into the world, not knowing which way to turn, wholly uncertain concerning my next step, more bewildered by the strange- ness of my position than I could have been aware at the moment, when I remembered that an all-important question had not been asked yet. " And Where's httle Kate?" The question leaped from me with spasmodic force, and he elevated his eyebrows and stared at me harder than ever. d2 36 LITTLE KATE KIRBY. " Where's who ?" he said. " Little Kate— my sister ?" " I didn't know that you had a sister. Really I have been quite in the dark as to your family connections." " And my father never spoke of her to you ?" " Not a word — why should he f " Great Heaven ! that child is alone in the world then. And she is only seventeen ! Where can she be ?" I went out of the counting-house, pondering on this mystery, on the impossibility of my finding her in the dark City of London, where- in I was myself submerged. I went out of Westmair and Son's with a heart that I thought was broken. My own position was precarious, but I had not time to think of it. Where was the child I had loved so much, and to whom I had been more like a mother than a sister after the real mother had died? She had been a wild, excitable, pretty girl, wayward, vain, fragile ; she had been my chief anxiety in going away ; what was she now in my coming back again ? There were troubles I LEARN ALL THE XEWS. 37 aud cares on all sides of me, as I crept out of the office of the Westmairs into the fog, which had become very thick and black with the night. All seemed as impenetrable as my own life ahead, and there was no seeing a step be- fore me. I was beginning life again — life for myself, without a single friend to counsel me — and I had ten shillings and fourpence-halfpenny to begin it with ! 38 CHAPTER IV. HERBERT WESTMAIR. 1T7ITH a heart heavy-laden, I was proceeding ' ' down Watling Street towards St. PauFs Churchyard, when some one touched me on the shoulder. Through the mist I recognised the cashier whom I had surprised at his desk a short while since. " I beg your pardon, Miss Kirby, for troubling you again, but has he told you ?" " Yes, he has told me all." " Not unkindly, I hope ? It's only my young uncle's way which is harsh and disagreeable," he explained, " for Abel is really not much more disagreeable than other people." " I did not expect, or wish for, any kindness HERBERT WESTMAIR. 39 from Mr. Westmair," I said, proudly — how hard I did try to .be very proud with it all I — " He told me that he had put my father into prison, and I could not thank him for the information." "I was afraid the news would almost be the death of you, Miss Kirby ; I had not the cour- age to tell you myself." " You are not a brave man, I perceive." " I was not strong-minded enough for the task," he replied, " for you had come in full of hope, and I should have distressed you more by my explanation than Abel has done. I am a blunderer, upon my word. I can't do anything well, and my uncle has always his wits about him. I am about the worst fellow in the world to tell any other fellow bad news." " Did you know my father ?" I inquired. " I was in the office a few weeks before he — before he met with his misfortunes." " And you believe him to be guilty of this robbery ?" He stared hard at me for an instant, then he said, " I am sorry to say, there is no doubt of 40 LITTLE KATE EJRBY. 