CHAPTER XX.

KITTY'S HANDS ARE FULL.

As soon as the 'bus had drawn up, the door of the house was flung open and Fanny tore out. "Oh, my dear!" she cried, almost lifting her little mistress down bodily in her plump arms. "Oh, my dear Miss Kitty, I'm that glad to see 'ee! They said as the tellygram couldn't reach 'ee in time to catch that train, but I knew better. I knew if you got that there message you'd come by that early train, even if it had started."

"What telegram?" asked Kitty. "I haven't had one."

"Why, to tell 'ee to come 'ome 'cause Mrs. Pike is so ill. And if it haven't reached 'ee, why the postmaster-general ought to be written to 'bout it. But," breaking off with sudden recollection, "you'm come; and if you didn't get that tellygram, whatever made 'ee to? You didn't have no token, did 'ee?"

"I had Betty's letter," said Kitty, trying to sort things out in her mind. "That was all I had, and that brought me. I expect I had left before the telegram reached. I remember now I passed a boy on my way to the station. But what about Betty? Have you heard anything? Has she come back? Have you sent in search of her? Weller told me about poor Aunt Pike—oh, Isn't it dreadful, Fanny! Two such awful things to happen in one day! But he didn't know anything about Betty, and I didn't tell him. She hasn't been found, I suppose? I must go. I think I may be able to find her if I start at once—but there is Aunt Pike. What must I do first?" despairingly. "I must find Betty. She has no one else to look after her, while Aunt Pike has you."

"If you wants Miss Betty, you'll find her in her bedroom," said Fanny, looking somewhat cross and puzzled. "I don't know, I'm sure, why you're making such a to-do about seeing her, when there's so much else to think on. Miss Betty's all right, and so is—Why, Miss Kitty, what's the matter? You ain't feeling bad, are you?" cried Fanny in great alarm, for poor Kitty had dropped, white and limp, and trembling uncontrollably, into a chair in the hall.

"Oh no—no. I'm all right. Only—I'm so—so glad. I have been so frightened about her; but I am so glad—so—I came to—to try to find her. No one knew I had come, and all the way I was thinking of her out all night in the dark and rain; and then the good news came, and it— made me feel—feel—" Kitty's head fell forward again, and the world seemed to rock and sway, and recede farther and farther from her, when a voice said, "Leave her to me," and some one lifted her up and laid her on a couch, and then something was held to her lips and her nose, and presently Kitty began to feel that the rest of the world was not so very, very far off after all, and then she sighed and opened her eyes, and saw a strange face looking down at her. It was rather a tired, anxious face, but it smiled very kindly at Kitty.

"Better now?" asked Dr. Yearsley.

"Yes, thank you," whispered Kitty. "How funny!"

"I am glad you can see any fun in it," said the doctor with the ghost of a smile. "It is the only funny thing that has happened in this unlucky house for the last day or two. But it isn't the sort of humour I appreciate."

"I am so sorry," said Kitty, trying to rise, "only I have never fainted before, and it seemed so odd that I should. It is a horrid feeling."

"Yes, not the sort of thing you want to repeat. But perhaps it will cheer Jabez. We have had two catastrophes, and he has got it into his head that there has got to be a third. Perhaps this will count as the third, and the spell be broken. Now lie still, and rest for a little while and have some food. You are exhausted, and I want strong reliable helpers, not any more patients," with a smile that robbed his words of any harshness. "You and I have our hands full."

Kitty smiled up at him bravely. "I am ready to do anything I am wanted to. How is Aunt Pike?" anxiously. "May I see her? Is she very ill?"

Dr. Yearsley looked grave. "I will answer your questions backwards. Yes, to be quite frank with you, as the head of your family for the present, she is seriously ill. She has had a stroke of paralysis, and at first I thought I must send to your father; but I was very unwilling to worry him, and I waited a little to see how things went. I am thankful to say she has rallied a little, and if she goes on improving, even though it is but slightly, I am hoping he may be spared the bad news until we can send him better news with it. I don't want to worry him if I can help it."

"Oh no," said Kitty earnestly, "and he would worry dreadfully at being so far away." She felt very kindly towards the doctor for his thoughtfulness for her father.

"You shall see your aunt later. She has asked for you many times, but we hardly knew whether she was conscious or not when she spoke. She must be kept very quiet though, and free from all anxiety. I have got in a nurse for her. Don't be frightened. You see there was no one here with the time or knowledge to give her the attention she required, and it was a very serious matter. I sent for you because, if she really wants to see you, and it would relieve her mind in any way to do so, it is important that you should be here, and the children needed some one to—"

"Oh," cried Kitty, remorseful that she should have forgotten her all this time, "Anna! What a state she must be in about her mother. How is Anna?"

"Yes, poor Anna," echoed Dr. Yearsley with a sigh, "she is in a very distressed state. I wish you could calm her, and get her to pull herself together a little."

"I will try," said Kitty gravely. "And there is Betty. I am longing to see her."

"I doubt Miss Betty's complete joy at seeing you," smiled the doctor. "I think there may be some embarrassment mingled with her pleasure. Her return was—well, she might think it ignominious. Luckily no one in the house but myself knows that she had really run away. I am afraid, though, that she has something on her mind that is troubling her—something in connection with Mrs. Pike's illness."

Kitty recalled Betty's letter, and her heart sank. She became so white, and looked so troubled, that the doctor tried to comfort her. "Whatever she may have said or done," he explained excusingly, "she did in utter ignorance, of course, of any ill result being likely to follow, and she cannot be blamed entirely for the disaster. Mrs. Pike has been seriously unwell for some time; in fact, I had ventured to speak to her about her health, and warned her, but she resented my advice. Believe me, that what has happened would have happened in any case; any little upset would have brought it about; but Betty may have precipitated matters."

Kitty listened with wide, grave eyes; her heart was heavy and anxious, her mind full of awe and care. How terribly serious life had become all at once; how real and possible every dreadful thing seemed, when so many came into one's life like this.

As she left the doctor, walking away with heavy, tired steps, he looked after her, half pitying, half admiring.

"She has had some hard knocks to-day, poor child," he said to himself, "but she has plenty of sense and plenty of pluck. At any rate I hope so, for she will need both, I fancy, in the time that lies before her."

Kitty, making her way slowly up the stairs to Betty's room and her own, was again impressed with that curious sensation of being some one else, of seeing everything for the first time. How strangely things came about, she thought. Here she was, back in her home again, as she had so often longed to be, but oh how different it was from what she had pictured—no joy in coming, no one to meet her, a stranger to welcome her, the house silent and strange. Could it be really she, Kitty Trenire, walking alone up the old, wide, familiar staircase as though she had never gone away or known that brief spell of school life? Could she really be come back to her own again, as mistress of her father's house? It seemed so—for a time, at any rate. Kitty felt very serious, and full of awe at the thought, and as she slowly mounted the dear old stairs a little very eager, if unspoken, prayer went up from her heavy heart.

Then she reached the door of her room and Betty's, and knocked.

"Who is there?" demanded Betty's voice. "Me. Kitty."

"Kitty What, Kitty! Oh—h—h!" There was a rush across the room, then a pause. "I—I don't think you had better come in," gasped Betty. "You'll never want to see me again if you do."

"Don't be silly. Why, Betty, whatever has happened?" cried Kitty, as she opened the door and stepped into an almost perfectly dark room. "Are you ill?"

"No," miserably, "I wish I was, then p'r'aps you'd be sorry; and if I was to die you might forgive me, but you can't unless I do die."

"O Betty, what have you done?" cried Kitty, growing quite alarmed.

"Is she—is she dead?" asked Betty in an awful whisper.

"Who? Poor Aunt Pike? No; Dr. Yearsley told me she is just ever so slightly better."

"Oh!" gasped Betty, a world of relief in her sigh, "I am so glad. Then I ain't a—a murderess—at least not yet. I've been afraid to ask, and nobody came to tell me, and I—O Kitty, it was I made her tumble down like that in a fit or something, and I was so frightened. I will never tell any one anything any more."

"You will tell me what it was that you told Aunt Pike that upset her so?"

"I don't think I can," said Betty. "You will hate me so, and so will father—that is why I wanted to hide for ever from all of you; but," with sudden indignation, "that silly old 'Rover' brought me back. Oh, it was dreadful!"

"What was?" asked Kitty patiently. She knew Betty's roundabout way of telling a story, and waited. "What did you tell Aunt Pike? Do tell me, Betty dear. I ought to know before I see her."

Betty dropped on to the window-seat and covered her face with her hands. "Don't look at me; I don't want to see you look mad with me. It was Aunt Pike's fault first of all. If she hadn't said nasty—oh, horrid things about you, I shouldn't have told her what I did, but—but she made me, Kitty; I couldn't help it, and—and I told her right out that Anna could have cleared you long ago, and that she and Lettice were mean and dishonourable to let you bear the blame for them all this time. And when she spoke after that, her voice sounded so—oh, so dreadful, as if she was talking in her sleep, or was far away, or drowning, and she looked—oh, her face frightened me, and then she said, 'Did—Anna— know?' all slow and gaspy like that, as if she hadn't any breath, and I said 'Yes'—I had to say 'yes' then, hadn't I? Of course I didn't know it would make her ill, but she fell right down, all of a heap, and oh, I nearly died of fright, and I ran and ran all the way to Wenmere Woods, and I meant never to come back again—never! And it was all Mrs. Henderson's fault that I did come—at least Mrs. Henderson's and Bumble's, and," drawing herself up with great dignity, "I am never going to speak to either of them again. When I had had my tea—she gave me cream and jam, but not any ham—and when I had played about for a little while, she told me she thought I had better be going home, as I was alone; and at last I had to tell her I was never going home any more, and I would be her little servant, if she would take me, only no one must ever see me, or I should be discovered, but she wasn't a bit nice as she generally is. She said, 'Oh, nonsense; little girls mustn't talk like that. I am going to Gorlay to chapel, and I will take you back with me.'

"Then I knew it wasn't any good to ask her to help me, and that I must sleep in the wood with all the wild beasts and things"—Betty's face and her story grew more and more melodramatic—"and as soon as she had gone to put on her bonnet, I ran into the woods for my life. I expect when she came down again and didn't see me she thought I had gone home. I don't think anybody went to look for me, and I think it was very unkind of them, for I might have been eaten up, for all they knew, by wild beasts—"

"Oh no," said Kitty, rousing for the first time from the shock and distress Betty's revelations had thrown her into. "There is nothing in the woods more savage than rabbits and squirrels."

Betty looked hurt. "Oh yes, there is," she protested, "or I shouldn't have gone up and kept close to the railway lines. I saw something, quite large, staring at me with great savage eyes, and if it wasn't a wolf, I am sure it was a badger or—or a wild-cat."

"Did it fly at you?"

"No, but it looked at me as if it wanted to, and I ran until I came to the railway; and after a long time, when it was nearly dark, I saw some red lights coming and heard a noise, and that was the 'Rover.' I—I didn't like the woods at night, so I went up and shouted and signalled to Dumble, and asked him if he knew anybody who wanted a servant, 'cause I'd left home for good, and wanted a 'place.' I didn't tell him who I was, and I thought he wouldn't know me. After he had thought for a minute or two, he said yes, he reckoned he could put me in a good 'place,' if I'd come along of him. So I got up in the carriage—I had it all to myself—and oh it was lovely going along in the dark and seeing the fire come out of the funnel! But," growing very serious and dignified again, "I consider Dumble the most dishonourable man I ever met, and I'll never speak to him again—never; and I'll have to leave Gorlay 'cause I can't never meet him again, for he ackshally took me up in his arms when the 'Rover' stopped at the wharf, and—well, I was rather sleepy and I didn't see where I was going, but of course I trusted him, and when I opened my eyes—why, I was home! Oh, I was so angry I didn't know what to do, and I'm never going to speak to Dumble again. I hope I never see him."

The corners of Kitty's mouth twitched, but she did not dare to laugh. "I expect he thought he was doing right," she said excusingly. "He couldn't have helped you to run away; he would have been sent to jail. And oh, Betty, I am so glad you did come home; there is trouble enough without losing you too. I was so frightened about you all the way down in the train—"

"Did you get my letter?"

"Yes; it was that that brought me. I didn't know anything about Aunt
Pike until I got to Gorlay Station."

Betty crept over from her window-seat and stood by Kitty as she sat on her little bed. "Kitty, do you hate me for telling that to Aunt Pike?"

"Hate you!" cried Kitty. "As though I ever could, dear. I am sorry she was told—but—but I know you couldn't help it, Bet. I couldn't have myself if it had been you, and she had said unkind things about you."

Then Betty flung her arms about Kitty's neck and began to sob heavily. "I do love you so, Kitty! I do. I really do. I think you are the splendidest girl in all the world, and—and I'll never do anything to make you sorry any more, if I can help it."

Kitty held her little sister very tightly to her, and with Betty's head resting on her breast, and her cheek laid on Betty's curly head, they talked, but talk too intimate to be repeated.

At last Kitty got up. "Where's Tony?" she asked. "I have to find each of you separately, and it seems as if I shall never see all, I want to stay so long with each. Betty, where is Tony? He is all right, isn't he?"

"Oh yes. He went to try and make Anna stop screaming, and I think he has done it. I haven't heard her for a long time."

Kitty made her way to Anna's room, and tapped gently at the door. At first there was no reply, then through the keyhole came a whisper. "Who is there? You must be very quiet, please. Anna is asleep." It was Tony's voice, but by the time Kitty had opened the door he was back on his chair by Anna's sofa, waving a fan gently, as he had been doing for so long that his poor little arms and back ached. His face was very flushed and weary-looking, but his eyes glanced up bright with satisfaction.

"She is gone to sleep, she'll be better now;" but at sight of Kitty the fan was dropped and Anna forgotten, and nurse Tony flew across the room and into his sister's arms.

"Oh, I'm so glad! oh, I'm so glad!" he said again and again and again. "There wasn't anybody but me and Dr. Yearsley, and I was frightened 'cause I didn't know what to do, and everything seemed wrong. I wish daddy was home; but it won't be so bad now you are here," and he snuggled into her arms with a big, big sigh of relief, and put his little hot hands up continually to pat her face and convince himself that she had not vanished again. And thus they sat, held in each other's arms and watching the sleeping Anna, until the handle was gently turned, and Betty appeared in the door-way. A very pale, weary Betty she looked now she was away from her own darkened room.

"Kitty, Dr. Yearsley is looking for you. I think Aunt Pike is awake and asking for you." Then, as Kitty hurried past her, "He says she is a little better, only ever so little; but it is good news, isn't it? She will get well, won't she, Kitty? Oh, do say 'yes,'" and Betty, who had never before bestowed any love or thought on her aunt, had as much as she could do to keep her tears back.

It was a very nervous, trembling Kitty who presently entered the large, dim bedroom where Aunt Pike, so helpless and dependent now, lay very still and white on her bed. Kitty almost shrank back as she first caught sight of her, half fearing the change she should see. But the only change in the face she had once so dreaded was the expression.

When Dr. Yearsley bent over her, and said cheerfully, "Here she is; here is Kitty," the white lids lifted slowly, and Aunt Pike's eyes looked at her as they had never looked before. Kitty went over very close to her, and kissed her.

"I am so sorry," she said sympathetically, "that you are ill, Aunt Pike, but so glad you are a little, just a little bit better."

Mrs. Pike did not answer her; she seemed to have something on her mind that she must speak of, and she could grasp nothing else. "I—I have been—very—unjust—to you," she gasped, speaking with the greatest difficulty. "You—should—have—told me."

"No, no," said Kitty eagerly, bending and kissing her again, "you haven't. You didn't know. I meant you never to know."

"Anna—knew. She—should—"

Kitty bent down, speaking eagerly. "Anna did more for me—for us all.
She saved Dan's life—in that fire."

The poor invalid looked up with a gleam of pleasure in her eyes.
"Did she? I am—very glad; but it—it did not excuse—the other.
That is—beyond forgiveness."

"Oh no!" cried Kitty warmly, "nothing is that. It is all forgiven long ago, and we will never think of it again."

Aunt Pike's hand was almost helpless, but Kitty felt it press hers ever so slightly, and stooping down she laid her fresh warm cheek against her aunt's cold one. "You must make haste and get well," she said affectionately, "and then we shall all be happy again."

"It-doesn't matter. No one cares," gasped the poor invalid, tears of weakness creeping out from between her lids.

"Oh, you mustn't say that," cried Kitty sturdily. "You must get well for all our sakes. Anna cares, and I care very much. We all care, more than we thought we did till we knew you were ill."

"Anna," whispered the invalid, "is she—all—right?"

"Yes, Tony has soothed her to sleep, and is sitting by her, and I am going to sit by you while you go to sleep. Dr. Yearsley says you mustn't talk any more now," and Kitty, seated in a chair by her aunt's bedside, held her helpless hand lovingly until she had fallen into the easiest sleep she had had yet. By-and-by the nurse came back, and Kitty was free to move.

"I think I must go and talk to Fanny now," she thought, and she made her way to the kitchen, thinking very soberly the while.

"Fanny," she said, "you and I have to steer this ship between us, and for the honour of the ship we must do it as well as ever we can. I—I am afraid I am not very much good, but I am going to try hard; and I think we shall be able to manage it between us, don't you?" wistfully. "Of course having strangers in the house makes it more difficult; but we will do our best, won't we?"

"That we will, Miss Kitty," said Fanny heartily, "and between us all we ought to be able to do things fitty."

The strangers, Dr. Yearsley and Mrs. Pike's nurse, made housekeeping a more serious matter certainly, and illness complicated things; but Aunt Pike's reign, though unpleasant in many ways, had made others easier for Kitty. The house was in good order, rules had been made and enforced. Fanny and Grace had learned much, and profited a good deal by the training, and, best of all, all worked together with a will to make things go smoothly.

There was hope and good news to cheer them too. Aunt Pike grew daily better; by very, very slow degrees, it is true, but still there were degrees. Good news came from their traveller too—news of restored health, good spirits, and, presently, a longing to be at home and at work again.

And then, so quickly did the busy days fly, they had only a very few left to count to the return of the two absent ones, for Dr. Trenire and Dan were to meet and travel home together. Then the last day came, and the last hour, and then—Kitty found herself once more with her father's arms about her.

"Why, father," she cried, standing back and studying carefully his cheerful, sunburnt face, and his look of health and strength, "you are more like the old father than you have been for ever so long."

Dr. Trenire burst into a roar of hearty laughter. "Well," he cried, "after my spending three months in trying to renew my youth, I do think you might have called me a 'young father.' Never mind, Kitty, I feel young, which is more than you do, I expect, dear, with all the cares you have had on your shoulders lately. I suppose you have left Miss Pidsley finally," with a smile, "and I have to pay her a term's fees for nothing?"

Kitty looked a little ashamed of herself as she smiled ruefully.
"Yes. I don't seem able to stay at any school more than one term, do I?
I think you had better give up trying, father, and keep me home
altogether now."

"I think I had," said her father seriously. "I think I can't try again to get on without you, dear—even," quizzically, "if there isn't always boiling water when Jabez gets his head knocked."