Read Kitty Little for Free Online

was in one of his more malleable moods and had agreed to sit at the small table in the window, obediently eating some of the fish pie Kitty had made especially for him. He much preferred the meals she prepared to the ones provided for the guests in the gloomy dining room. While he ate, he watched the swing of her bare arms, the sway of her slender body as she busied herself changing his sweat soaked sheets. Archie could sense she was about to bully him into some action or other. He’d already let her cut his hair, despite his protests that he enjoyed having Byronesque qualities, and was prepared to indulge her on other matters, though not perhaps without some show of protest.
    But first, he meant to have his say. ‘You aren’t really going to marry the bounder, are you Kitty-Cat?’
    ‘We’re engaged, aren’t we?’ she snapped. ‘Anyway, Frank isn’t a bounder. He’s far too dull to... No, I didn’t mean that.’ She thumped the pillows, keenly aware of his grin of triumph.
    ‘Yes you did.’
    Reaching for the clean sheets Kitty began to unfold them in quick, jerky movements. ‘Oh, for heavens sake, just because he likes to enjoy life instead of going round with a long face like someone whose name I won’t mention.’
    ‘You mean he knows how to “give a girl a good time.” Hurrah for Frank. Never thought you’d be influenced by such transitory delights.’
    ‘It’s called courting. We’re walking out, as they say. He’s a sweetie, and gloriously attentive.’
    Archie glowered at her, then coolly remarked, ‘As any man would be when he goes fishing for a woman.’
    ‘Don’t be vulgar.’
    ‘He isn’t right for you, dear heart.’
    Kitty pouted, largely because she suspected he may be right. She finished tucking in the blankets, smoothed out the cotton cover and turned it down in a neat fold. ‘I really don’t see that it’s any of your business. ’  
    As she tucked a blanket over his knees against the chill from the window, the sight of the thin sticks of his wrists poking out from the sleeves of his old dressing gown filled her with a sudden rush of emotion that threatened to reduce her to tears. He looked so desperately ill, his once beautiful lean cheeks now sunken and hollowed that she felt a rush of fear. Leaning forward she kissed him, very gently upon his brow. The thought flew into her head that she might like to kiss him on the mouth, but instantly quashed it. This was Archie after all. He smelt of camphor and the dreadful cigarettes he insisted on rolling for himself, and was the nearest thing she now had to a brother. ‘Frank’s very kind to me,’ she said, firmly reasserting her point as she moved away.
    ‘Of course. Darling Frank.’ Long after the door had slammed behind her, Archie’s eyes remained riveted upon it.
     
    Archie surprised everyone the next afternoon by declaring he’d written another letter and wished to post it himself.
    ‘Goodness, two in a month? You’re becoming quite a scribe. I’ll go with you,’ Kitty offered.
    ‘I’m not totally decrepit.’
    ‘So you won’t need an invalid chair then?’
    The sky was slate grey as, slipping her arm into his, she fell into step beside him. ‘Where shall we walk to? Down to the Common? Or to the library and change your book? Oh no, we haven’t got it with us. I know, we could take a bus into town, go to Waterloo, Victoria or Paddington and get on the first train that comes in.’
    ‘What if it’s going to the north of Scotland? That would be even wetter and colder.’
    ‘But there’d be no London smog and grit, only clean, fresh air and the scent of heather. No nagging mother telling me what to do, what to think and even what to wear. Best of all, no miserable guests eating kippers for breakfast.’
    And no Frank, a small voice at the back of her mind quietly added.
    ‘I thought they were rather fond of kippers in Scotland.’
    ‘Herrings, isn’t it?’
    ‘Or mackerel?’
    ‘Oh shut up. We wouldn’t