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Wild Kitty by L. T. Meade

L >> L. T. Meade >> Wild Kitty




She rushed from Miss Sherrard's retaining arm and flew up the platform,
and a moment later the owner of the pink dress and leghorn hat was being
clasped tightly, tightly to the breast of the magnificent-looking old
gentleman, almost a king in his way, who had suddenly stepped on to the
platform.

"Father, you'll protect me--they have come, they have followed me. You
will let me tell you my story first? Father! father! oh, feel how my
heart is beating!"

"Why, Kitty, asthore; Kitty, Kitty, my own. What is it, Kit? I say, Kit,
what is wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing now that you have come; but let me tell you my story
first."

"Your story first--why, of course, Kit."

"They are there; speak to them; tell them you will see them afterward.
We are staying at the Sign of the Red Doe; tell them that you will see
me first and then you will see them."

"Introduce me to them, Kitty, and calm yourself. Come, Kitty, come."

"Yes, father, yes; it is all right."

Kitty's terrible excitement subsided; leaning on her father's arm, she
approached the platform where Miss Sherrard and Miss Worrick, both
looking rather confused, were standing.

"This is my father, Miss Sherrard," said Kitty, introducing Dennis
Malone, who took off his hat with a grand sweep.

"I am relieved to see you," began Miss Sherrard.

"Pardon me one moment, madam," said Malone; "but Kitty here would like
to tell me her story first. You are her school-mistress, the lady with
whom I have had the pleasure of corresponding?"

"I am, and I have a very, very painful tale to tell you."

"You shall tell me your story afterward."

Here the owner of Castle Malone caught sight of Miss Worrick, and gave
her a bow even more deferential than he had bestowed upon the
head-mistress.

"I am sorry to put you off even for a few moments, ladies," he said;
"but you see this little girl, she--she must come first. However badly
she has behaved, she--she is my only girl, you understand, and I--I must
hear her story first. Will you meet us both within an hour at the Sign
of the Red Doe? Then everything can be explained."

"I wonder if that dreadful girl is to go unpunished in the end," said
Miss Worrick to Miss Sherrard, as they both slowly went to the nearest
hotel to wait until the time arranged to meet Kitty and her father at
the Sign of the Red Doe."

"It seems like it," said Miss Sherrard. "But what a splendid old man!
Perhaps after all it may be the best thing for Kitty Malone not to
punish her, Miss Worrick."

"Oh, Miss Sherrard! I cannot approve of your very lax opinions. Surely
punishment for such terrible wrong-doing--"

"Yes, she behaved badly, but not so badly as Elma, I think we must wait
to hear the whole story explained; at present we are more or less in the
dark."

"And now, Kit, what is it?" said the squire, when he and his daughter
were ensconced in the little sitting-room at the Sign of the Red Doe.

"Do you mind if I give you one of my real big hugs first?" said Kitty.

"To be sure not, alanna--oh, acushla macree! it is like flowers in May
to see you again."

"There! I am better now," said Kitty, after she had bestowed one of her
most violent hugs upon her father. "Let me sit on your knee and I will
tell you everything."

At the best it was a sad story, a story full of wrong-doing, full of
impulse, full of passion; and although Kitty tried hard to make Elma's
part of it as light as possible, the squire's eyes blazed and a
thundering note came into his voice as he listened.

"That's a bad girl, Kitty," he cried; "and you ought to have nothing to
do with her."

"But that's exactly it, father--that's what I am coming to. If you
won't let me have anything to do with Elma, why--why, you must punish me
terribly. I want you to let me--to let me make Elma my real friend."

"That sort of girl your friend? Not if I know it," said the squire.

"But, please, father, do let me plead for her. I have done her injury,
and she--she has never had advantages like the rest of us."

Then Kitty began to coax, and few, very few people could coax like this
Irish girl. Not only with her voice, but with her eyes, with a smile
here and a frown there, she set herself to bring old Squire Malone to
her way of thinking. And as always from the time she was a tiny child
she had been able to twist this old lion round her little finger, so she
twisted him now.

"You have got to do it, father," she said at last. "You have got to
forgive Laurie, and you have got to forgive Elma, and----"

"Bless the boy, it was just like his recklessness, Why didn't he come
and tell me? He wasn't afraid of his old father, was he?"

"Well, father, you know you are very fierce when you like."

"Tut! tut! Kitty, don't you begin to scold."

"No; I won't--not if you yield to me. Full and free forgiveness for the
whole three of us; for your Kit----"

"Bless you, child, I have forgiven you already."

"Ay, didn't I know it--didn't I say he was a dear old thing? Now,
Laurie--you won't say a word to him?"

"I'll give him a right good scolding."

"Why, then, dad, your scolding never did anybody any harm; your bark is
worse than your bite, you know; but there will be no school in England
for him, that's what I mean."

"Well, it doesn't seem to have succeeded with you, asthore."

"No more it did. Why, it was breaking the heart in me entirely."

"So you want to come back with me again?"

"That I do, and never, never be a polished lady with manners to the
longest day of my life."

"You want to be Wild Kitty still?"

"Wild, wild, the wildest of Kittys to the end of the chapter."

"And what will your aunts say?"

"Never mind; what you say is the important thing."

"It shall be as you please, Kit. I am sure I have missed you sore, very
sore."

"And now, what about Elma?"

"Yes; what do you want me to do for her?"

"I want her to come back with me to Castle Malone for the rest of the
summer."

"Oh, heart alive! child; but I don't think I could take to that sort of
girl."

"Yes, you will, if I take to her. Now, dad, must I begin it all over
again?"

"No, no; anything to please you, Kit."

"And at the end of the summer, as you have plenty of money, and as I am
sure she has repented most bitterly will you send her to Girton?"

"Oh, come, come; I make no promises."

"But I know it is all right, and I am going to rush up to her and tell
her everything. Oh, and here come Miss Sherrard and Miss Worrick. You
shall see them without me."

"I declare, upon my word, Kitty, you are the most extraordinary
creature. How am I to face the good ladies?"

"Here they are, father. Please, Miss Sherrard, come in; father will see
you, and Miss Worrick too."

Kitty flung open the door, and the head-mistress of Middleton School and
her subordinate found it closed behind them. They had a short interview
with Squire Malone--very short. It ended by Miss Sherrard and the squire
shaking hands most heartily.

"You did your best for her, and I am awfully obliged to you," said the
squire. "But, after all, she is too wild for England; she had better
stay in her own land."

"I believe you are right," said Miss Sherrard.

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Turkey is restoring the citizenship of its most famous 20th century poet Nazim Hikmet over 50 years after it branded him a traitor.

Hikmet, a communist who died in exile in Moscow in 1963, was imprisoned in Turkey for more than a decade. He was stripped of his Turkish nationality in 1951 because of his communist views, but despite a ban on his poetry which remained in place until 1965, has remained one of Turkey's best-loved poets. His work, much of which was written in prison, including his masterpiece Human Landscapes, has been translated into more than 50 languages.

"This is very good news," said Richard McKane, Hikmet's English translator. "The restoration of his Turkish citizenship is long overdue: the people of Turkey and his readers are owed that."

Immortalised by Pablo Neruda, with whom he shared the Soviet Union's International Peace Prize in 1950, with the lines "Thanks for what you were and for the fire / which your song left forever burning", Hikmet was also supported by Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso. Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, when given the editorship for a day of Turkish newspaper Radikal two years ago, used the example of Hikmet in his cover story to criticise the lack of freedom of expression in Turkey. In 2000, 500,000 Turks petitioned the government to restore Hikmet's citizenship rights and repatriate his remains.

Deputy prime minister Cemil Cicek told the Associated Press that it was time for the government to change its mind about Hikmet. "The crimes which forced the government to strip him of his citizenship at that time are no longer considered a crime," the BBC quoted him as saying.

Hikmet, whose remains are currently in Russia, had said that he wished to be buried in Turkey in his 1953 poem Testament, translated by Ruth Christie. "Friends if it's not my lot to see the day / of independence... / if I die before that day / - and it seems I will - / bury me in a village graveyard in Anatolia / and if it's fitting / and a plane tree grows at my head, / then there's no need for a gravestone or anything else."

Cicek said that Hikmet's family would now decide whether to ship his remains back to his homeland.

Hikmet introduced free verse to Turkey in the 1930s, with his themes ranging from war to love. Despite his imprisonment he retained a deep passion for Turkey. "I love my country", he wrote in one of his poems. "I swung in its lofty trees, I lay in its prisons. Nothing relieves my depression like the songs and tobacco of my country."

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