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When you were So Loved
‘Kitty,’ her mother’s voice came gently through the garden. ‘Kitty!’
She had a way of saying her name that sounded like marzipan and even though Eleanor had told her to stay hidden until she came to find her, Kitty couldn’t help but slip out from her hiding place to go to her mother. She approached with a smile, but her mother wore a frown and she reached out to Kitty, feeling her cheek.
‘My child, you are cold,’ she cried. ‘What on earth were you doing out here and without so much as a shawl!’
Kitty dropped her eyes. ‘Sorry, Mamma. We were playing, Ellie and I, and it was my turn to hide and I must have hidden so well that she couldn’t find me! How silly of me! And to forget my shawl!’
‘But Ellie has been –,’ her mother began and her face did a funny thing then that Kitty couldn’t understand. It was like the coming of a sneeze or a blink brought on by a sudden light, but it made her mother look almost sad too. She stroked Kitty’s cheek, and then, despite her beautiful dress, despite the damp of the ground, despite what Kitty’s governess would call im-pro-pri-et-y, she knelt down so that they were eye to eye.
‘Kitty,’ she said, very seriously now, her hands on her shoulders. ‘Listen, my child. Your Mamma never wants you to stop seeing the good in this world; she never wants you to stop looking for the sunshine – it would be a terrible thing if you did. But, my darling, your Mamma always also wants you to remember that you must never let anyone treat you as less than you are. Do you understand?’
Kitty had nodded, because it was the right thing to do, but she did ask: ‘But, what am I, Mamma?’
‘You are Katherine,’ her mother placed a kiss on her forehead. ‘You are very special,’ she kissed her cheek, ‘you are clever, you are kind and you are brave.’ Her mother stood and took her hand. ‘You are also very chilled, and I cannot have you catching cold. Come along now, and we’ll send for some warm chocolate.’
Kitty skipped at her mother’s side, shaking the autumn air out of her legs, shaking the life back into her feet. I am clever, I am kind and I am brave, she sang to herself in her head, I am clever, I am kind and I am brave.
Don’t forget to try on the crown – it might fit
On Wednesday afternoons, when they were released from lessons, so that their governess might visit her family, Kitty and Eleanor played the marriage game. The morning room became Eleanor’s new house where she lived with her husband, a highly respected lord with vast wealth who ensured Eleanor had a new dress for every dinner she attended, a carriage under her command, jewellery for every occasion, and any other beautiful thing she might have desired. Kitty was Eleanor’s housekeeper and confidante and she helped take care of Eleanor’s seven children and she helped Eleanor prepare for all the dinners she and her lord hosted as part of his lordly duties to the people he reigned over.
Once, Kitty has asked Eleanor why she didn’t just marry a prince. Then she would have been a princess – maybe even a queen. Then she could have lived in a castle and worn a crown and made up new rules and travelled the world and had ladies in waiting. Everyone would have been so happy to see her when she arrived anywhere and would have given her flowers and gifts! Eleanor had rolled her eyes and told her that ladies like herself did not marry princes in life and so it was a silly game to play – a game for babies who didn’t know any better. Eleanor was too clever for such fancies and Kitty had agreed, but secretly, when she was alone, or when she was playing with Florence in the garden, she would still pretend she was a princess because it was simply so fun, so delightful, to imagine such a thing.
Once, Kitty had asked if she could be the married lady with the new house and the carriage and the dresses and Eleanor had turned round with a scowl. No, she’d said, only I can be the lady; you would be ridiculous. Tears had immediately come into Kitty’s eyes but then Ellie was smiling again. You’re just so much better than me at being all the other parts! How boring it would be if silly me tried to be a housekeeper or a nurse! No, Kitty, I’m afraid it wouldn’t work. You are just all round much cleverer than I at those parts! Kitty had given her a smile, but it was a smile that felt watery and wavey. She’d kept the smile until it felt real again, and she was the housekeeper and she was the nurse, chasing after Eleanor’s favourite son, Edwin, who was always ever so naughty.
You wish life was more like a poem
Kitty dreamed of love. She dreamed of devoted heroes who made wild sacrifices and went on perilous quests, though she knew that didn’t really happen anymore. She dreamed of poets and sculptors and painters who made her their muse, though all the artists she had met were rather strange. She dreamed of someone whom she would dance with at a ball, who would remember her name and visit the next day. She dreamed of someone who she would drink warm chocolate with and read books with, who she would take walks with and have conversations with, who she would write to when they were apart, who would tell her stories and who she would sing to and who would, in return, tell her she sung beautifully.
She dreamed of love, though when gentlemen did come to the house, they seemed more often to talk to Eleanor.
She dreamed of love, though when her father spoke of marriage and matches, he mostly spoke of Eleanor’s prospects.
She dreamed of love, though in all the stories she read and the poems she heard and the paintings she seen, the girls all looked like Eleanor, or Eleanor’s friends.
She dreamed of love, though Eleanor said marriage was an arrangement, an investment, a way of securing and bettering oneself.
She dreamed of love, though Eleanor said only babies believed in such tales and that she just didn’t want Kitty to be disappointed when the time came.
She dreamed of love, though when she dreamed, her love never had any face.
What to do when you don’t like your feelings
When Eleanor married, Annie said that she and her husband rightly deserved each other. Kitty had thought it a strange thing to say, because Eleanor’s husband did not seem like a particularly nice man. He had a mean look in his face and he didn’t let other people talk and he said unkind words about Papa, about the house, about his own friends. And, he had a terrible liking for eggs and beef, which for reasons she couldn’t quite explain, Kitty always saw as a bad sign in a person.
Still, Eleanor seemed quite happy whenever she came to the visit with him. They would whisper together and laugh and confide and that was exactly what Annie and Mary would do. Perhaps then, all Annie had meant was that they were the perfect match, but Kitty wasn’t so sure. Annie never seemed very fond of Eleanor, which made Kitty a little sad, because Eleanor was her sister and she was kind and she was very beautiful and she had been Kitty’s best of friends, even if she had been terrible at hide and seek and Kitty did miss their games now that she was dead.
What made her saddest of all, however, was that, without Mamma there, without Papa, without her governess, a feeling that she’d always been reminded not to feel was beginning to make a home in her head and Kitty really, really didn’t like that. You must not be jealous of your sister, had been a sentence Kitty was very familiar with, and so, she never was, but now, with no one to say it, Kitty did feel just a little jealous – just a little, little bit. It was only, being dead – and Kitty wasn’t complaining – she had her lovely new friends and it was such fun to run through walls and sleep in any room that she liked and listen in to any conversation that she wanted and she did have the prettiest dress out of all the ghosts and none of them looked at her strangely and she had her head still attached and she didn’t smell of smoke – but – but, it was hard, sometimes, not to be jealous that Eleanor had fallen in love and that Kitty hadn’t.
She tried not to think about it too much, but one day, after her sister and her husband had left the house, she’d hidden herself outside to cry. She hadn’t expected anyone to find her, but Robin, with Humphrey’s head tucked under his arm, did. He’d sat besides her in the alcove, handed her Humphrey to hold, and, when she’d explained the problem, he’d nodded, very seriously.
‘It feel sad now,’ he said, ‘but, in a hundred years’ time, it hurt less.’
‘But I don’t want to wait a hundred years,’ Kitty had cried, because that was such a big number of years, almost too many to even imagine.
‘Will go quick,’ Robin assured her. ‘And, in time, you learn there all different kind of loves. And you will feel happier.’
‘But I want – I want –’
Robin had patted her shoulder. ‘Me know. And, you might get that still. It happen sometime.’
‘But, but it might not.’
‘Maybe. But, all will feel easier later.’
With a shrug, he’d stood up, leaving her with Humphrey’s head.
‘Do you want to talk about it anymore?’ the man asked, after a moment, ‘or do you want me to tell you about all the dresses and shoes from Lady Cicilla’s ball? I had a good spot on the table for that one.’
Kitty had wiped her eyes. ‘The dresses, please.’
And so, she’d sat, stroking Humphrey’s hair, imagining the dresses and the shoes of long gone people, instead of love.
Five Stars, but for the ending
A good thing about being dead was getting to listen in and watch all the bits of other people’s lives she wasn’t supposed to see. At first, Kitty had felt a little bad for being so nosy, especially when she recalled how Eleanor would get so cross if Kitty walked into her room without knocking, or when she thought about her governess reminding her that certain things were not for a lady’s eyes. But, all the other ghosts watched the living and besides, as Robin had told her, they’d probably never, ever even know the ghosts were there, so it didn’t really matter very much – and, if they didn’t move on when they died, then there was no need to tell them what she’d seen if she thought they wouldn’t like it, but it could also be a good way to make a new friend, as they’d already have so much to talk about!
Kitty had seen lots of interesting things over the years. There was that time with the butler and the gardener and Lady Button’s husband. There was the time when that man had fallen and hit his head so hard that all his brains had actually come out on the rug! Sadly, he hadn’t stayed, so Kitty hadn’t been able to get a better look before he’d been cleaned away. There was the time when, as a child, the now Lady Heather Button had snuck into the kitchen late at night and hollowed out every single one of the eggs in the basket, then put them all back as if it hadn’t happened. It had been ever so funny the next morning when the chef had tried to crack open egg after egg, only to find nothing! She’d overheard whispered conversations at parties and she’d sat and gasped and giggled with the girls who did the whispering. She’d seen people cry when they thought no one was watching and she’d looked over people’s shoulders as the wrote their secret diaries!
She’d seen so, so many things, and yet, the one thing that didn’t seem to happen very often – or rather, barely at all – at Button House, was anyone falling in love! Yes, there were married people and there were couples, but it always seemed as if people were falling out of love, rather than in love. There had been Thomas and Isabelle, which had all ended rather sadly and then, there had been Isabelle and Francis, which had been worse. There was Lady Button and her husband who clearly didn’t love each other at all and there was the married butler and housekeeper who only liked to shout and fight, and then there was the servant girl and the gardener, but the housekeeper hadn’t liked that very much and so that had ended very quickly. There were glimpses of love, sometimes, but the living were always leaving or changing or letting their love turn to hate or not forgiving or not trying to understand or letting horrid rules get in the way. It was all rather sad, and all rather boring.
The only place love did really seem to happen was in the box that Heather had fitted into one of the upstairs bedrooms. Pat had told her it was a Television and that the people weren’t really inside it but actually existed as full-sized people and someone had filmed them saying words that someone else had written on a script and it was like a play, except it was more real but also less real. Kitty couldn’t say she understood it fully, but she understood enough that she wasn’t frightened of the Television like Mary was, and she wasn’t suspicious of it, like The Captain, and she didn’t think it vulgar like Fanny. The Television needed ‘turning on’ to make it light up and make sounds and that only really happened when Heather had certain friends with her.
But when it was on – oh, how exciting. Heather and her friends would watch films and she and Pat – and sometimes Thomas, Robin and Humphrey too – would join in; they’d pretend to sip their drinks or taste their food or add in to their conversations, but mostly, they were there for the film.
Pat’s favourites were the ones where lots of things happened – where people went on adventures and had missions and drove Cars and Planes; Robin liked those too, especially if anyone happened to go to space and made explosions. Humphrey said he didn’t really have a preference – it was just nice to see anything other than shoes or the dusty corner of the attic. Thomas loved the really sad ones, especially if they ended very badly, but those were often Kitty’s least favourites. She didn’t understand stories with sad endings. Why would anyone, when they could make anything in the world happen, decide that the ending would be sad? It was so, so disappointing, to watch a whole film and then for it to end badly. If Kitty was in charge, such films would have been banned!
Still, there were a wonderful amount of films with good endings and lots of those endings were about love. The two main characters would kiss and live happily ever after; the main character would return to their family and they would all be full of love and joy; the princes and princesses would be married; the least likely person would become the winner. And love – love, love, love – it was real and it happened! Yes, it might have only been inside the little box, but, Kitty reasoned, if people could imagine it happening, then it must be able to happen in real life too.
Just, maybe not at Button House.
And never to her.
But it didn’t matter, not really! It was all perfectly okay and Kitty was quite happy, so long as they had the Television!
(And then Heather’s friends had stopped coming.)
(And then Heather locked up half the rooms.)
(And then Heather got rid of the television.)
(And then the house started to fall apart.)
(And then no one really visited anymore.)
(And then…)
(But that was another story, for another time.)
In the end, it was all about love
Kitty loved everything about a wedding. She loved seeing the couple look round the house and deciding it was right for them. She loved hearing about what theme or flowers or decorations they wanted and she loved helping Alison figure out how to make it possible. She loved the guests arriving and seeing all of their outfits; she loved listening in to their gossip and finding out secrets. She loved acting as an honorary bridesmaid in every ceremony and every reception – it was just a perk of the service, Mike had said once, you got history, fancy photo opportunities and a ghostie bridesmaid – who wouldn’t leave them five stars? Kitty loved seeing the happy tears and the looks of pure adoration in the couple’s eyes when they kissed or danced. She loved seeing the food the caterers made and the games the children played in the garden when the adults weren’t looking. She loved the dance! The music! She loved how they could all join in, in their own ways!
Of course she knew that weddings did stress Alison and Mike out. Of course she knew that there were sometimes arguments at the dances and nerves before the big day. Of course she did. She’d seen it – and she’d read so many books about weddings that she knew exactly what to expect. But she also knew that it was rather silly to focus on those bits – silly to focus on the stress and fear when she could hold on to that big feeling of warm happiness that she got from a wedding, the one that made her feel a giddy and sparkly. It would have been very sill too, to focus on the fact that she never would have a wedding day of her own – and that even if she’d stayed alive long enough, she certainly wouldn’t have had a wedding like the ones she’d attended now!
She wouldn’t, for example, have been able to have a pink flamingo themed wedding. She wouldn’t have been able to have fairy lights or a selfie booth. She wouldn’t have been able to marry just any one she wanted and she’d never have had so many real friends to invite to her party. She wouldn’t have been able to have one of those geode cakes that looked like a sparkly stone that you could actually eat. She wouldn’t have had any of her real best friends at her wedding. It was okay. It was all okay. It was better to go to lots of happy weddings than to just have one slightly sad one of your own.
Kitty loved nearly everything about a wedding, but one part she liked a lot, that she never heard anyone talk about, was the short time after everything had finished, when the guests had left, when the couple had gone to their hotel or to the airport, when all the wedding decorations were still in place, but the normal lights were back on and it was early in the morning or late at night, and everyone was tired and everyone was glad it had happened and happy it had gone well enough and they all came together, to just sit. They would worry about the tidying and half-started arguments in the morning. They would worry about reviews and damage in the morning. They would think about all the normal things again later.
In those moments, when it was usually very quiet and usually very comfortable, Kitty was happy. She would sit with her friends – with her family – and all the other things would stop mattering. Never mind that she never married. Never mind about the passing of time and the fear of Alison and Mike leaving; never mind the thought of anyone moving on; never mind about the fights or the money or the dying, never mind about Eleanor or eggs or the possibility that Improv Club might get postponed again. Never mind.
In those moments, those post wedding moments, if someone would asked, and they usually did:
‘Are you alright, Kitty?’
She could reply:
‘Yes, I’m very happy, thank you,’ and she would mean it without even trying.
In those moments, all was good. All was lovely.