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Countess Kate

by Charlotte M. Yonge · English · Gutenberg #3259 · 365,224 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Countess Kate

Author: Charlotte M. Yonge


        
Release date: June 1, 2002 [eBook #3259]
                Most recently updated: January 31, 2015

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3259

Credits: Transcribed from the 1902 Macmillan and Co. “Countess Kate and The Stokesley Secret” edition by David Price


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COUNTESS KATE ***


Transcribed from the 1902 Macmillan and Co. “Countess Kate and The
Stokesley Secret” edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

 [Picture: Frontispiece: man comforting little girl on stairs whilst boy
                                 watches]





                              COUNTESS KATE


                                * * * * *

                                    BY
                            CHARLOTTE M. YONGE

                                * * * * *

                                  London
                        MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
                     NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
                                   1902

                          _All rights reserved_

                                * * * * *

                     RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED,
                            LONDON AND BUNGAY

 _Transferred to Macmillan and Co._, _Limited_, 1901.  _Reprinted_, 1902.




CHAPTER I.


“THERE, I’ve done every bit I can do!  I’m going to see what o’clock it
is.”

“I heard it strike eleven just now.”

“Sylvia, you’ll tip up!  What a tremendous stretch!”

“Wha-ooh!  Oh dear!  We sha’n’t get one moment before dinner!  Oh,
horrible! oh, horrible! most horrible!”

“Sylvia, you know I hate hearing _Hamlet_ profaned.”

“You can’t hate it more than having no one to hear our lessons.”

“That makes you do it.  What on earth can Mary be about?”

“Some tiresome woman to speak to her, I suppose.”

“I’m sure it can’t be as much her business as it is to mind her poor
little sisters.  Oh dear! if Papa could only afford us a governess!”

“I am sure I should not like it at all; besides, it is wrong to wish to
be richer than one is.”

“I don’t wish; I am only thinking how nice it would be, if some one would
give us a famous quantity of money.  Then Papa should have a pretty
parsonage, like the one at Shagton; and we would make the church
beautiful, and get another pony or two, to ride with Charlie.”

“Yes, and have a garden with a hothouse like Mr. Brown’s.”

“Oh yes; and a governess to teach us to draw.  But best of all—O Sylvia!
wouldn’t it be nice not to have to mind one’s clothes always?  Yes, you
laugh; but it comes easier to you; and, oh dear! oh dear! it is so horrid
to be always having to see one does not tear oneself.”

“I don’t think you do see,” said Sylvia, laughing.

“My frocks always _will_ get upon the thorns.  It is very odd.”

“Only do please, Katie dear, let me finish this sum; and then if Mary is
not come, she can’t scold if we are amusing ourselves.”

“I know!” cried Kate.  “I’ll draw such a picture, and tell you all about
it when your sum is over.”

Thereon ensued silence in the little room, half parlour, half study,
nearly filled with books and piano; and the furniture, though carefully
protected with brown holland, looking the worse for wear, and as if
danced over by a good many young folks.

The two little girls, who sat on the opposite sides of a little square
table in the bay-window, were both between ten and eleven years old, but
could not have been taken for twins, nor even for sisters, so unlike were
their features and complexion; though their dress, very dark grey linsey,
and brown holland aprons, was exactly the same, except that Sylvia’s was
enlivened by scarlet braid, Kate’s darkened by black—and moreover, Kate’s
apron was soiled, and the frock bore traces of a great darn.  In fact,
new frocks for the pair were generally made necessary by Kate’s tattered
state, when Sylvia’s garments were still available for little Lily, or
for some school child.

Sylvia’s brown hair was smooth as satin; Kate’s net did not succeed in
confining the loose rough waves of dark chestnut, on the road to
blackness.  Sylvia was the shorter, firmer, and stronger, with round
white well-cushioned limbs; Kate was tall, skinny, and brown, though
perfectly healthful.  The face of the one was round and rosy, of the
other thin and dark; and one pair of eyes were of honest grey, while the
others were large and hazel, with blue whites.  Kate’s little hand was so
slight, that Sylvia’s strong fingers could almost crush it together, but
it was far less effective in any sort of handiwork; and her slim
neatly-made foot always was a reproach to her for making such boisterous
steps, and wearing out her shoes so much faster than the quieter
movements of her companion did—her sister, as the children would have
said, for nothing but the difference of surname reminded Katharine
Umfraville that she was not the sister of Sylvia Wardour.

Her father, a young clergyman, had died before she could remember
anything, and her mother had not survived him three months.  Little Kate
had then become the charge of her mother’s sister, Mrs. Wardour, and had
grown up in the little parsonage belonging to the district church of St.
James’s, Oldburgh, amongst her cousins, calling Mr. and Mrs. Wardour Papa
and Mamma, and feeling no difference between their love to their own five
children and to her.

Mrs. Wardour had been dead for about four years, and the little girls
were taught by the eldest sister, Mary, who had been at a boarding-school
to fit her for educating them.  Mr. Wardour too taught them a good deal
himself, and had the more time for them since Charlie, the youngest boy,
had gone every day to the grammar-school in the town.

Armyn, the eldest of the family, was with Mr. Brown, a very good old
solicitor, who, besides his office in Oldburgh, had a very pretty house
and grounds two miles beyond St. James’s, where the parsonage children
were delighted to spend an afternoon now and then.

Little did they know that it was the taking the little niece as a
daughter that had made it needful to make Armyn enter on a profession at
once, instead of going to the university and becoming a clergyman like
his father; nor how cheerfully Armyn had agreed to do whatever would best
lighten his father’s cares and troubles.  They were a very happy family;
above all, on the Saturday evenings and Sundays that the good-natured
elder brother spent at home.

“There!” cried Sylvia, laying down her slate pencil, and indulging in
another tremendous yawn; “we can’t do a thing more till Mary comes!  What
can she be about?”

“Oh, but look, Sylvia!” cried Kate, quite forgetting everything in the
interest of her drawing on a large sheet of straw-paper.  “Do you see
what it is?”

“I don’t know,” said Sylvia, “unless—let me see—  That’s a very rich
little girl, isn’t it?” pointing to an outline of a young lady whose
wealth was denoted by the flounces (or rather scallops) on her frock, the
bracelets on her sausage-shaped arms, and the necklace on her neck.

“Yes; she is a very rich and grand—  Lady Ethelinda; isn’t that a pretty
name?  I do wish I was Lady Katharine.”

“And what is she giving?  I wish you would not do men and boys, Kate;
their legs always look so funny as you do them.”

“They never will come right; but never mind, I must have them.  That is
Lady Ethelinda’s dear good cousin, Maximilian; he is a lawyer—don’t you
see the parchment sticking out of his pocket?”

“Just like Armyn.”

“And she is giving him a box with a beautiful new microscope in it; don’t
you see the top of it?  And there is a whole pile of books.  And I would
draw a pony, only I never can nicely; but look here,”—Kate went on
drawing as she spoke—“here is Lady Ethelinda with her best hat on, and a
little girl coming.  There is the little girl’s house, burnt down; don’t
you see?”

Sylvia saw with the eyes of her mind the ruins, though her real eyes saw
nothing but two lines, meant to be upright, joined together by a wild
zig-zag, and with some peaked scrabbles and round whirls intended for
smoke.  Then Kate’s ready pencil portrayed the family, as jagged in their
drapery as the flames and presently Lady Ethelinda appeared before a
counter (such a counter! sloping like a desk in the attempt at
perspective, but it conveniently concealed the shopman’s legs,) buying
very peculiar garments for the sufferers.  Another scene in which she was
presenting them followed, Sylvia looking on, and making suggestions; for
in fact there was no quiet pastime more relished by the two cousins than
drawing stories, as they called it, and most of their pence went in paper
for that purpose.

“Lady Ethelinda had a whole ream of paper to draw on!” were the words
pronounced in Kate’s shrill key of eagerness, just as the long lost Mary
and her father opened the door.

“Indeed!” said Mr. Wardour, a tall, grave-looking man; “and who is Lady
Ethelinda!”

“O Papa, it’s just a story I was drawing,” said Kate, half eager, half
ashamed.

“We have done all the lessons we could, indeed we have—” began Sylvia;
“my music and our French grammar, and—”

“Yes, I know,” said Mary; and she paused, looking embarrassed and
uncomfortable, so that Sylvia stood in suspense and wonder.

“And so my little Kate likes thinking of Lady—Lady Etheldredas,” said Mr.
Wardour rather musingly; but Kate was too much pleased at his giving any
sort of heed to her performances to note the manner, and needed no more
encouragement to set her tongue off.

“Lady Ethelinda, Papa.  She is a very grand rich lady, though she is a
little girl: and see there, she is giving presents to all her cousins;
and there she is buying new clothes for the orphans that were burnt out;
and there she is building a school for them.”

Kate suddenly stopped, for Mr. Wardour sat down, drew her between his
knees, took both her hands into one of his, and looked earnestly into her
face, so gravely that she grew frightened, and looking appealingly up,
cried out, “O Mary, Mary! have I been naughty?”

“No, my dear,” said Mr. Wardour; “but we have heard a very strange piece
of news about you, and I am very anxious as to whether it may turn out
for your happiness.”

Kate stood still and looked at him, wishing he would speak faster.  Could
her great-uncle in India be come home, and want her to make him a visit
in London?  How delightful!  If it had been anybody but Papa, she would
have said, “Go on.”

“My dear,” said Mr. Wardour at last, “you know that your cousin, Lord
Caergwent, was killed by an accident last week.”

“Yes, I know,” said Kate; “that was why Mary made me put this black braid
on my frock; and a very horrid job it was to do—it made my fingers so
sore.”

“I did not know till this morning that his death would make any other
difference to you,” continued Mr. Wardour.  “I thought the title went to
heirs-male, and that Colonel Umfraville was the present earl; but, my
little Katharine, I find that it is ordained that you should have this
great responsibility.”

“What, you thought it was the Salic law?” said Kate, going on with one
part of his speech, and not quite attending to the other.

“Something like it; only that it is not the English term for it,” said
Mr. Wardour, half smiling.  “As your grandfather was the elder son, the
title and property come to you.”

Kate did not look at him, but appeared intent on the marks of the needle
on the end of her forefinger, holding down her head.

Sylvia, however, seemed to jump in her very skin, and opening her eyes,
cried out, “The title!  Then Kate is—is—oh, what is a she-earl called?”

“A countess,” said Mr. Wardour, with a smile, but rather sadly.  “Our
little Kate is Countess of Caergwent.”

“My dear Sylvia!” exclaimed Mary in amazement; for Sylvia, like an
India-rubber ball, had bounded sheer over the little arm-chair by which
she was standing.

But there her father’s look and uplifted finger kept her still and
silent.  He wanted to give Kate time to understand what he had said.

“Countess of Caergwent,” she repeated; “that’s not so pretty as if I were
Lady Katharine.”

“The sound does not matter much,” said Mary.  “You will always be
Katharine to those that love you best.  And oh!—”  Mary stopped short,
her eyes full of tears.

Kate looked up at her, astonished.  “Are you sorry, Mary?” she asked, a
little hurt.

“We are all sorry to lose our little Kate,” said Mr. Wardour.

“Lose me, Papa!” cried Kate, clinging to him, as the children scarcely
ever did, for he seldom made many caresses; “Oh no, never!  Doesn’t
Caergwent Castle belong to me?  Then you must all come and live with me
there; and you shall have lots of big books, Papa; and we will have a
pony-carriage for Mary, and ponies for Sylvia and Charlie and me, and—”

Kate either ran herself down, or saw that the melancholy look on Mr.
Wardour’s face rather deepened than lessened, for she stopped short.

“My dear,” he said, “you and I have both other duties.”

“Oh, but if I built a church!  I dare say there are people at Caergwent
as poor as they are here.  Couldn’t we build a church, and you mind them,
Papa?”

“My little Katharine, you have yet to understand that ‘the heir, so long
as he is a child, differeth in nothing from a servant, but is under
tutors and governors.’  You will not have any power over yourself or your
property till you are twenty-one.”

“But you are my tutor and my governor, and my spiritual pastor and
master,” said Kate.  “I always say so whenever Mary asks us questions
about our duty to our neighbour.”

“I have been so hitherto,” said Mr. Wardour, setting her on his knee;
“but I see I must explain a good deal to you.  It is the business of a
court in London, that is called the Court of Chancery, to provide that
proper care is taken of young heirs and heiresses and their estates, if
no one have been appointed by their parents to do so; and it is this
court that must settle what is to become of you.”

“And why won’t it settle that I may live with my own papa and brothers
and sisters?”

“Because, Kate, you must be brought up in a way to fit your station; and
my children must be brought up in a way to fit theirs.  And besides,” he
added more sadly, “nobody that could help it would leave a girl to be
brought up in a household without a mother.”

Kate’s heart said directly, that as she could never again have a mother,
her dear Mary must be better than a stranger; but somehow any reference
to the sorrow of the household always made her anxious to get away from
the subject, so she looked at her finger again, and asked, “Then am I to
live up in this Court of Chances?”

“Not exactly,” said Mr. Wardour.  “Your two aunts in London, Lady Barbara
and Lady Jane Umfraville, are kind enough to offer to take charge of you.
Here is a letter that they sent inclosed for you.”

“The Countess of Caergwent,” was written on the envelope; and Kate’s and
Sylvia’s heads were together in a moment to see how it looked, before
opening the letter, and reading:—“‘My dear Niece,’—dear me, how funny to
say niece!—‘I deferred writing to you upon the melancholy—’ oh, what is
it, Sylvia?”

“The melancholy comet!”

“No, no; nonsense.”

“Melancholy event,” suggested Mary.

“Yes, to be sure.  I can’t think why grown-up people always write on
purpose for one not to read them.—‘Melancholy event that has placed you
in possession of the horrors of the family.’”

“Horrors!—Kate, Kate!”

“Well, I am sure it _is_ horrors,” said the little girl rather
perversely.

“This is not a time for nonsense, Kate,” said Mr. Wardour; and she was
subdued directly.

“Shall I read it to you?” said Mary.

“Oh, no, no!”  Kate was too proud of her letter to give it up, and
applied herself to it again.—“‘Family honours, until I could ascertain
your present address.  And likewise, the shock of your poor cousin’s
death so seriously affected my sister’s health in her delicate state,
that for some days I could give my attention to nothing else.’  Dear me!
This is my Aunt Barbara, I see!  Is Aunt Jane so ill?”

“She has had very bad health for many years,” said Mr. Wardour; “and your
other aunt has taken the greatest care of her.”

“‘We have now, however, been able to consider what will be best for all
parties; and we think nothing will be so proper as that you should reside
with us for the present.  We will endeavour to make a happy home for you;
and will engage a lady to superintend your education, and give you all
the advantages to which you are entitled.  We have already had an
interview with a very admirable person, who will come down to Oldburgh
with our butler next Friday, and escort you to us, if Mrs. Wardour will
kindly prepare you for the journey.  I have written to thank her for her
kindness to you.’”

“Mrs. Wardour!” exclaimed Sylvia.

“The ladies have known and cared little about Kate or us for a good many
years,” said Mary, almost to herself, but in such a hurt tone, that her
father looked up with grave reproof in his eyes, as if to remind her of
all he had been saying to her during the long hours that the little girls
had waited.

“‘With your Aunt Jane’s love, and hoping shortly to be better acquainted,
I remain, my dear little niece, your affectionate aunt, Barbara
Umfraville.’  Then I am to go and live with them!” said Kate, drawing a
long sigh.  “O Papa, do let Sylvia come too, and learn of my governess
with me!”

“Your aunts do not exactly contemplate that,” said Mr. Wardour; “but
perhaps there may be visits between you.”

Sylvia began to look very grave.  She had not understood that this great
news was to lead to nothing but separation.  Everything had hitherto been
in common between her and Kate, and that what was good for the one should
not be good for the other was so new and strange, that she did not
understand it at once.

“Oh yes! we will visit.  You shall all come and see me in London, and see
the Zoological Gardens and the British Museum; and I will send you such
presents!”

“We will see,” said Mr. Wardour kindly; “but just now, I think the best
thing you can do is to write to your aunt, and thank her for her kind
letter; and say that I will bring you up to London on the day she names,
without troubling the governess and the butler.”

“Oh, thank you!” said Kate; “I sha’n’t be near so much afraid if you come
with me.”

Mr. Wardour left the room; and the first thing Mary did was to throw her
arms round the little girl in a long vehement embrace.  “My little Kate!
my little Kate!  I little thought this was to be the end of it!” she
cried, kissing her, while the tears dropped fast.

Kate did not like it at all.  The sight of strong feeling distressed her,
and made her awkward and ungracious.  “Don’t, Mary,” she said,
disengaging herself; “never mind; I shall always come and see you; and
when I grow up, you shall come to live with me at Caergwent.  And you
know, when they write a big red book about me, they will put in that you
brought me up.”

“Write a big red book about you, Kate!”

“Why,” said Kate, suddenly become very learned, “there is an immense fat
red and gold book at Mr. Brown’s, all full of Lords and Ladies.”

“Oh, a Peerage!” said Mary; “but even you, my Lady Countess, can’t have a
whole peerage to yourself.”

And that little laugh seemed to do Mary good, for she rose and began to
rule the single lines for Kate’s letter.  Kate could write a very tidy
little note; but just now she was too much elated and excited to sit down
quietly, or quite to know what she was about.  She went skipping
restlessly about from one chair to another, chattering fast about what
she would do, and wondering what the aunts would be like, and what Armyn
would say, and what Charlie would say, and the watch she would buy for
Charlie, and the great things she was to do for everybody—till Mary
muttered something in haste, and ran out of the room.

“I wonder why Mary is so cross,” said Kate.

Poor Mary!  No one could be farther from being cross; but she was
thoroughly upset.  She was as fond of Kate as of her own sisters, and was
not only sorry to part with her, but was afraid that she would not be
happy or good in the new life before her.




CHAPTER II.


THE days passed very slowly with Kate, until the moment when she was to
go to London and take her state upon her, as she thought.  Till that
should come to pass, she could not feel herself really a countess.  She
did not find herself any taller or grander; Charlie teased her rather
more instead of less and she did not think either Mr. Wardour or Mary or
Armyn thought half enough of her dignity: they did not scruple to set her
down when she talked too loud, and looked sad instead of pleased when she
chattered about the fine things she should do.  Mr. and Mrs. Brown, to be
sure, came to wish her good-bye; but they were so respectful, and took
such pains that she should walk first, that she grew shy and sheepish,
and did not like it at all.

She thought ease and dignity would come by nature when she was once in
London; and she made so certain of soon seeing Sylvia again, that she did
not much concern herself about the parting with her; while she was rather
displeased with Mary for looking grave, and not making more of her, and
trying to tell her that all might not be as delightful as she expected.
She little knew that Mary was grieved at her eagerness to leave her happy
home, and never guessed at the kind sister’s fears for her happiness.
She set it all down to what she was wont to call crossness.  If Mary had
really been a cross or selfish person, all she would have thought of
would have been that now there would not be so many rents to mend after
Kate’s cobbling attempts, nor so many shrill shrieking laughs to disturb
Papa writing his sermon, nor so much difficulty in keeping any room in
the house tidy, nor so much pinching in the housekeeping.  Instead of
that, Mary only thought whether Barbara and Lady Jane would make her
little Kate happy and good.  She was sure they were proud, hard, cold
people; and her father had many talks with her, to try to comfort her
about them.

Mr. Wardour told her that Kate’s grandfather had been such a grief and
shame to the family, that it was no wonder they had not liked to be
friendly with those he had left behind him.  There had been help given to
educate the son, and some notice had been taken of him, but always very
distant; and he had been thought very foolish for marrying when he was
very young, and very ill off.  At the time of his death, his uncle,
Colonel Umfraville, had been very kind, and had consulted earnestly with
Mr. Wardour what was best for the little orphan; but had then explained
that he and his wife could not take charge of her, because his regiment
was going to India, and she could not go there with them; and that his
sisters were prevented from undertaking the care of so young a child by
the bad health of the elder, who almost owed her life to the tender
nursing of the younger.  And as Mrs. Wardour was only eager to keep to
herself all that was left of her only sister, and had a nursery of her
own, it had been most natural that Kate should remain at St. James’s
Parsonage; and Mr. Wardour had full reason to believe that, had there
been any need, or if he had asked for help, the aunts would have gladly
given it.  He knew them to be worthy and religious women; and he told
Mary that he thought it very likely that they might deal better with
Kate’s character than he had been able to do.  Mary knew she herself had
made mistakes, but she could not be humble for her father, or think any
place more improving than under his roof.

And Kate meanwhile had her own views.  And when all the good-byes were
over, and she sat by the window of the railway carriage, watching the
fields rush by, reduced to silence, because “Papa” had told her he could
not hear her voice, and had made a peremptory sign to her when she
screamed her loudest, and caused their fellow-travellers to look up
amazed, she wove a web in her brain something like this:—“I know what my
aunts will be like: they will be just like ladies in a book.  They will
be dreadfully fashionable!  Let me see—Aunt Barbara will have a turban on
her head, and a bird of paradise, like the bad old lady in Armyn’s book
that Mary took away from me; and they will do nothing all day long but
try on flounced gowns, and count their jewels, and go out to balls and
operas—and they will want me to do the same—and play at cards all Sunday!
‘Lady Caergwent,’ they will say, ‘it is becoming to your position!’  And
then the young countess presented a remarkable contrast in her ingenuous
simplicity,” continued Kate, not quite knowing whether she was making a
story or thinking of herself—for indeed she did not feel as if she were
herself, but somebody in a story.  “Her waving hair was only confined by
an azure ribbon, (Kate loved a fine word when Charlie did not hear it to
laugh at her;) and her dress was of the simplest muslin, with one diamond
aigrette of priceless value!”

Kate had not the most remote notion what an aigrette might be, but she
thought it would sound well for a countess; and she went on musing very
pleasantly on the amiable simplicity of the countess, and the speech that
was to cure the aunts of playing at cards on a Sunday, wearing turbans,
and all other enormities, and lead them to live in the country, giving a
continual course of school feasts, and surprising meritorious families
with gifts of cows.  She only wished she had a pencil to draw it all to
show Sylvia, provided Sylvia would know her cows from her tables.

After more vain attempts at chatter, and various stops at stations, Mr.
Wardour bought a story-book for her; and thus brought her to a most happy
state of silent content, which lasted till the house roofs of London
began to rise on either side of the railway.

Among the carriages that were waiting at the terminus was a small
brougham, very neat and shiny; and a servant came up and touched his hat,
opening the door for Kate, who was told to sit there while the servant
and Mr. Wardour looked for the luggage.  She was a little disappointed.
She had once seen a carriage go by with four horses, and a single one did
not seem at all worthy of her; but she had two chapters more of her story
to read, and was so eager to see the end of it, that Mr. Wardour could
hardly persuade her to look out and see the Thames when she passed over
it, nor the Houses of Parliament and the towers of Westminster Abbey.

At last, while passing through the brighter and more crowded streets,
Kate having satisfied herself what had become of the personages of her
story, looked up, and saw nothing but dull houses of blackened cream
colour; and presently found the carriage stopping at the door of one.

“Is it here, Papa?” she said, suddenly seized with fright.

“Yes,” he said, “this is Bruton Street;” and he looked at her anxiously
as the door was opened and the steps were let down.  She took tight hold
of his hand.  Whatever she had been in her day-dreams, she was only his
own little frightened Kate now; and she tried to shrink behind him as the
footman preceded them up the stairs, and opening the door,
announced—“Lady Caergwent and Mr. Wardour!”

Two ladies rose up, and came forward to meet her.  She felt herself
kissed by both, and heard greetings, but did not know what to say, and
stood up by Mr. Wardour, hanging down her head, and trying to stand upon
one foot with the other, as she always did when she was shy and awkward.

“Sit down, my dear,” said one of the ladies, making a place for her on
the sofa.  But Kate only laid hold of a chair, pulled it as close to Mr.
Wardour as possible, and sat down on the extreme corner of it, feeling
for a rail on which to set her feet, and failing to find one, twining her
ankles round the leg of the chair.  She knew very well that this was not
pretty; but she never could recollect what was pretty behaviour when she
was shy.  She was a very different little girl in a day-dream and out of
one.  And when one of the aunts asked her if she were tired, all she
could do was to give a foolish sort of smile, and say, “N—no.”

Then she had a perception that Papa was looking reprovingly at her; so
she wriggled her legs away from that of the chair, twisted them together
in the middle, and said something meant for “No, thank you;” but of which
nothing was to be heard but “q,” apparently proceeding out of the brim of
her broad hat, so low did the young countess, in her amiable simplicity,
hold her head.

“She is shy!” said one of the ladies to the other; and they let her alone
a little, and began to talk to Mr. Wardour about the journey, and various
other things, to which Kate did not greatly listen.  She began to let her
eyes come out from under her hat brim, and satisfied herself that the
aunts certainly did not wear either turbans or birds of paradise, but
looked quite as like other people as she felt herself, in spite of her
title.

Indeed, one aunt had nothing on her head at all but a little black velvet
and lace, not much more than Mary sometimes wore, and the other only a
very light cap.  Kate thought great-aunts must be as old at least as Mrs.
Brown, and was much astonished to see that these ladies had no air of age
about them.  The one who sat on the sofa had a plump, smooth, pretty,
pink and white face, very soft and pleasant to look at, though an older
person than Kate would have perceived that the youthful delicacy of the
complexion showed that she had been carefully shut up and sheltered from
all exposure and exertion, and that the quiet innocent look of the small
features was that of a person who had never had to use her goodness more
actively than a little baby.  Kate was sure that this was aunt Jane, and
that she should get on well with her, though that slow way of speaking
was rather wearisome.

The other aunt, who was talking the most, was quite as slim as Mary, and
had a bright dark complexion, so that if Kate had not seen some shades of
grey in her black hair, it would have been hard to believe her old at
all.  She had a face that put Kate in mind of a picture of a beautiful
lady in a book at home—the eyes, forehead, nose, and shape of the chin,
were so finely made; and yet there was something in them that made the
little girl afraid, and feel as if the plaster cast of Diana’s head on
the study mantelpiece had got a pair of dark eyes, and was looking very
hard at her; and there was a sort of dry sound in her voice that was
uncomfortable to hear.

Then Kate took a survey of the room, which was very prettily furnished,
with quantities of beautiful work of all kinds, and little tables and
brackets covered with little devices in china and curiosities under
glass, and had flowers standing in the windows; and by the time she had
finished trying to make out the subject of a print on the walls, she
heard some words that made her think that her aunts were talking of her
new governess, and she opened her ears to hear, “So we thought it would
be an excellent arrangement for her, poor thing!” and “Papa” answering,
“I hope Kate may try to be a kind considerate pupil.”  Then seeing by
Kate’s eyes that her attention had been astray, or that she had not
understood Lady Barbara’s words, he turned to her, saying, “Did you not
hear what your aunt was telling me?”

“No, Papa.”

“She was telling me about the lady who will teach you.  She has had great
afflictions.  She has lost her husband, and is obliged to go out as
governess, that she may be able to send her sons to school.  So, Kate,
you must think of this, and try to give her as little trouble as
possible.”

It would have been much nicer if Kate would have looked up readily, and
said something kind and friendly; but the fit of awkwardness had come
over her again, and with it a thought so selfish, that it can hardly be
called otherwise than naughty—namely, that grown-up people in trouble
were very tiresome, and never let young ones have any fun.

“Shall I take you to see Mrs. Lacy, my dear?” said Lady Barbara, rising.
And as Kate took hold of Mr. Wardour’s hand, she added, “You will see Mr.
Wardour again after dinner.  You had better dress, and have some meat for
your tea, with Mrs. Lacy, and then come into the drawing-room.”

This was a stroke upon Kate.  She who had dined with the rest of the
world ever since she could remember—she, now that she was a countess, to
be made to drink tea up-stairs like a baby, and lose all that time of
Papa’s company!  She swelled with displeasure: but Aunt Barbara did not
look like a person whose orders could be questioned, and “Papa” said not
a word in her favour.  Possibly the specimen of manners she had just
given had not led either him or Lady Barbara to think her fit for a late
dinner.

Lady Barbara first took her up-stairs, and showed her a little long
narrow bed-room, with a pretty pink-curtained bed in it.

“This will be your room, my dear,” she said.  “I am sorry we have not a
larger one to offer you; but it opens into mine, as you see, and my
sister’s is just beyond.  Our maid will dress you for a few days, when I
hope to engage one for you.”

Here was something like promotion!  Kate dearly loved to have herself
taken off her own hands, and not to be reproved by Mary for untidiness,
or roughly set to rights by Lily’s nurse.  She actually exclaimed, “Oh,
thank you!”  And her aunt waited till the hat and cloak had been taken
off and the chestnut hair smoothed, looked at her attentively, and said,
“Yes, you are like the family.”

“I’m very like my own papa,” said Kate, growing a little bolder, but
still speaking with her head on one side, which was her way when she said
anything sentimental.

“I dare say you are,” answered her aunt, with the dry sound.  “Are you
ready now?  I will show you the way.  The house is very small,” continued
Lady Barbara, as they went down the stairs to the ground floor; “and this
must be your school-room for the present.”

It was the room under the back drawing-room; and in it was a lady in a
widow’s cap, sitting at work.  “Here is your little Pupil—Lady
Caergwent—Mrs. Lacy,” said Lady Barbara.  “I hope you will find her a
good child.  She will drink tea with you, and then dress, and afterwards
I hope, we shall see you with her in the drawing-room.”

Mrs. Lacy bowed, without any answer in words, only she took Kate’s hand
and kissed her.  Lady Barbara left them, and there was a little pause.
Kate looked at her governess, and her heart sank, for it was the very
saddest face she had ever seen—the eyes looked soft and gentle, but as if
they had wept till they could weep no longer; and when the question was
asked, “Are you tired, my dear?” it was in a sunk tone, trying to be
cheerful but the sadder for that very reason.  Poor lady! it was only
that morning that she had parted with her son, and had gone away from the
home where she had lived with her husband and children.

Kate was almost distressed; yet she felt more at her ease than with her
aunts, and answered, “Not at all, thank you,” in her natural tone.

“Was it a long journey?”

Kate had been silent so long, that her tongue was ready for exertion; and
she began to chatter forth all the events of the journey, without heeding
much whether she were listened to or not, till having come to the end of
her breath, she saw that Mrs. Lacy was leaning back in her chair, her
eyes fixed as if her attention had gone away.  Kate thereupon roamed
round the room, peeped from the window and saw that it looked into a dull
black-looking narrow garden, and then studied the things in the room.
There was a piano, at which she shook her head.  Mary had tried to teach
her music; but after a daily fret for six weeks, Mr. Wardour had said it
was waste of time and temper for both; and Kate was delighted.  Then she
came to a book-case; and there the aunts had kindly placed the books of
their own younger days, some of which she had never seen before.  When
she had once begun on the “Rival Crusoes,” she gave Mrs. Lacy no more
trouble, except to rouse her from it to drink her tea, and then go and be
dressed.

The maid managed the white muslin so as to make her look very nice; but
before she had gone half way down-stairs, there was a voice behind—“My
Lady! my Lady!”

She did not turn, not remembering that she herself must be meant; and the
maid, running after her, caught her rather sharply, and showed her her
own hand, all black and grimed.

“How tiresome!” cried she.  “Why, I only just washed it!”

“Yes, my Lady; but you took hold of the balusters all the way down.  And
your forehead!  Bless me! what would Lady Barbara say?”

For Kate had been trying to peep through the balusters into the hall
below, and had of course painted her brow with London blacks.  She made
one of her little impatient gestures, and thought she was very hardly
used—dirt stuck upon her, and brambles tore her like no one else.

She got safely down this time, and went into the drawing-room with Mrs.
Lacy, there taking a voyage of discovery among the pretty things, knowing
she must not touch, but asking endless questions, some of which Mrs. Lacy
answered in her sad indifferent way, others she could not answer, and
Kate was rather vexed at her not seeming to care to know.  Kate had not
yet any notion of caring for other people’s spirits and feelings; she
never knew what to do for them, and so tried to forget all about them.

The aunts came in, and with them Mr. Wardour.  She was glad to run up to
him, and drag him to look at a group in white Parian under a glass, that
had delighted her very much.  She knew it was Jupiter’s Eagle; but who
was feeding it?  “Ganymede,” said Mr. Wardour; and Kate, who always liked
mythological stories, went on most eagerly talking about the legend of
the youth who was borne away to be the cup-bearer of the gods.  It was a
thing to make her forget about the aunts and everybody else; and Mr.
Wardour helped her out, as he generally did when her talk was neither
foolish nor ill-timed but he checked her when he thought she was running
on too long, and went himself to talk to Mrs. Lacy, while Kate was
obliged to come to her aunts, and stood nearest to Lady Jane, of whom she
was least afraid.

“You seem quite at home with all the heathen gods, my dear,” said Lady
Jane; “how come you to know them so well?”

“In Charlie’s lesson-books, you know,” said Kate; and seeing that her
aunt did not know, she went on to say, “there are notes and explanations.
And there is a Homer—an English one, you know; and we play at it.”

“We seem to have quite a learned lady here!” said aunt Barbara, in the
voice Kate did not like.  “Do you learn music?”

“No; I haven’t got any ear; and I hate it!”

“Oh!” said Lady Barbara drily; and Kate seeing Mr. Wardour’s eyes fixed
on her rather anxiously, recollected that hate was not a proper word, and
fell into confusion.

“And drawing?” said her aunt.

“No; but I want to—”

“Oh!” again said Lady Barbara, looking at Kate’s fingers, which in her
awkwardness she was apparently dislocating in a method peculiar to
herself.

However, it was soon over, for it was already later than Kate’s home
bed-time; she bade everyone good-night, and was soon waited on by Mrs.
Bartley, the maid, in her own luxurious little room.

But luxurious as it was, Kate for the first time thoroughly missed home.
The boarded floor, the old crib, the deal table, would have been welcome,
if only Sylvia had been there.  She had never gone to bed without Sylvia
in her life.  And now she thought with a pang that Sylvia was longing for
her, and looking at her empty crib, thinking too, it might be, that Kate
had cared more for her grandeur than for the parting.

Not only was it sorrowful to be lonely, but also Kate was one of the
silly little girls, to whom the first quarter of an hour in bed was a
time of fright.  Sylvia had no fears, and always accounted for the odd
noises and strange sights that terrified her companion.  She never
believed that the house was on fire, even though the moon made very
bright sparkles; she always said the sounds were the servants, the wind,
or the mice; and never would allow that thieves would steal little girls,
or anything belonging to themselves.  Or if she were fast asleep, her
very presence gave a feeling of protection.

But when the preparations were very nearly over, and Kate began to think
of the strange room, and the roar of carriages in the streets sounded so
unnatural, her heart failed her, and the fear of being alone quite
overpowered her dread of the grave staid Mrs. Bartley, far more of being
thought a silly little girl.

“Please please, Mrs. Bartley,” she said in a trembling voice, “are you
going away?”

“Yes, my Lady; I am going down to supper, when I have placed my Lady
Jane’s and my Lady Barbara’s things.”

“Then please—please,” said Kate, in her most humble and insinuating
voice, “do leave the door open while you are doing it.”

“Very well, my Lady,” was the answer, in a tone just like that in which
Lady Barbara said “Oh!”

And the door stayed open; but Kate could not sleep.  There seemed to be
the rattle and bump of the train going on in her bed; the gas-lights in
the streets below came in unnaturally, and the noises were much more
frightful and unaccountable than any she had ever heard at home.  Her
eyes spread with fright, instead of closing in sleep; then came the
longing yearning for Sylvia, and tears grew hot in them; and by the time
Mrs. Bartley had finished her preparations, and gone down, her distress
had grown so unbearable, that she absolutely began sobbing aloud, and
screaming, “Papa!”  She knew he would be very angry, and that she should
hear that such folly was shameful in a girl of her age; but any anger
would be better than this dreadful loneliness.  She screamed louder and
louder; and she grew half frightened, half relieved, when she heard his
step, and a buzz of voices on the stairs; and then there he was, standing
by her, and saying gravely, “What is the matter, Kate?”

“O Papa, Papa, I want—I want Sylvia!—I am afraid!”  Then she held her
breath, and cowered under the clothes, ready for a scolding; but it was
not his angry voice.  “Poor child!” he said quietly and sadly.  “You must
put away this childishness, my dear.  You know that you are not really
alone, even in a strange place.”

“No, no, Papa; but I am afraid—I cannot bear it!”

“Have you said the verse that helps you to bear it, Katie?”

“I could not say it without Sylvia.”

She heard him sigh; and then he said, “You must try another night, my
Katie, and think of Sylvia saying it at home in her own room.  You will
meet her prayers in that way.  Now let me hear you say it.”

Kate repeated, but half choked with sobs, “I lay me down in peace,” and
the rest of the calm words, with which she had been taught to lay herself
in bed; but at the end she cried, “O Papa, don’t go!”

“I must go, my dear: I cannot stay away from your aunts.  But I will tell
you what to do to-night, and other nights when I shall be away: say to
yourself the ninety-first Psalm.  I think you know it—‘Whoso abideth
under the defence of the Most High—’”

“I think I do know it.”

“Try to say it to yourself, and then the place will seem less dreary,
because you will feel Who is with you.  I will look in once more before I
go away, and I think you will be asleep.”

And though Kate tried to stay awake for him, asleep she was.




CHAPTER III.


IN a very few days, Kate had been settled into the ways of the household
in Bruton Street; and found one day so like another, that she sometimes
asked herself whether she had not been living there years instead of
days.

She was always to be ready by half-past seven.  Her French maid,
Josephine, used to come in at seven, and wash and dress her quietly, for
if there were any noise Aunt Barbara would knock and be displeased.  Aunt
Barbara rose long before that time, but she feared lest Aunt Jane should
be disturbed in her morning’s sleep; and Kate thought she had the ears of
a dragon for the least sound of voice or laugh.

At half-past seven, Kate met Mrs. Lacy in the school-room, read the
Psalms and Second Lesson, and learnt some answers to questions on the
Catechism, to be repeated to Lady Barbara on a Sunday.  For so far from
playing at cards in a bird-of-paradise turban all Sunday, the aunts were
quite as particular about these things as Mr. Wardour—more inconveniently
so, the countess thought; for he always let her answer his examinations
out of her own head, and never gave her answers to learn by heart;
“Answers that I know before quite well,” said Kate, “only not made
tiresome with fine words.”

“That is not a right way of talking, Lady Caergwent,” gravely said Mrs.
Lacy; and Kate gave herself an ill-tempered wriggle, and felt cross and
rebellious.

It was a trial; but if Kate had taken it humbly, she would have found
that even the stiff hard words and set phrases gave accuracy to her
ideas; and the learning of the texts quoted would have been clear gain,
if she had been in a meeker spirit.

This done, Mrs. Lacy gave her a music-lesson.  This was grievous work,
for the question was not how the learning should be managed, but whether
the thing should be learnt at all.

Kate had struggled hard against it.  She informed her aunts that Mary had
tried to teach her for six weeks in vain, and that she had had a bad mark
every day; that Papa had said it was all nonsense, and that talents could
not be forced; and that Armyn said she had no more ear than an old
pea-hen.

To which Lady Barbara had gravely answered, that Mr. Wardour could decide
as he pleased while Katharine was under his charge, but that it would be
highly improper that she should not learn the accomplishments of her
station.

“Only I can’t learn,” said Kate, half desperate; “you will see that it is
no use, Aunt Barbara.”

“I shall do my duty, Katharine,” was all the answer she obtained; and she
pinched her chair with suppressed passion.

Lady Barbara was right in saying that it was her duty to see that the
child under her charge learnt what is usually expected of ladies; and
though Kate could never acquire music enough to give pleasure to others,
yet the training and discipline were likely not only to improve her ear
and untamed voice, but to be good for her whole character—that is, if she
had made a good use of them.  But in these times, being usually already
out of temper with the difficult answers of the Catechism questions, and
obliged to keep in her pettish feelings towards what concerned sacred
things, she let all out in the music lesson, and with her murmurs and her
inattention, her yawns and her blunders, rendered herself infinitely more
dull and unmusical than nature had made her, and was a grievous torment
to poor Mrs. Lacy, and her patient, “One, two, three—now, my dear.”

Kate thought it was Mrs. Lacy who tormented her!  I wonder which was the
worse to the other!  At any rate, Mrs. Lacy’s heavy eyes looked heavier,
and she moved as though wearied out for the whole day by the time the
clock struck nine, and released them; whilst her pupil, who never was
cross long together, took a hop, skip, and jump, to the dining-room, and
was as fresh as ever in the eager hope that the post would bring a letter
from home.

Lady Barbara read prayers in the dining-room at nine, and there
breakfasted with Kate and Mrs. Lacy, sending up a tray to Lady Jane in
her bed-room.  Those were apt to be grave breakfasts; not like the merry
mornings at home, when chatter used to go on in half whispers between the
younger ones, with laughs, breaking out in sudden gusts, till a little
over-loudness brought one of Mary’s good-natured “Hushes,” usually
answered with, “O Mary, such fun!”

It was Lady Barbara’s time for asking about all the lessons of the day
before; and though these were usually fairly done, and Mrs. Lacy was
always a kind reporter, it was rather awful; and what was worse, were the
strictures on deportment.  For it must be confessed, that Lady Caergwent,
though neatly and prettily made, with delicate little feet and hands, and
a strong upright back, was a remarkably awkward child; and the more she
was lectured, the more ungraceful she made herself—partly from thinking
about it, and from fright making her abrupt, partly from being provoked.
She had never been so ungainly at Oldburgh; she never was half so awkward
in the school-room, as she would be while taking her cup of tea from Lady
Barbara, or handing the butter to her governess.  And was it not wretched
to be ordered to do it again, and again, and again, (each time worse than
the last—the fingers more crooked, the elbow more stuck out, the shoulder
more forward than before), when there was a letter in Sylvia’s writing
lying on the table unopened?

And whereas it had been the fashion at St. James’s Parsonage to compare
Kate’s handing her plate to a chimpanzee asking for nuts, it was hard
that in Bruton Street these manners should be attributed to the barbarous
country in which she had grown up!  But that, though Kate did not know
it, was very much her own fault.  She could never be found fault with but
she answered again.  She had been scarcely broken of replying and
justifying herself, even to Mr. Wardour, and had often argued with Mary
till he came in and put a sudden sharp stop to it; and now she usually
defended herself with “Papa says—” or “Mary says—” and though she really
thought she spoke the truth, she made them say such odd things, that it
was no wonder Lady Barbara thought they had very queer notions of
education, and that her niece had nothing to do but to unlearn their
lessons.  Thus:

“Katharine, easy-chairs were not meant for little girls to lounge in.”

“Oh, Papa says he doesn’t want one always to sit upright and stupid.”

So Lady Barbara was left to suppose that Mr. Wardour’s model attitude for
young ladies was sitting upon one leg in an easy-chair, with the other
foot dangling, the forehead against the back, and the arm of the chair
used as a desk!  How was she to know that this only meant that he had
once had the misfortune to express his disapproval of the high-backed
long-legged school-room chairs formerly in fashion?  In fact, Kate could
hardly be forbidden anything without her replying that Papa or Mary
_always_ let her do it; till at last she was ordered, very decidedly,
never again to quote Mr. and Miss Wardour, and especially not to call him
Papa.

Kate’s eyes flashed at this; and she was so angry, that no words would
come but a passionate stammering “I can’t—I can’t leave off; I won’t!”

Lady Barbara looked stern and grave.  “You must be taught what is
suitable to your position, Lady Caergwent; and until you have learnt to
feel it yourself, I shall request Mrs. Lacy to give you an additional
lesson every time you call Mr. Wardour by that name.”

Aunt Barbara’s low slow way of speaking when in great displeasure was a
terrific thing, and so was the set look of her handsome mouth and eyes.
Kate burst into a violent fit of crying, and was sent away in dire
disgrace.  When she had spent her tears and sobs, she began to think over
her aunt’s cruelty and ingratitude, and the wickedness of trying to make
her ungrateful too; and she composed a thrilling speech, as she called
it—“Lady Barbara Umfraville, when the orphan was poor and neglected, my
Uncle Wardour was a true father to me.  You may tear me with wild horses
ere I will cease to give him the title of—  No; and I will call him
papa—no, father—with my last breath!”

What the countess might have done if Lady Barbara had torn her with wild
horses must remain uncertain.  It is quite certain that the mere fixing
of those great dark eyes was sufficient to cut off Pa—at its first
syllable, and turn it into a faltering “my uncle;” and that, though
Kate’s heart was very sore and angry, she never, except once or twice
when the word slipped out by chance, incurred the penalty, though she
would have respected herself more if she had been brave enough to bear
something for the sake of showing her love to Mr. Wardour.

And the fact was, that self-justification and carelessness of exact
correctness of truth had brought all this upon her, and given her aunt
this bad opinion of her friends!

But this is going a long way from the description of Kate’s days in
Bruton Street.

After breakfast, she was sent out with Mrs. Lacy for a walk.  If she had
a letter from home, she read it while Josephine dressed her as if she had
been a doll; or else she had a story book in hand, and was usually lost
in it when Mrs. Lacy looked into her room to see if she were ready.

To walk along the dull street, and pace round and round the gardens in
Berkeley Square, was not so entertaining as morning games in the garden
with Sylvia; and these were times of feeling very like a prisoner.  Other
children in the gardens seemed to be friends, and played together; but
this the aunts had forbidden her, and she could only look on, and think
of Sylvia and Charlie, and feel as if one real game of play would do her
all the good in the world.

To be sure she could talk to Mrs. Lacy, and tell her about Sylvia, and
deliver opinions upon the characters in her histories and stories; but it
often happened that the low grave “Yes, my dear,” showed by the very tone
that her governess had heard not a word; and at the best, it was dreary
work to look up and discourse to nothing but the black crape veil that
Mrs. Lacy always kept down.

“I cannot think why I should have a governess in affliction; it is very
hard upon me!” said Kate to herself.

Why did she never bethink herself how hard the afflictions were upon Mrs.
Lacy, and what good it would have done her if her pupil had tried to be
like a gentle little daughter to her, instead of merely striving for all
the fun she could get?

The lesson time followed.  Kate first repeated what she had learnt the
day before; and then had a French master two days in the week; on two
more, one for arithmetic and geography; and on the other two, a drawing
master.  She liked these lessons, and did well in all, as soon as she
left off citing Mary Wardour’s pronunciations, and ways of doing sums.
Indeed, she had more lively conversation with her French master, who was
a very good-natured old man, than with anyone else, except Josephine; and
she liked writing French letters for him to correct, making them be from
the imaginary little girls whom she was so fond of drawing, and sending
them to Sylvia.

After the master was gone, Kate prepared for him for the next day, and
did a little Italian reading with Mrs. Lacy; after which followed reading
of history, and needle-work.  Lady Barbara was very particular that she
should learn to work well, and was a good deal shocked at her very poor
performances.  “She had thought that plain needle-work, at least, would
be taught in a clergyman’s family.”

“Mary tried to teach me; but she says all my fingers are thumbs.”

And so poor Mrs. Lacy found them.

Mrs. Lacy and her pupil dined at the ladies’ luncheon; and this was
pleasanter than the breakfast, from the presence of Aunt Jane, whose kiss
of greeting was a comforting cheering moment, and who always was so much
distressed and hurt at the sight of her sister’s displeasure, that Aunt
Barbara seldom reproved before her.  She always had a kind word to say;
Mrs. Lacy seemed brighter and less oppressed in the sound of her voice;
everyone was more at ease; and when speaking to her, or waiting upon her,
Lady Barbara was no longer stern in manner nor dry in voice.  The meal
was not lively; there was nothing like the talk about parish matters, nor
the jokes that she was used to; and though she was helped first, and
ceremoniously waited on, she might not speak unless she was spoken to;
and was it not very cruel, first to make everything so dull that no one
could help yawning, and then to treat a yawn as a dire offence?

The length of the luncheon was a great infliction, because all the time
from that to three o’clock was her own.  It was a poor remnant of the
entire afternoons which she and Sylvia had usually disposed of much as
they pleased; and even what there was of it, was not to be spent in the
way for which the young limbs longed.  No one was likely to play at blind
man’s buff and hare and hounds in that house; and even her poor attempt
at throwing her gloves or a pen-wiper against the wall, and catching them
in the rebound, and her scampers up-stairs two steps at once, and runs
down with a leap down the last four steps, were summarily stopped, as
unladylike, and too noisy for Aunt Jane.  Kate did get a private run and
leap whenever she could, but never with a safe conscience; and that
spoilt the pleasure, or made it guilty and alarmed.

All she could do really in peace was reading or drawing, or writing
letters to Sylvia.  Nobody had interfered with any of these occupations,
though Kate knew that none of them were perfectly agreeable to Aunt
Barbara, who had been heard to speak of children’s reading far too many
silly story-books now-a-days, and had declared that the child would cramp
her hand for writing or good drawing with that nonsense.

However, Lady Jane had several times submitted most complacently to have
a whole long history in pictures explained to her, smiling very kindly,
but not apparently much the wiser.  And one, at least, of the old visions
of wealth was fulfilled, for Kate’s pocket-money enabled her to keep
herself in story-books and unlimited white paper, as well as to set up a
paint-box with real good colours.  But somehow, a new tale every week had
not half the zest that stories had when a fresh book only came into the
house by rare and much prized chances; and though the paper was smooth,
and the blue and red lovely, it was not half so nice to draw and paint as
with Sylvia helping, and the remains of Mary’s rubbings for making
illuminations; nay, Lily spoiling everything, and Armyn and Charlie
laughing at her were now remembered as ingredients in her pleasure; and
she would hardly have had the heart to go on drawing but that she could
still send her pictorial stories to Sylvia, and receive remarks on them.
There were no more Lady Ethelindas in flounces in Kate’s drawings now;
her heroines were always clergymen’s daughters, or those of colonists
cutting down trees and making the butter.

At three o’clock the carriage came to the door; and on Mondays and
Thursdays took Lady Caergwent and her governess to a mistress who taught
dancing and calisthenic exercises, and to whom her aunts trusted to make
her a little more like a countess than she was at present.  Those were
poor Kate’s black days of the week; when her feet were pinched, and her
arms turned the wrong way, as it seemed to her; and she was in perpetual
disgrace.  And oh, that polite disgrace!  Those wishes that her Ladyship
would assume a more aristocratic deportment, were so infinitely worse
than a good scolding!  Nothing could make it more dreadful, except Aunt
Barbara’s coming in at the end to see how she was getting on.

The aunts, when Lady Jane was well enough, used to take their drive while
the dancing lesson was in progress, and send the carriage afterwards to
bring their niece home.  On the other days of the week, when it was fine,
the carriage set Mrs. Lacy and Kate down in Hyde Park for their walk,
while the aunts drove about; and this, after the first novelty, was
nearly as dull as the morning walk.  The quiet decorous pacing along was
very tiresome after skipping in the lanes at home; and once, when Mrs.
Lacy had let her run freely in Kensington Gardens, Lady Barbara was much
displeased with her, and said Lady Caergwent was too old for such habits.

There was no sight-seeing.  Kate had told Lady Jane how much she wished
to see the Zoological Gardens and British Museum, and had been answered
that some day when she was very good Aunt Barbara would take her there;
but the day never came, though whenever Kate had been in no particular
scrape for a little while, she hoped it was coming.  Though certainly
days without scrapes were not many: the loud tones, the screams of
laughing that betrayed her undignified play with Josephine, the
attitudes, the skipping and jumping like the gambols of a calf, the
wonderful tendency of her clothes to get into mischief—all were
continually bringing trouble upon her.

If a splash of mud was in the street, it always came on her stockings;
her meals left reminiscences on all her newest dresses; her hat was
always blowing off; and her skirts curiously entangled themselves in
rails and balusters, caught upon nails, and tore into ribbons; and though
all the repairs fell to Josephine’s lot, and the purchase of new garments
was no such difficulty as of old, Aunt Barbara was even more severe on
such mishaps than Mary, who had all the trouble and expense of them.

After the walk, Kate had lessons to learn for the next day—poetry, dates,
grammar, and the like; and after them came her tea; and then her evening
toilette, when, as the aunts were out of hearing, she refreshed herself
with play and chatter with Josephine.  She was supposed to talk French to
her; but it was very odd sort of French, and Josephine did not insist on
its being better.  She was very good-natured, and thought “Miladi” had a
dull life; so she allowed a good many things that a more thoughtful
person would have known to be inconsistent with obedience to Lady
Barbara.

When dressed, Kate had to descend to the drawing-room, and there await
her aunts coming up from dinner.  She generally had a book of her own, or
else she read bits of those lying on the tables, till Lady Barbara caught
her, and in spite of her protest that at home she might always read any
book on the table ordered her never to touch any without express
permission.

Sometimes the aunts worked; sometimes Lady Barbara played and sang.  They
wanted Kate to sit up as they did with fancy work, and she had a bunch of
flowers in Berlin wool which she was supposed to be grounding; but she
much disliked it, and seldom set three stitches when her aunts’ eyes were
not upon her.  Lady Jane was a great worker, and tried to teach her some
pretty stitches; but though she began by liking to sit by the soft gentle
aunt, she was so clumsy a pupil, that Lady Barbara declared that her
sister must not be worried, and put a stop to the lessons.  So Kate
sometimes read, or dawdled over her grounding; or when Aunt Barbara was
singing, she would nestle up to her other aunt, and go off into some
dreamy fancy of growing up, getting home to the Wardours, or having them
to live with her at her own home; or even of a great revolution, in
which, after the pattern of the French nobility, she should have to
maintain Aunt Jane by the labour of her hands!  What was to become of
Aunt Barbara was uncertain; perhaps she was to be in prison, and Kate to
bring food to her in a little basket every day; or else she was to run
away: but Aunt Jane was to live in a nice little lodging, with no one to
wait on her but her dear little niece, who was to paint beautiful screens
for her livelihood, and make her coffee with her own hands.  Poor Lady
Jane!

Bed-time came at last—horrible bed-time, with all its terrors!  At first
Kate persuaded Josephine and her light to stay till sleep came to put an
end to them; but Lady Barbara came up one evening, declared that a girl
of eleven years old must not be permitted in such childish nonsense, and
ordered Josephine to go down at once, and always to put out the candle as
soon as Lady Caergwent was in bed.

Lady Barbara would hardly have done so if she had known how much
suffering she caused; but she had always been too sensible to know what
the misery of fancies could be, nor how the silly little brain imagined
everything possible and impossible; sometimes that thieves were breaking
in—sometimes that the house was on fire—sometimes that she should be
smothered with pillows, like the princes in the Tower, for the sake of
her title—sometimes that the Gunpowder Plot would be acted under the
house!

Most often of all it was a thought that was not foolish and unreal like
the rest.  It was the thought that the Last Judgment might be about to
begin.  But Kate did not use that thought as it was meant to be used when
we are bidden to “watch.”  If she had done so, she would have striven
every morning to “live this day as if the last.”  But she never thought
of it in the morning, nor made it a guide to her actions; or else she
would have dreaded it less.  And at night it did not make her particular
about obedience.  It only made her want to keep Josephine; as if
Josephine and a candle could protect her from that Day and Hour!  And if
the moment had come, would she not have been safer trying to endure
hardness for the sake of obedience—with the holy verses Mr. Wardour had
taught her on her lips, alone with her God and her good angel—than trying
to forget all in idle chatter with her maid, and contrary to known
commands, detaining her by foolish excuses?

It is true that Kate did not feel as if obedience to Lady Barbara was the
same duty as obedience to “Papa.”  Perhaps it was not in the nature of
things that she should; but no one can habitually practise petty
disobedience to one “placed in authority over” her, without hurting the
whole disposition.




CHAPTER IV.


“THURSDAY morning!  Bother—calisthenic day!—I’ll go to sleep again, to
put it off as long as I can.  If I was only a little countess in her own
feudal keep, I would get up in the dawn, and gather flowers in the May
dew—primroses and eglantine!—Charlie says it is affected to call
sweet-briar eglantine.—Sylvia!  Sylvia! that thorn has got hold of me;
and there’s Aunt Barbara coming down the lane in the baker’s jiggeting
cart.—Oh dear! was it only dreaming?  I thought I was gathering dog-roses
with Charlie and Sylvia in the lane; and now it is only Thursday, and
horrid calisthenic day!  I suppose I must wake up.

    ‘Awake, my soul, and with the sun
    Thy daily stage of duty run.’

I’m sure it’s a very tiresome sort of stage!  We used to say, ‘As happy
as a queen:’ I am sure if the Queen is as much less happy than a countess
as I am than a common little girl, she must be miserable indeed!  It is
like a rule-of-three sum.  Let me see—if a common little girl has one
hundred happinesses a day, and a countess only—only five—how many has the
Queen?  No—but how much higher is a queen than a countess?  If I were
Queen, I would put an end to aunts and to calisthenic exercises; and I
would send for all my orphan nobility, and let them choose their own
governesses and playfellows, and always live with country clergymen!  I
am sure nobody ought to be oppressed as Aunt Barbara oppresses me: it is
just like James V. of Scotland when the Douglases got hold of him!  I
wonder what is the use of being a countess, if one never is to do
anything to please oneself, and one is to live with a cross old aunt!”

Most likely everyone is of Lady Caergwent’s morning opinion—that Lady
Barbara Umfraville was cross, and that it was a hard lot to live in
subjection to her.  But there are two sides to a question; and there were
other hardships in that house besides those of the Countess of Caergwent.

Forty years ago, two little sisters had been growing up together, so fond
of each other that they were like one; and though the youngest, Barbara,
was always brighter, stronger, braver, and cleverer, than gentle Jane,
she never enjoyed what her sister could not do; and neither of them ever
wanted any amusement beyond quiet play with their dolls and puzzles,
contrivances in pretty fancy works, and walks with their governess in
trim gravel paths.  They had two elder brothers and one younger; but they
had never played out of doors with them, and had not run about or romped
since they were almost babies; they would not have known how; and Jane
was always sickly and feeble, and would have been very unhappy with loud
or active ways.

As time passed on, Jane became more weakly and delicate while Barbara
grew up very handsome, and full of life and spirit, but fonder of her
sister than ever, and always coming home from her parties and gaieties,
as if telling Jane about them was the best part of all.

At last, Lady Barbara was engaged to be married to a brother officer of
her second brother, James; but just then poor Jane fell so ill, that the
doctors said she could not live through the year.  Barbara loved her
sister far too well to think of marrying at such a time, and said she
must attend to no one else.  All that winter and spring she was nursing
her sister day and night, watching over her, and quite keeping up the
little spark of life, the doctors said, by her tender care.  And though
Lady Jane lived on day after day, she never grew so much better as to be
fit to hear of the engagement and that if she recovered her sister would
be separated from her; and so weeks went on, and still nothing could be
done about the marriage.

As it turned out, this was the best thing that could have happened to
Lady Barbara; for in the course of this time, it came to her father’s
knowledge that her brother and her lover had both behaved disgracefully,
and that, if she had married, she must have led a very unhappy life.  He
caused the engagement to be broken off.  She knew it was right, and made
no complaint to anybody; but she always believed that it was her brother
James who had been the tempter, who had led his friend astray; and from
that time, though she was more devoted than ever to her sick sister, she
was soft and bright to nobody else.  She did not complain, but she
thought that things had been very hard with her; and when people repine
their troubles do not make them kinder, but the brave grow stern and the
soft grow fretful.

All this had been over for nearly thirty years, and the brother and the
friend had both been long dead.  Lady Barbara was very anxious to do all
that she thought right; and she was so wise and sensible, and so careful
of her sister Jane, that all the family respected her and looked up to
her.  She thought she had quite forgiven all that had passed: she did not
know why it was so hard to her to take any notice of her brother James’s
only son.  Perhaps, if she had, she would have forced herself to try to
be more warm and kind to him, and not have inflamed Lord Caergwent’s
displeasure when he married imprudently.  Her sister Jane had never known
all that had passed: she had been too ill to hear of it at the time; and
it was not Lady Barbara’s way to talk to other people of her own
troubles.  But Jane was always led by her sister, and never thought of
people, or judged events, otherwise than as Barbara told her; so that,
kind and gentle as she was by nature, she was like a double of her
sister, instead of by her mildness telling on the family counsels.  The
other brother, Giles, had been aware of all, and saw how it was; but he
was so much younger than the rest, that he was looked on by them like a
boy long after he was grown up, and had not felt entitled to break
through his sister Barbara’s reserve, so as to venture on opening out the
sorrows so long past, and pleading for his brother James’s family, though
he had done all he could for them himself.  He had indeed been almost
constantly on foreign service, and had seen very little of his sisters.

Since their father’s death, the two sisters had lived their quiet life
together.  They were just rich enough to live in the way they thought the
duty of persons in their rank, keeping their carriage for Lady Jane’s
daily drive, and spending two months every year by the sea, and one at
Caergwent Castle with their eldest brother.  They always had a spare room
for any old friend who wanted to come up to town; and they did many acts
of kindness, and gave a great deal to be spent on the poor of their
parish.  They did the same quiet things every day: one liked what the
other liked; and Lady Barbara thought, morning, noon, and night, what
would be good for her sister’s health; while Lady Jane rested on
Barbara’s care, and was always pleased with whatever came in her way.

And so the two sisters had gone on year after year, and were very happy
in their own way, till the great grief came of losing their eldest
brother; and not long after him, his son, the nephew who had been their
great pride and delight, and for whom they had so many plans and hopes.

And with his death, there came what they felt to be the duty and
necessity of trying to fit the poor little heiress for her station.  They
were not fond of any children; and it upset all their ways very much to
have to make room for a little girl, her maid, and her governess; but
still, if she had been such a little girl as they had been, and always
like the well-behaved children whom they saw in drawing-rooms, they would
have known what kind of creature had come into their hands.

But was it not very hard on them that their niece should turn out a
little wild harum-scarum creature, such as they had never dreamt
of—really unable to move without noises that startled Lady Jane’s nerves,
and threw Lady Barbara into despair at the harm they would do—a child
whose untutored movements were a constant eye-sore and distress to them;
and though she could sometimes be bright and fairy-like if unconstrained,
always grew abrupt and uncouth when under restraint—a child very far from
silly, but apt to say the silliest things—learning quickly all that was
mere head-work, but hopelessly or obstinately dull at what was to be done
by the fingers—a child whose ways could not be called vulgar, but would
have been completely tom-boyish, except for a certain timidity that
deprived them of the one merit of courage, and a certain frightened
consciousness that was in truth modesty, though it did not look like it?
To have such a being to endure, and more than that, to break into the
habits of civilized life, and the dignity of a lady of rank, was no small
burden for them; but they thought it right, and made up their minds to
bear it.

Of course it would have been better if they had taken home the little
orphan when she was destitute and an additional weight to Mr. Wardour;
and had she been actually in poverty or distress, with no one to take
care of her, Lady Barbara would have thought it a duty to provide for
her: but knowing her to be in good hands, it had not then seemed needful
to inflict the child on her sister, or to conquer her own distaste to all
connected with her unhappy brother James.  No one had ever thought of the
little Katharine Aileve Umfraville becoming the head of the family; for
then young Lord Umfraville was in his full health and strength.

And why _did_ Lady Barbara only now feel the charge of the child a duty?
Perhaps it was because, without knowing it, she had been brought up to
make an idol of the state and consequence of the earldom, since she
thought breeding up the girl for a countess incumbent on her, when she
had not felt tender compassion for the brother’s orphan grandchild.  So
somewhat of the pomps of this world may have come in to blind her eyes;
but whatever she did was because she thought it right to do, and when
Kate thought of her as cross, it was a great mistake.  Lady Barbara had
great control of temper, and did everything by rule, keeping herself as
strictly as she did everyone else except Lady Jane; and though she could
not like such a troublesome little incomprehensible wild cat as
Katharine, she was always trying to do her strict justice, and give her
whatever in her view was good or useful.

But Kate esteemed it a great holiday, when, as sometimes happened, Aunt
Barbara went out to spend the evening with some friends; and she, under
promise of being very good, used to be Aunt Jane’s companion.

Those were the times when her tongue took a holiday, and it must be
confessed, rather to the astonishment and confusion of Lady Jane.

“Aunt Jane, do tell me about yourself when you were a little girl?”

“Ah! my dear, that does not seem so very long ago.  Time passes very
quickly.  To think of such a great girl as you being poor James’s
grandchild!”

“Was my grandpapa much older than you, Aunt Jane?”

“Only three years older, my dear.”

“Then do tell me how you played with him?”

“I never did, my dear; I played with your Aunt Barbara.”

“Dear me how stupid!  One can’t do things without boys.”

“No, my dear; boys always spoil girls’ play, they are so rough.”

“Oh! no, no, Aunt Jane; there’s no fun unless one is rough—I mean, not
rough exactly; but it’s no use playing unless one makes a jolly good
noise.”

“My dear,” said Lady Jane, greatly shocked, “I can’t bear to hear you
talk so, nor to use such words.”

“Dear me, Aunt Jane, we say ‘Jolly’ twenty times a day at St. James’s,
and nobody minds.”

“Ah! yes, you see you played with boys.”

“But our boys are not rough, Aunt Jane,” persisted Kate, who liked
hearing herself talk much better than anyone else.  “Mary says Charlie is
a great deal less riotous than I am, especially since he went to school;
and Armyn is too big to be riotous.  Oh dear, I wish Mr. Brown would send
Armyn to London; he said he would be sure to come and see me, and he is
the jolliest, most delightful fellow in the world!”

“My dear child,” said Lady Jane in her soft, distressed voice, “indeed
that is not the way young ladies talk of—of—boys.”

“Armyn is not a boy, Aunt Jane; he’s a man.  He is a clerk, you know, and
will get a salary in another year.”

“A clerk!”

“Yes; in Mr. Brown’s office, you know.  Aunt Jane, did you ever go out to
tea?”

“Yes, my dear; sometimes we drank tea with our little friends in the
dolls’ tea-cups.”

“Oh! you can’t think what fun we have when Mrs. Brown asks us to tea.
She has got the nicest garden in the world, and a greenhouse, and a great
squirt-syringe, I mean, to water it; and we always used to get it, till
once, without meaning it, I squirted right through the drawing-room
window, and made such a puddle; and Mrs. Brown thought it was Charlie,
only I ran in and told of myself, and Mrs. Brown said it was very
generous, and gave me a Venetian weight with a little hermit in a
snow-storm; only it is worn out now, and won’t snow, so I gave it to
little Lily when we had the whooping-cough.”

By this time Lady Jane was utterly ignorant what the gabble was about,
except that Katharine had been in very odd company, and done very strange
things with those boys, and she gave a melancholy little sound in the
pause; but Kate, taking breath, ran on again—

“It is because Mrs. Brown is not used to educating children, you know,
that she fancies one wants a reward for telling the truth; I told her so,
but Mary thought it would vex her, and stopped my mouth.  Well, then we
young ones—that is, Charlie, and Sylvia, and Armyn, and I—drank tea out
on the lawn.  Mary had to sit up and be company; but we had such fun!
There was a great old laurel tree, and Armyn put Sylvia and me up into
the fork; and that was our nest, and we were birds, and he fed us with
strawberries; and we pretended to be learning to fly, and stood up
flapping our frocks and squeaking, and Charlie came under and danced the
branches about.  We didn’t like that; and Armyn said it was a shame, and
hunted him away, racing all round the garden; and we scrambled down by
ourselves, and came down on the slope.  It is a long green slope, right
down to the river, all smooth and turfy, you know; and I was standing at
the top, when Charlie comes slyly, and saying he would help the little
bird to fly, gave me one push, and down I went, roll, roll, tumble,
tumble, till Sylvia _really_ thought she heard my neck crack!  Wasn’t it
fun?”

“But the river, my dear!” said Lady Jane, shuddering.

“Oh! there was a good flat place before we came to the river, and I
stopped long before that!  So then, as we had been the birds of the air,
we thought we would be the fishes of the sea; and it was nice and
shallow, with dear little caddises and river cray-fish, and great British
pearl-shells at the bottom.  So we took off our shoes and stockings, and
Charlie and Armyn turned up their trousers, and we had such a nice
paddling.  I really thought I should have got a British pearl then; and
you know there were some in the breast-plate of Venus.”

“In the river!  Did your cousin allow that?”

“Oh yes; we had on our old blue checks; and Mary never minds anything
when Armyn is there to take care of us.  When they heard in the
drawing-room what we had been doing, they made Mary sing ‘Auld Lang
Syne,’ because of ‘We twa hae paidlit in the burn frae morning sun till
dine;’ and whenever in future times I meet Armyn, I mean to say,

    ‘We twa hae paidlit in the burn
       Frae morning sun till dine;
    We’ve wandered many a weary foot
       Sin auld lang syne.’

Or perhaps I shall be able to sing it, and that will be still prettier.”

And Kate sat still, thinking of the prettiness of the scene of the
stranger, alone in the midst of numbers, in the splendid drawing-rooms,
hearing the sweet voice of the lovely young countess at the piano,
singing this touching memorial of the simple days of childhood.

Lady Jane meanwhile worked her embroidery, and thought what wonderful
disadvantages the poor child had had, and that Barbara really must not be
too severe on her, after she had lived with such odd people, and that it
was very fortunate that she had been taken away from them before she had
grown any older, or more used to them.

Soon after, Kate gave a specimen of her manners with boys.  When she went
into the dining-room at luncheon time one wet afternoon, she heard steps
on the stairs behind her aunt’s, and there appeared a very
pleasant-looking gentleman, followed by a boy of about her own age.

“Here is our niece,” said Lady Barbara.  “Katharine, come and speak to
Lord de la Poer.”

Kate liked his looks, and the way in which he held out his hand to her;
but she knew she should be scolded for her awkward greeting: so she put
out her hand as if she had no use of her arm above the elbow, hung down
her head, and said “—do;” at least no more was audible.

But there was something comfortable and encouraging in the grasp of the
strong large hand over the foolish little fingers; and he quite gave them
to his son, whose shake was a real treat; the contact with anything young
was like meeting a follow-countryman in a foreign land, though neither as
yet spoke.

She found out that the boy’s name was Ernest, and that his father was
taking him to school, but had come to arrange some business matters for
her aunts upon the way.  She listened with interest to Lord de la Poer’s
voice, for she liked it, and was sure he was a greater friend there than
any she had before seen.  He was talking about Giles—that was her uncle,
the Colonel in India; and she first gathered from what was passing that
her uncle’s eldest and only surviving son, an officer in his own
regiment, had never recovered a wound he had received at the relief of
Lucknow, and that if he did not get better at Simlah, where his mother
had just taken him, his father thought of retiring and bringing him home,
though all agreed that it would be a very unfortunate thing that the
Colonel should be obliged to resign his command before getting promoted;
but they fully thought he would do so, for this was the last of his
children; another son had been killed in the Mutiny, and two or three
little girls had been born and died in India.

Kate had never known this.  Her aunts never told her anything, nor talked
over family affairs before her; and she was opening her ears most
eagerly, and turning her quick bright eyes from one speaker to the other
with such earnest attention, that the guest turned kindly to her, and
said, “Do you remember your uncle?”

“Oh dear no!  I was a little baby when he went away.”

Kate never used _dear_ as an adjective except at the beginning of a
letter, but always, and very unnecessarily, as an interjection; and this
time it was so emphatic as to bring Lady Barbara’s eyes on her.

“Did you see either Giles or poor Frank before they went out to him?”

“Oh dear no!”

This time the _dear_ was from the confusion that made her always do the
very thing she ought not to do.

“No; my niece has been too much separated from her own relations,” said
Lady Barbara, putting this as an excuse for the “Oh dears.”

“I hope Mr. Wardour is quite well,” said Lord de la Poer, turning again
to Kate.

“Oh yes, quite, thank you;” and then with brightening eyes, she ventured
on “Do you know him?”

“I saw him two or three times,” he answered with increased kindness of
manner.  “Will you remember me to him when you write?”

“Very well,” said Kate promptly; “but he says all those sort of things
are nonsense.”

The horror of the two aunts was only kept in check by the good manners
that hindered a public scolding; but Lord de la Poer only laughed
heartily, and said, “Indeed!  What sort of things, may I ask, Lady
Caergwent?”

“Why—love, and regards, and remembrances.  Mary used to get letters from
her school-fellows, all filled with dearest loves, and we always laughed
at her; and Armyn used to say them by heart beforehand,” said Kate.

“I beg to observe,” was the answer, in the grave tone which, however,
Kate understood as fun, “that I did not presume to send my love to Mr.
Wardour.  May not that make the case different?”

“Yes,” said Kate meditatively; “only I don’t know that your remembrance
would be of more use than your love.”

“And are we never to send any messages unless they are of use?”  This was
a puzzling question, and Kate did not immediately reply.

“None for pleasure—eh?”

“Well, but I don’t see what would be the pleasure.”

“What, do you consider it pleasurable to be universally forgotten?”

“Nobody ever could forget Pa—my Uncle Wardour,” cried Kate, with eager
vehemence flashing in her eyes.

“Certainly not,” said Lord de la Poer, in a voice as if he were much
pleased with her; “he is not a man to be forgotten.  It is a privilege to
have been brought up by him.  But come, Lady Caergwent, since you are so
critical, will you be pleased to devise some message for me, that may
combine use, pleasure, and my deep respect for him?” and as she sat
beside him at the table, he laid his hand on hers, so that she felt that
he really meant what he said.

She sat fixed in deep thought; and her aunts, who had been miserable all
through the conversation, began to speak of other things; but in the
midst the shrill little voice broke in, “I know what!” and good-natured
Lord de la Poer turned at once, smiling, and saying, “Well, what?”

“If you would help in the new aisle!  You know the church is not big
enough; there are so many people come into the district, with the new
ironworks, you know; and we have not got half room enough, and can’t make
more, though we have three services; and we want to build a new aisle,
and it will cost £250, but we have only got £139 15_s._ 6_d._  And if you
would but be so kind as to give one sovereign for it—that would be better
than remembrances and respects, and all that sort of thing.”

“I rather think it would,” said Lord de la Poer; and though Lady Barbara
eagerly exclaimed, “Oh! do not think of it; the child does not know what
she is talking of.  Pray excuse her—” he took out his purse, and from it
came a crackling smooth five-pound note, which he put into the hand,
saying, “There, my dear, cut that in two, and send the two halves on
different days to Mr. Wardour, with my best wishes for his success in his
good works.  Will that do?”

Kate turned quite red, and only perpetrated a choked sound of her
favourite —q.  For the whole world she could not have said more: but
though she knew perfectly well that anger and wrath were hanging over
her, she felt happier than for many a long week.

Presently the aunts rose, and Lady Barbara said to her in the low
ceremonious voice that was a sure sign of warning and displeasure, “You
had better come up stairs with us, Katharine, and amuse Lord Ernest in
the back drawing-room while his father is engaged with us.”

Kate’s heart leapt up at the sound “amuse.”  She popped her precious note
into her pocket, bounded up-stairs, and opened the back drawing-room door
for her playfellow, as he brought up the rear of the procession.

Lord de la Poer and Lady Barbara spread the table with papers; Lady Jane
sat by; the children were behind the heavy red curtains that parted off
the second room.  There was a great silence at first, then began a little
tittering, then a little chattering, then presently a stifled explosion.
Lady Barbara began to betray some restlessness; she really must see what
that child was about.

“No, no,” said Lord de la Poer; “leave them in peace.  That poor girl
will never thrive unless you let her use her voice and limbs.  I shall
make her come over and enjoy herself with my flock when we come up _en
masse_.”

The explosions were less carefully stifled, and there were some sounds of
rushing about, some small shrieks, and then the door shut, and there was
a silence again.

By this it may be perceived that Kate and Ernest had become tolerably
intimate friends.  They had informed each other of what games were their
favourites; Kate had told him the Wardour names and ages; and required
from him in return those of his brothers and sisters.  She had been
greatly delighted by learning that Adelaide was no end of a hand at
climbing trees; and that whenever she should come and stay at their
house, Ernest would teach her to ride.  And then they began to consider
what play was possible under the present circumstances—beginning they
hardly knew how, by dodging one another round and round the table, making
snatches at one another, gradually assuming the characters of hunter and
Red Indian.  Only when the hunter had snatched up Aunt Jane’s
tortoise-shell paper-cutter to stab with, complaining direfully that it
was a stupid place, with nothing for a gun, and the Red Indian’s
crinoline had knocked down two chairs, she recollected the consequences
in time to strangle her own war-whoop, and suggested that they should be
safer on the stairs; to which Ernest readily responded, adding that there
was a great gallery at home all full of pillars and statues, the jolliest
place in the world for making a row.

“Oh dear! oh dear! how I hope I shall go there!” cried Kate, swinging
between the rails of the landing-place.  “I do want of all things to see
a statue.”

“A statue! why, don’t you see lots every day?”

“Oh!  I don’t mean great equestrian things like the Trafalgar Square
ones, or the Duke—or anything big and horrid, like Achilles in the Park,
holding up a shield like a green umbrella.  I want to see the work of the
great sculptor Julio Romano.”

“He wasn’t a sculptor.”

“Yes, he was; didn’t he sculp—no, what is the word—Hermione.  No; I mean
they pretended he had done her.”

“Hermione!  What, have you seen the ‘Winter’s Tale?’”

“Papa—Uncle Wardour, that is—read it to us last Christmas.”

“Well, I’ve seen it.  Alfred and I went to it last spring with our
tutor.”

“Oh! then do, pray, let us play at it.  Look, there’s a little stand up
there, where I have always so wanted to get up and be Hermione, and
descend to the sound of slow music.  There’s a musical-box in the back
drawing-room that will make the music.

“Very well; but I must be the lion and bear killing the courtier.”

“O yes—very well, and I’ll be courtier; only I must get a sofa-cushion to
be Perdita.”

“And where’s Bohemia?”

“Oh! the hall must be Bohemia, and the stair-carpet the sea, because then
the aunts won’t hear the lion and bear roaring.”

With these precautions, the characteristic roaring and growling of lion
and bear, and the shrieks of the courtier, though not absolutely unheard
in the drawing-room, produced no immediate results.  But in the very
midst of Lady Jane’s signing her name to some paper, she gave a violent
start, and dropped the pen, for they were no stage shrieks—“Ah! ah!  It
is coming down!  Help me down!  Ernest, Ernest! help me down!  Ah!”—and
then a great fall.

The little mahogany bracket on the wall had been mounted by the help of a
chair, but it was only fixed into the plaster, being intended to hold a
small lamp, and not for young ladies to stand on; so no sooner was the
chair removed by which Kate had mounted, than she felt not only giddy in
her elevation, but found her pedestal loosening!  There was no room to
jump; and Ernest, perhaps enjoying what he regarded as a girl’s foolish
fright, was a good way off, endeavouring to wind up the musical-box, when
the bracket gave way, and Hermione descended precipitately with anything
but the sound of soft music; and as the inhabitants of the drawing-room
rushed out to the rescue, her legs were seen kicking in the air upon the
landing-place; Ernest looking on, not knowing whether to laugh or be
dismayed.

Lord de la Poer picked her up, and sat down on the stairs with her
between his knees to look her over and see whether she were hurt, or what
was the matter, while she stood half sobbing with the fright and shock.
He asked his son rather severely what he had been doing to her.

“He did nothing,” gasped Kate; “I was only Hermione.”

“Yes, that’s all, Papa,” repeated Ernest; “it is all the fault of the
plaster.”

And a sort of explanation was performed between the two children, at
which Lord de la Poer could hardly keep his gravity, though he was
somewhat vexed at the turn affairs had taken.  He was not entirely devoid
of awe of the Lady Barbara, and would have liked his children to be on
their best behaviour before her.

“Well,” he said, “I am glad there is no worse harm done.  You had better
defer your statueship till we can find you a sounder pedestal, Lady
Caergwent.”

“Oh! call me Kate,” whispered she in his ear, turning redder than the
fright had made her.

He smiled, and patted her hand; then added, “We must go and beg pardon, I
suppose; I should not wonder if the catastrophe had damaged Aunt Jane the
most; and if so, I don’t know what will be done to us!”

He was right; Lady Barbara had only satisfied herself that no bones had
been broken, and then turned back to reassure her sister; but Lady Jane
could not be frightened without suffering for it, and was lying back on
the sofa, almost faint with palpitation, when Lord de la Poer, with
Kate’s hand in his, came to the door, looking much more consciously
guilty than his son, who on the whole was more diverted than penitent at
the commotion they had made.

Lady Barbara looked very grand and very dignified, but Lord de la Poer
was so grieved for Lady Jane’s indisposition, that she was somewhat
softened; and then he began asking pardon, blending himself with the
children so comically, that in all her fright and anxiety, Kate wondered
how her aunt could help laughing.

It never was Lady Barbara’s way to reprove before a guest; but this good
gentleman was determined that she should not reserve her displeasure for
his departure, and he would not go away till he had absolutely made her
promise that his little friend, as he called Kate, should hear nothing
more about anything that had that day taken place.

Lady Barbara kept her promise.  She uttered no reproof either on her
niece’s awkward greeting, her abrupt conversation and its tendency to
pertness, nor on the loudness of the unlucky game and the impropriety of
climbing; nor even on what had greatly annoyed her, the asking for the
subscription to the church.  There was neither blame nor punishment; but
she could not help a certain cold restraint of manner, by which Kate knew
that she was greatly displeased, and regarded her as the most hopeless
little saucy romp that ever maiden aunt was afflicted with.

And certainly it was hard on her.  She had a great regard for Lord de la
Poer, and thought his a particularly well trained family; and she was
especially desirous that her little niece should appear to advantage
before him.  Nothing, she was sure, but Katharine’s innate naughtiness
could have made that well-behaved little Ernest break out into rudeness;
and though his father had shown such good nature, he must have been very
much shocked.  What was to be done to tame this terrible little savage,
was poor Lady Barbara’s haunting thought, morning, noon, and night!

And what was it that Kate did want?  I believe nothing could have made
her perfectly happy, or suited to her aunt; but that she would have been
infinitely happier and better off had she had the spirit of obedience, of
humility, or of unselfishness.




CHAPTER V.


THE one hour of play with Ernest de la Poer had the effect of making Kate
long more and more for a return of “fun,” and of intercourse with beings
of her own age and of high spirits.

She wove to herself dreams of possible delights with Sylvia and Charlie,
if the summer visit could be paid to them; and at other times she
imagined her Uncle Giles’s two daughters still alive, and sent home for
education, arranging in her busy brain wonderful scenes, in which she,
with their assistance, should be happy in spite of Aunt Barbara.

These fancies, however, would be checked by the recollection, that it was
shocking to lower two happy spirits in Heaven into playful little girls
upon earth; and she took refuge in the thought of the coming chance of
playfellows, when Lord de la Poer was to bring his family to London.  She
had learnt the names and ages of all the ten; and even had her own
theories as to what her contemporaries were to be like—Mary and Fanny,
Ernest’s elders, and Adelaide and Grace, who came next below him; she had
a vision for each of them, and felt as if she already knew them.

Meanwhile, the want of the amount of air and running about to which she
had been used, did really tell upon her; she had giddy feelings in the
morning, tired limbs, and a weary listless air, and fretted over her
lessons at times.  So they showed her to the doctor, who came to see Lady
Jane every alternate day; and when he said she wanted more exercise, her
morning walk was made an hour longer, and a shuttlecock and battledores
were bought, with which it was decreed that Mrs. Lacy should play with
her for exactly half an hour every afternoon, or an hour when it was too
wet to go out.

It must be confessed that this was a harder task to both than the music
lessons.  Whether it were from the difference of height, or from Kate’s
innate unhandiness, they never could keep that unhappy shuttlecock up
more than three times; and Mrs. Lacy looked as grave and melancholy all
the time as if she played it for a punishment, making little efforts to
be cheerful that were sad to see.  Kate hated it, and was always cross;
and willingly would they have given it up by mutual consent, but the
instant the tap of the cork against the parchment ceased, if it were not
half-past five, down sailed Lady Barbara to inquire after her
prescription.

She had been a famous battledore-player in the galleries of Caergwent
Castle; and once when she took up the battledore to give a lesson, it
seemed as if, between her and Mrs. Lacy, the shuttlecock would not come
down—they kept up five hundred and eighty-one, and then only stopped
because it was necessary for her to go to dinner.

She could not conceive anyone being unable to play at battledore, and
thought Kate’s failures and dislike pure perverseness.  Once Kate by
accident knocked her shuttlecock through the window, and hoped she had
got rid of it; but she was treated as if she had done it out of
naughtiness, and a new instrument of torture, as she called it, was
bought for her.

It was no wonder she did not see the real care for her welfare, and
thought this intensely cruel and unkind; but it was a great pity that she
visited her vexation on poor Mrs. Lacy, to whom the game was even a
greater penance than to herself, especially on a warm day, with a bad
headache.

Even in her best days at home, Kate had resisted learning to take thought
for others.  She had not been considerate of Mary’s toil, nor of Mr.
Wardour’s peace, except when Armyn or Sylvia reminded her; and now that
she had neither of them to put it into her mind, she never once thought
of her governess as one who ought to be spared and pitied.  Yet if she
had been sorry for Mrs. Lacy, and tried to spare her trouble and
annoyance, how much irritability and peevishness, and sense of constant
naughtiness, would have been prevented!  And it was that feeling of being
always naughty that was what had become the real dreariness of Kate’s
present home, and was far worse than the music, the battledore, or even
the absence of fun.

At last came a message that Lady Caergwent was to be dressed for going
out to make a call with Lady Barbara as soon as luncheon was over.

It could be on no one but the De la Poers; and Kate was so delighted,
that she executed all manner of little happy hops, skips, and fidgets,
all the time of her toilette, and caused many an expostulation of “Mais,
Miladi!” from Josephine, before the pretty delicate blue and white
muslin, worked white jacket, and white ribboned and feathered hat, were
adjusted.  Lady Barbara kept her little countess very prettily and
quietly dressed; but it was at the cost of infinite worry of herself,
Kate, and Josephine, for there never was a child whom it was so hard to
keep in decent trim.  Armyn’s old saying, that she ought to be always
kept dressed in sacking, as the only thing she could not spoil, was a
true one; for the sharp hasty movements, and entire disregard of where
she stepped, were so ruinous, that it was on the records of the Bruton
Street household, that she had gone far to demolish eight frocks in ten
days.

However, on this occasion she did get safe down to the carriage—clothes,
gloves, and all, without detriment or scolding; and jumped in first.  She
was a long way yet from knowing that, though her aunts gave the first
place to her rank, it would have been proper in her to yield it to their
years, and make way for them.

She was too childish to have learnt this as a matter of good breeding,
but she might have learnt it of a certain parable, which she could say
from beginning to end, that she should “sit not down in the highest
room.”

Her aunt sat down beside her, and spent the first ten minutes of the
drive in enjoining on her proper behaviour at Lady de la Poer’s.  The
children there were exceedingly well brought up, she said, and she was
very desirous they should be her niece’s friends; but she was certain
that Lady de la Poer would allow no one to associate with them who did
not behave properly.

“Lord de la Poer was very kind to me just as I was,” said Kate, in her
spirit of contradiction, which was always reckless of consequences.

“Gentlemen are no judges of what is becoming to a little girl,” said Lady
Barbara severely.  “Unless you make a very different impression upon Lady
de la Poer, she will never permit you to be the friend of her daughters.”

“I wonder how I am to make an impression,” meditated Kate, as they drove
on; “I suppose it would make an impression if I stood up and repeated,
‘Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!’ or something of that sort, as soon as I
got in.  But one couldn’t do that; and I am afraid nothing will happen.
If the horses would only upset us at the door, and Aunt Barbara be nicely
insensible, and the young countess show the utmost presence of mind!  But
nothing nice and like a book ever does happen.  And after all, I believe
that it is all nonsense about making impressions.  Thinking of them is
all affectation; and one ought to be as simple and unconscious as one
can.”  A conclusion which did honour to the countess’s sense.  In fact,
she had plenty of sense, if only she had ever used it for herself,
instead of for the little ladies she drew on her quires of paper.

Lady Barbara had started early, as she really wished to find her friends
at home; and accordingly, when the stairs were mounted, and the aunt and
niece were ushered into a pretty bright-looking drawing-room, there they
found all that were not at school enjoying their after-dinner hour of
liberty with their father and mother.

Lord de la Poer himself had the youngest in his arms, and looked very
much as if he had only just scrambled up from the floor; his wife was
really sitting on the ground, helping two little ones to put up a puzzle
of wild beasts; and there was a little herd of girls at the farther
corner, all very busy over something, towards which Kate’s longing eyes
at once turned—even in the midst of Lord de la Poer’s very kind greeting,
and his wife’s no less friendly welcome.

It was true that, as Lady Barbara had said, they were all exceedingly
well-bred children.  Even the little fellow in his father’s arms, though
but eighteen months old, made no objection to hold out his fat hand
graciously, and showed no shyness when Lady Barbara kissed him! and the
others all waited quietly over their several occupations, neither
shrinking foolishly from notice, nor putting themselves forward to claim
it.  Only the four sisters came up, and took their own special visitor
into the midst of them as their own property; the elder of them, however,
at a sign from her mamma, taking the baby in her arms, and carrying him
off, followed by the other two small ones—only pausing at the door for
him to kiss his little hand, and wave it in the prettiest fashion of baby
stateliness.

The other sisters drew Kate back with them into the room, where they had
been busy.  Generally, however much she and Sylvia might wish it, they
had found acquaintance with other children absolutely impossible in the
presence of grown-up people, whose eyes and voices seemed to strike all
parties dumb.  But these children seemed in no wise constrained: one of
them said at once, “We are so glad you are come.  Mamma said she thought
you would before we went out, one of those days.”

“Isn’t it horrid going out in London?” asked Kate, at once set at ease.

“It is not so nice as it is at home,” said one of the girls; laughing;
“except when it is our turn to go out with Mamma.”

“She takes us all out in turn,” explained another, “from Fanny, down to
little Cecil the baby—and that is our great time for talking to her, when
one has her all alone.”

“And does she never take you out in the country?”

“Oh yes! but there are people staying with us then, or else she goes out
with Papa.  It is not a regular drive every day, as it is here.”

Kate would not have had a drive with Aunt Barbara every day, for more
than she could well say.  However, she was discreet enough not to say so,
and asked what they did on other days.

“Oh, we walk with Miss Oswald in the park, and she tells us stories, or
we make them.  We don’t tell stories in the country, unless we have to
walk straight along the drives, that, as Papa says, we may have some
solace.”

Then it was explained that Miss Oswald was their governess, and that they
were very busy preparing for her birth-day.  They were making a
paper-case for her, all themselves, and this hour was their only time for
doing it out of her sight in secret.

“But why do you make it yourselves?” said Kate; “one can buy such
beauties at the bazaars.”

“Yes; but Mamma says a present one has taken pains to make, is worth a
great deal more than what is only bought; for trouble goes for more than
money.”

“But one can make nothing but nasty tumble-to-pieces things,” objected
Kate.

“That depends,” said Lady Mary, in a very odd merry voice; and the other
two, Adelaide and Grace, who were far too much alike for Kate to guess
which was which, began in a rather offended manner to assure her that
_their_ paper-case was to be anything but tumble-to-pieces.  Fanny was to
bind it, and Papa had promised to paste its back and press it.

“And Mamma drove with me to Richmond, on purpose to get leaves to
spatter,” added the other sister.

Then they showed Kate—whose eyes brightened at anything approaching to a
mess—that they had a piece of coloured cardboard, on which leaves,
chiefly fern, were pinned tightly down, and that the entire sheet was
then covered with a spattering of ink from a tooth-brush drawn along the
tooth of a comb.  When the process was completed, the form of the loaf
remained in the primitive colour of the card, thrown out by the cloud of
ink-spots, and only requiring a tracing of its veins by a pen.

A space had been cleared for these operations on a side-table; and in
spite of the newspaper, on which the appliances were laid, and even the
comb and brush, there was no look of disarrangement or untidiness.

“Oh, do—do show me how you do it!” cried Kate, who had had nothing to do
for months, with the dear delight of making a mess, except what she could
contrive with her paints.

And Lady Grace resumed a brown-holland apron and bib, and opening her
hands with a laugh, showed their black insides, then took up her
implements.

“Oh, do—do let me try,” was Kate’s next cry; “one little bit to show
Sylvia Wardour.”

With one voice the three sisters protested that she had better not; she
was not properly equipped, and would ink herself all over.  If she would
pin down a leaf upon the scrap she held up, Grace should spatter it for
her, and they would make it up into anything she liked.

But this did not satisfy Kate at all; the pinning out of the leaf was
stupid work compared with the glory of making the ink fly.  In vain did
Adelaide represent that all the taste and skill was in the laying out the
leaves, and pinning them down, and that anyone could put on the ink; in
vain did Mary represent the dirtiness of the work: this was the beauty of
it in her eyes; and the sight of the black dashes sputtering through the
comb filled her with emulation; so that she entreated, almost piteously,
to be allowed to “do” an ivy loaf, which she had hastily, and not very
carefully, pinned out with Mary’s assistance—that is, she had feebly and
unsteadily stuck every pin, and Mary had steadied them.

The new friends consented, seeing how much she was set on it; but Fanny,
who had returned from the nursery, insisted on precautions—took off the
jacket, turned up the frock sleeves, and tied on an apron; though Kate
fidgeted all the time, as if a great injury were being inflicted on her;
and really, in her little frantic spirit, thought Lady Fanny a great
torment, determined to delay her delight till her aunt should go away and
put a stop to it.

When once she had the brush, she was full of fun and merriment, and kept
her friends much amused by her droll talk, half to them, half to her
work.

“There’s a portentous cloud, isn’t there?  An inky cloud, if ever there
was one!  Take care, inhabitants below; growl, growl, there’s the
thunder; now comes the rain; hail, hail, all hail, like the beginning of
Macbeth.”

“Which the Frenchman said was in compliment to the climate,” said Fanny;
at which the whole company fell into convulsions of laughing; and neither
Kate nor Grace exactly knew what hands or brush or comb were about; but
whereas the little De La Poers had from their infancy laughed almost
noiselessly, and without making faces, Kate for her misfortune had never
been broken of a very queer contortion of her lips, and a cackle like a
bantam hen’s.

When this unlucky cackle had been several times repeated, it caused Lady
Barbara, who had been sitting with her back to the inner room, to turn
round.

Poor Lady Barbara!  It would not be easy to describe her feelings when
she saw the young lady, whom she had brought delicately blue and white,
like a speedwell flower, nearly as black as a sweep.

Lord de la Poer broke out into an uncontrollable laugh, half at the aunt,
half at the niece.  “Why, she has grown a moustache!” he exclaimed.
“Girls, what have you been doing to her?” and walking up to them, he
turned Kate round to a mirror, where she beheld her own brown eyes
looking out of a face dashed over with black specks, thicker about the
mouth, giving her altogether much the colouring of a very dark man
closely shaved.  It was so exceedingly comical, that she went off into
fits of laughing, in which she was heartily joined by all the merry
party.

“There,” said Lord de la Poer, “do you want to know what your Uncle Giles
is like? you’ve only to look at yourself!—See, Barbara, is it not a
capital likeness?”

“I never thought her like _Giles_,” said her aunt gravely, with an
emphasis on the name, as if she meant that the child did bear a likeness
that was really painful to her.

“My dears,” said the mother, “you should not have put her in such a
condition; could you not have been more careful?”

Kate expected one of them to say, “She would do it in spite of us;” but
instead of that Fanny only answered, “It is not so bad as it looks,
Mamma; I believe her frock is quite safe; and we will soon have her face
and hands clean.”

Whereupon Kate turned round and said, “It is all my fault, and _nobody’s
else’s_.  They told me not, but it was such fun!”

And therewith she obeyed a pull from Grace, and ran upstairs with the
party to be washed; and as the door shut behind them, Lord de la Poer
said, “You need not be afraid of _that_ likeness, Barbara.  Whatever else
she may have brought from her parsonage, she has brought the spirit of
truth.”

Though knowing that something awful hung over her head, Kate was all the
more resolved to profit by her brief minutes of enjoyment; and the little
maidens all went racing and flying along the passages together; Kate
feeling as if the rapid motion among the other young feet was life once
more.

“Well! your frock is all right; I hope your aunt will not be very angry
with you,” said Adelaide.  (She know Adelaide now, for Grace was the inky
one.)

“It is not a thing to be angry for,” added Grace.

“No, it would not have been at my home,” said Kate, with a sigh; “but,
oh! I hope she will not keep me from coming here again.”

“She shall not,” exclaimed Adelaide; “Papa won’t let her.”

“She said your mamma would mind what your papa did not,” said Kate, who
was not very well informed on the nature of mammas.

“Oh, that’s all stuff,” decidedly cried Adelaide.  “When Papa told us
about you, she said, ‘Poor child!  I wish I had her here.’”

Prudent Fanny made an endeavour at chocking her little sister; but the
light in Kate’s eye, and the responsive face, drew Grace on to ask, “She
didn’t punish you, I hope, for your tumbling off the bracket?”

“No, your papa made her promise not; but she was very cross.  Did he tell
you about it?”

“Oh yes; and what do you think Ernest wrote?  You must know he had
grumbled excessively at Papa’s having business with Lady Barbara; but his
letter said, ‘It wasn’t at all slow at Lady Barbara’s, for there was the
jolliest fellow there you ever knew; mind you get her to play at
acting.’”

Lady Fanny did not think this improving, and was very glad that the maid
came in with hot water and towels, and put an end to it with the work of
scrubbing.

Going home, Lady Barbara was as much displeased as Kate had expected, and
with good reason.  After all her pains, it was very strange that
Katharine should be so utterly unfit to behave like a well-bred girl.
There might have been excuse for her before she had been taught, but now
it was mere obstinacy.

She should be careful how she took her out for a long time to come!

Kate’s heart swelled within her.  It was not obstinacy, she know; and
that bit of injustice hindered her from seeing that it was really wilful
recklessness.  She was elated with Ernest’s foolish school-boy account of
her, which a more maidenly little girl would not have relished; she was
strengthened in her notion that she was ill-used, by hearing that the De
la Poers pitied her; and because she found that Aunt Barbara was
considered to be a little wrong, she did not consider that she herself
had ever been wrong at all.

And Lady Barbara was not far from the truth when she told her sister
“that Katharine was perfectly hard and reckless; there was no such thing
as making her sorry!”




CHAPTER VI.


AFTER that first visit, Kate did see something of the De la Poers, but
not more than enough to keep her in a constant ferment with the uncertain
possibility, and the longing for the meetings.

The advances came from them; Lady Barbara said very truly, that she could
not be responsible for making so naughty a child as her niece the
companion of any well-regulated children; she was sure that their mother
could not wish it, since nice and good as they naturally were, this
unlucky Katharine seemed to infect them with her own spirit of riot and
turbulence whenever they came near her.

There was no forwarding of the attempts to make appointments for walks in
the Park, though really very little harm had ever come of them, guarded
by the two governesses, and by Lady Fanny’s decided ideas of propriety.
That Kate embarked in long stories, and in their excitement raised her
voice, was all that could be said against her on those occasions, and
Mrs. Lacy forbore to say it.

Once, indeed, Kate was allowed to ask her friends to tea; but that proved
a disastrous affair.  Fanny was prevented from coming; and in the absence
of her quiet elder-sisterly care, the spirits of Grace and Adelaide were
so excited by Kate’s drollery, that they were past all check from Mary,
and drew her along with them into a state of frantic fun and mad pranks.

They were full of merriment all tea time, even in the presence of the two
governesses; and when that was over, and Kate showed “the bracket,” they
began to grow almost ungovernable in their spirit of frolic and fun: they
went into Kate’s room, resolved upon being desert travellers, set up an
umbrella hung round with cloaks for a tent, made camels of chairs, and
finding those tardy, attempted riding on each other—with what results to
Aunt Jane’s ears below may be imagined—dressed up wild Arabs in
bournouses of shawls, and made muskets of parasols, charging desperately,
and shrieking for attack, defence, “for triumph or despair,” as Kate
observed, in one of her magnificent quotations.  Finally, the endangered
traveller, namely Grace, rushed down the stairs headlong, with the two
Arabs clattering after him, banging with their muskets, and shouting
their war-cry the whole height of the house.

The ladies in the drawing-room had borne a good deal; but Aunt Jane was
by this time looking meekly distracted; and Lady Barbara sallying out,
met the Arab Sheikh with his white frock over his head, descending the
stairs in the rear, calling to his tribe in his sweet voice not to be so
noisy—but not seeing before him through the said bournouse, he had very
nearly struck Lady Barbara with his parasol before he saw her.

No one could be more courteous or full of apologies than the said Sheikh,
who was in fact a good deal shocked at his unruly tribe, and quite
acquiesced in the request that they would all come and sit quiet in the
drawing-room, and play at some suitable game there.

It would have been a relief to Mary to have them thus disposed of safely;
and Adelaide would have obeyed; but the other two had been worked up to a
state of wildness, such as befalls little girls who have let themselves
out of the control of their better sense.

They did not see why they should sit up stupid in the drawing-room; “Mary
was as cross as Lady Barbara herself to propose it,” said Grace,
unfortunately just as the lady herself was on the stairs to enforce her
desire, in her gravely courteous voice; whereupon Kate, half tired and
wholly excited, burst out into a violent passionate fit of crying and
sobbing, declaring that it was very hard, that whenever she had ever so
little pleasure, Aunt Barbara always grudged it to her.

None of them had ever heard anything like it; to the little De la Poers
she seemed like one beside herself, and Grace clung to Mary, and Adelaide
to Miss Oswald, almost frightened at the screams and sobs that Kate
really could not have stopped if she would.  Lady Jane came to the head
of the stairs, pale and trembling, begging to know who was hurt; and Mrs.
Lacy tried gentle reasoning and persuading, but she might as well have
spoken to the storm beating against the house.

Lady Barbara sternly ordered her off to her room; but the child did not
stir—indeed, she could not, except that she rocked herself to and fro in
her paroxysms of sobbing, which seemed to get worse and worse every
moment.  It was Miss Oswald at last, who, being more used to little girls
and their naughtiness than any of the others, saw the right moment at
last, and said, as she knelt down by her, half kindly, half severely, “My
dear, you had better let me take you up-stairs.  I will help you: and you
are only shocking everyone here.”

Kate did let her take her up-stairs, though at every step there was a
pause, a sob, a struggle; but a gentle hand on her shoulder, and firm
persuasive voice in her ear, moved her gradually onwards, till the little
pink room was gained; and there she threw herself on her bed in another
agony of wild subs, unaware of Miss Oswald’s parley at the door with Lady
Barbara and Mrs. Lacy, and her entreaty that the patient might be left to
her, which they were nothing loth to do.

When Kate recovered her speech, she poured out a wild and very naughty
torrent, about being the most unhappy girl in the world; the aunts were
always unkind to her; she never got any pleasure; she could not bear
being a countess; she only wanted to go back to her old home, to Papa and
Mary and Sylvia; and nobody would help her.

Miss Oswald treated the poor child almost as if she had been a little out
of her mind, let her say it all between her sobs, and did not try to
argue with her, but waited till the talking and the sobbing had fairly
tried her out; and by that time the hour had come at which the little
visitors were to go home.  The governess rose up, and said she must go,
asking in a quiet tone, as if all that had been said were mere mad folly,
whether Lady Caergwent would come down with her, and tell her aunts she
was sorry for the disturbance she had made.

Kate shrank from showing such a spectacle as her swollen, tear-stained,
red-marbled visage.  She was thoroughly sorry, and greatly ashamed; and
she only gasped out, “I can’t, I can’t; don’t let me see anyone.”

“Then I will wish Mary and her sisters good-bye for you.”

“Yes, please.”  Kate had no words for more of her sorrow and shame.

“And shall I say anything to your aunt for you?”

“I—I don’t know; only don’t let anyone come up.”

“Then shall I tell Lady Barbara you are too much tired out now for
talking, but that you will tell her in the morning how sorry you are?”

“Well, yes,” said Kate rather grudgingly.  “Oh, must you go?”

“I am afraid I must, my dear.  Their mamma does not like Addie and Grace
to be kept up later than their usual bed-time.”

“I wish you could stay.  I wish you were my governess,” said Kate,
clinging to her, and receiving her kind, friendly, pitying kiss.

And when the door had shut upon her, Kate’s tears began to drop again at
the thought that it was very hard that the little De la Poers, who had
father, mother, and each other, should likewise have such a nice
governess, while she had only poor sad dull Mrs. Lacy.

Had Kate only known what an unselfish little girl and Mrs. Lacy might
have been to each other!

However, the first thing she could now think of was to avoid being seen
or spoken to by anyone that night; and for this purpose she hastily
undressed herself, bundled-up her hair as best she might, as in former
days, said her prayers, and tumbled into bed, drawing the clothes over
her head, resolved to give no sign of being awake, come who might.

Her shame was real, and very great.  Such violent crying fits had
overtaken her in past times, but had been thought to be outgrown.  She
well recollected the last.  It was just after the death of her aunt, Mrs.
Wardour, just when the strange stillness of sorrow in the house was
beginning to lessen, and the children had forgotten themselves, and burst
out into noise and merriment, till they grew unrestrained and
quarrelsome; Charlie had offended Kate, she had struck him, and Mary
coming on them, grieved and hurt at their conduct at such a time, had
punished Kate for the blow, but missed perception of Charlie’s offence;
and the notion of injustice had caused the shrieking cries and violent
sobs that had brought Mr. Wardour from the study in grave sorrowful
severity.

What she had heard afterwards from him about not making poor Mary’s task
harder, and what she had heard from Mary about not paining him, had
really restrained her; and she had thought such outbreaks passed by among
the baby faults she had left behind, and was the more grieved and ashamed
in consequence.  She felt it a real exposure: she remembered her young
friends’ surprised and frightened eyes, and not only had no doubt their
mother would really think her too naughty to be their playfellow, but
almost wished that it might be so—she could never, never bear to see them
again.

She heard the street door close after them, she heard the carriage drive
away; she felt half relieved; but then she hid her face in the pillow,
and cried more quietly, but more bitterly.

Then some one knocked; she would not answer.  Then came a voice, saying,
“Katharine.”  It was Aunt Barbara’s, but it was rather wavering.  She
would not answer, so the door was opened, and the steps, scarcely audible
in the rustling of the silk, came in; and Kate felt that her aunt was
looking at her, wondered whether she had better put out her head, ask
pardon, and have it over, but was afraid; and presently heard the moiré
antique go sweeping away again.

And then the foolish child heartily wished she had spoken, and was seized
with desperate fears of the morrow, more of the shame of hearing of her
tears than of any punishment.  Why had she not been braver?

After a time came a light, and Josephine moving about quietly, and
putting away the clothes that had been left on the floor.  Kate was not
afraid of her, but her caressing consolations and pity would have only
added to the miserable sense of shame; so there was no sign, no symptom
of being awake, though it was certain that before Josephine went away,
the candle was held so as to cast a light over all that was visible of
the face.  Kate could not help hearing the low muttering of the
Frenchwoman, who was always apt to talk to herself: “Asleep!  Ah, yes!
She sleeps profoundly.  How ugly _la petite_ has made herself!  What
cries!  Ah, she is like Miladi her aunt! a demon of a temper!”

Kate restrained herself till the door was shut again, and then rolled
over and over, till she had made a strange entanglement of her
bed-clothes, and brought her passion to an end by making a mummy of
herself, bound hand and foot, snapping with her month all the time, as if
she longed to bite.

“O you horrible Frenchwoman!  You are a flatterer, a base flatterer; such
as always haunt the great!  I hate it all.  I a demon of a temper?  I
like Aunt Barbara?  Oh, you wretch!  I’ll tell Aunt Barbara a to-morrow,
and get you sent away!”

Those were some of Kate’s fierce angry thoughts in her first vexation;
but with all her faults, she was not a child who ever nourished rancour
or malice; and though she had been extremely wounded at first, yet she
quickly forgave.

By the time she had smoothed out her sheet, and settled matters between
it and her blanket, she had begun to think more coolly.  “No, no, I
won’t.  It would be horribly dishonourable and all that to tell Aunt
Barbara.  Josephine was only thinking out loud; and she can’t help what
she thinks.  I was very naughty; no wonder she thought so.  Only next
time she pets me, I will say to her, ‘You cannot deceive me, Josephine; I
like the plain truth better than honeyed words.’”

And now that Kate had arrived at the composition of a fine speech that
would never be made, it was plain that her mind was pretty well composed.
That little bit of forgiveness, though it had not even cost an effort,
had been softening, soothing, refreshing; it had brought peacefulness;
and Kate lay, not absolutely asleep, but half dreaming, in the summer
twilight, in the soft undefined fancies of one tired out with agitation.

She was partly roused by the various sounds in the house, but not
startled—the light nights of summer always diminished her alarms; and she
heard the clocks strike, and the bell ring for prayers, the doors open
and shut, all mixed in with her hazy fancies.  At last came the silken
rustlings up the stairs again, and the openings of bed-room doors close
to her.

Kate must have gone quite to sleep, for she did not know when the door
was opened, and how the soft voices had come in that she heard over her.

“Poor little dear!  How she has tossed her bed about!  I wonder if we
could set the clothes straight without wakening her.”

How very sweet and gentle Aunt Jane’s voice was in that low cautious
whisper.

Some one—and Kate knew the peculiar sound of Mrs. Lacy’s crape—was moving
the bed-clothes as gently as she could.

“Poor little dear!” again said Lady Jane; “it is very sad to see a child
who has cried herself to sleep.  I do wish we could manage her better.
Do you think the child is happy?” she ended by asking in a wistful voice.

“She has very high spirits,” was the answer.

“Ah, yes! her impetuosity; it is her misfortune, poor child!  Barbara is
so calm and resolute, that—that—”  Was Lady Jane really going to regret
anything in her sister?  She did not say it, however; but Kate heard her
sigh, and add, “Ah, well! if I were stronger, perhaps we could make her
happier; but I am so nervous.  I must try not to look distressed when her
spirits do break out, for perhaps it is only natural.  And I am so sorry
to have brought all this on her, and spoilt those poor children’s
pleasure!”

Lady Jane bent over the child, and Kate reared herself up on a sudden,
threw her arms round her neck, and whispered, “Aunt Jane, dear Aunt Jane,
I’ll try never to frighten you again!  I am so sorry.”

“There, there; have I waked you?  Don’t, my dear; your aunt will hear.
Go to sleep again.  Yes, do.”

But Aunt Jane was kissing and fondling all the time; and the end of this
sad naughty evening was, that Kate went to sleep with more softness,
love, and repentance in her heart, than there had been since her coming
to Bruton Street.




CHAPTER VII.


LADY CAERGWENT was thoroughly ashamed and bumbled by that unhappy
evening.  She looked so melancholy and subdued in the morning, with her
heavy eyelids and inflamed eyes, and moved so meekly and sadly, without
daring to look up, that Lady Barbara quite pitied her, and said—more
kindly than she had ever spoken to her before:

“I see you are sorry for the exposure last night, so we will say no more
about it.  I will try to forget it.  I hope our friends may.”

That hope sounded very much like “I do not think they will;” and truly
Kate felt that it was not in the nature of things that they ever should.
She should never have forgotten the sight of a little girl in that frenzy
of passion!  No, she was sure that their mamma and papa knew all about
it, and that she should never be allowed to play with them again, and she
could not even wish to meet them, she should be miserably ashamed, and
would not know which way to look.

She said not one word about meeting them, and for the first day or two
even begged to walk in the square instead of the park; and she was so
good and steady with her lessons, and so quiet in her movements, that she
scarcely met a word of blame for a whole week.

One morning, while she was at breakfast with Lady Barbara and Mrs. Lacy,
the unwonted sound of a carriage stopping, and of a double knock, was
heard.  In a moment the colour flushed into Lady Barbara’s face, and her
eyes lighted: then it passed away into a look of sadness.  It had seemed
to her for a moment as if the bright young nephew who had been the light
and hope of her life, were going to look in on her; and it had only
brought the remembrance that he was gone for ever, and that in his stead
there was only the poor little girl, to whom rank was a misfortune, and
who seemed as if she would never wear it becomingly.  Kate saw nothing of
all this; she was only eager and envious for some change and variety in
these long dull days.  It was Lord de la Poer and his daughter Adelaide,
who the next moment were in the room; and she remembered instantly that
she had heard that this was to be Adelaide’s birthday, and wished her
many happy returns in all due form, her heart beating the while with
increasing hope that the visit concerned herself.

And did it not?  Her head swam round with delight and suspense, and she
could hardly gather up the sense of the words in which Lord de la Poer
was telling Lady Barbara that Adelaide’s birthday was to be spent at the
Crystal Palace at Sydenham; that the other girls were gone to the station
with their mother, and that he had come round with Adelaide to carry off
Kate, and meet the rest at ten o’clock.  Lady de la Poer would have
written, but it had only boon settled that morning on finding that he
could spare the day.

Kate squeezed Adelaide’s hand in an agony.  Oh! would that aunt let her
go?

“You would like to come?” asked Lord de la Poer, bending his pleasant
eyes on her.  “Have you ever been there?”

“Never!  Oh, thank you!  I should like it so much!  I never saw any
exhibition at all, except once the Gigantic Cabbage!—May I go, Aunt
Barbara?”

“Really you are very kind, after—”

“Oh, we never think of _afters_ on birthdays!—Do we, Addie?”

“If you are so very good, perhaps Mrs. Lacy will kindly bring her to meet
you.”

“I am sure,” said he, turning courteously to that lady, “that we should
be very sorry to give Mrs. Lacy so much trouble.  If this is to be a
holiday to everyone, I am sure you would prefer the quiet day.”

No one could look at the sad face and widow’s cap without feeling that so
it must be, even without the embarrassed “Thank you, my Lord, if—”

“If—if Katharine were more to be trusted,” began Lady Barbara.

“Now, Barbara,” he said in a drolly serious fashion, “if you think the
Court of Chancery would seriously object, say so at once.”

Lady Barbara could not keep the corners of her mouth quite stiff, but she
still said, “You do not know what you are undertaking.”

“Do you deliberately tell me that you think myself and Fanny, to say
nothing of young Fanny, who is the wisest of us all, unfit to be trusted
with this one young lady?” said he, looking her full in the face, and
putting on a most comical air: “It is humiliating, I own.”

“Ah! if Katharine were like your own daughters, I should have no fears,”
said the aunt.  “But—  However, since you are so good—if she will promise
to be very careful—”

“Oh yes, yes, Aunt Barbara!”

“I make myself responsible,” said Lord de la Poer.  “Now, young woman,
run off and get the hat; we have no time to lose.”

Kate darted off and galloped up the stairs at a furious pace, shouted
“Josephine” at the top; and then, receiving no answer, pulled the bell
violently; after which she turned round, and obliged Adelaide with a
species of dancing hug, rather to the detriment of that young lady’s
muslin jacket.

“I was afraid to look back before,” she breathlessly said, as she
released Adelaide; “I felt as if your papa were Orpheus, when

    ‘Stern Proserpine relented,
    And gave him back the fair—’

and I was sure Aunt Barbara would catch me like Eurydice, if I only
looked back.”

“What a funny girl you are, to be thinking about Orpheus and Eurydice!”
said Adelaide.  “Aren’t you glad?”

“Glad?  Ain’t I just! as Charlie would say.  Oh dear! your papa is a
delicious man; I’d rather have him for mine than anybody, except Uncle
Wardour!”

“I’d rather have him than anyone,” said the little daughter.  “Because he
is yours,” said Kate; “but somehow, though he is more funny and
good-natured than Uncle Wardour, I wouldn’t—no, I shouldn’t like him so
well for a papa.  I don’t think he would punish so well.”

“Punish!” cried Adelaide.  “Is that what you want?  Why, Mamma says
children ought to be always pleasure and no trouble to busy fathers.  But
there, Kate; you are not getting ready—and we are to be at the station at
ten.”

“I am waiting for Josephine!  Why doesn’t she come?” said Kate, ringing
violently again.

“Why don’t you get ready without her?”

“I don’t know where anything is!  It is very tiresome of her, when she
knows I never dress myself,” said Kate fretfully.

“Don’t you?  Why, Grace and I always dress ourselves, except for the
evening.  Let me help you.  Are not those your boots?”

Kate rushed to the bottom of the attic stairs, and shouted “Josephine” at
the top of her shrill voice; then, receiving no answer, she returned,
condescended to put on the boots that Adelaide held up to her, and
noisily pulled out some drawers; but not seeing exactly what she wanted,
she again betook herself to screams of her maid’s name, at the third of
which out burst Mrs. Bartley in a regular state of indignation: “Lady
Caergwent!  Will your Ladyship hold your tongue!  There’s Lady Jane
startled up, and it’s a mercy if her nerves recover it the whole
day—making such a noise as that!”

“But Josephine won’t come, and I’m going out, Bartley,” said Kate
piteously.  “Where is Josephine?”

“Gone out, my Lady, so it is no use making a piece of work,” said Bartley
crossly, retreating to Lady Jane.

Kate was ready to cry; but behold, that handy little Adelaide had
meantime picked out a nice black silk cape, with hat and feather, gloves
and handkerchief, which, if not what Kate had intended, were nice enough
for anything, and would have—some months ago—seemed to the orphan at the
parsonage like robes of state.  Kind Adelaide held them up so
triumphantly, that Kate could not pout at their being only everyday
things; and as she began to put them on, out came Mrs. Bartley again, by
Lady Jane’s orders, pounced upon Lady Caergwent, and made her repent of
all wishes for assistance by beginning upon her hair, and in spite of all
wriggles and remonstrances, dressing her in the peculiarly slow and
precise manner by which a maid can punish a troublesome child; until
finally Kate—far too much irritated for a word of thanks, tore herself
out of her hands, caught up her gloves, and flew down-stairs as if her
life depended on her speed.  She thought the delay much longer than it
had really been, for she found Lord de la Poer talking so earnestly to
her aunt, that he hardly looked up when she came in—something about her
Uncle Giles in India, and his coming home—which seemed to be somehow
becoming possible—though at a great loss to himself; but there was no
making it out; and in a few minutes he rose, and after some fresh charges
from Lady Barbara to her niece “not to forgot herself,” Kate was handed
into the carriage, and found herself really off.

Then the tingle of wild impatience and suspense subsided, and happiness
began!  It had not been a good beginning, but it was very charming now.

Adelaide and her father were full of jokes together, so quick and bright
that Kate listened instead of talking.  She had almost lost the habit of
merry chatter, and it did not come to her quickly again; but she was
greatly entertained; and thus they came to the station, where Lady de la
Poer and her other three girls were awaiting them, and greeted Kate with
joyful faces.

They were the more relieved at the arrival of the three, because the
station was close and heated, and it was a very warm summer day, so that
the air was extremely oppressive.

“It feels like thunder,” said some one.  And thenceforth Kate’s perfect
felicity was clouded.  She had a great dislike to a thunder-storm, and
she instantly began asking her neighbours if they _really_ thought it
would be thunder.

“I hope it will,” said Lady Fanny; “it would cool the air, and sound so
grand in those domes.”

Kate thought this savage, and with an imploring look asked Lady de la
Poer if she thought there would be a storm.

“I can’t see the least sign of one,” was the answer.  “See how clear the
sky is!” as they steamed out of the station.

“But do you think there will be one to-day?” demanded Kate.

“I do not expect it,” said Lady de la Poer, smiling; “and there is no use
in expecting disagreeables.”

“Disagreeables!  O Mamma, it would be such fun,” cried Grace, “if we only
had a chance of getting wet through!”

Here Lord de la Poer adroitly called off the public attention from the
perils of the clouds, by declaring that he wanted to make out the fourth
line of an advertisement on the banks, of which he said he had made out
one line as he was whisked by on each journey he had made; and as it was
four times over in four different languages, he required each damsel to
undertake one; and there was a great deal of laughing over which it
should be that should undertake each language.  Fanny and Mary were
humble, and sure they could never catch the German; and Kate, more
enterprising, undertook the Italian.  After all, while they were
chattering about it, they went past the valuable document, and were come
in sight of the “monsters” in the Gardens; and Lord de la Poer asked Kate
if she would like to catch a pretty little frog; to which Mary responded,
“Oh, what a tadpole it must have been!” and the discovery that her
friends had once kept a preserve of tadpoles to watch them turn into
frogs, was so delightful as entirely to dissipate all remaining thoughts
of thunder, and leave Kate free for almost breathless amazement at the
glittering domes of glass, looking like enormous bubbles in the sun.

What a morning that was, among the bright buds and flowers, the wonders
of nature and art all together!  It was to be a long day, and no
hurrying; so the party went from court to court at their leisure, sat
down, and studied all that they cared for, or divided according to their
tastes.  Fanny and Mary wanted time for the wonderful sculptures on the
noble gates in the Italian court; but the younger girls preferred roaming
more freely, so Lady de la Poer sat down to take care of them, while her
husband undertook to guide the wanderings of the other three.

He particularly devoted himself to Kate, partly in courtesy as to the
guest of the party, partly because, as he said, he felt himself
responsible for her; and she was in supreme enjoyment, talking freely to
one able and willing to answer her remarks and questions, and with the
companionship of girls of her own age besides.  She was most of all
delighted with the Alhambra—the beauty of it was to her like a fairy
tale; and she had read Washington Irving’s “Siege of Granada,” so that
she could fancy the courts filled with the knightly Moors, who were so
noble that she could not think why they were not Christians—nay, the
tears quite came into her eyes as she looked up in Lord de la Poer’s
face, and asked why nobody converted the Abencerrages instead of fighting
with them!

It was a pity that Kate always grew loud when she was earnest; and Lord
de la Poer’s interest in the conversation was considerably lessened by
the discomfort of seeing some strangers looking surprised at the five
syllables in the squeaky voice coming out of the mouth of so small a
lady.

“Gently, my dear,” he softly said; and Kate for a moment felt it hard
that the torment about her voice should pursue her even in such moments,
and spoil the Alhambra itself.

However, her good humour recovered the next minute, at the Fountain of
Lions.  She wanted to know how the Moors came to have lions; she thought
she had heard that no Mahometans were allowed to represent any living
creature, for fear it should be an idol.  Lord de la Poer said she was
quite right, and that the Mahometans think these forms will come round
their makers at the last day, demanding to have souls given to them; but
that her friends, the Moors of Spain, were much less strict than any
others of their faith.  She could see, however, that the carving of such
figures was a new art with them, since these lions were very rude and
clumsy performances for people who could make such delicate tracery as
they had seen within.  And then, while Kate was happily looking with
Adelaide at the orange trees that completed the Spanish air of the court,
and hoping to see the fountain play in the evening, he told Grace that it
was worth while taking people to see sights if they had as much
intelligence and observation as Kate had, and did not go gazing idly
about, thinking of nothing.

He meant it to stir up his rather indolent-minded Grace—he did not mean
the countess to hear it; but some people’s eyes and ears are wonderfully
quick at gathering what is to their own credit, and Kate, who had not
heard a bit of commendation for a long time, was greatly elated.

Luckily for appearances, she remembered how Miss Edgeworth’s Frank made
himself ridiculous by showing off to Mrs. J—, and how she herself had
once been overwhelmed by the laughter of the Wardour family for having
rehearsed to poor Mrs. Brown all the characters of the gods of the
Northmen—Odin, Thor, and all—when she had just learnt them.  So she was
more careful than before not to pour out all the little that she knew;
and she was glad she had not committed herself, for she had very nearly
volunteered the information that Pompeii was overwhelmed by Mount Etna,
before she heard some one say Vesuvius, and perceived her mistake,
feeling as if she had been rewarded for her modesty like a good child in
a book.

She applauded herself much more for keeping back her knowledge till it
was wanted, than for having it; but this self-satisfaction looked out in
another loop-hole.  She avoided pedantry, but she was too much elated not
to let her spirits get the better of her; and when Lady de la Poer and
the elder girls came up, they found her in a suppressed state of
capering, more like a puppy on its hind logs, than like a countess or any
other well-bred child.

The party met under the screen of kings and queens, and there had some
dinner, at one of the marble tables that just held them pleasantly.  The
cold chicken and tongue were wonderfully good on that hot hungry day, and
still better were the strawberries that succeeded them; and oh! what
mirth went on all the time!  Kate was chattering fastest of all, and
loudest—not to say the most nonsensically.  It was not nice nonsense—that
was the worst of it—it was pert and saucy.  It was rather the family
habit to laugh at Mary de la Poer for ways that were thought a little
fanciful; and Kate caught this up, and bantered without discretion, in a
way not becoming towards anybody, especially one some years her elder.
Mary was good-humoured, but evidently did not like being asked if she had
stayed in the mediæval court, because she was afraid the great bulls of
Nineveh would run at her with their five legs.

“She will be afraid of being teazed by a little goose another time,” said
Lord de la Poer, intending to give his little friend a hint that she was
making herself very silly; but Kate took it quite another way, and not a
pretty one, for she answered, “Dear me, Mary, can’t you say bo to a
goose!”

“Say what?” cried Adelaide, who was always apt to be a good deal excited
by Kate; and who had been going off into fits of laughter at all these
foolish sallies.

“It is not a very nice thing to say,” answered her mother gravely; “so
there is no occasion to learn it.”

Kate did take the hint this time, and coloured up to the ears, partly
with vexation, partly with shame.  She sat silent and confused for
several minutes, till her friends took pity on her, and a few
good-natured words about her choice of an ice quite restored her
liveliness.  It is well to be good-humoured; but it is unlucky, nay,
wrong, when a check from friends without authority to scold, does not
suffice to bring soberness instead of rattling giddiness.  Lady de la
Poer was absolutely glad to break up the dinner, so as to work off the
folly and excitement by moving about, before it should make the little
girl expose herself, or infect Adelaide.

They intended to have gone into the gardens till four o’clock, when the
fountains were to play; but as they moved towards the great door, they
perceived a dark heavy cloud was hiding the sun that had hitherto shone
so dazzlingly through the crystal walls.

“That is nice,” said Lady Fanny; “it will be cool and pleasant now before
the rain.”

“If the rain is not imminent,” began her father.

“Oh! is it going to be a thunder-storm?” cried Kate.  “Oh dear!  I do so
hate thunder!  What shall I do?” cried she; all her excitement turning
into terror.

Before anyone could answer her, there was a flash of bright white light
before all their eyes, and a little scream.

“She’s struck! she’s struck!” cried Adelaide, her hands before her eyes.

For Kate had disappeared.  No, she was in the great pond, beside which
they had been standing, and Mary was kneeling on the edge, holding fast
by her frock.  But before the deep voice of the thunder was roaring and
reverberating through the vaults, Lord de la Poer had her in his grasp,
and the growl had not ceased before she was on her feet again, drenched
and trembling, beginning to be the centre of a crowd, who were running
together to help or to see the child who had been either struck by
lightning or drowned.

“Is she struck?  Will she be blind?” sobbed Adelaide, still with her
hands before her eyes; and the inquiry was echoed by the nearer people,
while more distant ones told each other that the young lady was blind for
life.

“Struck! nonsense!” said Lord de la Poer; “the lightning was twenty miles
off at least.  Are you hurt, my dear?”

“No,” said Kate, shaking herself, and answering “No,” more decidedly.
“Only I am so wet, and my things stick to me.”

“How did it happen?” asked Grace.

“I don’t know.  I wanted to get away from the thunder!” said bewildered
Kate.

Meantime, an elderly lady, who had come up among the spectators, was
telling Lady de la Poer that she lived close by, and insisting that the
little girl should be taken at once to her house, put to bed, and her
clothes dried.  Lady de la Poer was thankful to accept the kind offer
without loss of time; and in the fewest possible words it was settled
that she would go and attend to the little drowned rat, while her girls
should remain with their father at the palace till the time of going
home, when they would meet at the station.  They must walk to the good
lady’s house, be the storm what it would, as the best chance of
preventing Kate from catching cold.  She looked a rueful spectacle,
dripping so as to make a little pool on the stone floor; her hat and
feather limp and streaming; her hair in long lank rats’ tails, each
discharging its own waterfall; her clothes, ribbons, and all, pasted down
upon her!  There was no time to be lost; and the stranger took her by one
hand, Lady de la Poer by the other, and exchanging some civil speeches
with one another half out of breath, they almost swung her from one step
of the grand stone stairs to another, and hurried her along as fast as
these beplastered garments would let her move.  There was no rain as yet,
but there was another clap of thunder much louder than the first; but
they held Kate too fast to let her stop, or otherwise make herself more
foolish.

In a very few minutes they were at the good lady’s door; in another
minute in her bedroom, where, while she and her maid bustled off to warm
the bed, Lady de la Poer tried to get the clothes off—a service of
difficulty, when every tie held fast, every button was slippery, and the
tighter garments fitted like skins.  Kate was subdued and frightened; she
gave no trouble, but all the help she gave was to pull a string so as to
make a hopeless knot of the bow that her friend had nearly undone.

However, by the time the bed was warm the dress was off, and the child,
rolled up in a great loose night-dress of the kind lady’s, was installed
in it, feeling—sultry day though it were—that the warm dryness was
extremely comfortable to her chilled limbs.  The good lady brought her
some hot tea, and moved away to the window, talking in a low murmuring
voice to Lady de la Poer.  Presently a fresh flash of lightning made her
bury her head in the pillow; and there she began thinking how hard it was
that the thunder should come to spoil her one day’s pleasure; but soon
stopped this, remembering Who sends storm and thunder, and feeling afraid
to murmur.  Then she remembered that perhaps she deserved to be
disappointed.  She had been wild and troublesome, had spoilt Adelaide’s
birthday, teazed Mary, and made kind Lady de la Poer grave and
displeased.

She would say how sorry she was, and ask pardon.  But the two ladies
still stood talking.  She must wait till this stranger was gone.  And
while she was waiting—how it was she knew not—but Countess Kate was fast
asleep.




CHAPTER VIII.


WHEN Kate opened her eyes again, and turned her face up from the pillow,
she saw the drops on the window shining in the sun, and Lady de la Poer,
with her bonnet off, reading under it.

All that had happened began to return on Kate’s brain in a funny medley;
and the first thing she exclaimed was, “Oh! those poor little fishes, how
I must have frightened them!”

“My dear!”

“Do you think I did much mischief?” said Kate, raising herself on her
arm.  “I am sure the fishes must have been frightened, and the
water-lilies broken.  Oh! you can’t think how nasty their great coiling
stems were—just like snakes!  But those pretty blue and pink flowers!
Did it hurt them much, do you think—or the fish?”

“I should think the fish had recovered the shock,” said Lady de la Poer,
smiling; “but as to the lilies, I should be glad to be sure you had done
yourself as little harm as you have to them.”

“Oh no,” said Kate, “I’m not hurt—if Aunt Barbara won’t be terribly
angry.  Now I wouldn’t mind that, only that I’ve spoilt Addie’s birthday,
and all your day.  Please, I’m very sorry!”

She said this so sadly and earnestly, that Lady de la Poer came and gave
her a kind hiss of forgiveness, and said:

“Never mind, the girls are very happy with their father, and the rest is
good for me.”

Kate thought this very comfortable and kind, and clung to the kind hand
gratefully; but though it was a fine occasion for one of the speeches she
could have composed in private, all that came out of her mouth was, “How
horrid it is—the way everything turns out with me!”

“Nay, things need not turn out horrid, if a certain little girl would
keep herself from being silly.”

“But I _am_ a silly little girl!” cried Kate with emphasis.  “Uncle
Wardour says he never saw such a silly one, and so does Aunt Barbara!”

“Well, my dear,” said Lady de la Poer very calmly, “when clever people
take to being silly, they can be sillier than anyone else.”

“Clever people!” cried Kate half breathlessly.

“Yes,” said the lady, “you are a clever child; and if you made the most
of yourself, you could be very sensible, and hinder yourself from being
foolish and unguarded, and getting into scrapes.”

Kate gasped.  It was not pleasant to be in a scrape; and yet her whole
self recoiled from being guarded and watchful, even though for the first
time she heard she was not absolutely foolish.  She began to argue, “I
was naughty, I know, to teaze Mary; and Mary at home would not have let
me; but I could not help the tumbling into the pond.  I wanted to get out
of the way of the lightning.”

“Now, Kate, you _are_ trying to show how silly you can make yourself.”

“But I can’t bear thunder and lightning.  It frightens me so, I don’t
know what to do; and Aunt Jane is just as bad.  She always has the
shutters shut.”

“Your Aunt Jane has had her nerves weakened by bad health; but you are
young and strong, and you ought to fight with fanciful terrors.”

“But it is not fancy about lightning.  It does kill people.”

“A storm is very awful, and is one of the great instances of God’s power.
He does sometimes allow His lightnings to fall; but I do not think it can
be quite the thought of this that terrifies you, Kate, for the
recollection of His Hand is comforting.”

“No,” said Kate honestly, “it is not thinking of that.  It is that the
glare—coming no one knows when—and the great rattling clap are so—so
frightful!”

“Then, my dear, I think all you can do is to pray not only for protection
from lightning and tempest, but that you may be guarded from the fright
that makes you forget to watch yourself, and so renders the danger
greater!  You could not well have been drowned where you fell; but if it
had been a river—”

“I know,” said Kate.

“And try to get self-command.  That is the great thing, after all, that
would hinder things from being horrid!” said Lady de la Poer, with a
pleasant smile, just as a knock came to the door, and the maid announced
that it was five o’clock, and Miss’s things were quite ready; and in
return she was thanked, and desired to bring them up.

“Miss!” said Kate, rather hurt: “don’t they know who we are?”

“It is not such a creditable adventure that we should wish to make your
name known,” said Lady de la Poer, rather drily; and Kate blushed, and
became ashamed of herself.

She was really five minutes before she recovered the use of her tongue,
and that was a long time for her.  Lady de la Poer meantime was helping
her to dress, as readily as Josephine herself could have done, and
brushing out the hair, which was still damp.  Kate presently asked where
the old lady was.

“She had to go back as soon as the rain was over, to look after a nephew
and niece, who are spending the day with her.  She said she would look
for our party, and tell them how we were getting on.”

“Then I have spoilt three people’s pleasure more!” said Kate ruefully.
“Is the niece a little girl?”

“I don’t know; I fancy her grown up, or they would have offered clothes
to you.”

“Then I don’t care!” said Kate.

“What for?”

“Why, for not telling my name.  Once it would have been like a fairy tale
to Sylvia and me, and have made up for anything, to see a
countess—especially a little girl.  But don’t you think seeing me would
quite spoil that?”

Lady de la Poer was so much amused, that she could not answer at first;
and Kate began to feel as if she had been talking foolishly, and turned
her back to wash her hands.

“Certainly, I don’t think we are quite as well worth seeing as the
Crystal Palace!  You put me in mind of what Madame Campan said.  She had
been governess to the first Napoleon’s sisters; and when, in the days of
their grandeur, she visited them, one of them asked her if she was not
awe-struck to find herself among so much royalty.  ‘Really,’ she said, ‘I
can’t be much afraid of queens whom I have whipped!’”

“They were only mock queens,” said Kate.

“Very true.  But, little woman, it is _all_ mockery, unless it is the
_self_ that makes the impression; and I am afraid being perched upon any
kind of pedestal makes little faults and follies do more harm to others.
But come, put on your hat: we must not keep Papa waiting.”

The hat was the worst part of the affair; the colour of the blue edge of
the ribbon had run into the white, and the pretty soft feather had been
so daggled in the wet, that an old hen on a wet day was respectability
itself compared with it, and there was nothing for it but to take it out;
and even then the hat reminded Kate of a certain Amelia Matilda Bunny,
whose dirty finery was a torment and a by-word in St. James’s Parsonage.
Her frock and white jacket had been so nicely ironed out, as to show no
traces of the adventure; and she disliked all the more to disfigure
herself with such a thing on her head for the present, as well as to
encounter Aunt Barbara by-and-by.

“There’s no help for it,” said Lady de la Poer, seeing her disconsolately
surveying it; “perhaps it will not be bad for you to feel a few
consequences from your heedlessness.”

Whether it were the hat or the shock, Kate was uncommonly meek and
subdued as she followed Lady de la Poer out of the room; and after giving
the little maid half a sovereign and many thanks for having so nicely
repaired the damage, they walked back to the palace, and up the great
stone stairs, Kate hanging down her head, thinking that everyone was
wondering how Amelia Matilda Bunny came to be holding by the hand of a
lady in a beautiful black lace bonnet and shawl, so quiet and simple, and
yet such a lady!

She hardly even looked up when the glad exclamations of the four girls
and their father sounded around her, and she could not bear their
inquiries whether she felt well again.  She knew that she owed thanks to
Mary and her father, and apologies to them all; but she had not manner
enough to utter them, and only made a queer scrape with her foot, like a
hen scratching out corn, hung her head, and answered “Yes.”

They saw she was very much ashamed, and they were in a hurry besides; so
when Lord de la Poer had said he had given all manner of thanks to the
good old lady, he took hold of Kate’s hand, as if he hardly ventured to
let go of her again, and they all made the best of their way to the
station, and were soon in full career along the line, Kate’s heart
sinking as she thought of Aunt Barbara.  Fanny tried kindly to talk to
her; but she was too anxious to listen, made a short answer, and kept her
eyes fixed on the two heads of the party, who were in close consultation,
rendered private by the noise of the train.

“If ever I answer for anyone again!” said Lord de la Poer.  “And now for
facing Barbara!”

“You had better let me do that.”

“What! do you think I am afraid?” and Kate thought the smile on his lip
very cruel, as she could not hear his words.

“I don’t do you much injustice in thinking so,” as he shrugged up his
shoulders like a boy going to be punished; “but I think Barbara considers
you as an accomplice in mischief, and will have more mercy if I speak.”

“Very well!  I’m not the man to prevent you.  Tell Barbara I’ll undergo
whatever she pleases, for having ever let go the young lady’s hand!  She
may have me up to the Lord Chancellor if she pleases!”

A little relaxation in the noise made these words audible; and Kate, who
knew the Lord Chancellor had some power over her, and had formed her
notions of him from a picture, in a history book at home, of Judge
Jefferies holding the Bloody Assize, began to get very much frightened;
and her friends saw her eyes growing round with alarm, and not knowing
the exact cause, pitied her; Lord de la Poer seated her upon his knee,
and told her that Mamma would take her home, and take care Aunt Barbara
did not punish her.

“I don’t think she will punish me,” said Kate; “she does not often!  But
pray come home with me!” she added, getting hold of the lady’s hand.

“What would she do to you, then?”

“She would—only—be dreadful!” said Kate.

Lord de la Poer laughed; but observed, “Well, is it not enough to make
one dreadful to have little girls taking unexpected baths in public?
Now, Kate, please to inform me, in confidence, what was the occasion of
that remarkable somerset.”

“Only the lightning,” muttered Kate.

“Oh!  I was not certain whether your intention might not have been to
make that polite address to an aquatic bird, for which you pronounced
Mary not to have sufficient courage!”

Lady de la Poer, thinking this a hard trial of the poor child’s temper,
was just going to ask him not to tease her; but Kate was really candid
and good tempered, and she said, “I was wrong to say that!  It was Mary
that had presence of mind, and I had not.”

“Then the fruit of the adventure is to be, I hope, Look Before you
Leap!—Eh, Lady Caergwent?”

And at the same time the train stopped, and among kisses and farewells,
Kate and kind Lady de la Poer left the carriage, and entering the
brougham that was waiting for them, drove to Bruton Street; Kate very
grave and silent all the way, and shrinking behind her friend in hopes
that the servant who opened the door would not observe her plight—indeed,
she took her hat off on the stairs, and laid it on the table in the
landing.

To her surprise, the beginning of what Lady de la Poer said was chiefly
apology for not having taken better care of her.  It was all quite true:
there was no false excuse made for her, she felt, when Aunt Barbara
looked ashamed and annoyed, and said how concerned she was that her niece
should be so unmanageable; and her protector answered,

“Not that, I assure you!  She was a very nice little companion, and we
quite enjoyed her readiness and intelligent interest; but she was a
little too much excited to remember what she was about when she was
startled.”

“And no wonder,” said Lady Jane.  “It was a most tremendous storm, and I
feel quite shaken by it still.  You can’t be angry with her for being
terrified by it, Barbara dear, or I shall know what you think of me;—half
drowned too—poor child!”

And Aunt Jane put her soft arm round Kate, and put her cheek to hers.
Perhaps the night of Kate’s tears had really made Jane resolved to try to
soften even Barbara’s displeasure; and the little girl felt it very kind,
though her love of truth made her cry out roughly, “Not half drowned!
Mary held me fast, and Lord de la Poer pulled me out!”

“I am sure you ought to be extremely thankful to them,” said Lady
Barbara, “and overcome with shame at all the trouble and annoyance you
have given!”

Lady de la Poer quite understood what the little girl meant by her aunt
being dreadful.  She would gladly have protected her; but it was not what
could be begged off like punishment, nor would truth allow her to say
there had been no trouble nor annoyance.  So what she did say was, “When
one has ten children, one reckons upon such things!” and smiled as if
they were quite pleasant changes to her.

“Not, I am sure, with your particularly quiet little girls,” said Aunt
Barbara.  “I am always hoping that Katharine may take example by them.”

“Take care what you hope, Barbara,” said Lady de la Poer, smiling: “and
at any rate forgive this poor little maiden for our disaster, or my
husband will be in despair.”

“I have nothing to forgive,” said Lady Barbara gravely.  “Katharine
cannot have seriously expected punishment for what is not a moral fault.
The only difference will be the natural consequences to herself of her
folly.—You had better go down to the schoolroom, Katharine, have your
tea, and then go to bed; it is nearly the usual time.”

Lady de la Poer warmly kissed the child, and then remained a little while
with the aunts, trying to remove what she saw was the impression, that
Kate had been complaining of severe treatment, and taking the opportunity
of telling them what she herself thought of the little girl.  But though
Aunt Barbara listened politely, she could not think that Lady de la Poer
knew anything about the perverseness, heedlessness, ill-temper,
disobedience, and rude ungainly ways, that were so tormenting.  She said
no word about them herself, because she would not expose her niece’s
faults; but when her friend talked Kate’s bright candid conscientious
character, her readiness, sense, and intelligence, she said to herself,
and perhaps justly, that here was all the difference between at home and
abroad, an authority and a stranger.

Meantime, Kate wondered what would be the natural consequences of her
folly.  Would she have a rheumatic fever or consumption, like a child in
a book?—and she tried breathing deep, and getting up a little cough, to
see if it was coming!  Or would the Lord Chancellor hear of it?  He was
new bugbear recently set up, and more haunting than even a gunpowder
treason in the cellars!  What did he do with the seals?  Did he seal up
mischievous heiresses in closets, as she had seen a door fastened by two
seals and a bit of string?  Perhaps the Court of Chancery was full of
such prisons!  And was the woolsack to smother them with, like the
princes in the Tower?

It must be owned that it was only when half asleep at night that Kate was
so absurd.  By day she knew very well that the Lord Chancellor was only a
great lawyer; but she also knew that whenever there was any puzzle or
difficulty about her or her affairs, she always heard something
mysteriously said about applying to the Lord Chancellor, till she began
to really suspect that it was by his commands that Aunt Barbara was so
stern with her; and that if he knew of her fall into the pond, something
terrible would come of it.  Perhaps that was why the De la Poers kept her
name so secret!

She trembled as she thought of it; and here was another added to her many
terrors.  Poor little girl!  If she had rightly feared and loved One, she
would have had no room for the many alarms that kept her heart
fluttering!




CHAPTER IX.


IT may be doubted whether Countess Kate ever did in her childhood
discover what her Aunt Barbara meant by the natural consequences of her
folly, but she suffered from them nevertheless.  When the summer was
getting past its height of beauty, and the streets were all sun and misty
heat, and the grass in the parks looked brown, and the rooms were so
close that even Aunt Jane had one window open, Kate grew giddy in the
head almost every morning, and so weary and dull all day that she had
hardly spirit to do anything but read story-books.  And Mrs. Lacy was
quite poorly too, though not saying much about it; was never quite
without a head-ache, and was several times obliged to send Kate out for
her evening walk with Josephine.

It was high time to be going out of town; and Mrs. Lacy was to go and be
with her son in his vacation.

This was the time when Kate and the Wardours had hoped to be together.
But “the natural consequence” of the nonsense Kate had talked, about
being “always allowed” to do rude and careless things, and her wild
rhodomontade about romping games with the boys, had persuaded her aunts
that they were very improper people for her to be with, and that it would
be wrong to consent to her going to Oldburgh.

That was one natural consequence of her folly.  Another was that when the
De la Poers begged that she might spend the holidays with them, and from
father and mother downwards were full of kind schemes for her happiness
and good, Lady Barbara said to her sister that it was quite impossible;
these good friends did not know what they were asking, and that the child
would again expose herself in some way that would never be forgotten,
unless she were kept in their own sight till she had been properly tamed
and reduced to order.

It was self-denying in Lady Barbara to refuse that invitation, for she
and her sister would have been infinitely more comfortable together
without their troublesome countess—above all when they had no governess
to relieve them of her.  The going out of town was sad enough to them,
for they had always paid a long visit at Caergwent Castle, which had felt
like their home through the lifetime of their brother and nephew; but now
it was shut up, and their grief for their young nephew came back all the
more freshly at the time of year when they were used to be kindly
entertained by him in their native home.

But as they could not go there, they went to Bournemouth and the first
run Kate took upon the sands took away all the giddiness from her head,
and put an end to the tired feeling in her limbs!  It really was a run!
Aunt Barbara gave her leave to go out with Josephine; and though
Josephine said it was very sombre and savage, between the pine-woods and
the sea, Kate had not felt her heart leap with such fulness of enjoyment
since she had made snow-balls last winter at home.  She ran down to the
waves, and watched them sweep in and curl over and break, as if she could
never have enough of them; and she gazed at the grey outline of the Isle
of Wight opposite, feeling as if there was something very great in really
seeing an island.

When she came in, there was so much glow on her brown check, and her
eyelids looked so much less heavy, that both the aunts gazed at her with
pleasure, smiled to one another, and Lady Jane kissed her, while Lady
Barbara said, “This was the right thing.”

She was to be out as much as possible, so her aunt made a set of new
rules for the day.  There was to be a walk before breakfast; then
breakfast; then Lady Barbara heard her read her chapter in the Bible, and
go through her music.  And really the music was not half as bad as might
have been expected with Aunt Barbara.  Kate was too much afraid of her to
give the half attention she had paid to poor Mrs. Lacy—fright and her
aunt’s decision of manner forced her to mind what she was about; and
though Aunt Barbara found her really very dull and unmusical, she did get
on better than before, and learnt something, though more like a machine
than a musician.

Then she went out again till the hottest part of the day, during which a
bit of French and of English reading was expected from her, and half an
hour of needle-work; then her dinner; and then out again—with her aunts
this time, Aunt Jane in a wheeled-chair, and Aunt Barbara walking with
her—this was rather dreary; but when they went in she was allowed to stay
out with Josephine, with only one interval in the house for tea, till it
grew dark, and she was so sleepy with the salt wind, that she was ready
for bed, and had no time to think of the Lord Chancellor.

At first, watching those wonderful and beautiful waves was pleasure
enough; and then she was allowed, to her wonder and delight, to have a
holland dress, and dig in the sand, making castles and moats, or rocks
and shipwrecks, with beautiful stories about them; and sometimes she
hunted for the few shells and sea-weeds there, or she sat down and read
some of her favourite books, especially poetry—it suited the sea so well;
and she was trying to make Ellen’s Isle and all the places of the “Lady
of the Lake” in sand, only she never had time to finish them, and they
always were either thrown down or washed away before she could return to
them.

But among all these amusements, she was watching the families of children
who played together, happy creatures!  The little sturdy boys, that
dabbled about so merrily, and minded so little the “Now Masters” of their
indignant nurses; the little girls in brown hats, with their baskets
full; the big boys, that even took off shoes, and dabbled in the shallow
water; the great sieges of large castles, where whole parties attacked
and defended—it was a sort of melancholy glimpse of fairy-land to her,
for she had only been allowed to walk on the beach with Josephine on
condition she never spoke to the other children.

Would the Lord Chancellor be after her if she did?  Her heart quite
yearned for those games, or even to be able to talk to one of those
little damsels; and one day when a bright-faced girl ran after her with a
piece of weed that she had dropped, she could hardly say “thank you” for
her longing to say more; and many were the harangues she composed within
herself to warn the others not to wish to change places with her, for to
be a countess was very poor fun indeed.

However, one morning at the end of the first week, Kate looked up from a
letter from Sylvia, and said with great glee, “Aunt Barbara!  O Aunt
Barbara!  Alice and the other Sylvia—Sylvia Joanna—are coming!  I may
play with them, mayn’t I?”

“Who are they?” said her aunt gravely.

“Uncle Wardour’s nieces,” said Kate; “Sylvia’s cousins, you know, only we
never saw them; but they are just my age; and it will be such fun—only
Alice is ill, I believe.  Pray—please—let me play with them!” and Kate
had tears in her eyes.

“I shall see about it when they come.”

“Oh, but—but I can’t have them there—Sylvia’s own, own cousins—and not
play with them!  Please, Aunt Barbara!”

“You ought to know that this impetuosity never disposes me favourably,
Katharine; I will inquire and consider.”

Kate had learnt wisdom enough not to say any more just then; but the
thought of sociability, the notion of chattering freely to young
companions, and of a real game at play, and the terror of having all this
withheld, and of being thought too proud and haughty for the Wardours,
put her into such an agony, that she did not know what she was about,
made mistakes even in reading, and blundered her music more than she had
over done under Lady Barbara’s teaching; and then, when her aunt reproved
her, she could not help laying down her head and bursting into a fit of
crying.  However, she had not forgotten the terrible tea-drinking, and
was resolved not to be as bad as at that time, and she tried to stop
herself, exclaiming between her sobs, “O Aunt Bar—bar—a,—I—can—not—help
it!”  And Lady Barbara did not scold or look stern.  Perhaps she saw that
the little girl was really trying to chock herself, for she said quite
kindly, “Don’t, my dear.”

And just then, to Kate’s great wonder, in came Lady Jane, though it was
full half an hour earlier than she usually left her room; and Lady
Barbara looked up to her, and said, quite as if excusing herself,
“Indeed, Jane, I have not been angry with her.”

And Kate, somehow, understanding that she might, flung herself down by
Aunt Jane, and hid her face in her lap, not crying any more, though the
sobs were not over, and feeling the fondling hands on her hair very
tender and comforting, though she wondered to hear them talk as if she
were asleep or deaf—or perhaps they thought their voices too low, or
their words too long and fine for her to understand; nor perhaps did she,
though she gathered their drift well enough, and that kind Aunt Jane was
quite pleading for herself in having come to the rescue.

“I could not help it, indeed—you remember Lady de la Poer, Dr. Woodman,
both—excitable, nervous temperament—almost hysterical.”

“This unfortunate intelligence—untoward coincidence—” said Lady Barbara.
“But I have been trying to make her feel I am not in anger, and I hope
there really was a struggle for self-control.”

Kate took her head up again at this, a little encouraged; and Lady Jane
kissed her forehead, and repeated, “Aunt Barbara was not angry with you,
my dear.”

“No, for I think you have tried to conquer yourself,” said Lady Barbara.
She did not think it wise to tell Kate that she thought she could not
help it, though oddly enough, the very thing had just been said over the
child’s head, and Kate ventured on it to get up, and say quietly, “Yes,
it was not Aunt Barbara’s speaking to me that made me cry, but I am so
unhappy about Alice and Sylvia Joanna;” and a soft caress from Aunt Jane
made her venture to go on.  “It is not only the playing with them, though
I do wish for that very very much indeed; but it would be so unkind, and
so proud and ungrateful, to despise my own cousin’s cousins!”

This was more like the speeches Kate made in her own head than anything
she had ever said to her aunts; and it was quite just besides, and not
spoken in naughtiness, and Lady Barbara did not think it wrong to show
that she attended to it.  “You are right, Katharine,” she said; “no one
wishes you to be either proud or ungrateful.  I would not wish entirely
to prevent you from seeing the children of the family, but it must not be
till there is some acquaintance between myself and their mother, and I
cannot tell whether you can be intimate with them till I know what sort
of children they are.  Much, too, must depend on yourself, and whether
you will behave well with them.”

Kate gave a long sigh, and looked up relieved; and for some time she and
her aunt were not nearly so much at war as hitherto, but seemed to be
coming to a somewhat better understanding.

Yet it rather puzzled Kate.  She seemed to herself to have got this
favour for crying for it; and it was a belief at home, not only that
nothing was got by crying, but that if by some strange chance it were, it
never came to good; and she began the more to fear some disappointment
about the expected Wardours.

For two or three days she was scanning every group on the sands with all
her might, in hopes of some likeness to Sylvia, but at last she was taken
by surprise: just as she was dressed, and Aunt Barbara was waiting in the
drawing-room for Aunt Jane, there came a knock at the door, and “Mrs.
Wardour” was announced.

In came a small, quiet-looking lady in mourning, and with her a girl of
about Kate’s own age; there was some curtseying and greeting between the
two ladies, and her aunt said, “Here is my niece.—Come and speak to Mrs.
Wardour, my dear,” and motioned her forwards.

Now to be motioned forwards by Aunt Barbara always made Kate shrink back
into herself, and the presence of a little girl before elders likewise
rendered her shy and bashful, so she came forth as if intensely
disgusted, put out her hand as if she were going to poke, and muttered
her favourite “—do” so awkwardly and coldly, that Lady Barbara felt how
proud and ungracious it looked, and to make up said, “My niece has been
very eager for your coming.”  And then the two little girls drew off into
the window, and looked at each other under their eyelashes in silence.

Sylvia Joanna Wardour was not like her namesake at home, Sylvia
Katharine.  She was a thin, slight, quiet-looking child, with so little
to note about her face, that Kate was soon wondering at her dress being
so much smarter than her own was at present.  She herself had on a
holland suit with a deep cape, which, except that they were adorned with
labyrinths of white braid, were much what she had worn at home, also a
round brown hat, shading her face from the sun; whereas Sylvia’s face was
exposed by a little turban hat so deeply edged with blue velvet, that the
white straw was hardly seen; had a little watered-silk jacket, and a
little flounced frock of a dark silk figured with blue, that looked
slightly fuzzed out; and perhaps she was not at ease in this fine dress,
for she stood with her head down, and one hand on the window-sill,
pretending to look out of window, but really looking at Kate.

Meanwhile the two grown-up ladies were almost as stiff and shy, though
they could not keep dead silence like the children.  Mrs. Wardour had
heard before that Lady Barbara Umfraville was a formidable person, and
was very much afraid of her; and Lady Barbara was not a person to set
anyone at ease.

So there was a little said about taking the liberty of calling, for her
brother-in-law was so anxious to hear of Lady Caergwent: and Lady Barbara
said her niece was very well and healthy, and had only needed change of
air.

And then came something in return about Mrs. Wardour’s other little girl,
a sad invalid, she said, on whose account they were come to Bournemouth;
and there was a little more said of bathing, and walking, and whether the
place was full; and then Mrs. Wardour jumped up and said she was
detaining Lady Barbara, and took leave; Kate, though she had not spoken a
word to Sylvia Wardour, looking at her wistfully with all her eyes, and
feeling more than usually silly.

And when the guests were gone her aunt told her how foolish her want of
manner was, and how she had taken the very means to make them think she
was not glad to see them.  She hung down her head, and pinched the ends
of her gloves; she knew it very well, but that did not make it a bit more
possible to find a word to say to a stranger before the elders, unless
the beginning were made for her as by the De la Poers.

However, she knew it would be very different out of doors, and her heart
bounded when her aunt added, “They seem to be quiet, lady-like,
inoffensive people, and I have no objection to your associating with the
little girl in your walks, as long as I do not see that it makes you
thoughtless and ungovernable.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you, Aunt Barbara!” cried Kate, with a bouncing
bound that did not promise much for her thought or her governableness;
but perhaps Lady Barbara recollected what her own childhood would have
been without Jane, for she was not much discomposed, only she said,

“It is very odd you should be so uncivil to the child in her presence,
and so ecstatic now!  However, take care you do not get too familiar.
Remember, these Wardours are no relations, and I will not have you
letting them call you by your Christian name.”

Kate’s bright looks sank.  That old married-woman sound, Lady Caergwent,
seemed as if it would be a bar between her and the free childish fun she
hoped for.  Yet when so much had been granted, she must not call her aunt
cross and unkind, though she did think it hard and proud.

Perhaps she was partly right; but after all, little people cannot judge
what is right in matters of familiarity.  They have only to do as they
are told, and they may be sure of this, that friendship and respect
depend much more on what people are in themselves than on what they call
one another.

This lady was the widow of Mr. Wardour’s brother, and lived among a great
clan of his family in a distant county, where Mary and her father had
sometimes made visits, but the younger ones never.  Kate was not likely
to have been asked there, for it was thought very hard that she should be
left on the hands of her aunt’s husband: and much had been said of the
duty of making her grand relations provide for her, or of putting her
into the “Clergy Orphan Asylum.”  And there had been much displeasure
when Mr. Wardour answered that he did not think it right that a child who
had friends should live on the charity intended for those who had none
able to help them; and soon after the decision he had placed his son
Armyn in Mr. Brown’s office, instead of sending him to the University.
All the Wardours were much vexed then; but they were not much better
pleased when the little orphan had come to her preferment, and he made no
attempt to keep her in his hands, and obtain the large sum allowed for
her board—only saying that his motherless household was no place for her,
and that he could not at once do his duty by her and by his parish.  They
could not understand the real love and uprightness that made him prefer
her advantage to his own—what was right to what was convenient.

Mrs. George Wardour had not scolded her brother-in-law for his want of
prudence and care for his own children’s interests; but she had agreed
with those who did; and this, perhaps, made her feel all the more awkward
and shy when she was told that she _must_ go and call upon the Lady
Umfravilles, whom the whole family regarded as first so neglectful and
then so ungrateful, and make acquaintance with the little girl who had
once been held so cheap.  She was a kind, gentle person, and a careful,
anxious mother, but not wishing to make great acquaintance, nor used to
fine people, large or small, and above all, wrapped up in her poor little
delicate Alice.

The next time Kate saw her she was walking by the side of Alice’s
wheeled-chair, and Sylvia by her side, in a more plain and suitable
dress.  Kate set off running to greet them; but at a few paces from them
was seized by a shy fit, and stood looking and feeling like a goose,
drawing great C’s with the point of her parasol in the sand; Josephine
looking on, and thinking how “_bête_” English children were.  Mrs.
Wardour was not much less shy; but she knew she must make a beginning,
and so spoke in the middle of Kate’s second C: and there was a shaking of
hands, and walking together.

They did not get on very well: nobody talked but Mrs. Wardour, and she
asked little frightened questions about the Oldburgh party, as she called
them, which Kate answered as shortly and shyly—the more so from the
uncomfortable recollection that her aunt had told her that this was the
very way to seem proud and unkind; but what could she do?  She felt as if
she were frozen up stiff, and could neither move nor look up like
herself.  At last Mrs. Wardour said that Alice would be tired, and must
go in; and then Kate managed to blurt out a request that Sylvia might
stay with her.  Poor Sylvia looked a good deal scared, and as if she
longed to follow her mamma and sister; but the door was shut upon her,
and she was left alone with those two strange people—the Countess and the
Frenchwoman!

However, Kate recovered the use of her limbs and tongue in a moment, and
instantly took her prisoner’s hand, and ran off with her to the corner
where the scenery of Loch Katrine had so often been begun, and began with
great animation to explain.  This—a hole that looked as if an old hen had
been grubbing in it—was Loch Katrine.

“Loch Katharine—that’s yours!  And which is to be Loch Sylvia?” said the
child, recovering, as she began to feel by touch, motion, and voice, that
she had only to do with a little girl after all.

“Loch nonsense!” said Kate, rather bluntly.  “Did you never hear of the
Lochs, the Lakes, in Scotland?”

“Loch Lomond, Loch Katrine, Loch Awe, Loch Ness?—But I don’t do my
geography out of doors!”

“’Tisn’t geography; ’tis the ‘The Lady of the Lake.’”

“Is that a new game?”

“Dear me! did you never read ‘The Lady of the Lake?’—Sir Walter Scott’s
poem—

                     ‘The summer dawn’s reflected hue—’”

“Oh!  I’ve learnt that in my extracts; but I never did my poetry task out
of doors!”

“’Tisn’t a task—’tis beautiful poetry!  Don’t you like poetry better than
anything?”

“I like it better than all my other lessons, when it is not very long and
hard.”

Kate felt that her last speech would have brought Armyn and Charlie down
on her for affectation, and that it was not strictly true that she liked
poetry better than anything, for a game at romps, and a very amusing
story, were still better things; so she did not exclaim at the other
Sylvia’s misunderstanding, but only said, “‘The Lady of the Lake’ is
story and poetry too, and we will play at it.”

“And how?”

“I’ll tell you as we go on.  I’m the King—that is, the Knight of
Snowdon—James Fitzjames, for I’m in disguise, you know; and you’re
Ellen.”

“Must I be Ellen?  We had a horrid nurse once, who used to slap us, and
was called Ellen.”

“But it was her name.  She was Ellen Douglas, and was in banishment on an
island with her father.  You are Ellen, and Josephine is your old
harper—Allan Bane; she talks French, you know, and that will do for
Highland: Gallic and Gaelic sound alike, you know.  There!  Then I’m
going out hunting, and my dear gallant grey will drop down dead with
fatigue, and I shall lose my way; and when you hear me wind my horn
too-too, you get upon your hoop—that will be your boat, you know—and
answer ‘Father!’ and when I too-too again, answer ‘Malcolm!’ and then put
up your hand behind your ear, and stand listening

    “With locks thrown back and lips apart,
    Like monument of Grecian art;”

and then I’ll tell you what to do.”

Away scudded the delighted Kate; and after having lamented her gallant
grey, and admired the Trosachs, came up too-tooing through her hand with
all her might, but found poor Ellen, very unlike a monument of Grecian
art, absolutely crying, and Allan Bane using his best English and kindest
tones to console her.

“_Miladi l’a stupéfaite—la pauvre petite_!” began Josephine; and Kate in
consternation asking what was the matter, and Josephine encouraging her,
it was all sobbed out.  She did not like to be called Ellen—and she
thought it unkind to send her into banishment—and she had fancied she was
to get astride on her hoop, which she justly thought highly improper—and
above all, she could not bear to say ‘Father’—because—

“I never thought you would mind that,” said Kate, rather abashed.  “I
never did; and I never saw my papa or mamma either.”

“No—so you didn’t care.”

“Well then,” said Kate gravely, “we won’t play at that.  Let’s have
‘Marmion’ instead; and I’ll be killed.”

“But I don’t like you to be killed.”

“It is only in play.”

“Please—please, let us have a nice play!”

“Well, what do you call a nice play?”

“Alice and I used to drive hoops.”

“That’s tiresome!  My hoop always tumbles down: think of something else.”

“Alice and I used to play at ball; but there’s no ball here!”

“Then I’ll stuff my pocket-handkerchief with seaweed, and make one;” and
Kate spread out her delicate cambric one—not quite so fit for such a
purpose as the little cheap cotton ones at home, that Mary tried in vain
to save from cruel misuse.

“Here’s a famous piece!  Look, it is all wriggled; it is a mermaid’s old
stay-lace that she has used and thrown away.  Perhaps she broke it in a
passion because her grandmother made her wear so many oyster-shells on
her tail!”

“There are no such creatures as mermaids,” said Sylvia, looking at her
solemnly.

This was not a promising beginning; Sylvia Joanna was not a bit like
Sylvia Katharine, nor like Adelaide and Grace de la Poer; yet by seeing
each other every day, she and Kate began to shake together, and become
friends.

There was no fear of her exciting Kate to run wild; she was a little
pussy-cat in her dread of wet, and guarded her clothes as if they could
feel—indeed, her happiest moments were spent in the public walks by
Alice’s chair, studying how the people were dressed; but still she
thought it a fine thing to be the only child in Bournemouth who might
play with the little Countess, and was so silly as to think the others
envied her when she was dragged and ordered about, bewildered by Kate’s
loud rapid talk about all kinds of odd things in books, and distressed at
being called on to tear through the pine-woods, or grub in wet sand.  But
it was not all silly vanity: she was a gentle, loving little girl, very
good-natured, and sure to get fond of all who were kind to her; and she
liked Kate’s bright ways and amusing manner—perhaps really liking her
more than if she had understood her better; and Kate liked her, and
rushed after her on every occasion, as the one creature with whom it was
possible to play and to chatter.

No, not quite the one; for poor sick Alice was better for talk and quiet
play than her sister.  She read a great deal; and there was an exchange
of story-books, and much conversation over them, between her and
Kate—indeed, the spirit and animation of this new friend quite made her
light up, and brighten out of her languor whenever the shrill laughing
voice came near.  And Kate, after having got over her first awe at coming
near a child so unlike herself, grew very fond of her, and felt how good
and sweet and patient she was.  She never ran off to play till Alice was
taken in-doors; and spent all her spare time in-doors in drawing picture
stories, which were daily explained to the two sisters at some seat in
the pine-woods.

There was one very grand one, that lasted all the latter part of the stay
at Bournemouth—as the evenings grew longer, and Kate had more time for
preparing it, at the rate of four or five scenes a day, drawn and
painted—being the career of a very good little girl, whose parents were
killed in a railway accident, (a most fearful picture was that—all
blunders being filled up by spots of vermilion blood and orange-coloured
flame!) and then came all the wonderful exertions by which she maintained
her brothers and sisters, taught them, and kept them in order.

They all had names; and there was a naughty little Alexander, whose
monkey tricks made even Sylvia laugh.  Sylvia was very anxious that the
admirable heroine, Hilda, should be rewarded by turning into a countess;
and could not enter into Kate’s first objection—founded on fact—that it
could not be without killing all the brothers.  “Why couldn’t it be done
in play, like so many other things?”  To which Kate answered, “There is a
sort of true in play;” but as Sylvia could not understand her, nor she
herself get at her own idea, she went on to her other objection, a still
more startling one—that “She couldn’t wish Hilda anything so nasty!”

And this very ignoble word was long a puzzle to Alice and Sylvia.

Thus the time at the sea-side was very happy—quite the happiest since
Kate’s change of fortune.  The one flaw in those times on the sands was
when she was alone with Sylvia and Josephine; not in Sylvia’s
dulness—that she had ceased to care about—but in a little want of plain
dealing.  Sylvia was never wild or rude, but she was not strictly
obedient when out of sight; and when Kate was shocked would call it very
unkind, and caress and beseech her not to tell.

They were such tiny things, that they would hardly bear mention; but one
will do as a specimen.  Sylvia was one of those very caressing children
who can never be happy without clinging to their friends, kissing them
constantly, and always calling them dear, love, and darling.

Now, Mrs. Wardour knew it was not becoming to see all this embracing in
public, and was sure besides that Lady Barbara would not like to see the
Countess hung upon in Sylvia’s favourite way; so she forbade all such
demonstrations except the parting and meeting kiss.  It was a terrible
grievance to Sylvia—it seemed as if her heart could not love without her
touch; but instead of training herself in a little self-control and
obedience, she thought it “cross;” and Mamma was no sooner out of sight
than her arm was around Kate’s waist.  Kate struggled at first—it did not
suit her honourable conscientiousness; but then Sylvia would begin to cry
at the unkindness, say Kate did not love her, that she would not be proud
if she was a countess: and Kate gave in, liked the love—of which, poor
child! she got so little—and let Sylvia do as she pleased, but never
without a sense of disobedience and dread of being caught.

So, too, about her title.  Sylvia called her darling, duck, and love, and
she called Sylvia by plenty of such names; but she had been obliged to
tell of her aunt’s desire—that Katharine and Kate should never be used.

Sylvia’s ready tears fell; but the next day she came back cheerful, with
the great discovery that darling Lady Caergwent might be called K, her
initial, and the first syllable of her title.  It was the cleverest
invention Sylvia had ever made; and she was vexed when Kate demurred,
honestly thinking that her aunts would like it worse than even Kate, and
that therefore she ought not to consent.

But when Sylvia coaxingly uttered, “My own dear duck of a K,” and the
soft warm arm squeezed her, and the eyes would have been weeping, and the
tongue reproaching in another moment, she allowed it to go on—it was so
precious and sweet to be loved; and she told Sylvia she was a star in the
dark night.

No one ever found out those, and one or two other, instances of small
disobedience.  They were not mischievous, Josephine willingly overlooked
them, and there was nothing to bring them to light.  It would have been
better for Sylvia if her faults had been of a sort that brought attention
on them more easily!

Meanwhile, Lady Barbara had almost found in her a model child—except for
her foolish shy silence before her elders, before whom she always
whispered—and freely let the girls be constantly together.  The aunt
little knew that this meek well-behaved maiden was giving the first warp
to that upright truth that had been the one sterling point of Kate’s
character!




CHAPTER X.


IT had been intended that Mrs. Lacy should rejoin her pupil at
Bournemouth at the end of six weeks; but in her stead came a letter
saying t

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