“Thursdaymorning! 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 sunThy daily stage of duty run.’
‘Awake, my soul, and with the sunThy 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 whydidLady 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 Sylviareallythought 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 burnFrae morning sun till dine;We’ve wandered many a weary footSin auld lang syne.’
‘We twa hae paidlit in the burnFrae morning sun till dine;We’ve wandered many a weary footSin 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 useddearas 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 thedearwas 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 15s.6d.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 upen 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.
Theone 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 thattheirpaper-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 likeGiles,” 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, andnobody’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 ofthatlikeness, 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!”
Afterthat 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 uglyla petitehas 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.