Bertie Hardwickwas on the lawn in front of the Rectory when the two visitors approached. The Rectory was a pretty, old-fashioned house, large and quaint, with old picturesque wings and gables, and a front much covered with climbing plants. Kate had always been rather proud of it, as one of the ornaments of her estate. She looked at it almost as she looked at the pretty west gate of her park, where the lodge was so commodious and so pleasant, coveted by all the poor people on the estate. It was by Kate’s grace and favour that the west lodge was given to one or another, and so would it be with the Rectory. She looked upon the one in much the same light as the other. It would be hard to tell what magnetic chord of sympathies had moved Bertie Hardwick to some knowledge of what his young acquaintance was about to do; but it is certain that he was there, pretending to play croquet with his sisters, and keeping a very keen eye upon the bit of road which was visible through the break in the high laurel hedge. He had been amused, and indeed somewhat touched and interested, in spite of himself, on the previous night; and somehow he had a feeling that she would come. When he caught a glimpse of her, he threw down the croquet mallet, as if it hurt him, and cried out—‘Edith, run and tell mamma she is coming. I felt quite sure she would.’
‘Who is coming?’ cried the two girls.
‘Oh, don’t chatter and ask questions—rush and tell mamma!’ cried Bertie; and he himself, without thinking of it, went forward to open the garden door. It was a trial of Kate’s steadiness to meet him thus, but she did so with wide-open eyes and a certain serious courage. ‘You saw me at a disadvantage, but I don’t mind,’ Kate’s serious eyes were saying; and as she took the matter very gravely indeed, it was she who had the best of it now. Bertie, in spite of himself, felt confused as he met her look; he grew red, and was ashamed of his own foolish impulse to go and open the door.
‘This is Mr. Bertie Hardwick, uncle,’ said Kate, gravely;‘and this, Mr. Bertie, is my Uncle Courtenay—whom I told you of,’ she added, with a little sigh.
Her Uncle Courtenay—whom she was obliged to obey, and over whom neither her impetuosity nor her melancholy had the least power. She shook her head to herself, as it were, over her sad fate, and by this movement placed once more in great danger the gravity of poor Bertie, who was afraid to laugh or otherwise misconduct himself under the eyes of Mr. Courtenay. He led the visitors into the drawing-room, through the open windows; and it is impossible to tell what a relief it was to him when he saw his mother coming to the rescue. And then they all sat down; Kate as near Mrs. Hardwick as she could manage to establish herself. Kate did not understand the shyness with which Minnie and Edith, half withdrawn on the other side of their mother, looked at her.
‘I am not a wild beast,’ she said to herself. ‘I wonder do they think I will bite?’
‘Did you tell them about last night?’ she said, turning quickly to Bertie; for Mrs. Hardwick, instead of talking toher, the Lady of the Manor, as Kate felt she ought to have done, gave her attention to Mr. Courtenay instead.
‘I told them I had met you, Miss Courtenay,’ said Bertie.
‘And did they laugh? Did you make fun of me? Why do they look at me so strangely?’ cried Kate, growing red; ‘I am not a wild beast.’
‘You forget that you and my father have quarrelled,’ said Bertie; ‘and the girls naturally take his side.’
‘Oh! is it that?’ cried Kate, clearing up a little. She gave a quick glance at him, with a misgiving as to whether he was entirely serious. But Bertie kept his countenance. ‘For that matter, I have come to say that I did not mean anything wrong; perhaps I made a mistake. Uncle Courtenay says that, till I am of age, I have no power; and if the Rector pleases—oh! there is the Rector—I ought to speak for myself.’
She rose as Mr. Hardwick came up to her. Her sense of her own importance gave a certain dignity to her young figure, which was springy and stately, like that of a young Diana. She threw back the flood of chestnut hair that streamed over her shoulders, and looked straight at him with her bright, well-opened eyes. Altogether she looked a creature of a different species from Edith and Minnie, who kept close together, looking at her with wonder, and a mixture of admiration and repugnance.
‘Isn’t it bold of her to speak to papa like that?’ Minnie whispered to Edith.
‘But she is going to ask his pardon,’ Edith whispered back to Minnie. ‘Oh! hush, and hear what she says.’
As for Bertie, he looked on with a strange feeling that it was he who had introduced this new figure into the domestic circle, and with a little anxiety of proprietorship hoped that she would make a good impression. She was his novelty, his property—and she was, there could be no doubt, a very great novelty indeed.
‘Mr. Hardwick, please,’ said Kate, reddening, yet confronting him with her head very erect, and her eyes very open, ‘I find that I made a mistake. Uncle Courtenay tells me I had no right at my age to interfere. I shall not be of age for six years, and don’t you think it would be best to be friendly—till then? If you are willing, I should be glad. I thought I had a right—but I understand now that it was all a mistake.’
Mr. Hardwick looked round upon the company, questioning and puzzled. He was a tall man, spare, but of a large frame, with deep-set blue eyes looking out of a somewhat brown face. His eyes looked like a bit of sky, which had strayed somehow into that brown, ruddy framework. They were the same colour as his son’s, Bertie’s; but Bertie’s youthful countenance was still white and red, and the contrast was not so great. The Rector’s face was very grave when in repose, and its expression had almost daunted Kate; but gradually he caught the joke (which was intended to be so profoundly serious) and lighted up. He had looked at his wife first, with a man’s natural instinct, asking an explanation; and perhaps the suppressed laughter in Mrs. Hardwick’s eyes was what gave him the clue. He made the little Lady of the Manor a profound bow. ‘Let us understand each other, Miss Courtenay,’ he said, with mock solemnity—‘are we to be friendly only till you come of age? Six years is a long time. But if after that hostilities are to be resumed——’
‘When I am of age of course I must do my duty,’ said Kate.
She was so serious, standing there in the midst of them, grave as twenty judges, that nobody could venture to laugh. Uncle Courtenay, who was getting impatient, and who had no feeling either of chivalry or admiration for his troublesome ward, uttered a hasty exclamation; but the Rector took her hand, and shook it, with a smile which at once conciliated his two girls, who were looking on.
‘That is just the feeling you ought to have,’ he said. ‘I see we shall be capital friends—I mean for six years; and then whatever you see to be your duty—Is it a bargain? I am delighted to accept these terms.’
‘And I am very glad,’ said Kate, sedately. She sat down again when he released her hand—giving her head a little shake, as was customary with her, and looked round with a certain majestic composure on the little assembly. As for Bertie,though he could not conceal from himself the fact that his father and mother were much amused, he still felt very proud of his young lady. He went up to her, and stood behind her chair, and made signs to his mother that she was to talk; which Mrs. Hardwick did to such good purpose that Kate, who wanted little encouragement, and to whom a friendly face was sweet, soon stood fully self-revealed to her new acquaintances. They took her out upon the lawn, and instructed her in croquet, and grew familiar with her; and, before half an hour had passed, Minnie and Edith, one on each side, were hanging about her, half in amazement, half in admiration. She was younger than both, for even Minnie, the little one, was sixteen; but then neither of them was a great lady—neither the head and mistress of her own house.
‘Isn’t it dreadfully dreary for you to live in that great house all by yourself?’ said Edith. They were so continually together, and so apt to take up each other’s sentiments, one repeating and continuing what the other had said, that they could scarcely get through a question except jointly. So that Minnie now added her voice, running into her sister’s. ‘It must be so dull, unless your governess is very nice indeed.’
‘My governess—Miss Blank?’ said Kate. ‘I never thought whether she was nice or not. I have had so many. One comes for a year, and then another, and then another. I never could make out why they liked to change so often. Uncle Courtenay thinks it is best.’
‘Oh! our governess stayed for years and years,’ said Edith; added Minnie, ‘We were nearly as fond of her as of mamma.’
‘But then I suppose,’ said Kate, with a little sigh, ‘she was fond of you?’
‘Why, of course,’ cried the two girls together. ‘How could she help it, when she had known us all our lives?’
‘You think a great deal of yourselves,’ said Kate, with dreary scorn, ‘to think people must be fond of you! If you were like me you would know better. I never fancy anything of the kind. If they do what I tell them, that is all I ask. You are very different from me. You have father, and mother, and brothers, and all sorts of things. But I have nobody, except Uncle Courtenay—and I am sure I should be very glad to make you a present of him.’
‘Have you not even an aunt?’ said Minnie, with big round eyes of wonder. ‘Nor a cousin?’ said Edith, equally surprised.
‘No—that is, oh! yes, I have one of each—Uncle Courtenay was talking of them as we came here—but I never saw them. I don’t know anything about them,’ said Kate.
‘What curious people, not to come to see you!’ ‘And what a pity you don’t know them!’ said the sisters.
‘And how curiously you talk,’ said uncompromising Kate; ‘both together. Please, is there only one of you, or are there two of you? I suppose it is talking in the same voice, and being dressed alike.’
‘We are considered alike,’ said Edith, the eldest, with an air of suppressed offence. As for Minnie, she was too indignant to make any reply.
‘And so you are alike,’ said Kate; ‘and a little like your brother, too; but he speaks for himself. I don’t object to people being alike; but I should try very hard to make you talk like two people, not like one, and not always to hang together and dress the same, if you were with me.’
Upon this there was a dead pause. The Rectory girls were good girls, but not quite prepared to stand an assault like this. Minnie, who had a quick temper, and who had been taught that it was indispensable to keep it down, shut her lips tight, and resisted the temptation to be angry. Edith, who was more placid, gazed at the young censor with wonder. What a strange girl!
‘Because,’ said Kate, endeavouring to be explanatory, ‘your voices have just the same sound, and you are just the same height, and your blue frocks are even made the same. Are there so many girls in the world,’ she said suddenly, with a pensive appeal to human nature in general, ‘that people can afford to throw them away, and make two into one?’
Deep silence followed. Mrs. Hardwick had been called away, and Bertie was talking to the gardener at the other end of the lawn. This was the first unfortunate result of leaving the girls to themselves. They walked on a little, the two sisters falling a step behind in their discomfiture. ‘How dare she speak to us so?’ Minnie whispered through her teeth. ‘Dare!—she is our guest!’ said Edith, who had a high sense of decorum. A minute after, Kate perceived that something was amiss. She turned round upon them, and gazed into their faces with serious scrutiny. ‘Are you angry?’ she said—‘have I said anything wrong?’
‘Oh! not angry,’ said Edith. ‘I suppose, since you look surprised, you don’t—mean—any harm.’
‘I?—mean harm?— Oh! Mr. Bertie,’ cried Kate, ‘come here quick—quick!—and explain to them.Youknow me. What have I done to make them angry? One may surely say what one thinks.’
‘I don’t know that it is good to say all one thinks,’ said Edith, who taught in the Sunday-schools, and who was considered very thoughtful and judicious—‘at least, when it is likely to hurt other people’s feelings.’
‘Not when it is true?’ said the remorseless Kate.
And then the whole group came to a pause, Bertie standing open-mouthed, most anxious to preserve the peace, but not knowing how. It was the judicious Edith who brought the crisis to a close by acting upon one of the maxims with which she was familiar as a teacher of youth.
‘Should you like to walk round the garden?’ she said, changing the subject with an adroitness which was very satisfactory to herself, ‘or come back into the drawing-room? There is not much to see in our little place, after your beautiful gardens at Langton-Courtenay; but still, if you would like to walk round—or perhaps you would prefer to go in and join mamma?’
‘My uncle must be ready to go now,’ said Kate, with responsive quickness, and she stalked in before them through the open window. As good luck would have it, Mr. Courtenay was just rising to take his leave. Kate followed him out, much subdued, in one sense, though all in arms in another. The girls were not nearly so nice as she thought they would be—reality was not equal to anticipation—and to think they should have quarrelled with her the very first time for nothing! This was the view of the matter which occurred to Kate.
I cannotundertake to say how it was, but it is certain that Bertie Hardwick met Kate next day, as she took her walk into the village, accompanied by Miss Blank. At the sight of him, that lady’s countenance clouded over; but Kate was glad, and the young man took no notice of Miss Blank’s looks. As it happened, the conversation between the governess and her pupil had flagged—it often flagged. The conversation between Kate and Miss Blank consisted generally of a host of bewildering questions on the one side, and as few answers as could be managed on the other. Miss Blank no doubt had affairs of her own to think of; and then Kate’s questions were of everything in heaven and earth, and might have troubled even a wise counsellor. Mr. Courtenay was still at Langton, but had sent out his niece for her usual walk—a thing by which she felt humiliated—and she had met with a rebuff in the village in consequence of some interference. She was in low spirits, and Miss Blank did not mind. Accordingly, Bertie was a relief and comfort to her, more than can be described.
‘Why don’t your sisters like me?’ said Kate. ‘I wonder, Mr. Bertie, why people don’t like me? If they would let me, I should like to be friends; but you saw they would not.’
‘I don’t think—perhaps—that they quite understood——’
‘But it is so easy to understand,’ said Kate, with a little impatient sigh. She shook her head, and tossed back her shining hair, which made an aureole round her. ‘Don’t let us speak of it,’ she said; ‘but you understood from the very first?’
Bertie was pleased, he could not have told why. The fact was, he, too, had been extremely puzzled at first; but now, after three meetings, he felt himself an old friend and privileged interpreter of the strange girl whom his sisters were so indignant with, and who certainly was a more important personage at Langton-Courtenay than any other fifteen-year-old girl in England. Both Mr. Hardwick and Bertie had to some extent made themselves Kate’s champions, moved thereto by that strange predisposition to take the side of a feminine stranger(at least, when she is young and pleasant) against the women of their own house, which almost all men are moved by. Women take their father’s, their husband’s, their brother’s side through thick and thin, with a natural certainty that their own must be in the right; but men invariably take it for granted that their own must be wrong. Thus, not only Bertie, who might be moved by other arguments, but even Mr. Hardwick, secretly believed that ‘the girls’ had taken offence foolishly, and maintained the cause of Kate.
‘They have seen nothing out of their own sphere,’ their brother said, apologetically—‘they don’t know much—they are very much petted and spoiled at home.’
‘Ah!’ said Kate, feeling as if a chillydouchehad suddenly been administered in her face. She drew a long, half-sobbing breath, and then she said, with a pathetic tone in her voice, ‘Oh! I wonder why people don’t like me!’
‘You are wrong, Miss Courtenay—I am sure you are wrong,’ said Bertie, warmly. ‘Not like you!—that must be their stupidity alone. And I can’t believe, even, that any one is so stupid. You must be making a mistake.’
‘Oh! Mr. Bertie, how can you say so? Why, your sisters!’ cried Kate, returning to the charge.
‘But it is not that they—don’t like you,’ said Bertie. ‘How could you think it? It is only a misunderstanding—a—a—want of knowing——’
‘You are trying to save my feelings,’ said Kate; ‘but never mind my feelings. No, Mr. Bertie, it is quite true. I do not want to deceive myself—people do not like me.’ These words she produced singly, as if they had been so many stones thrown at the world. ‘Oh! please don’t say anything—perhaps it is my fate; perhaps I am never to be any better. But that is how it is—people don’t like me; I am sure I don’t know why.’
‘Miss Courtenay——’ Bertie began, with great earnestness; but just then the man-of-all-work from the Rectory, who was butler, and footman, and valet, and everything combined, made his appearance at the corner, beckoning to him; and as the servant was sent by his father, he had no alternative but to go away. When he was out of sight, Kate, whose eyes had followed him as far as he was visible, breathed forth a gentle sigh, and was going on quietly upon her way, silent, until the mood should seize her to chatter once more, when an event occurred that had never been known till now to happen at Langton—the governess, who was generally blank as her name, opened her mouth and spoke.
‘Miss Courtenay,’ she said, for she was not even sufficiently interested in her pupil to care to speak to her by her Christian name—‘Miss Courtenay, if this sort of thing continues, I shall have to go away.’
Kate, who was not much less startled than Balaam was on a similar occasion, stopped short, and turned round with a face of consternation upon her companion. ‘If what continues?’ she said.
‘This,’ said Miss Blank—‘this meeting of young men, and walking with them. It is hard enough to have to manageyou; but if this goes on, I shall speak to Mr. Courtenay. I never was compromised before, and I don’t mean to be so now.’
Kate was so utterly unconscious of the meaning of all this, that she simply stared in dismay. ‘Compromised!’ she said, with big eyes of astonishment; ‘I don’t know what you mean. What is it that must not go on? Miss Blank, I hope you have not had a sunstroke, or something that makes people talk without knowing what they say.’
‘I will not take any impertinence from you, Miss Courtenay,’ said Miss Blank, going red with wrath. ‘Ask why people don’t like you, indeed!—you should ask me, instead of asking a gentleman, fishing for compliments!I’lltell you why people don’t like you. It is because you are always interfering—thrusting yourself into things you have no business with—taking things upon you that no child has a right to meddle with. That is why people hate you——’
‘Hate me!’ cried Kate, who, for her part, had grown pale with horror.
‘Yes; hate you—that is the word. Do you think any one would put up with such a life who could help it? You are an heiress, and people are obliged to mind you; but if you had been a poor girl, you would have known the difference. Nobody would have put up with you then; you would have been beaten, or starved, or done something to. It is only your money that gives you the power to trample others under your feet.’
Kate was appalled by this address. It stupefied her, in the first place, that Miss Blank should have taken the initiative, and launched forth into speech, as it were, on her own account; and the assault took away the girl’s breath. She felt as one might feel who had been suddenly saluted with a shower of blows from an utterly unsuspected adversary. She did not know whether to fight or flee. She walked along mechanically by her assailant’s side, and gasped for breath. Her eyes grew large and round with wonder. She listened in amaze, not able to believe her ears.
‘But I won’t be kept quiet any longer,’ said Miss Blank—‘I will speak. Why should I get myself into trouble for you? I will go to Mr. Courtenay, when we get back, and I will tell him it is impossible to go on like this. It was bad enough before. You were trouble enough from the first day I ever set eyes on you; but I have always said to myself, whenthatcommences,I will go away. My character is above everything, and all the gold in England would not tempt me to stay.’
Kate listened to all this with a bewilderment that took from her the power of speech. What did the woman mean?—was she ‘in a passion,’ as, indeed, other governesses, to Kate’s knowledge, had been; or was she mad? It must be a sunstroke, she decided at last. They had been walking in the sun, and Miss Blank’s bonnet was too thin, being made of flimsy tulle. Her brain must be affected. Kate resolved heroically that she would not aggravate the sufferer by any response, but would send for the housekeeper as soon as they got back, and place Miss Blank in her hands. People in her sad condition must not be contradicted. She quickened her steps, discussing with herself whether a dark room and ice to the forehead would be enough, or whether it would be necessary to cut off all her hair, or even shave her head. This pre-occupation about Miss Blank’s welfare shielded the girl for some time against the fiery, stinging arrows which were being thrown at her; but this immunity did not last, for the way was long, and Miss Blank, having once broken out, put no further restraint upon herself. It was clear now that her only hope was in laying Kate prostrate, leaving no spirit nor power of resistance in her. By degrees the sharp words began to get admittance at the girl’s tingling ears. She was beaten down by the storm of opposition. Was it possible?—could it be true? Did peoplehateher? Her imagination began to work as these burning missiles flew at her. Miss Blank had been her companion for a year, and hated her! Uncle Courtenay was her own uncle—her nearest relative—and he, too, hated her! The girls at the Rectory, who looked so gentle, had turned against her. Oh! why, why was it? By degrees a profound discouragement seized upon the poor child. Miss Blank was eloquent; she had a flow of words such as had never come to her before. She poured forth torrents of bitterness as she walked, and Kate was beaten down by the storm. By the time they reached home she had forgotten all about the sunstroke, and shaving Miss Blank’s head, and thought of nothing but getting free—getting into the silence—being alone. Maryanne put a letter into her hand as she ran upstairs; but what did she care for a letter! Everybody hated her—if it were not that she was an heiress everybody would abandon her—and she had not one friend to go to, no one whom she could ask to help her in all the dreary world. She was too far gone for weeping. She sat down before her dressing-table and looked into the glass with miserable, dilated eyes. ‘I am just like other people,’ Kate said to herself; ‘there is no mark upon me. Cain was marked; but that was because he was a murderer; and I never killed anybody, I never did any harm to anybody, that I know of. Iam only just a girl, like other girls. Oh! I suppose I am dreadfully wicked! But then everybody is wicked—the Bible says so; and how am I worse than all the rest? I don’t hate any one,’ said Kate, aloud, and very slowly. Her poor little mouth quivered, her eyes filled, and right upon the letter on her table there fell one great blob of a tear. This roused her in the midst of her distress. To Kate—as to every human being of her age—it seemed possible that something new, something wonderful might be in any letter. She took it up and tore it open. She was longing for comfort, longing for kindness, as she had never done in her life.
The letter which we are about to transcribe was not a very wise one, perhaps not even altogether to be sworn by as true—but it opened an entire new world to poor Kate.
My dearest unknown darling niece,‘You can’t remember me, for I have never seen you since you were a tiny, tiny baby in long clothes; and you have had nobody about you to remind you that you had any relations on your mother’s side. You have never answered my letters even, dear, though I don’t for a moment blame you, or suppose it is your fault. But now that I am in England, darling, we must not allow ourselves to be divided by unfortunate feelings that may exist between different sides of the family. I must see you, my dear only sister’s only darling child! I have but one child, too, my Ombra, and she is as anxious as I am. I have written to your guardian, asking if he will let you come and see us. I do not wish to go to your grand house, which was always thought too fine for us, but I must see you, my darling child; and if Mr. Courtenay will not let you come to us, my Ombra and I will come to Langton-Courtenay, to the village, where we shall no doubt find lodgings somewhere—I don’t mind how humble they are, so long as I can see you. My heart yearns to take you in my arms, to give you a hundred kisses, my own niece, my dear motherless child. Send me one little word by your own hand, and don’t reject the love that is offered you, my dearest Kate. Ombra sends you her dear love, and thinks of you, not as a cousin, but as a sister; and I, who have the best right, long for nothing so much as to be a mother to you! Come to us, my sweet child, if your uncle will let you; but, in the meantime, write to me, that I may know you a little even before we meet. With warmest love, my darling niece, your most affectionate aunt and, if you will let her be so, mother,‘Jane Anderson.’
My dearest unknown darling niece,
‘You can’t remember me, for I have never seen you since you were a tiny, tiny baby in long clothes; and you have had nobody about you to remind you that you had any relations on your mother’s side. You have never answered my letters even, dear, though I don’t for a moment blame you, or suppose it is your fault. But now that I am in England, darling, we must not allow ourselves to be divided by unfortunate feelings that may exist between different sides of the family. I must see you, my dear only sister’s only darling child! I have but one child, too, my Ombra, and she is as anxious as I am. I have written to your guardian, asking if he will let you come and see us. I do not wish to go to your grand house, which was always thought too fine for us, but I must see you, my darling child; and if Mr. Courtenay will not let you come to us, my Ombra and I will come to Langton-Courtenay, to the village, where we shall no doubt find lodgings somewhere—I don’t mind how humble they are, so long as I can see you. My heart yearns to take you in my arms, to give you a hundred kisses, my own niece, my dear motherless child. Send me one little word by your own hand, and don’t reject the love that is offered you, my dearest Kate. Ombra sends you her dear love, and thinks of you, not as a cousin, but as a sister; and I, who have the best right, long for nothing so much as to be a mother to you! Come to us, my sweet child, if your uncle will let you; but, in the meantime, write to me, that I may know you a little even before we meet. With warmest love, my darling niece, your most affectionate aunt and, if you will let her be so, mother,
‘Jane Anderson.’
Now poor Kate had only two or three times in her wholelife received a letter before. Since, as she said, she had ‘grown up,’ she had not heard from her aunt, who had written her, she recollected, one or two baby epistles, printed in large letters, in her childhood. Her poor little soul was still convulsed with the first great, open undisguised shock of unkindness, when this other great event came upon her. It was also a shock in its way. It made such a tempest in her being as conflicting winds make out at sea. The one had driven her down to the depths, the other dashed her up, up to a dizzy height. She felt dazed, insensible, proud, triumphant, and happy, all at once. Here was somebody of her own, somebody of her very own—something like the mother at the Rectory. Something new, close, certain—her own!
She dashed the tears from her eyes with a handkerchief, seized upon her letter, her dear letter, and rushed downstairs to the library, where Uncle Courtenay sat in state, the judge, and final tribunal for all appeals.
Mr. Courtenaywas in the library at Langton, tranquilly pursuing some part of the business which had brought him thither, when Miss Blank and her charge returned from their walk. His chief object, it is true, in this visit to the house of his fathers, had been to look after his ward; but there had been other business to do—leases to renew, timber to cut down, cottages to build; a multiplicity of small matters, which required his personal attention. These were straightforward, and did not trouble him as the others did; and the fact was that he felt much relieved by the absence of the young feminine problem, which it was so hard upon him, at his age, and with his habits, to be burdened with. He had dismissed her even out of his mind, and was getting through the less difficult matters steadily, with a grateful sense that here at least he had nothing in hand that was beyond his power. It was shady in the Langton library, cool, and very quiet; whereas outside there was one blaze of sunshine, and the day was hot. Mr. Courtenay was comfortable—perhaps for the first time since his arrival. He was satisfied with his present occupation, and for the moment had dismissed his other cares.
This was the pleasant position of affairs when Miss Blank rushed in upon him, with indignation in her countenance. There was something more than indignation—there was the flush of heat produced by her walk, and her unusual outburst of temper, and the dust, and a little dishevelment inseparable from wrath. She scarcely took time to knock at the door. She was a person who had been recommended to him as imperturbable in temper and languid in disposition—the last in the world to make any fuss; consequently he stared upon her now with absolute consternation, and even a little alarm.
‘Compose yourself, Miss Blank—take time to speak. Has anything happened to Kate?’
He was quite capable of hearing with composure anything that might have happened to Kate—anything short of positive injury, indeed, which would have freed him of her, would have been tidings of joy.
‘I have come to say, sir,’ said Miss Blank, ‘that there are some things a lady cannot be expected to put up with. I have always felt the time must come when I could not put up with Miss Courtenay. I am not an ill-tempered person, I hope——’
‘Quite the reverse, I have always heard,’ said Mr. Courtenay, politely, but with a sigh.
‘Thank you, sir. I believe I have always been considered to have a good temper; but I have said to myself, since ever I came here, “Miss Courtenay is bad enoughnow—she is trial enough to any lady’s feelings now.” I am sorry to have to say it if it hurts your feelings, Mr. Courtenay, but your niece s—she is—it is really almost impossible for a lady who has a respect for herself, and does not wish to be hurried into exhibitions of temper, to say what Miss Kate is.’
‘Pray compose yourself, Miss Blank. Take a seat. From my own observation,’ said Mr. Courtenay, ‘I am aware my niece must be troublesome at times.’
‘Troublesome!’ said Miss Blank—‘at times! That shows, sir, how little you know. About her troublesomeness I can’t trust myself to speak; nor is it necessary at the present moment. But I have always said to myself, “When that time comes, I will go at once.” And it appears to me, Mr. Courtenay, that though premature, that time has come.’
‘What time, for Heaven’s sake?’ said the perplexed guardian.
‘Mr. Courtenay, you know what she is as well as I do. It is not for any personal reason, though I am aware many people think her pretty; but it is not that. She is an heiress, she will have a nice property, and a great deal of money, therefore it is quite natural that it should be premature.’
‘Miss Blank, you would do me an infinite favour if you would speak plainly. What is it that is premature?’
Miss Blank had taken a seat, and she had loosed the strings of her bonnet. Her ideas of decorum had indeed been so far overcome by her excitement, that even under Mr. Courtenay’s eye she had begun to fan herself with her handkerchief. She made a pause in this occupation, and pressed her handkerchief to her face, as expressive of confusion; and from the other side of this shield she answered, ‘Oh! that I should have to speak to a gentleman of such things! If you demand a distinct answer, I must tell you. It islovers, Mr. Courtenay.’
‘Lovers!’ he said, involuntarily, with a laugh of relief.
‘You may laugh, but it is no laughing matter,’ said Miss Blank. ‘Oh! if you had known, as I do by experience, what it is to manage girls! Do you know what a girl is, Mr. Courtenay?—the most aggravating, trying, unmanageable, untamable——’
‘My dear Miss Blank,’ said, Mr. Courtenay, seriously, ‘Ipresume that you were once one of these untamable creatures yourself.’
‘Ah!’ said the governess, with a long-drawn breath. It had not occurred to her, and, curiously enough, now that it was suggested, the idea seemed rather to flatter her than otherwise. She shook her head; but she was softened. ‘Perhaps I should not have said all girls,’ she resumed. ‘I was very strictly brought up, and never allowed to take such folly into my head. But to return to our subject, Mr. Courtenay. I must beg your attention to this—it has been my principle through life, I have never departed from it yet, and I cannot now—When lovers appear, I have always made it known among my friends—I go.’
‘I have no doubt it is an admirable principle,’ said Mr. Courtenay. ‘But in the present case let us come to particulars. Who are the lovers?’
‘One of the young gentlemen at the Rectory,’ answered Miss Blank, promptly; and then for the first time she felt that she had produced an effect.
Mr. Courtenay made no reply—he put down his pen, which he had been holding all this time in his hand; his face clouded over; he pushed his paper away from him and puckered his lips and his forehead. This time, without doubt, she had produced an effect.
‘I must beg you accordingly, Mr. Courtenay, to accept my resignation,’ said Miss Blank. ‘I have always kept up a good connection, and never suffered myself to be compromised, and I don’t mean to begin now. This day month, sir, if you please—if in the meantime you are suited with another lady in my place——’
‘Miss Blank, don’t you think this is something like forsaking your post? Is it not ungenerous to desert my niece when she has so much need of your protection? Do you not feel——’ Mr. Courtenay had commenced unawares.
‘Sir,’ said Miss Blank, with dignity, ‘when I was engaged, it was specially agreed that this was to be no matter of feelings. I have specially watched over my feelings, that they might not get any way involved. I am sure you must recollect the terms of my engagement as well as I.’
Mr. Courtenay did recollect them, and felt he had made a false step; and then the difficulties of his position rushed upon his bewildered sight. He did not know girls as Miss Blank did, who had spent many a weary year in wrestling with them; but he knew enough to understand that, if a girl in her natural state was hard to manage, a girl with a lover must be worse. And what was he to do if left alone, and unaided, to rule and quiet such an appalling creature? He drew in his lips, and contracted his forehead, until his face was about half its usual size.It gave him a little relief when the idea suddenly struck him that Miss Blank’s hypothesis might not be built on sufficient foundation. Women were always thinking of lovers—or, at least, not knowing anything precisely about women, so Mr. Courtenay had heard.
‘Let us hope, at least,’ he said, ‘that your alarming suggestion has been hastily made. Will you tell me what foundation you have for connecting Kate’s name with—with anything of the kind? She is only fifteen—she is not old enough.’
‘I thought I had said distinctly, Mr. Courtenay, that I considered it to be premature?’
‘Yes, yes, certainly—you said so—but—— Perhaps, Miss Blank, you will kindly favour me with the facts——’
At this point another hurried knock came to the door. And once more, without waiting for an answer, Kate, all tears and trouble, her face flushed like Miss Blank’s, her hair astray, and an open letter in her hand, came rushing into the room. Two agitated female creatures in one hour, rushing into the private sanctuary of the most particular of bachelors! Mr. Courtenay commended her, though she was his nearest relation, to all the infernal gods.
‘What is the matter now?’ he cried, sharply. ‘Why do you burst in uninvited when I am busy? Kate, you seem to be trying every way to irritate and annoy me. What is it now?’
‘Uncle,’ cried Kate, breathlessly, ‘I have just got a letter, and I want to ask you—never mind her!—may I go to my Aunt Anderson’s? She is willing to have me, and it will save you heaps of trouble! Oh! please, Uncle Courtenay, please never mind anything else! May I go?’
‘May you go—to your Aunt Anderson? Why, here is certainly a new arrangement of the board!’ said Mr. Courtenay. He said the last words mockingly, and he fixed his eyes on Kate as if she had been a natural curiosity—which, indeed, in a great degree, she was to him.
‘Yes—to my Aunt Anderson. You spoke of her yourself—you know you did. You said she must not come here! and she does not want to come here. I don’t think she would come if she was asked! but she says I am to go to her. Uncle Courtenay, in a little while I shall be able to do what I like, and go where I like——’
‘Not for six years, my dear,’ said Mr. Courtenay, with a smile.
Kate stamped her foot in her passion.
‘If I were to write to the Lord Chancellor, I am sure he would let me!’ she cried.
‘But you are not a ward in Chancery—you are my ward,’ said Mr. Courtenay, blandly.
‘Then I will run away!’ cried Kate, once more stamping her foot. ‘I will not stay here. I hate Langton-Courtenay, and everybody that is unkind, and the people who hateme. I tell you I hate them, Uncle Courtenay! I will run away!’
‘I don’t doubt it, for one,’ said Miss Blank, quietly; ‘but with whom, Miss Kate, I should like to know? I daresay your plans are all laid.’
Mr. Courtenay did not see the blank stare of surprise with which Kate, all innocent of the meaning which was conveyed to his ear by these words, surveyed her adversary. His own better-instructed mind was moved by it to positive excitement. Even if Miss Blank had been premature in her suggestion, still there could be little doubt that lovers were a danger from which Kate could not be kept absolutely safe. And there were sons at the Rectory, one of whom, a good-looking young fellow of twenty, he had himself seen coming forward with a look of delighted recognition. Danger! Why, it was almost more than danger; it seemed a certainty of evil—if not now, why, then, next year, or the year after! Mr. Courtenay, like most old men of the world, felt an instinctive distrust of, and repugnance to, parsons. And a young parson was proverbially on the outlook for heiresses, and almost considered it a duty to provide for himself by marriage. All this ran through his disturbed mind as these two troublesome feminine personages before him waited each for her answer. ‘Confound women! They are more trouble than they are worth, a hundred times over!’ the old bachelor said to himself.
Mr. Courtenaywas much too true to his instincts, however, to satisfy these two applicants, or to commit himself by any decision on the spot. He dismissed Miss Blank with the formal courtesy which he employed towards his inferiors, begging her to wait until to-morrow, when he should have reflected upon the problem she had laid before him. And he sent away Kate with much less ceremony, bidding her hold her tongue, and leave the room and leave things alone which she did not understand. He would not listen to the angry response which rose to her lips; and Kate had a melancholy night in consequence, aggravated by the miserable sensation that she had been snubbed in presence of Miss Blank, who was quite ready to take advantage of her discomfiture. When Kate’s guardian, however, was left alone to think, it is probable that his own reflections were not delightful. He was not a man apt to take himself to task, nor give way to self-examination, but still it was sufficiently apparent to him that his plan had not succeeded as he had hoped in Kate’s case. What he had hoped for had been to produce a quiet, calm girl, who would do what she was told, whose expectations and wishes would be on a subdued scale, and who would be reasonable enough to feel that his judgment was supreme in all matters. Almost all men at one time or another of their lives entertain the idea of ‘moulding’ a model woman. Mr. Courtenay’s ideal was not high—all he wanted was submissiveness, manageableness, quiet manners, and a total absence of the sentimental and emotional. The girl might have been permitted to be clever, to be a good musician, or a good artist, or a great student, if she chose, though such peculiarities always detract more or less from the air of good society which ought to distinguish a lady; but still Mr. Courtenay prided himself upon being tolerant, and he would not have interfered in such a case. But that this ward of his, this representative of his family, should choose to be an individual being with a very strong will and marked characteristics of her own, exasperated the old man of the world. ‘Most women have no character at all,’ he repeated to himself, raising his eyebrows in wondering appeal to Providence.Had the happy period when that aphorism was true, departed along with all the other manifestations of the age of Gold?—or was it still true, and was it the fault of Providence, to punish him for his sins, that his share of womankind should be so perverse? This was a question which it was difficult to make out; but he was rather inclined to chafe at Providence, which really does interfere so unjustifiably often, when things would go very well if they were left to themselves. The longer he thought of it, the more disgusted did he become—at once with Miss Blank and with her charge. What a cold-hearted wretch the woman must be! How strange that she should not at least ‘take an interest’ in the girl! To be sure he had made it a special point in her engagement that she should not take an interest. He was right in doing so, he felt sure; but, still, here was an unforeseen crisis, at which it would have been very important to have lighted on some one who would not be bound by a mere bargain. The girl was an unmanageable little fool, determined to have her own way at all risks; and the law would not permit him to shut her up, and keep her in the absolute subjection of a prison. She must have every advantage, forsooth—freedom and society, and Heaven knows what besides; education as much as if she were going to earn her living as a governess; and even that crowning horror, Lovers, when the time came. Yes, there was no law in the realm forbidding an heiress to have lovers. Miss Blank might resign, not wishing to compromise herself: but he, the unhappy guardian, could not resign. It was not illegal for a young man to speak to Kate—any idle fellow, with an introduction, might chatter to her, and drive her protectors frantic, and yet could not be put into prison for it. And there could be little doubt that, simply to spite her guardian, after she had worried him to death in every other way, she would fall in love. She would do it, as sure as fate; and even if she met with opposition she was a girl quite capable of eloping with her lover, giving unbounded trouble, and probably throwing some lasting stigma on herself and her name. It was premature, as Miss Blank said; but Miss Blank was a person of experience, learned in the ways of girls, and doubtless knew what she was saying. She had declined to have anything further to do with Kate; she had declared her own sway and ‘lovers’ to be quite incompatible. But Mr. Courtenay could not give a month’s warning, and what was he to do?
If there was but anybody to be found who would ‘take an interest’ in the girl! This idea flashed unconsciously through his mind, and he did not even realise that in wishing for this, in perceiving its necessity, he was stultifying all the previous exertions of his guardianship. Theories are all very well, but it isastonishing how ready men are to drop them in an emergency. Mr. Courtenay was in a dreadful emergency at present, and he prayed to his gods for some one to ‘take an interest’ in this girl. Her Aunt Anderson! The suggestion was so very convenient, it was so delightfully ready a way of escape out of his troubles, that he felt it necessary to pull himself up, and look at it fully. It is not to be supposed that it was a pleasant or grateful suggestion in itself. Had he been in no trouble about Kate, he would have at once, and sternly, declined all invitations (he would have said interference) on the part of her mother’s family. The late Mr. Courtenay had made a very foolish marriage, a marriage quite beneath his position; and the sister of the late Mrs. Courtenay had been discouraged in all her many attempts to see anything of the orphan Kate. Fortunately she had not been much in England, and, until the present, these attempts had all been made when Kate was a baby. Had the young lady of Langton-Courtenay been at all manageable, they would have been equally discouraged now. But the very name of Mrs. Anderson, at this crisis, breathed across Mr. Courtenay’s tribulations like the sweet south across a bed of violets. It was such a temptation to him as he did not know how to withstand. Her mother’s family! They had no right, certainly, to any share of the good things, which were entirely on the Courtenay side; but certainly they had a right to their share of the trouble. This trouble he had borne for fifteen years, and had not murmured. Of course, in the very nature of things, it was their turn now.
Mr. Courtenay reflected very deeply on this subject, looking at it in all its details. Fortunately there were but few remnants of her mother’s family. Mrs. Anderson was the widow of a Consul, who had spent almost all his life abroad. She had a pension, a little property, and an only daughter, a little older than Kate. There were but two of them. If they turned out to be of that locust tribe which Mr. Courtenay so feared and hated, they could at least be bought off cheaply, when they had served their purpose. The daughter, no doubt, would marry, and the mother could be bought off. Mr. Courtenay did not enter into any discussion with himself as to the probabilities of carrying out this scheme of buying off. At this moment he did not care to dwell upon any difficulties. In the meantime, he had the one great difficulty, Kate herself, to get settled somehow; and anything which might happen six years hence was so much less pressing. By that time a great many things unforeseen might have happened; and Mr. Courtenay did not choose to make so long an excursion into the unknown. What was he to do with her now? Was he to be compelled to stay in the country, to give up all his pleasures and comforts, and the habits of his life, in order to guard and watch over this girl?—or should she begiven over, for the time, to the guardianship of her mother’s family? This was the real question he had to decide.
And by degrees he came to think more and more cordially of Mrs. Anderson—more cordially, and, at the same time, contemptuously. What a fool she must be, to offer voluntarily to take all this trouble! No doubt she expected to make her own advantage out of it; but Mr. Courtenay, with a grim smile upon his countenance, felt that he himself was quite capable of taking care of that. He might employ her, but he would take care that her devotion should be disinterested. She would be better than a governess at this crisis of Kate’s history! She would be a natural duenna and inspectress of morals, as well as the superintendent of education; and it should, of course, be fully impressed upon her that it was for her interest to discourage lovers, and keep the external world at arm’s length. The very place of her residence was favourable. She had settled in the Isle of Wight, a long way from Langton-Courtenay, and happily so far from town that it would not be possible to run up and down and appeal to him at any moment. He thought of this all night, and it was the first subject that returned to his thoughts in the morning. Mrs. Anderson, or unlimited worry, trouble, and annoyance—banishment to the country, severance from all delights. Then let it be Mrs. Anderson! he said to himself, with a sigh. It was hard upon him to have such a decision to make, and yet it was satisfactory to feel that he had decided for the best. He went down to breakfast with a certain solemn composure, as of a man who was doing right and making a sacrifice. It would be the salvation of his personal comfort, and to secure that, at all costs, was fundamentally and eternally right; but it was a sacrifice at once of pride and of principle, and he felt that he had a right to the honours of martyrdom on that score.
After breakfast he called his ward into the library, with a polite little speech of apology to Miss Blank. ‘If you will permit me the pleasure of a few words with you at twelve o’clock, I think we may settle that little matter,’ he said, with the greatest suavity; leaving upon that lady’s mind the impression that Kate was to be bound hand and foot, and delivered over into her hands—which, as Miss Blank had no desire, could she avoid it, to leave the comfort of Langton-Courtenay, was very satisfactory to her; and then he withdrew into the library with the victim.
‘Now, Kate,’ he said, sitting down, ‘I am going to speak to you very seriously.’
‘You have been doing nothing but speak to me seriously ever since you came,’ said Kate, pouting. ‘I wish you would not give yourself so much trouble, Uncle Courtenay. All I want is just yes or no.’
‘But a great deal depends on the yes or the no. Look here,Kate, I am willing to let you go—oh! pray don’t clap your hands too soon!—I am willing to let you go, on conditions, and the conditions are rather serious. You had better not decide until you hear——’
‘I am sure I shall not mind them,’ said impetuous Kate, before whose eyes there instantly rose up a prospect of a new world, all full of freshness, and novelty, and interest. Mind!—she would not have minded fire and water to get at an existence which should be altogether new.
‘Listen, however,’ said Mr. Courtenay. ‘My conditions are very grave. If you go to Mrs. Anderson, Kate——’
‘Of course I shall go, if you will let me, Uncle Courtenay.’
‘If you go,’ said Mr. Courtenay, with a wave of his hand deprecating interruption, ‘it must not be for a visit only—you must go to stay.’
‘To stay!’
Kate’s eyes, which grew round with the strain of wonder, interest, and excitement, and which kindled, and brightened, and shone, reflecting like a mirror the shades of feeling that passed through her mind, were a sight to see.
‘If you go,’ he continued, ‘and if Mrs. Anderson is content to receive you, it must be for the remainder of your minority. I have had a great deal of trouble with your education, and now it is just that your mother’s family should take their share. Hear me out, Kate. Your aunt, of course, should have an allowance for your maintenance, and you could have as many masters and governesses, and all the rest, as were necessary; but if you go out of my hands, you go not for six weeks, but for six years, Kate.’
Kate had been going to speak half a dozen times, but now, having controlled herself so long, she paused with a certain mixture of feelings. Her delight was certainly toned down. To go and come—to be now Queen of Langton, and now her aunt’s amused and petted guest, had been her own dream of felicity. This was a different matter, there could be no doubt. It would be the old story—if not the monotony of Langton, which she knew, the monotony of Shanklin, which she did not know. Various clouds passed over the firmament which had looked so smiling. Perhaps it was possible her Aunt Anderson and Ombra might not turn out desirable companions for six years—perhaps she might regret her native place, her supremacy over the cottagers, whom she sometimes exasperated. The cloud thickened, dropped lower. ‘Should I never be allowed to come back?—not even toseeLangton, Uncle Courtenay?’ she asked in a subdued voice.
‘Langton, in that case, ought to be let or shut up.’
‘Let!—to other people!—to strangers, Uncle Courtenay!—our house!’
‘Well, you foolish child, are we such very superior clay that we cannot let our house? Why, the best people in England do it. The Duke of Brentford does it. You have not quite his pretensions, and he does not mind.’
‘But I have quite his pretensions,’ cried Kate—‘more!—and so have you, uncle. What is he more than a gentleman? and we are gentlemen, I hope. Besides, a Duke has a vulgar sort of grandeur with his title—you know he has—and can do what he pleases; but we must act as gentlefolks. Oh! Uncle Courtenay, not that!’
‘Pshaw!’ was all that Mr. Courtenay replied. He was not open to sentimental considerations, especially when money was concerned; but, still, he had so much natural prejudice remaining in him for the race and honour of Langton-Courtenay, that he thought no worse of his troublesome ward for what she had said. He would of course pay no manner of attention to it; but still, on the whole, he liked her so to speak.
‘Let us waive the question,’ he resumed. ‘No, not to Langton-Courtenay—I don’t choose you should return here, if you quit it. But there might be change of air, once a year or so, to other places.’
‘Oh! might we go and travel?—might we go,’ cried Kate, looking up to him with shining eyes and eager looks, and lips apart, like an angelic petitioner, ‘abroad?’
She said this last word with such a fulness and roundness of sound, as it would be impossible, even in capitals, to convey through the medium of print.
‘Well,’ he said, with a smile, ‘probably that splendour and delight might be permitted to be—if you could afford it off your allowance, being always understood.’
‘Oh! of course we could afford it,’ said Kate. ‘Uncle, I consent at once—I will write to my Aunt Anderson at once. I wish she was not called Anderson—it sounds so common—like the groom in the village. Uncle Courtenay, when can I start? To-morrow? Now, why should you shake your head? I have very few things to pack; and to-morrow is just as good as any other day.’
‘Quite as good, I have no doubt; and so is to-morrow week,’ said Mr. Courtenay. ‘In the first place, you must take till to-morrow to decide.’
‘But when I have decided already!’ said Kate.
‘To-morrow at this time bring me your final answer. There, now run away—not another word.’
Kate went away, somewhat indignant; and for the next twenty-four hours did nothing but plan tours to all the beautiful places she had ever heard or read about. Her deliberations as to the scheme in general were all swallowed up in this. ‘I willtake them to Switzerland; I will take them to Italy. We shall travel four or five months in every year; and see everything and hear everything, and enjoy everything,’ she said to herself, clapping her hands, as it were, under her breath. For she was generous in her way; she was quite clear on the point that it was she who must ‘take’ her aunt and cousin everywhere, and make everything agreeable for them. Perhaps there was in this a sense of superiority which satisfied that craving for power and influence which belonged to her nature; but still, notwithstanding her defective education, it was never in Kate’s mind to keep any enjoyment to herself.
Beforefour-and-twenty hours had passed, a certain premonition of approaching change had stolen into the air at Langton-Courtenay. Miss Blank, too, had been received by Mr. Courtenay in a private audience, where he treated her with the courtesy due from one crowned head to another; but, nevertheless, gave her fully to understand that her reign was over. This took her all the more by surprise, that she had expected quite the reverse, from his words and looks in the morning; and it was perhaps an exclamation which burst from her as she withdrew, amazed and indignant, to her own room, which betrayed the possibilities of the future to the household. Miss Blank was not prone to exclamations, nor to betraying herself in any way; but to have your resignation blandly accepted, when you expected to be implored, almost with tears, to retain your post, is an experience likely to overcome the composure of any one. The exclamation itself was of the plainest character—it was, ‘Oh! I like his politeness—I like that!’ These words were heard by a passing housemaid; and not only were the words heard, but the flushed cheek, the indignant step, the air of injury were noted with all that keenness and intelligence which the domestic mind reserves for the study of the secrets of those above them. ‘She’s got the sack like the rest,’ was Jane’s remark to herself; and she spread it through the house. The intimation produced a mild interest, but no excitement. But when late in the afternoon Maryanne came rushing downstairs, open-mouthed, to report some unwary words which had dropped from her young mistress, the feelings of the household acquired immediate intensity. It was a suspecting place, and a poor sort of place, where there never were any great doings; but still Langton-Courtenay was a comfortable place, and when Maryanne, with that perverted keenness of apprehension already noticed, which made her so much more clever in divining her mistress’s schemes than doing her mistress’s work, had put Kate’s broken words together, a universal alarm took possession of the house. The housemaid, and thekitchenmaid, and the individual who served in the capacity of man-of-all-work, shook in their shoes. Mrs. Cook, however, who was housekeeper as well, shook out her ample skirts, and declared that she did not mind. ‘A house can’t take care of itself,’ she said, with noble confidence; ‘and they ain’t that clever to know now to get on without me.’ The gardener, also, was easy in his mind, secure in the fact that ‘the “place,” must be kep’ up;’ but a thrill of tremulous expectation ran through all those who were liable to be sent away.
These fears were very speedily justified. In as short a time as the post permitted, Mr. Courtenay received an effusive and enthusiastic answer from Mrs. Anderson, to whom he had written very curtly, making his proposal. This proposal was that she should receive Kate, not as a visitor, but permanently, until she attained her majority, giving her what educational advantages were within her reach, getting masters for her, and everything that was needful; and, in short, taking entire charge of her. ‘Circumstances prevent me from doing this myself,’ he wrote; ‘and, of course, a lady is better fitted to take charge of a girl at Kate’s troublesome age than I can be.’ And then he entered upon the subject of money. Kate would have an allowance of five hundred pounds a year. It was ridiculously large for a child like his niece, he thought to himself; but parsimony was not Mr. Courtenay’s weakness. For this she was to have everything a girl could require, with the exception of society, which her guardian forbade. ‘It is not my wish that she should be introduced to the world till she is of age, and I prefer to choose the time and the way myself,’ he said. With these conditions and instructions, Kate was to go, if her aunt wished it, to the Cottage.
Mrs. Anderson’s letter, as we have said, was enthusiastic. She asked, was she really to have her dearest sister’s only child under her care? and appealed to heaven and earth to testify that her delight was unspeakable. She said that her desire could only be the welfare, in every point, of ‘our darling niece!’ That nobody could be more anxious than she was to see her grow up the image of her sweet mother, ‘which, in my mind, means an example of every virtue and every grace!’ She declared that were she rich enough to give Kate all the advantages she ought to have, she would prove to Mr. Courtenay her perfect disinterestedness by refusing to accept any money with the dear child. But, for Kate’s own sake, she must accept it; adding that the provision seemed to be both ample and liberal. Mrs. Anderson went on to say that masters of every kind came to a famous school in her neighbourhood, and that Mr. Courtenay might be quite sure of darling Kate’s having every advantage. As for society, there was none, and he need be under no apprehensionon that subject. She herself lived the quietest of lives, though of course she understood that, when Mr. Courtenay said society, he did not mean that she was to be interdicted from having a friend now and then to tea. This was the utmost extent of her dissipations, and she understood, as a matter of course, that he did not refer to anything of that description. She would come herself to London, she said, to receive from his hands ‘our darling niece,’ and he could perhaps then enter into further details as to anything he specially wished in reference to a subject on which their common interest was so great. Mr. Courtenay coughed very much over this letter—it gave him an irritation in his throat. ‘The woman is a humbug as well as a fool!’ he said to himself. But yet the question was—humbug or no humbug—was she the best person to free him of the charge of Kate? And, however he might resist, his judgment told him that this was the case.
The Rectory people came to return the visit of Mr. and Miss Courtenay while the house was in this confusion and commotion. They made a most decorous call at the proper hour, and in just the proper number—Mr. and Mrs. Hardwick, and one daughter. Kate had fallen from the momentary popularity which she had attained on her first appearance at the Rectory. She was now ‘that interfering, disagreeable thing,’ to the two girls. Nevertheless, as was right, in consideration of Miss Courtenay’s age, Edith, the sensible one, accompanied her mother.
‘I am the best one to go,’ said Edith to her mother. ‘For Minnie, I am sure, would lose her temper, and it is much best not to throw her into temptation.’
‘You must be quite sure you can resist the temptation yourself,’ said Mrs. Hardwick, who had brought up her children very well indeed, and had early taught them to identify and struggle against their specially besetting sins.
‘You know, mamma, though I am sure I am a great deal worse in other things, this kind of temptation is not my danger,’ said Edith; and with this satisfactory arrangement, the party took its way to the Hall.
Kate, in the flutter of joyous excitement which attended the new change in her fortunes, was quite a new creature—not the same who had called at the Rectory, and surprised and offended them. She had forgotten all about her own naughtiness. She seized upon Edith, and drew her into a corner, eager for a listener.
‘Oh! do you know I am going away?’ she said. ‘Have you ever been away from home? Have you been abroad? Did you ever go to live among people whom you never saw before? That is what I am going to do.’
‘Oh! I am so sorry for you!’ said Edith, glad, as she afterwardsexplained to her mother, to be able to say something which should at once be amiable and true.
‘Sorry!’ said Kate—‘oh! don’t be sorry. I am very glad. I am going to my aunt, who is fond of me, though I never saw her. Going to people who are fond of you is different——’
‘Are you fond of her?’ said Edith.
‘I never saw her,’ said Kate, opening her eyes.
Here was an opportunity to be instructive such as seldom occurred, even in the schools where Miss Edith’s gift was known. The young sage laid her hand upon Kate’s, who was considerably surprised by the unlooked-for affectionateness. ‘I am older than you,’ said Edith—‘I am quite grown up. You will not mind my speaking to you? Oh! do you know, dear, what is the best way to make people fond of you?’
‘No.’
‘To love them,’ said Edith, with fervour. Kate looked at her with calm, reflective, fully-opened eyes.
‘If you can,’ she said—‘but then how can you? Besides, it is their business to begin; they are older; they ought to know more about it—to be more in the way; Uncle Courtenay, for instance—— I am sure you are very good—a great deal better than I am; but could you be fond of him?’
‘If he was my uncle—if it was my duty,’ said Edith.
‘Oh! I don’t know about duty,’ said Kate, shaking back her abundant locks. The idea did not all commend itself to her mind. ‘It is one’s duty to learn lessons,’ she went on, ‘and keep one’s temper, and not to talk too much, and that sort of thing; but to be fond of people—— However, never mind; we can talk of that another time. We are going on Monday, and I never was out of Langton-Courtenay for a single night in all my life before.’
‘Poor child!—what a trial for you!’ said Edith.
At this moment Mrs. Hardwick struck in—‘After the first is over, I am sure you will like it very much,’ she said. ‘It will be such a change. Of course it is always trying to leave home for the first time.’
‘Trying!’ cried Kate; and she rose up in the very restlessness of delight, with her eyes shining, and her hair streaming behind her. But what was the use of discussing it? Of course they could not understand. It was easier to show them over the house and the grounds than to explain her feelings to them. And both Mrs. Hardwick and Edith were deeply impressed by the splendour of Langton-Courtenay. They gave little glances at Kate of mingled surprise and admiration. After all, they felt, the possessor of such a place—the owner of the lands which stretched out as far as they could see—ought to be excused if she was a little different from other girls. ‘What a temptationit must be!’ Edith whispered to her mother; and it pleased Mrs. Hardwick to see how tolerant of other people’s difficulties her child was. Kate grew quite excited by their admiration. She rushed over all the house, leading them into a hundred quaint corners. ‘I shall fill it from top to bottom when I am of age,’ she said. ‘All those funny bedrooms have been so dreadfully quiet and lonely since ever I was born; but it shall be gay when my time comes.’
‘Oh! hush, my dear,’ said pious Mrs. Hardwick—‘don’t make so sure of the future, when we don’t know what a day or an hour may bring forth.’
‘Well,’ said Kate, holding her position stoutly, ‘if anything happens, of course there is an end of it; but if nothing happens—if I live, and all that—oh! I just wish I was one-and-twenty, to show you what I should do!’
‘Do you think it will make you happy to be so gay?’ said Edith, but with a certain wistful inquiry in her eyes, which was not like her old superiority.
‘Oh! my dear children, hush!’ repeated her mother—‘don’t talk like this. In the first place, gaiety is nothing—it is good neither for body nor soul; and besides, I cannot let you chatter so about the future. You will forgive me, my dear Miss Courtenay, for I am an old-fashioned person; but when we think how little we know about the future;—and your life will be an important one—a lesson and an example to so many. We ought to try to make ourselves of use to our fellow-creatures—and you must endeavour that the example should be a good one.’
‘Fancy me an example!’ said Kate, half to herself; and then she was silent, with a philosophy beyond her years. She did not attempt to argue; she had wit enough to see that it would be useless, and to pass on to another subject. But as she ran along the corridor, and into all the rooms, the thought of what she would make of them, when she came back, went like wine through her thrilling veins. She was glad to go away—far more glad than any one could imagine who had never lived the grey, monotonous routine of such an existence, uncheered by companions, unwarmed by love. But she would also be glad to come back—glad to enter splendidly, a young queen among her court. Her head was almost turned by this sublime idea. She would come back with new friends, new principles, new laws; she would be Queen absolute, without partner or help; she would be the lawgiver, redresser of wrongs. Her supremacy would be beneficent as the reign of an ideal sovereign; but shewouldbe supreme!
When her visitors left, she stood on the threshold of her own house, looking with shining eyes into that grand future. The shadows had all faded from her mind. She had almost forgotten,in the excitement of her new plans, all about Miss Blank’s sharp words, and the people who hated her. It would have surprised her had any one called that old figment to her recollection. Hate! there was nothing like it in that future. There was power and beneficence, and mirth and brightness. There was everything that was gay, everything that was beautiful; smiles, and bright looks, and wit, and unbounded novelty; and herself the dispenser of everything pleasant, herself always supreme! This was the dream of the future which framed itself in Kate Courtenay’s thoughts.