Countess Kate

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> Countess Kate

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Sylvia, who was brushing her hair, turned round. She stared--as if
she had seen a ghost. Then the two children held out their arms, and
rushed together with a wild scream that echoed through the house, and
brought Mary flying out of her room to see who was hurt! and to find,
rolling on her sister's bed, a thing that seemed to have two bodies
and two faces glued together, four legs, and all its arms and hands
wound round and round.

"Sylvia! What is it? Who is it? What is she doing to you?" began
Mary; but before the words were out of her mouth, the thing had flown
at her neck, and pulled her down too; and the grasp and the clinging
and the kisses told her long before she had room or eyes or voice to
know the creature by. A sort of sobbing out of each name between
them was all that was heard at first.

At last, just as Mary was beginning to say, "My own own Katie! how
did you come--" Mr. Wardour's voice on the stairs called "Mary!"

"Have you seen him, my dear?"

"No;" but Kate was afraid now she had heard his voice, for it was
grave.

"Mary!" And Mary went. Kate sat up, holding Sylvia's hand.

They heard him ask, "Is Kate there?"

"Yes." And then there were lower voices that Kate could not hear,
and which therefore alarmed her; and Sylvia, puzzled and frightened,
sat holding her hand, listening silently.

Presently Mr. Wardour came in; and his look was graver than his tone;
but it was so pitying, that in a moment Kate flew to his breast, and
as he held her in his arms she cried, "O Papa! Papa! I have found
you again! you will not turn me away."

"I must do whatever may be right, my dear child," said Mr. Wardour,
holding her close, so that she felt his deep love, though it was not
an undoubting welcome. "I will hear all about it when you have
rested, and then I may know what is best to be done."

"Oh! keep me, keep me, Papa."

"You will be here to-morrow at least," he said, disengaging himself
from her. "This is a terrible proceeding of yours, Kate, but it is
no time for talking of it; and as your aunts know where you are,
nothing more can be done at present; so we will wait to understand it
till you are rested and composed."

He went away; and Kate remained sobered and confused, and Mary stood
looking at her, sad and perplexed.

"O Kate! Kate!" she said, "what have you been doing?"

"What is the matter? Are not you glad?" cried Sylvia; and the
squeeze of her hand restored Kate's spirits so much that she broke
forth with her story, told in her own way, of persecution and escape,
as she had wrought herself up to believe in it; and Sylvia clung to
her, with flushed cheeks and ardent eyes, resenting every injury that
her darling detailed, triumphing in her resistance, and undoubting
that here she would be received and sheltered from all; while Mary,
distressed and grieved, and cautioned by her father to take care not
to show sympathy that might be mischievous, was carried along in
spite of herself to admire and pity her child, and burn with
indignation at such ill-treatment, almost in despair at the idea that
the child must be sent back again, yet still not discarding that
trust common to all Mr. Wardour's children, that "Papa would do
ANYTHING to hinder a temptation."

And so, with eager words and tender hands, Kate was made ready for
the evening meal, and went down, clinging on one side to Mary, on the
other to Sylvia--a matter of no small difficulty on the narrow
staircase, and almost leading to a general avalanche of young ladies,
all upon the head of little Lily, who was running up to greet and be
greeted, and was almost devoured by Kate when at length they did get
safe downstairs.

It was a somewhat quiet, grave meal; Mr. Wardour looked so sad and
serious, that all felt that it would not do to indulge in joyous
chatter, and the little girls especially were awed; though through
all there was a tender kindness in his voice and look, whenever he
did but offer a slice of bread to his little guest, such as made her
feel what was home and what was love--"like a shower of rain after a
parched desert" as she said to herself; and she squeezed Sylvia's
hand under the table whenever she could.

Mr. Wardour spoke to her very little. He said he had seen Colonel
Umfraville's name in the Gazette, and asked about his coming home;
and when she had answered that the time and speed of the journey were
to depend on Giles's health, he turned from her to Armyn, and began
talking to him about some public matters that seemed very dull to
Kate; and one little foolish voice within her said, "He is not like
Mrs. George Wardour, he forgets what I am;" but there was a wiser,
more loving voice to answer, "Dear Papa, he thinks of me as myself;
he is no respecter of persons. Oh, I hope he is not angry with me!"

When tea was over Mr. Wardour stood up, and said, "I shall wish you
children good-night now; I have to read with John Bailey for his
Confirmation, and to prepare for to-morrow;--and you, Kate, must go
to bed early.--Mary, she had better sleep with you."

This was rather a blank, for sleeping with Sylvia again had been
Kate's dream of felicity; yet this was almost lost in the sweetness
of once more coming in turn for the precious kiss and good-night, in
the midst of which she faltered, "O Papa, don't be angry with me!"

"I am not angry, Katie," he said gently; "I am very sorry. You have
done a thing that nothing can justify, and that may do you much
future harm; and I cannot receive you as if you had come properly. I
do not know what excuse there was for you, and I cannot attend to you
to-night; indeed, I do not think you could tell me rightly; but
another time we will talk it all over, and I will try to help you.
Now good-night, my dear child."

Those words of his, "I will try to help you," were to Kate like a
promise of certain rescue from all her troubles; and, elastic ball
that her nature was, no sooner was his anxious face out of sight, and
she secure that he was not angry, than up bounded her spirits again.
She began wondering why Papa thought she could not tell him properly,
and forthwith began to give what she intended for a full and
particular history of all that she had gone through.

It was a happy party round the fire; Kate and Sylvia both together in
the large arm-chair, and Lily upon one of its arms; Charles in
various odd attitudes before the fire; Armyn at the table with his
book, half reading, half listening; Mary with her work; and Kate
pouring out her story, making herself her own heroine, and describing
her adventures, her way of life, and all her varieties of miseries,
in the most glowing colours. How she did rattle on! It would be a
great deal too much to tell; indeed it would be longer than this
whole story!

Sylvia and Charlie took it all in, pitied, wondered, and were
indignant, with all their hearts; indeed Charlie was once heard to
wish he could only get that horrid old witch near the horse-pond; and
when Kate talked of her Diana face, he declared that he should get
the old brute of a cat into the field, and set all the boys to stone
her.

Little Lily listened, not sure whether it was not all what she called
"a made-up story only for prettiness;" and Mary, sitting over her
work, was puzzled, and saw that her father was right in saying that
Kate could not at present give an accurate account of herself. Mary
knew her truthfulness, and that she would not have said what she knew
to be invention; but those black eyes, glowing like little hot coals,
and those burning cheeks, as well as the loud, squeaky key of the
voice, all showed that she had worked herself up into a state of
excitement, such as not to know what was invented by an exaggerating
memory. Besides, it could not be all true; it did not agree; the
ill-treatment was not consistent with the grandeur. For Kate had
taken to talking very big, as if she was an immensely important
personage, receiving much respect wherever she went; and though Armyn
once or twice tried putting in a sober matter-of-fact question for
the fun of disconcerting her, she was too mad to care or understand
what he said.

"Oh no! she never was allowed to do anything for herself. That was
quite a rule, and very tiresome it was."

"Like the King of Spain, you can't move your chair away from the fire
without the proper attendant."

"I never do put on coals or wood there!"

"There may be several reasons for that," said Armyn, recollecting how
nearly Kate had once burnt the house down.

"Oh, I assure you it would not do for me," said Kate. "If it were
not so inconvenient in that little house, I should have my own man-
servant to attend to my fire, and walk out behind me. Indeed, now
Perkins always does walk behind me, and it is such a bore."

And what was the consequence of all this wild chatter? When Mary had
seen the hot-faced eager child into bed, she came down to her brother
in the drawing-room with her eyes brimful of tears, saying, "Poor
dear child! I am afraid she is very much spoilt!"

"Don't make up your mind to-night," said Armyn. "She is slightly
insane as yet! Never mind, Mary; her heart is in the right place, if
her head is turned a little."

"It is very much turned indeed," said Mary. "How wise it was of Papa
not to let Sylvia sleep with her! What will he do with her? Oh
dear!"

CHAPTER XIII.

The Sunday at Oldburgh was not spent as Kate would have had it. It
dawned upon her in the midst of horrid dreams, ending by wakening to
an overpowering sick headache, the consequence of the agitations and
alarms of the previous day, and the long fast, appeased by the
contents of the pastry-cook's shop, with the journey and the
excitement of the meeting--altogether quite sufficient to produce
such a miserable feeling of indisposition, that if Kate could have
thought at all of anything but present wretchedness, she would have
feared that she was really carrying out the likeness to Cardinal
Wolsey by laying her bones among them.

That it was not quite so bad as that, might be inferred from her
having no doctor but Mary Wardour, who attended to her most
assiduously from her first moans at four o'clock in the morning, till
her dropping off to sleep about noon; when the valiant Mary, in the
absence of everyone at church, took upon herself to pen a note, to
catch the early Sunday post, on her own responsibility, to Lady
Barbara Umfraville, to say that her little cousin was so unwell that
it would be impossible to carry out the promise of bringing her home
on Monday, which Mr. Wardour had written on Saturday night.

Sleep considerably repaired her little ladyship; and when she had
awakened, and supped up a bason of beef-tea, toast and all, with
considerable appetite, she was so much herself again, that there was
no reason that anyone should be kept at home to attend to her.
Mary's absence was extremely inconvenient, as she was organist and
leader of the choir.

"So, Katie dear," she said, when she saw her patient on her legs
again, making friends with the last new kitten of the old cat, "you
will not mind being left alone, will you? It is only for the Litany
and catechising, you know."

Kate looked blank, and longed to ask that Sylvia might stay with her,
but did not venture; knowing that she was not ill enough for it to be
a necessity, and that no one in that house was ever kept from church,
except for some real and sufficient cause.

But the silly thoughts that passed through the little head in the
hour of solitude would fill two or three volumes. In the first
place, she was affronted. They made very little of her, considering
who she was, and how she had come to see them at all risks, and how
ill she had been! They would hardly have treated a little village
child so negligently as their visitor, the Countess -

Then her heart smote her. She remembered Mary's tender and assiduous
nursing all the morning, and how she had already stayed from service
and Sunday school; and she recollected her honour for her friends for
not valuing her for her rank; and in that mood she looked out the
Psalms and Lessons, which she had not been able to read in the
morning, and when she had finished them, began to examine the book-
case in search of a new, or else a very dear old, Sunday book.

But then something went "crack,"--or else it was Kate's fancy--for
she started as if it had been a cannon-ball; and though she sat with
her book in her lap by the fire in Mary's room, all the dear old
furniture and pictures round her, her head was weaving an unheard-of
imagination, about robbers coming in rifling everything--coming up
the stairs--creak, creak, was that their step?--she held her breath,
and her eyes dilated--seizing her for the sake of her watch! What
article there would be in the paper--"Melancholy disappearance of the
youthful Countess of Caergwent." Then Aunt Barbara would be sorry
she had treated her so cruelly; then Mary would know she ought not to
have abandoned the child who had thrown herself on her protection.

That was the way Lady Caergwent spent her hour. She had been
kidnapped and murdered a good many times before; there was a buzz in
the street, her senses came back, and she sprang out on the stairs to
meet her cousins, calling herself quite well again. And then they
had a very peaceful, pleasant time; she was one of them again, when,
as of old, Mr. Wardour came into the drawing-room, and she stood up
with Charles, Sylvia, and little Lily, who was now old enough for the
Catechism, and then the Collect, and a hymn. Yes, she had Collect
and hymn ready too, and some of the Gospel; Aunt Barbara always heard
her say them on Sunday, besides some very difficult questions, not at
all like what Mr. Wardour asked out of his own head.

Kate was a little afraid he would make his teaching turn on
submitting to rulers; it was an Epistle that would have given him a
good opportunity, for it was the Fourth Epiphany Sunday, brought in
at the end of the Sundays after Trinity. If he made his teaching
personal, something within her wondered if she could bear it, and was
ready to turn angry and defiant. But no such thing; what he talked
to them about was the gentle Presence that hushed the waves and winds
in outward nature, and calmed the wild spiritual torments of the
possessed; and how all fears and terrors, all foolish fancies and
passionate tempers, will be softened into peace when the thought of
Him rises in the heart.

Kate wondered if she should be able to think of that next time she
was going to work herself into an agony.

But at present all was like a precious dream, to be enjoyed as slowly
as the moments could be persuaded to pass. Out came the dear old
Dutch Bible History, with pictures of everything--pictures that they
had looked at every Sunday since they could walk, and could have
described with their eyes shut; and now Kate was to feast her eyes
once again upon them, and hear how many little Lily knew; and a
pretty sight it was, that tiny child, with her fat hands clasped
behind her so as not to be tempted to put a finger on the print,
going so happily and thoroughly through all the creatures that came
to Adam to be named, and showing the whole procession into the Ark,
and, her favourite of all, the Angels coming down to Jacob.

Then came tea; and then Kate was pronounced, to her great delight,
well enough for Evening Service. The Evening Service she always
thought a treat, with the lighted church, and the choicest singing--
the only singing that had ever taken hold of Kate's tuneless ear, and
that seemed to come home to her. At least, to-night it came home as
it had never done before; it seemed to touch some tender spot in her
heart, and when she thought how dear it was, and how little she had
cared about it, and how glad she had been to go away, she found the
candles dancing in a green mist, and great drops came down upon the
Prayer-book in her hand.

Then it could not be true that she had no feeling. She was crying--
the first time she had ever known herself cry except for pain or at
reproof; and she was really so far pleased, that she made no attempt
to stop the great tears that came trickling down at each familiar
note, at each thought how long it had been since she had heard them.
She cried all church time; for whenever she tried to attend to the
prayers, the very sound of the voice she loved so well set her off
again; and Sylvia, tenderly laying a hand on her by way of sympathy,
made her weep the more, though still so softly and gently that it was
like a strange sort of happiness--almost better than joy and
merriment. And then the sermon--upon the text, "Peace, be still,"--
was on the same thought on which her uncle had talked to the
children: not that she followed it much; the very words "peace" and
"be still," seemed to be enough to touch, soften, and dissolve her
into those sweet comfortable tears.

Perhaps they partly came from the weakening of the morning's
indisposition; at any rate, when she moved, after the Blessing,
holding the pitying Sylvia's hand, she found that she was very much
tired, her eyelids were swollen and aching, and in fact she was fit
for nothing but bed, where Mary and Sylvia laid her; and she slept,
and slept in dreamless soundness, till she was waked by Mary's
getting up in the morning, and found herself perfectly well.

"And now, Sylvia," she said, as they went downstairs hand-in-hand,
"let us put it all out of our heads, and try and think all day that
it is just one of our old times, and that I am your old Kate. Let me
do my lessons and go into school, and have some fun, and quite forget
all that is horrid."

But there was something to come before this happy return to old
times. As soon as breakfast was over Mr Wardour said, "Now, Kate, I
want you." And then she knew what was coming; and somehow, she did
not feel exactly the same about her exploit and its causes by broad
daylight, now that she was cool. Perhaps she would have been glad to
hang back; yet on the whole, she had a great deal to say to "Papa,"
and it was a relief, though rather terrific, to find herself alone
with him in the study.

"Now, Kate," said he again, with his arm round her, as she stood by
him, "will you tell me what led you to this very sad and strange
proceeding?"

Kate hung her head, and ran her fingers along the mouldings of his
chair.

"Why was it, my dear?" asked Mr. Wardour.

"It was--" and she grew bolder at the sound of her own voice, and
more confident in the goodness of her cause--"it was because Aunt
Barbara said I must write what was not true, and--and I'll never tell
a falsehood--never, for no one!" and her eyes flashed.

"Gently, Kate," he said, laying his hand upon hers; "I don't want to
know what you never WILL do, only what you have done. What was this
falsehood?"

"Why, Papa, the other Sylvia--Sylvia Joanna, you know--has her
birthday to-day, and we settled at Bournemouth that I should spend
the day with her; and on Saturday, when Aunt Barbara heard of it, she
said she did not want me to be intimate there, and that I must not
go, and told me to write a note to say she had made a previous
engagement for me."

"And do you know that she had not done so?"

"O Papa! she could not; for when I said I would not write a lie, she
never said it was true."

"Was that what you said to your aunt?"

"Yes,"--and Kate hung her head--"I was in a passion."

"Then, Kate, I do not wonder that Lady Barbara insisted on obedience,
instead of condescending to argue with a child who could be so
insolent."

"But, Papa," said Kate, abashed for a moment, then getting eager,
"she does tell fashionable falsehoods; she says she is not at home
when she is, and--"

"Stay, Kate; it is not for you to judge of grown people's doings.
Neither I nor Mary would like to use that form of denying ourselves;
but it is usually understood to mean only not ready to receive
visitors. In the same way, this previous engagement was evidently
meant to make the refusal less discourteous, and you were not even
certain it did not exist."

"My Italian mistress did want to come on Monday," faltered Kate, "but
it was not 'previous.'"

"Then, Kate, who was it that went beside the mark in letting us
believe that Lady Barbara locked you up to make you tell falsehoods?"

"Indeed, Papa, I did not say locked--Charlie and Sylvia said that."

"But did you correct them?"

"O Papa, I did not mean it! But I am naughty now! I always am
naughty, so much worse than I used to be at home. Indeed I am, and I
never do get into a good vein now. O Papa, Papa, can't you get me
out of it all? If you could only take me home again! I don't think
my aunts want to keep me--they say I am so bad and horrid, and that I
make Aunt Jane ill. Oh, take me back, Papa!"

He did take her on his knee, and held her close to him. "I wish I
could, my dear," he said; "I should like to have you again! but it
cannot be. It is a different state of life that has been appointed
for you; and you would not be allowed to make your home with me, with
no older a person than Mary to manage for you. If your aunt had not
been taken from us, then--" and Kate ventured to put her arm round
his neck--"then this would have been your natural home; but as things
are with us, I could not make my house such as would suit the
requirements of those who arrange for you. And, my poor child, I
fear we let the very faults spring up that are your sorrow now."

"Oh no, no, Papa, you helped me! Aunt Barbara only makes me--oh! may
I say?--hate her! for indeed there is no helping it! I can't be good
there."

"What is it? What do you mean, my dear? What is your difficulty?
And I will try to help you."

Poor Kate found it not at all easy to explain when she came to
particulars. "Always cross," was the clearest idea in her mind;
"never pleased with her, never liking anything she did--not
punishing, but much worse." She had not made out her case, she knew;
but she could only murmur again, "It all went wrong, and I was very
unhappy."

Mr. Wardour sighed from the bottom of his heart; he was very
sorrowful, too, for the child that was as his own. And then he went
back and thought of his early college friend, and of his own wife who
had so fondled the little orphan--all that was left of her sister.
It was grievous to him to put that child away from him when she came
clinging to him, and saying she was unhappy, and led into faults.

"It will be better when your uncle comes home," he began.

"Oh no, Papa, indeed it will not. Uncle Giles is more stern than
Aunt Barbara. Aunt Jane says it used to make her quite unhappy to
see how sharp he was with poor Giles and Frank."

"I never saw him in his own family," said Mr. Wardour thoughtfully;
"but this I know, Kate, that your father looked up to him, young as
he then was, more than to anyone; that he was the only person among
them all who ever concerned himself about you or your mother; and
that on the two occasions when I saw him, I thought him very like
your father."

"I had rather he was like you, Papa," sighed Kate. "Oh, if I was but
your child!" she added, led on by a little involuntary pressure of
his encircling arm.

"Don't let us talk of what is not, but of what is," said Mr. Wardour;
"let us try to look on things in their right light. It has been the
will of Heaven to call you, my little girl, to a station where you
will, if you live, have many people's welfare depending on you, and
your example will be of weight with many. You must go through
training for it, and strict training may be the best for you.
Indeed, it must be the best, or it would not have been permitted to
befall you."

"But it does not make me good, it makes me naughty."

"No, Kate; nothing, nobody can make you naughty; nothing is strong
enough to do that."

Kate knew what he meant, and hung her head.

"My dear, I do believe that you feel forlorn and dreary, and miss the
affection you have had among us; but have you ever thought of the
Friend who is closest of all to us, and who is especially kind to a
fatherless child?"

"I can't--I can't feel it--Papa, I can't. And then, why was it made
so that I must go away from you and all?"

"You will see some day, though you cannot see now, my dear. If you
use it rightly, you will feel the benefit. Meantime, you must take
it on trust, just as you do my love for you, though I am going to
carry you back."

"Yes; but I can feel you loving me."

"My dear child, it only depends on yourself to feel your Heavenly
Father loving you. If you will set yourself to pray with your heart,
and think of His goodness to you, and ask Him for help and solace in
all your present vexatious and difficulties, never mind how small,
you WILL become conscious of his tender pity and love to you."

"Ah! but I am not good!"

"But He can make you so, Kate. Your have been wearied by religious
teaching hitherto, have you not?"

"Except when it was pretty and like poetry," whispered Kate.

"Put your heart to your prayers now, Kate. Look in the Psalms for
verses to suit your loneliness; recollect that you meet us in spirit
when you use the same Prayers, read the same Lessons, and think of
each other. Or, better still, carry your troubles to Him; and when
you HAVE felt His help, you will know what that is far better than I
can tell you."

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