Countess Kate

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> Countess Kate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so poor Mrs. Lacy found them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER IV.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Was my grandpapa much older than you, Aunt Jane?"

"Only three years older, my dear."

"Then do tell me how you played with him?"

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

"Dear me how stupid! One can't do things without boys."

"No, my dear; boys always spoil girls' play, they are so rough."

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