Countess Kate

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> Countess Kate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Loch Lomond, Loch Katrine, Loch Awe, Loch Ness?--But I don't do my
geography out of doors!"

"'Tisn't geography; 'tis the 'The Lady of the Lake.'"

"Is that a new game?"

"Dear me! did you never read 'The Lady of the Lake?'--Sir Walter
Scott's poem -

'The summer dawn's reflected hue--'"

"Oh! I've learnt that in my extracts; but I never did my poetry task
out of doors!"

"'Tisn't a task--'tis beautiful poetry! Don't you like poetry better
than anything?"

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

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

"And how?"

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

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

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

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

and then I'll tell you what to do."

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

"Miladi l'a stupefaite--la pauvre petite!" began Josephine; and Kate
in consternation asking what was the matter, and Josephine
encouraging her, it was all sobbed out. She did not like to be
called Ellen--and she thought it unkind to send her into banishment--
and she had fancied she was to get astride on her hoop, which she
justly thought highly improper--and above all, she could not bear to
say 'Father'--because -

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

"No--so you didn't care."

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

"But I don't like you to be killed."

"It is only in play."

"Please--please, let us have a nice play!"

"Well, what do you call a nice play?"

"Alice and I used to drive hoops."

"That's tiresome! My hoop always tumbles down: think of something
else."

"Alice and I used to play at ball; but there's no ball here!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER X.

It had been intended that Mrs. Lacy should rejoin her pupil at
Bournemouth at the end of six weeks; but in her stead came a letter
saying that she was unwell, and begging for a fortnight's grace. At
the fortnight's end came another letter; to which Lady Barbara
answered that all was going on so well, that there was no need to
think of returning till they should all meet in London on the 1st of
October.

But before that 1st, poor Mrs. Lacy wrote again, with great regret
and many excuses for the inconvenience she was causing. Her son and
her doctor had insisted on her resigning her situation at once; and
they would not even allow her to go back until her place could be
supplied.

"Poor thing!" said Lady Jane. "I always thought it was too much for
her. I wish we could have made her more comfortable: it would have
been such a thing for her!"

"So it would," answered Lady Barbara, "if she had had to do with any
other child. A little consideration or discretion, such as might
have been expected from a girl of eleven years old towards a person
in her circumstances, would have made her happy, and enabled her to
assist her son. But I have given up expecting feeling from
Katharine."

That speech made Kate swell with anger at her aunt's tone and in her
anger she forgot to repent of having been really thoughtless and
almost unkind, or to recollect how differently her own gentle Sylvia
at home would have behaved to the poor lady. She liked the notion of
novelty, and hoped for a new governess as kind and bright as Miss
Oswald.

Moreover, she was delighted to find that Mrs. George Wardour was
going to live in London for the present, that Alice might be under
doctors, and Sylvia under masters. Kate cared little for the why,
but was excessively delighted with plans for meeting, hopes of walks,
talks, and tea-drinkings together; promises that the other dear
Sylvia should come to meet her; and above all, an invitation to spend
Sylvia Joanna's birthday with her on the 21st of October, and go all
together either to the Zoological Gardens or to the British Museum,
according to the weather.

With these hopes, Kate was only moderately sorry to leave the sea and
pine-trees behind her, and find herself once more steaming back to
London, carrying in her hand a fine blue and white travelling-bag,
worked for her by her two little friends, but at which Lady Barbara
had coughed rather dryly. In the bag were a great many small white
shells done up in twists of paper, that pretty story "The Blue
Ribbons," and a small blank book, in which, whenever the train
stopped, Kate wrote with all her might. For Kate had a desire to
convince Sylvia Joanna that one was much happier without being a
countess, and she thought this could be done very touchingly and
poetically by a fable in verse; so she thought she had a very good
idea by changing the old daisy that pined for transplantation and
found it very unpleasant, into a harebell.

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