Countess Kate

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> Countess Kate

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A harebell blue on a tuft of moss
In the wind her bells did toss.

That was her beginning; and the poor harebell was to get into a hot-
house, where they wanted to turn her into a tall stately campanula,
and she went through a great deal from the gardeners. There was to
be a pretty fairy picture to every verse; and it would make a
charming birthday present, much nicer than anything that could be
bought; and Kate kept on smiling to herself as the drawings came
before her mind's eye, and the rhymes to her mind's ear.

So they came home; but it was odd, the old temper of the former
months seemed to lay hold of Kate as soon as she set foot in the
house in Bruton Street, as if the cross feelings were lurking in the
old corners.

She began by missing Mrs. Lacy very much. The kind soft governess
had made herself more loved than the wayward child knew; and when
Kate had run into the schoolroom and found nobody sitting by the
fire, no sad sweet smile to greet her, no one to hear her adventures,
and remembered that she had worried the poor widow, and that she
would never come back again, she could have cried, and really had a
great mind to write to her, ask her pardon, and say she was sorry.
It would perhaps have been the beginning of better things if she had;
but of all things in the world, what prevented her? Just this--that
she had an idea that her aunt expected it of her! O Kate! Kate!

So she went back to the harebell, and presently began rummaging among
her books for a picture of one to copy; and just then Lady Barbara
came in, found half a dozen strewn on the floor, and ordered her to
put them tidy, and then be dressed. That put her out, and after her
old bouncing fashion she flew upstairs, caught her frock in the old
hitch at the turn, and half tore off a flounce.

No wonder Lady Barbara was displeased; and that was the beginning of
things going wrong--nay, worse than before the going to Bournemouth.
Lady Barbara was seeking for a governess, but such a lady as she
wished for was not to be found in a day; and in the meantime she was
resolved to do her duty by her niece, and watched over her behaviour,
and gave her all the lessons that she did not have from masters.

Whether it was that Lady Barbara did not know exactly what was to be
expected of a little girl, or whether Kate was more fond of praise
than was good for her, those daily lessons were more trying than ever
they had been. Generally she had liked them; but with Aunt Barbara,
the being told to sit upright, hold her book straight, or pronounce
her words rightly, always teased her, and put her out of humour at
the beginning. Or she was reminded of some failure of yesterday, and
it always seemed to her unjust that bygones should not be bygones; or
even when she knew she had been doing her best, her aunt always
thought she could have done better, so that she had no heart or
spirit to try another time, but went on in a dull, save-trouble way,
hardly caring to exert herself to avoid a scolding, it was so certain
to come.

It was not right--a really diligent girl would have won for herself
the peaceful sense of having done her best, and her aunt would have
owned it in time; whereas poor Kate's resistance only made herself
and her aunt worse to each other every day, and destroyed her sense
of duty and obedience more and more.

Lady Barbara could not be always with her, and when once out of sight
there was a change. If she were doing a lesson with one of her
masters, she fell into a careless attitude in an instant, and would
often chatter so that there was no calling her to order, except by
showing great determination to tell her aunt. It made her feel both
sly and guilty to behave so differently out of sight, and yet now
that she had once begun she seemed unable to help going on and she
was sure, foolish child, that Aunt Barbara's strictness made her
naughty!

Then there were her walks. She was sent out with Josephine in the
morning and desired to walk nowhere but in the Square; and in the
afternoon she and Josephine were usually set down by the carriage
together in one of the parks, and appointed where to meet it again
after Lady Jane had taken her airing when she was well enough, for
she soon became more ailing than usual. They were to keep in the
quiet paths, and not speak to anyone.

But neither Josephine nor her young lady had any turn for what was
"triste." One morning, when Kate was in great want of a bit of
India-rubber, and had been sighing because of the displeasure she
should meet for having lost her own through using it in play-hours,
Josephine offered to take her--only a little out of her way--to buy a
new piece.

Kate knew this was not plain dealing, and hated herself for it, but
she was tired of being scolded, and consented! And then how
miserable she was; how afraid of being asked where she had been; how
terrified lest her aunt should observe that it was a new, not an old,
piece; how humiliated by knowing she was acting untruth!

And then Josephine took more liberties. When Kate was walking along
the path, thinking how to rhyme to "pride," she saw Josephine talking
over the iron rail to a man with a beard; and she told her maid
afterwards that it was wrong; but Josephine said, "Miladi had too
good a heart to betray her," and the man came again and again, and
once even walked home part of the way with Josephine, a little behind
the young lady.

Kate was desperately affronted, and had a great mind to complain to
her aunts. But then Josephine could have told that they had not been
in the Square garden at all that morning, but in much more
entertaining streets! Poor Kate, these daily disobediences did not
weigh on her nearly as much as the first one did; it was all one
general sense of naughtiness!

Working at her harebell was the pleasantest thing she did, but her
eagerness about it often made her neglectful and brought her into
scrapes. She had filled one blank book with her verses and pictures,
some rather good, some very bad; and for want of help and correction
she was greatly delighted with her own performance, and thought it
quite worthy of a little ornamental album, where she could write out
the verses and gum in the drawings.

"Please, Aunt Barbara, let me go to the Soho Bazaar to-day?"

"I cannot take you there, I have an engagement."

"But may I not go with Josephine?"

"Certainly not. I would not trust you there with her. Besides, you
spend too much upon trumpery, as it is."

"I don't want it for myself; I want something to get ready for
Sylvia's birthday--the Sylvia that is come to London, I mean."

"I do not approve of a habit of making presents."

"Oh! but, Aunt Barbara, I am to drink tea with her on her birthday,
and spend the day, and go to the Zoological Gardens, and I have all
ready but my presents! and it will not be in time if you won't let me
go to-day."

"I never grant anything to pertinacity," answered Lady Barbara. "I
have told you that I cannot go with you to-day, and you ought to
submit."

"But the birthday, Aunt Barbara!"

"I have answered you once, Katharine; you ought to know better than
to persist."

Kate pouted, and the tears swelled in her eyes at the cruelty of
depriving her of the pleasure of making her purchase, and at having
her beautiful fanciful production thus ruined by her aunt's
unkindness. As she sat over her geography lesson, out of sight of
her own bad writing, her broken-backed illuminated capitals, her
lumpy campanulas, crooked-winged fairies, queer perspective, and dabs
of blue paint, she saw her performance not as it was, but as it was
meant to be, heard her own lines without their awkward rhymes and
bits like prose, and thought of the wonder and admiration of all the
Wardour family, and of the charms of having it secretly lent about as
a dear simple sweet effusion of the talented young countess, who
longed for rural retirement. And down came a great tear into the red
trimming of British North America, and Kate unadvisedly trying to
wipe it up with her handkerchief, made a red smear all across to Cape
Verd! Formerly she would have exclaimed at once; now she only held
up the other side of the book that her aunt might not see, and felt
very shabby all the time. But Lady Barbara was reading over a
letter, and did not look. If Kate had not been wrapt up in herself,
she would have seen that anxious distressed face.

There came a knock to the schoolroom door. It was Mr. Mercer, the
doctor, who always came to see Lady Jane twice a week, and startled
and alarmed, Lady Barbara sprang up. "Do you want me, Mr. Mercer?
I'll come."

"No, thank you," said the doctor, coming in. "It was only that I
promised I would look at this little lady, just to satisfy Lady Jane,
who does not think her quite well."

Kate's love of being important always made her ready to be looked at
by Mr. Mercer, who was a kind, fatherly old gentleman, not greatly
apt to give physic, very good-natured, and from his long attendance
more intimate with the two sisters than perhaps any other person was.
Lady Barbara gave an odd sort of smile, and said, "Oh! very well!"
and the old gentleman laughed as the two bright clear eyes met his,
and said, "No great weight there, I think! Only a geography fever,
eh? Any more giddy heads lately, eh? Or only when you make
cheeses?"

"I can't make cheeses now, my frocks are so short," said Kate, whose
spirits always recovered with the least change.

"No more dreams?"

"Not since I went to Bournemouth."

"Your tongue." And as Kate, who had a certain queer pleasure in the
operation, put out the long pinky member with its ruddier tip,
quivering like an animal, he laughed again, and said, "Thank you,
Lady Caergwent; it is a satisfaction once in a way to see something
perfectly healthy! You would not particularly wish for a spoonful of
cod-liver oil, would you?"

Kate laughed, made a face, and shook her head.

"Well," said the doctor as he released her, "I may set Lady Jane's
mind at rest. Nothing the matter there with the health."

"Nothing the matter but perverseness, I am afraid," said Lady
Barbara, as Kate stole back to her place, and shut her face in with
the board of her atlas. "It is my sister who is the victim, and I
cannot have it go on. She is so dreadfully distressed whenever the
child is in disgrace that it is doing her serious injury. Do you not
see it, Mr. Mercer?"

"She is very fond of the child," said Mr. Mercer.

"That is the very thing! She is constantly worrying herself about
her, takes all her naughtiness for illness, and then cannot bear to
see her reproved. I assure you I am forced for my sister's sake to
overlook many things which I know I ought not to pass by." (Kate
shuddered.) "But the very anxiety about her is doing great harm."

"I thought Lady Jane nervous and excited this morning," said Mr.
Mercer: "but that seemed to me to be chiefly about the Colonel's
return."

"Yes," said Lady Barbara, "of course in some ways it will be a great
pleasure; but it is very unlucky, after staying till the war was
over, that he has had to sell out without getting his promotion. It
will make a great difference!"

"On account of his son's health, is it not?"

"Yes; of course everything must give way to that, but it is most
unfortunate. The boy has never recovered from his wound at Lucknow,
and they could not bear to part, or they ought to have sent him home
with his mother long ago; and now my brother has remained at his post
till he thought he could be spared; but he has not got his promotion,
which he must have had in a few months."

"When do you expect him?"

"They were to set off in a fortnight from the time he wrote, but it
all depended on how Giles might be. I wish we knew; I wish there
could be any certainty, this is so bad for my sister. And just at
this very time, without a governess, when some children would be
especially thoughtful and considerate, that we should have this
strange fit of idleness and perverseness! It is very trying; I feel
quite hopeless sometimes!"

Some children, as Lady Barbara said, would have been rendered
thoughtful and considerate by hearing such a conversation as this,
and have tried to make themselves as little troublesome to their
elders as possible; but there are others who, unless they are
directly addressed, only take in, in a strange dreamy way, that which
belongs to the grown-up world, though quick enough to catch what
concerns themselves. Thus Kate, though aware that Aunt Barbara
thought her naughtiness made Aunt Jane ill, and that there was a
fresh threat of the Lord Chancellor upon the return of her great-
uncle from India, did not in the least perceive that her Aunt Barbara
was greatly perplexed and harassed, divided between her care for her
sister and for her niece, grieved for her brother's anxiety, and
disappointed that he had been obliged to leave the army, instead of
being made a General. The upshot of all that she carried away with
her was, that it was very cross of Aunt Barbara to think she made
Aunt Jane ill, and very very hard that she could not go to the
bazaar.

Lady Jane did not go out that afternoon, and Lady Barbara set her
niece and Josephine down in the Park, saying that she was going into
Belgravia, and desiring them to meet her near Apsley House. They
began to walk, and Kate began to lament. "If she could only have
gone to the bazaar for her album! It was very hard!"

"Eh," Josephine said, "why should they not go? There was plenty of
time. Miladi Barbe had given them till four. She would take la
petite."

Kate hung back. She knew it was wrong. She should never dare
produce the book if she had it.

But Josephine did not attend to the faltered English words, or
disposed of them with a "Bah! Miladi will guess nothing!" and she
had turned decidedly out of the Park, and was making a sign to a cab.
Kate was greatly frightened, but was more afraid of checking
Josephine in the open street, and making her dismiss the cab, than of
getting into it. Besides, there was a very strong desire in her for
the red and gold square book that had imprinted itself on her
imagination. She could not but be glad to do something in spite of
Aunt Barbara. So they were shut in, and went off along Piccadilly,
Kate's feelings in a strange whirl of fright and triumph, amid the
clattering of the glasses. Just suppose she saw anyone she knew!

But they got to Soho Square at last; and through the glass door, in
among the stalls--that fairy land in general to Kate; but now she was
too much frightened and bewildered to do more than hurry along the
passages, staring so wildly for her albums, that Josephine touched
her, and said, "Tenez, Miladi, they will think you farouche. Ah! see
the beautiful wreaths!"

"Come on, Josephine," said Kate impatiently.

But it was not so easy to get the French maid on. A bazaar was
felicity to her, and she had her little lady in her power; she stood
and gazed, admired, and criticised, at every stall that afforded
ornamental wearing apparel or work patterns; and Kate, making little
excursions, and coming back again to her side, could not get her on
three yards in a quarter of an hour, and was too shy and afraid of
being lost, to wander away and transact her own business. At last
they did come to a counter with ornamental stationery; and after
looking at four or five books, Kate bought a purple embossed one, not
at all what she had had in her mind's eye, just because she was in
too great a fright to look further; and then step by step, very
nearly crying at last, so as to alarm Josephine lest she should
really cry, she got her out at last. It was a quarter to four, and
Josephine was in vain sure that Miladi Barbe would never be at the
place in time; Kate's heart was sick with fright at the thought of
the shame of detection.

She begged to get out at the Marble Arch, and not risk driving along
Park Lane; but Josephine was triumphant in her certainty that there
was time; and on they went, Kate fancying every bay nose that passed
the window would turn out to have the brougham, the man-servant, and
Aunt Barbara behind it.

At length they were set down at what the Frenchwoman thought a safe
distance, and paying the cabman, set out along the side path,
Josephine admonishing her lady that it was best not to walk so
swiftly, or to look guilty, or they would be "trahies."

But just then Kate really saw the carriage drawn up where there was
an opening in the railings, and the servant holding open the door for
them. Had they been seen? There was no knowing! Lady Barbara did
not say one single word; but that need not have been surprising--only
how very straight her back was, how fixed her marble mouth and chin!
It was more like Diana's head than ever--Diana when she was shooting
all Niobe's daughters, thought Kate, in her dreamy, vague alarm.
Then she looked at Josephine on the back seat, to see what she
thought of it; but the brown sallow face in the little bonnet was
quite still and like itself--beyond Kate's power to read.

The stillness, doubt, and suspense, were almost unbearable. She
longed to speak, but had no courage, and could almost have screamed
with desire to have it over, end as it would. Yet at last, when the
carriage did turn into Bruton Street, fright and shame had so
entirely the upper hand, that she read the numbers on every door,
wishing the carriage would only stand still at each, or go slower,
that she might put off the moment of knowing whether she was found
out.

They stopped; the few seconds of ringing, of opening the doors, of
getting out, were over. She knew how it would be, when, instead of
going upstairs, her aunt opened the schoolroom door, beckoned her in,
and said gravely, "Lady Caergwent, while you are under my charge, it
is my duty to make you obey me. Tell me where you have been."

There was something in the sternness of that low lady-like voice, and
of that dark deep eye, that terrified Kate more than the brightest
flash of lightning: and it was well for her that the habit of truth
was too much fixed for falsehood or shuffling even to occur to her.
She did not dare to do more than utter in a faint voice, scarcely
audible "To the bazaar."

"In direct defiance of my commands?"

But the sound of her own confession, the relief of having told, gave
Kate spirit to speak; "I know it was naughty," she said, looking up;
"I ought not. Aunt Barbara, I have been very naughty. I've been
often where you didn't know."

"Tell me the whole truth, Katharine;" and Lady Barbara's look
relaxed, and the infinite relief of putting an end to a miserable
concealment was felt by the little girl; so she told of the shops she
had been at, and of her walks in frequented streets, adding that
indeed she would not have gone, but that Josephine took her. "I did
like it," she added candidly; "but I know I ought not."

"Yes, Katharine," said Lady Barbara, almost as sternly as ever; "I
had thought that with all your faults you were to be trusted."

"I have told you the truth!" cried Kate.

"Now you may have; but you have been deceiving me all this time; you,
who ought to set an example of upright and honourable conduct."

"No, no, Aunt!" exclaimed Kate, her eyes flashing. "I never spoke
one untrue word to you; and I have not now--nor ever. I never
deceived."

"I do not say that you have TOLD untruths. It is deceiving to betray
the confidence placed in you."

Kate knew it was; yet she had never so felt that her aunt trusted her
as to have the sense of being on honour; and she felt terribly
wounded and grieved, but not so touched as to make her cry or ask
pardon. She knew she had been audaciously disobedient; but it was
hard to be accused of betraying trust when she had never felt that it
was placed in her; and yet the conviction of deceit took from her the
last ground she had of peace with herself.

Drooping and angry, she stood without a word; and her aunt presently
said, "I do not punish you. The consequences of your actions are
punishment enough in themselves, and I hope they may warn you, or I
cannot tell what is to become of you in your future life, and of all
that will depend on you. You must soon be under more strict and
watchful care than mine, and I hope the effect may be good.
Meantime, I desire that your Aunt Jane may be spared hearing of this
affair, little as you seem to care for her peace of mind."

And away went Lady Barbara; while Kate, flinging herself upon the
sofa, sobbed out, "I do care for Aunt Jane! I love Aunt Jane! I
love her ten hundred times more than you! you horrid cross old Diana!
But I have deceived! Oh, I am getting to be a wicked little girl! I
never did such things at home. Nobody made me naughty there. But
it's the fashionable world. It is corrupting my simplicity. It
always does. And I shall be lost! O Mary, Mary! O Papa, Papa! Oh,
come and take me home!" And for a little while Kate gasped out these
calls, as if she had really thought they would break the spell, and
bring her back to Oldburgh.

She ceased crying at last, and slowly crept upstairs, glad to meet no
one, and that not even Josephine was there to see her red eyes. Her
muslin frock was on the bed, and she managed to dress herself, and
run down again unseen; she stood over the fire, so that the
housemaid, who brought in her tea, should not see her face; and by
the time she had to go to the drawing-room, the mottling of her face
had abated under the influence of a story-book, which always drove
troubles away for the time.

It was a very quiet evening. Aunt Barbara read bits out of the
newspaper, and there was a little talk over them: and Kate read on
in her book, to hinder herself from feeling uncomfortable. Now and
then Aunt Jane said a few soft words about "Giles and Emily;" but her
sister always led away from the subject, afraid of her exciting
herself, and getting anxious.

And if Kate had been observing, she would have heard in the weary
sound of Aunt Barbara's voice, and seen in those heavy eyelids, that
the troubles of the day had brought on a severe headache, and that
there was at least one person suffering more than even the young ill-
used countess.

And when bed-time came, she learnt more of the "consequences of her
actions." Stiff Mrs. Bartley stood there with her candle.

"Where is Josephine?"

"She is gone away, my Lady."

Kate asked no more, but shivered and trembled all over. She
recollected that in telling the truth she had justified herself, and
at Josephine's expense. She knew Josephine would call it a
blackness--a treason. What would become of the poor bright merry
Frenchwoman? Should she never see her again? And all because she
had not had the firmness to be obedient! Oh, loss of trust! loss of
confidence! disobedience! How wicked this place made her! and would
there be any end to it?

And all night she was haunted through her dreams with the Lord
Chancellor, in his wig, trying to catch her, and stuff her into the
woolsack, and Uncle Wardour's voice always just out of reach. If she
could only get to him!

CHAPTER XI.

The young countess was not easily broken down. If she was ever so
miserable for one hour, she was ready to be amused the next; and
though when left to herself she felt very desolate in the present,
and much afraid of the future, the least enlivenment brightened her
up again into more than her usual spirits. Even an entertaining bit
in the history that she was reading would give her so much amusement
that she would forget her disgrace in making remarks and asking
questions, till Lady Barbara gravely bade her not waste time, and
decided that she had no feeling.

It was not more easy to find a maid than a governess to Lady
Barbara's mind, nor did she exert herself much in the matter, for, as
Kate heard her tell Mr. Mercer, she had decided that the present
arrangement could not last; and then something was asked about the
Colonel and Mrs. Umfraville; to which the answer was, "Oh no, quite
impossible; she could never be in a house with an invalid;" and then
ensued something about the Chancellor and an establishment, which, as
usual, terrified Kate's imagination.

Indeed that night terrors were at their height, for Mrs. Bartley
never allowed dawdling, and with a severely respectful silence made
the undressing as brief an affair as possible, brushing her hair till
her head tingled all over, putting away the clothes with the utmost
speed, and carrying off the candle as soon as she had uttered her
grim "Good-night, my Lady," leaving Kate to choose between her pet
terrors--either of the Lord Chancellor, or of the house on fire--or a
very fine new one, that someone would make away with her to make way
for her Uncle Giles and his son to come to her title. Somehow Lady
Barbara had contrived to make her exceedingly in awe of her Uncle
Giles, the strict stern soldier who was always implicitly obeyed, and
who would be so shocked at her. She wished she could hide somewhere
when he was coming! But there was one real good bright pleasure
near, that would come before her misfortunes; and that was the
birthday to be spent at the Wardours'. As to the present, Josephine
had had the album in her pocket, and had never restored it, and Kate
had begun to feel a distaste to the whole performance, to recollect
its faults, and to be ashamed of the entire affair; but that was no
reason she should not be very happy with her friends, who had
promised to take her to the Zoological Gardens.

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