Bertie Hardwick was on the lawn in front of the Rectory when the two
visitors approached. The Rectory was a pretty, old-fashioned house,
large and quaint, with old picturesque wings and gables, and a front
much covered with climbing plants. Kate had always been rather proud of
it, as one of the ornaments of her estate. She looked at it almost as
she looked at the pretty west gate of her park, where the lodge was so
commodious and so pleasant, coveted by all the poor people on the
estate. It was by Kate’s grace and favour that the west lodge was given
to one or another, and so would it be with the Rectory. She looked upon
the one in much the same light as the other. It would be hard to tell
what magnetic chord of sympathies had moved Bertie Hardwick to some
knowledge of what his young acquaintance was about to do; but it is
certain that he was there, pretending to play croquet with his sisters,
and keeping a very keen eye upon the bit of road which was visible
through the break in the high laurel hedge. He had been amused, and
indeed somewhat touched and interested, in spite of himself, on the
previous night; and somehow he had a feeling that she would come. When
he caught a glimpse of her, he threw down the croquet mallet, as if it
hurt him, and cried out--‘Edith, run and tell mamma she is coming. I
felt quite sure she would.’
‘Who is coming?’ cried the two girls.
‘Oh, don’t chatter and ask questions--rush and tell mamma!’ cried
Bertie; and he himself, without thinking of it, went forward to open the
garden door. It was a trial of Kate’s steadiness to meet him thus, but
she did so with wide-open eyes and a certain serious courage. ‘You saw
me at a disadvantage, but I don’t mind,’ Kate’s serious eyes were
saying; and as she took the matter very gravely indeed, it was she who
had the best of it now. Bertie, in spite of himself, felt confused as he
met her look; he grew red, and was ashamed of his own foolish impulse to
go and open the door.
‘This is Mr. Bertie Hardwick, uncle,’ said Kate, gravely; ‘and this,
Mr. Bertie, is my Uncle Courtenay--whom I told you of,’ she added, with
a little sigh.
Her Uncle Courtenay--whom she was obliged to obey, and over whom neither
her impetuosity nor her melancholy had the least power. She shook her
head to herself, as it were, over her sad fate, and by this movement
placed once more in great danger the gravity of poor Bertie, who was
afraid to laugh or otherwise misconduct himself under the eyes of Mr.
Courtenay. He led the visitors into the drawing-room, through the open
windows; and it is impossible to tell what a relief it was to him when
he saw his mother coming to the rescue. And then they all sat down; Kate
as near Mrs. Hardwick as she could manage to establish herself. Kate did
not understand the shyness with which Minnie and Edith, half withdrawn
on the other side of their mother, looked at her.
‘I am not a wild beast,’ she said to herself. ‘I wonder do they think I
will bite?’
‘Did you tell them about last night?’ she said, turning quickly to
Bertie; for Mrs. Hardwick, instead of talking to _her_, the Lady of the
Manor, as Kate felt she ought to have done, gave her attention to Mr.
Courtenay instead.
‘I told them I had met you, Miss Courtenay,’ said Bertie.
‘And did they laugh? Did you make fun of me? Why do they look at me so
strangely?’ cried Kate, growing red; ‘I am not a wild beast.’
‘You forget that you and my father have quarrelled,’ said Bertie; ‘and
the girls naturally take his side.’
‘Oh! is it that?’ cried Kate, clearing up a little. She gave a quick
glance at him, with a misgiving as to whether he was entirely serious.
But Bertie kept his countenance. ‘For that matter, I have come to say
that I did not mean anything wrong; perhaps I made a mistake. Uncle
Courtenay says that, till I am of age, I have no power; and if the
Rector pleases--oh! there is the Rector--I ought to speak for myself.’
She rose as Mr. Hardwick came up to her. Her sense of her own importance
gave a certain dignity to her young figure, which was springy and
stately, like that of a young Diana. She threw back the flood of
chestnut hair that streamed over her shoulders, and looked straight at
him with her bright, well-opened eyes. Altogether she looked a creature
of a different species from Edith and Minnie, who kept close together,
looking at her with wonder, and a mixture of admiration and repugnance.
‘Isn’t it bold of her to speak to papa like that?’ Minnie whispered to
Edith.
‘But she is going to ask his pardon,’ Edith whispered back to Minnie.
‘Oh! hush, and hear what she says.’
As for Bertie, he looked on with a strange feeling that it was he who
had introduced this new figure into the domestic circle, and with a
little anxiety of proprietorship hoped that she would make a good
impression. She was his novelty, his property--and she was, there could
be no doubt, a very great novelty indeed.
‘Mr. Hardwick, please,’ said Kate, reddening, yet confronting him with
her head very erect, and her eyes very open, ‘I find that I made a
mistake. Uncle Courtenay tells me I had no right at my age to interfere.
I shall not be of age for six years, and don’t you think it would be
best to be friendly--till then? If you are willing, I should be glad. I
thought I had a right--but I understand now that it was all a mistake.’
Mr. Hardwick looked round upon the company, questioning and puzzled. He
was a tall man, spare, but of a large frame, with deep-set blue eyes
looking out of a somewhat brown face. His eyes looked like a bit of sky,
which had strayed somehow into that brown, ruddy framework. They were
the same colour as his son’s, Bertie’s; but Bertie’s youthful
countenance was still white and red, and the contrast was not so great.
The Rector’s face was very grave when in repose, and its expression had
almost daunted Kate; but gradually he caught the joke (which was
intended to be so profoundly serious) and lighted up. He had looked at
his wife first, with a man’s natural instinct, asking an explanation;
and perhaps the suppressed laughter in Mrs. Hardwick’s eyes was what
gave him the clue. He made the little Lady of the Manor a profound bow.
‘Let us understand each other, Miss Courtenay,’ he said, with mock
solemnity--‘are we to be friendly only till you come of age? Six years
is a long time. But if after that hostilities are to be resumed----’
‘When I am of age of course I must do my duty,’ said Kate.
She was so serious, standing there in the midst of them, grave as twenty
judges, that nobody could venture to laugh. Uncle Courtenay, who was
getting impatient, and who had no feeling either of chivalry or
admiration for his troublesome ward, uttered a hasty exclamation; but
the Rector took her hand, and shook it, with a smile which at once
conciliated his two girls, who were looking on.
‘That is just the feeling you ought to have,’ he said. ‘I see we shall
be capital friends--I mean for six years; and then whatever you see to
be your duty--Is it a bargain? I am delighted to accept these terms.’
‘And I am very glad,’ said Kate, sedately. She sat down again when he
released her hand--giving her head a little shake, as was customary with
her, and looked round with a certain majestic composure on the little
assembly. As for Bertie, though he could not conceal from himself the
fact that his father and mother were much amused, he still felt very
proud of his young lady. He went up to her, and stood behind her chair,
and made signs to his mother that she was to talk; which Mrs. Hardwick
did to such good purpose that Kate, who wanted little encouragement, and
to whom a friendly face was sweet, soon stood fully self-revealed to her
new acquaintances. They took her out upon the lawn, and instructed her
in croquet, and grew familiar with her; and, before half an hour had
passed, Minnie and Edith, one on each side, were hanging about her, half
in amazement, half in admiration. She was younger than both, for even
Minnie, the little one, was sixteen; but then neither of them was a
great lady--neither the head and mistress of her own house.
‘Isn’t it dreadfully dreary for you to live in that great house all by
yourself?’ said Edith. They were so continually together, and so apt to
take up each other’s sentiments, one repeating and continuing what the
other had said, that they could scarcely get through a question except
jointly. So that Minnie now added her voice, running into her sister’s.
‘It must be so dull, unless your governess is very nice indeed.’
‘My governess--Miss Blank?’ said Kate. ‘I never thought whether she was
nice or not. I have had so many. One comes for a year, and then another,
and then another. I never could make out why they liked to change so
often. Uncle Courtenay thinks it is best.’
‘Oh! our governess stayed for years and years,’ said Edith; added
Minnie, ‘We were nearly as fond of her as of mamma.’
‘But then I suppose,’ said Kate, with a little sigh, ‘she was fond of
you?’
‘Why, of course,’ cried the two girls together. ‘How could she help it,
when she had known us all our lives?’
‘You think a great deal of yourselves,’ said Kate, with dreary scorn,
‘to think people must be fond of you! If you were like me you would know
better. I never fancy anything of the kind. If they do what I tell them,
that is all I ask. You are very different from me. You have father, and
mother, and brothers, and all sorts of things. But I have nobody, except
Uncle Courtenay--and I am sure I should be very glad to make you a
present of him.’
‘Have you not even an aunt?’ said Minnie, with big round eyes of wonder.
‘Nor a cousin?’ said Edith, equally surprised.
‘No--that is, oh! yes, I have one of each--Uncle Courtenay was talking
of them as we came here--but I never saw them. I don’t know anything
about them,’ said Kate.
‘What curious people, not to come to see you!’ ‘And what a pity you
don’t know them!’ said the sisters.
‘And how curiously you talk,’ said uncompromising Kate; ‘both together.
Please, is there only one of you, or are there two of you? I suppose it
is talking in the same voice, and being dressed alike.’
‘We are considered alike,’ said Edith, the eldest, with an air of
suppressed offence. As for Minnie, she was too indignant to make any
reply.
‘And so you are alike,’ said Kate; ‘and a little like your brother, too;
but he speaks for himself. I don’t object to people being alike; but I
should try very hard to make you talk like two people, not like one, and
not always to hang together and dress the same, if you were with me.’
Upon this there was a dead pause. The Rectory girls were good girls, but
not quite prepared to stand an assault like this. Minnie, who had a
quick temper, and who had been taught that it was indispensable to keep
it down, shut her lips tight, and resisted the temptation to be angry.
Edith, who was more placid, gazed at the young censor with wonder. What
a strange girl!
‘Because,’ said Kate, endeavouring to be explanatory, ‘your voices have
just the same sound, and you are just the same height, and your blue
frocks are even made the same. Are there so many girls in the world,’
she said suddenly, with a pensive appeal to human nature in general,
‘that people can afford to throw them away, and make two into one?’
Deep silence followed. Mrs. Hardwick had been called away, and Bertie
was talking to the gardener at the other end of the lawn. This was the
first unfortunate result of leaving the girls to themselves. They walked
on a little, the two sisters falling a step behind in their
discomfiture. ‘How dare she speak to us so?’ Minnie whispered through
her teeth. ‘Dare!--she is our guest!’ said Edith, who had a high sense
of decorum. A minute after, Kate perceived that something was amiss. She
turned round upon them, and gazed into their faces with serious
scrutiny. ‘Are you angry?’ she said--‘have I said anything wrong?’
‘Oh! not angry,’ said Edith. ‘I suppose, since you look surprised, you
don’t--mean--any harm.’
‘I?--mean harm?--- Oh! Mr. Bertie,’ cried Kate, ‘come here
quick--quick!--and explain to them. _You_ know me. What have I done to
make them angry? One may surely say what one thinks.’
‘I don’t know that it is good to say all one thinks,’ said Edith, who
taught in the Sunday-schools, and who was considered very thoughtful and
judicious--‘at least, when it is likely to hurt other people’s
feelings.’
‘Not when it is true?’ said the remorseless Kate.
And then the whole group came to a pause, Bertie standing open-mouthed,
most anxious to preserve the peace, but not knowing how. It was the
judicious Edith who brought the crisis to a close by acting upon one of
the maxims with which she was familiar as a teacher of youth.
‘Should you like to walk round the garden?’ she said, changing the
subject with an adroitness which was very satisfactory to herself, ‘or
come back into the drawing-room? There is not much to see in our little
place, after your beautiful gardens at Langton-Courtenay; but still, if
you would like to walk round--or perhaps you would prefer to go in and
join mamma?’
‘My uncle must be ready to go now,’ said Kate, with responsive
quickness, and she stalked in before them through the open window. As
good luck would have it, Mr. Courtenay was just rising to take his
leave. Kate followed him out, much subdued, in one sense, though all in
arms in another. The girls were not nearly so nice as she thought they
would be--reality was not equal to anticipation--and to think they
should have quarrelled with her the very first time for nothing! This
was the view of the matter which occurred to Kate.