‘Come and tell me all about yourself, Kate,’ said Lady Caryisfort, from
her sofa. She had a cold, and was half an invalid. She had kept Kate
with her while the others went out, after paying their call. Lady
Caryisfort had enveloped her choice of Kate in the prettiest excuses: ‘I
wish one of you girls would give up the sunshine, and stay and keep me
company,’ she had said. ‘Let me see--no, I will not choose Ombra, for
Ombra has need of all the air that is to be had; but Kate is strong--an
afternoon’s seclusion will not make any difference to her. Spare me
Kate, please, Mrs. Anderson. I want some one to talk to--I want
something pleasant to look at. Let her stay and dine with me, and in the
evening I will send her home.’
So it had been settled; and Kate was in the great, somewhat dim
drawing-room, which was Lady Caryisfort’s abode. The house was one of
the great palazzi in one of the less-known streets of Florence. It was
on the sunny side, but long ago the sun had retreated behind the high
houses opposite. The great lofty palace itself was like a mountain side,
and half way down this mountain side came the tall windows, draped with
dark velvet and white muslin, which looked out into the deep ravine,
called a street, below. The room was very large and lofty, and had
openings on two sides, enveloped in heavy velvet curtains, into two
rooms beyond. The two other side walls were covered with large frescoes,
almost invisible in this premature twilight; for it was not late, and
the top rooms in the palace, which were inhabited by Cesare, the
mosaic-worker, still retained the sunshine. All the decorations were of
a grandiose character; the velvet hangings were dark, though warm in
colour; a cheerful wood fire threw gleams of variable reflection here
and there into the tall mirrors; and Lady Caryisfort, wrapped in a huge
soft white shawl, which looked like lace, but was Shetland wool, lay on
a sofa under one of the frescoes. As the light varied, there would
appear now a head, now an uplifted arm, out of the historical
composition above. The old world was all about in the old walls, in the
waning light, in the grand proportions of the place; but the dainty lady
in her shawl, the dainty table with its pretty tea-service, which stood
within reach of her hand, and Kate, whose bloom not even the twilight
could obliterate, belonged not to the old, but the new. There was a low,
round chair, a kind of luxurious shell, covered with the warm, dark
velvet, on the other side of the little table.
‘Come and sit down beside me here,’ said Lady Caryisfort, ‘and tell me
all about yourself.’
‘There is not very much to tell,’ said Kate, ‘if you mean facts; but if
it is _me_ you want to know about, then there is a little more. Which
would you like best?’
‘I thought you were a fact.’
‘I suppose I am,’ said Kate, with a laugh. ‘I never thought of that. But
then, of course, between the facts that have happened to me and this
fact, Kate Courtenay, there is a good deal of difference. Which would
you like best? Me? But, then, where must I begin?’
‘As early as you can remember,’ said the inquisitor; ‘and, recollect, I
should most likely have sought you out, and known all about you long
before this, if you had stayed at Langton--so you may be perfectly frank
with me.’
To tell the truth, all the little scene had been got up on purpose for
this confidential talk; the apparently chance choice of Kate as a
companion, and even Lady Caryisfort’s cold, were means to an end. Kate
was of her own county, she was of her own class, she was thrown into a
position which Lady Caryisfort thought was not the one she ought to have
filled, and with all the fervour of a lively fancy and benevolent
meaning she had thrown herself into this little ambush. The last words
were just as near a mistake as it was possible for words to be, for Kate
had no notion of being anything but frank; and the little assurance that
she might be so safely almost put her on her guard.
‘You would not have been allowed to seek me out,’ said Kate. ‘Uncle
Courtenay had made up his mind I was to know nobody--I am sure I don’t
know why. He used to send me a new governess every year. It was the
greatest chance that I was allowed to keep even Maryanne. He thought
servants ought to be changed; and I am afraid,’ said Kate, with
humility, ‘that I was not at all _nice_ when I was at home.’
‘My poor child! I don’t believe you were ever anything but nice.’
‘No,’ said Kate, taking hold of the caressing hand which was laid on her
arm; ‘you can’t think how disagreeable I was till I was fifteen; then my
dear aunt--my good aunt, whom you don’t like so much as you might----’
‘How do you know that, you little witch?’
‘Oh, I know very well! She came home to England, after being years away,
and she wrote to my uncle, asking if she might see me, and he was
horribly worried with me at the time,’ said Kate. ‘I had worried him so
that he could not eat his dinner even in peace--and Uncle Courtenay
likes his dinner--so he wrote and said she might have me altogether if
she pleased; and though he gave the very worst account of me, and said
all the harm he could, auntie started off directly and took me home.’
‘That was kind of her, Kate.’
‘Kind of her! Oh, it was a great deal more than kind! Fancy how I felt
when she cried and kissed me! I am not sure that anybody had ever kissed
me before, and I was such a stupid--such a thing without a soul--that I
was quite astonished when she cried. I actually asked her why? Whenever
I think of it I feel my cheeks grow crimson.’ And here Kate, with a
pretty gesture, laid one of Lady Caryisfort’s soft rose-tipped fingers
upon her burning cheek.
‘You poor dear child! Well, I understand why Mrs. Anderson cried, and it
was nice of her; but _après_,’ said Kate’s confessor.
‘_Après?_ I was at home; I was as happy as the day was long. I got to be
like other girls; they never paid any attention to me, and they petted
me from morning to night.’
‘But how could that be?’ said Lady Caryisfort, whose understanding was
not quite equal to the strain thus put upon it.
‘I forgot all about myself after that,’ said Kate. ‘I was just like
other girls. Ombra thought me rather a bore at first; but, fortunately,
I never found that out till she had got over it. She had always been
auntie’s only child, and I think she was a trifle--jealous; I have an
idea,’ said Kate----‘But how wicked I am to go and talk of Ombra’s
faults to you!’
‘Never mind; I shall never repeat anything you tell me,’ said the
confidante.
‘Well, I think, if she has a weakness, it is that perhaps she likes to
be first. I don’t mean in any vulgar way,’ said Kate, suddenly flushing
red as she saw a smile on her companion’s face, ‘but with people she
loves. She would not like (naturally) to see her mother love anyone else
as much as her! or even she would not like to see me----’
‘And how about other people?’ cried Lady Caryisfort, amused.
‘About other people I do not know what to say; I don’t think she has
ever been tried,’ said Kate, with a grave and puzzled look. ‘She has
always been first, without any question--or, at least, so I think; but
that is puzzling--that is more difficult. I would rather not go into
that question, for, by-the-bye, this is all about Ombra--it is not about
me.’
‘That is true,’ said Lady Caryisfort; ‘we must change the subject, for I
don’t want you to tell me your cousin’s secrets, Kate.’
‘Secrets! She has not any,’ said Kate, with a laugh.
‘Are you quite sure of that?’
‘Sure of Ombra! Of course I must be. If I were not quite sure of Ombra,
whom could I believe in? There are no secrets,’ said Kate, with a little
pride, ‘among us.’
‘Poor child!’ thought Lady Caryisfort to herself; but she said nothing,
though, after a while, she asked gently, ‘Were you glad to come abroad?
I suppose it was your guardian’s wish?’
Once more Kate laughed.
‘That is the funniest thing of all,’ she said. ‘He came to pay us a
visit; and fancy he, who never could bear me to have a single companion,
arrived precisely on my birthday, when we were much gayer than usual,
and had a croquet party! It was as good as a play to see his face. But
he made my aunt promise to take us abroad. I suppose he thought we could
make no friends abroad.’
‘But in that he has evidently been mistaken, Kate.’
‘I don’t know. Except yourself, Lady Caryisfort, what friends have we
made? You have been very kind, and as nice as it is possible to be----’
‘Thanks, dear. The benefit has been mine,’ said Lady Caryisfort, in an
undertone.
‘But we don’t call Lady Granton a friend,’ continued Kate, ‘nor the
people who have left cards and sent us invitations since they met us
there. And until we came to Florence we had not met you.’
‘But then there are these two young men--Mr. Eldridge and Mr. Hardwick.’
‘Oh! the Berties,’ said Kate; and she laughed. ‘_They_ don’t count,
surely; they are old friends. We did not require to come to Italy to
make acquaintance with them.’
‘Perhaps you came to Italy to avoid them?’ said Lady Caryisfort, drawing
her bow at a venture.
Kate looked her suddenly in the face with a start; but the afternoon had
gradually grown darker, and neither could make out what was in the
other’s face.
‘Why should we come to Italy to avoid them?’ said Kate, gravely.
Her new seriousness quite changed the tone of her voice. She was
thinking of Ombra and all the mysterious things that had happened that
Summer day after the yachting. It was more than a year ago, and she had
almost forgotten; but somehow, Kate could not tell how, the Berties had
been woven in with the family existence ever since.
Lady Caryisfort gave her gravity a totally different meaning, ‘So that
is how it is,’ she said to herself.
‘If I were you, Kate,’ she said aloud, ‘I would write and tell my
guardian all about it, and who the people are whom you are acquainted
with here. I think he has a right to know. Would he be quite pleased
that the Berties, as you call them, should be with you so much? Pardon
me if I say more than I ought.’
‘The Berties!’ said Kate, now fairly puzzled. ‘What has Uncle Courtenay
to do with the Berties? He is not Ombra’s guardian, but only mine: and
_they_ have nothing to do with me.’
‘Oh! perhaps I am mistaken,’ said Lady Caryisfort; and she changed the
subject dexterously, leading Kate altogether away from this too decided
suggestion. They talked afterwards of everything in earth and heaven;
but at the end of that little dinner, which they ate _tête-à-tête_, Kate
returned to the subject which in the meantime had been occupying a great
part of her thoughts.
‘I have been thinking of what you said about Uncle Courtenay,’ she said,
quite abruptly, after a pause. ‘I do write to him about once every
month, and I always tell him whom we are seeing. I don’t believe he ever
reads my letters. He is always paying visits through the Winter when
Parliament is up, and I always direct to him at home. I don’t suppose he
ever reads them. But that, of course, is not my fault, and whenever we
meet anyone new I tell him. We don’t conceal anything; my aunt never
permits that.’
‘And I am sure it is your own feeling too,’ cried Lady Caryisfort. ‘It
is always best.’
And she dismissed the subject, not feeling herself possessed of
sufficient information to enter into it more fully. She was a little
shaken in her own theory on the subject of the Berties, one of whom at
least she felt convinced must have designs on Kate’s fortune. That was
‘only natural;’ but at least Kate was not aware of it. And Lady
Caryisfort was half annoyed and half pleased when one of her friends
asked admittance in the evening, bringing with her the young Count
Buoncompagni, whom Kate had met at the Embassy. It was a Countess
Strozzi, an aunt of his, and an intimate of Lady Caryisfort’s, who was
his introducer. There was nothing to be said against the admission of a
good young man who had come to escort his aunt in her visit to her
invalid friend, but it was odd that they should have chosen that
particular night, and no other. Kate was in her morning dress, as she
had gone to make a morning call, and was a little troubled to be so
discovered; but girls look well in anything, as Lady Caryisfort said to
herself, with a sigh.