“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.”
“Oh! no, no, Aunt Jane; there’s no fun unless one is rough—I mean, not
rough exactly; but it’s no use playing unless one makes a jolly good
noise.”
“My dear,” said Lady Jane, greatly shocked, “I can’t bear to hear you
talk so, nor to use such words.”
“Dear me, Aunt Jane, we say ‘Jolly’ twenty times a day at St. James’s,
and nobody minds.”
“Ah! yes, you see you played with boys.”
“But our boys are not rough, Aunt Jane,” persisted Kate, who liked
hearing herself talk much better than anyone else. “Mary says Charlie is
a great deal less riotous than I am, especially since he went to school;
and Armyn is too big to be riotous. Oh dear, I wish Mr. Brown would send
Armyn to London; he said he would be sure to come and see me, and he is
the jolliest, most delightful fellow in the world!”
“My dear child,” said Lady Jane in her soft, distressed voice, “indeed
that is not the way young ladies talk of—of—boys.”
“Armyn is not a boy, Aunt Jane; he’s a man. He is a clerk, you know, and
will get a salary in another year.”
“A clerk!”
“Yes; in Mr. Brown’s office, you know. Aunt Jane, did you ever go out to
tea?”
“Yes, my dear; sometimes we drank tea with our little friends in the
dolls’ tea-cups.”
“Oh! you can’t think what fun we have when Mrs. Brown asks us to tea.
She has got the nicest garden in the world, and a greenhouse, and a great
squirt-syringe, I mean, to water it; and we always used to get it, till
once, without meaning it, I squirted right through the drawing-room
window, and made such a puddle; and Mrs. Brown thought it was Charlie,
only I ran in and told of myself, and Mrs. Brown said it was very
generous, and gave me a Venetian weight with a little hermit in a
snow-storm; only it is worn out now, and won’t snow, so I gave it to
little Lily when we had the whooping-cough.”
By this time Lady Jane was utterly ignorant what the gabble was about,
except that Katharine had been in very odd company, and done very strange
things with those boys, and she gave a melancholy little sound in the
pause; but Kate, taking breath, ran on again—
“It is because Mrs. Brown is not used to educating children, you know,
that she fancies one wants a reward for telling the truth; I told her so,
but Mary thought it would vex her, and stopped my mouth. Well, then we
young ones—that is, Charlie, and Sylvia, and Armyn, and I—drank tea out
on the lawn. Mary had to sit up and be company; but we had such fun!
There was a great old laurel tree, and Armyn put Sylvia and me up into
the fork; and that was our nest, and we were birds, and he fed us with
strawberries; and we pretended to be learning to fly, and stood up
flapping our frocks and squeaking, and Charlie came under and danced the
branches about. We didn’t like that; and Armyn said it was a shame, and
hunted him away, racing all round the garden; and we scrambled down by
ourselves, and came down on the slope. It is a long green slope, right
down to the river, all smooth and turfy, you know; and I was standing at
the top, when Charlie comes slyly, and saying he would help the little
bird to fly, gave me one push, and down I went, roll, roll, tumble,
tumble, till Sylvia _really_ thought she heard my neck crack! Wasn’t it
fun?”
“But the river, my dear!” said Lady Jane, shuddering.
“Oh! there was a good flat place before we came to the river, and I
stopped long before that! So then, as we had been the birds of the air,
we thought we would be the fishes of the sea; and it was nice and
shallow, with dear little caddises and river cray-fish, and great British
pearl-shells at the bottom. So we took off our shoes and stockings, and
Charlie and Armyn turned up their trousers, and we had such a nice
paddling. I really thought I should have got a British pearl then; and
you know there were some in the breast-plate of Venus.”
“In the river! Did your cousin allow that?”
“Oh yes; we had on our old blue checks; and Mary never minds anything
when Armyn is there to take care of us. When they heard in the
drawing-room what we had been doing, they made Mary sing ‘Auld Lang
Syne,’ because of ‘We twa hae paidlit in the burn frae morning sun till
dine;’ and whenever in future times I meet Armyn, I mean to say,
‘We twa hae paidlit in the burn
Frae morning sun till dine;
We’ve wandered many a weary foot
Sin auld lang syne.’
Or perhaps I shall be able to sing it, and that will be still prettier.”
And Kate sat still, thinking of the prettiness of the scene of the
stranger, alone in the midst of numbers, in the splendid drawing-rooms,
hearing the sweet voice of the lovely young countess at the piano,
singing this touching memorial of the simple days of childhood.
Lady Jane meanwhile worked her embroidery, and thought what wonderful
disadvantages the poor child had had, and that Barbara really must not be
too severe on her, after she had lived with such odd people, and that it
was very fortunate that she had been taken away from them before she had
grown any older, or more used to them.
Soon after, Kate gave a specimen of her manners with boys. When she went
into the dining-room at luncheon time one wet afternoon, she heard steps
on the stairs behind her aunt’s, and there appeared a very
pleasant-looking gentleman, followed by a boy of about her own age.
“Here is our niece,” said Lady Barbara. “Katharine, come and speak to
Lord de la Poer.”
Kate liked his looks, and the way in which he held out his hand to her;
but she knew she should be scolded for her awkward greeting: so she put
out her hand as if she had no use of her arm above the elbow, hung down
her head, and said “—do;” at least no more was audible.
But there was something comfortable and encouraging in the grasp of the
strong large hand over the foolish little fingers; and he quite gave them
to his son, whose shake was a real treat; the contact with anything young
was like meeting a follow-countryman in a foreign land, though neither as
yet spoke.
She found out that the boy’s name was Ernest, and that his father was
taking him to school, but had come to arrange some business matters for
her aunts upon the way. She listened with interest to Lord de la Poer’s
voice, for she liked it, and was sure he was a greater friend there than
any she had before seen. He was talking about Giles—that was her uncle,
the Colonel in India; and she first gathered from what was passing that
her uncle’s eldest and only surviving son, an officer in his own
regiment, had never recovered a wound he had received at the relief of
Lucknow, and that if he did not get better at Simlah, where his mother
had just taken him, his father thought of retiring and bringing him home,
though all agreed that it would be a very unfortunate thing that the
Colonel should be obliged to resign his command before getting promoted;
but they fully thought he would do so, for this was the last of his
children; another son had been killed in the Mutiny, and two or three
little girls had been born and died in India.
Kate had never known this. Her aunts never told her anything, nor talked
over family affairs before her; and she was opening her ears most
eagerly, and turning her quick bright eyes from one speaker to the other
with such earnest attention, that the guest turned kindly to her, and
said, “Do you remember your uncle?”
“Oh dear no! I was a little baby when he went away.”
Kate never used _dear_ as an adjective except at the beginning of a
letter, but always, and very unnecessarily, as an interjection; and this
time it was so emphatic as to bring Lady Barbara’s eyes on her.
“Did you see either Giles or poor Frank before they went out to him?”
“Oh dear no!”
This time the _dear_ was from the confusion that made her always do the
very thing she ought not to do.
“No; my niece has been too much separated from her own relations,” said
Lady Barbara, putting this as an excuse for the “Oh dears.”
“I hope Mr. Wardour is quite well,” said Lord de la Poer, turning again
to Kate.
“Oh yes, quite, thank you;” and then with brightening eyes, she ventured
on “Do you know him?”
“I saw him two or three times,” he answered with increased kindness of
manner. “Will you remember me to him when you write?”
“Very well,” said Kate promptly; “but he says all those sort of things
are nonsense.”
The horror of the two aunts was only kept in check by the good manners
that hindered a public scolding; but Lord de la Poer only laughed
heartily, and said, “Indeed! What sort of things, may I ask, Lady
Caergwent?”
“Why—love, and regards, and remembrances. Mary used to get letters from
her school-fellows, all filled with dearest loves, and we always laughed
at her; and Armyn used to say them by heart beforehand,” said Kate.
“I beg to observe,” was the answer, in the grave tone which, however,
Kate understood as fun, “that I did not presume to send my love to Mr.
Wardour. May not that make the case different?”
“Yes,” said Kate meditatively; “only I don’t know that your remembrance
would be of more use than your love.”
“And are we never to send any messages unless they are of use?” This was
a puzzling question, and Kate did not immediately reply.
“None for pleasure—eh?”
“Well, but I don’t see what would be the pleasure.”
“What, do you consider it pleasurable to be universally forgotten?”
“Nobody ever could forget Pa—my Uncle Wardour,” cried Kate, with eager
vehemence flashing in her eyes.
“Certainly not,” said Lord de la Poer, in a voice as if he were much
pleased with her; “he is not a man to be forgotten. It is a privilege to
have been brought up by him. But come, Lady Caergwent, since you are so
critical, will you be pleased to devise some message for me, that may
combine use, pleasure, and my deep respect for him?” and as she sat
beside him at the table, he laid his hand on hers, so that she felt that
he really meant what he said.
She sat fixed in deep thought; and her aunts, who had been miserable all
through the conversation, began to speak of other things; but in the
midst the shrill little voice broke in, “I know what!” and good-natured
Lord de la Poer turned at once, smiling, and saying, “Well, what?”
“If you would help in the new aisle! You know the church is not big
enough; there are so many people come into the district, with the new
ironworks, you know; and we have not got half room enough, and can’t make
more, though we have three services; and we want to build a new aisle,
and it will cost £250, but we have only got £139 15_s._ 6_d._ And if you
would but be so kind as to give one sovereign for it—that would be better
than remembrances and respects, and all that sort of thing.”
“I rather think it would,” said Lord de la Poer; and though Lady Barbara
eagerly exclaimed, “Oh! do not think of it; the child does not know what
she is talking of. Pray excuse her—” he took out his purse, and from it
came a crackling smooth five-pound note, which he put into the hand,
saying, “There, my dear, cut that in two, and send the two halves on
different days to Mr. Wardour, with my best wishes for his success in his
good works. Will that do?”
Kate turned quite red, and only perpetrated a choked sound of her
favourite —q. For the whole world she could not have said more: but
though she knew perfectly well that anger and wrath were hanging over
her, she felt happier than for many a long week.
Presently the aunts rose, and Lady Barbara said to her in the low
ceremonious voice that was a sure sign of warning and displeasure, “You
had better come up stairs with us, Katharine, and amuse Lord Ernest in
the back drawing-room while his father is engaged with us.”
Kate’s heart leapt up at the sound “amuse.” She popped her precious note
into her pocket, bounded up-stairs, and opened the back drawing-room door
for her playfellow, as he brought up the rear of the procession.
Lord de la Poer and Lady Barbara spread the table with papers; Lady Jane
sat by; the children were behind the heavy red curtains that parted off
the second room. There was a great silence at first, then began a little
tittering, then a little chattering, then presently a stifled explosion.
Lady Barbara began to betray some restlessness; she really must see what
that child was about.
“No, no,” said Lord de la Poer; “leave them in peace. That poor girl
will never thrive unless you let her use her voice and limbs. I shall
make her come over and enjoy herself with my flock when we come up _en
masse_.”
The explosions were less carefully stifled, and there were some sounds of
rushing about, some small shrieks, and then the door shut, and there was
a silence again.
By this it may be perceived that Kate and Ernest had become tolerably
intimate friends. They had informed each other of what games were their
favourites; Kate had told him the Wardour names and ages; and required
from him in return those of his brothers and sisters. She had been
greatly delighted by learning that Adelaide was no end of a hand at
climbing trees; and that whenever she should come and stay at their
house, Ernest would teach her to ride. And then they began to consider
what play was possible under the present circumstances—beginning they
hardly knew how, by dodging one another round and round the table, making
snatches at one another, gradually assuming the characters of hunter and
Red Indian. Only when the hunter had snatched up Aunt Jane’s
tortoise-shell paper-cutter to stab with, complaining direfully that it
was a stupid place, with nothing for a gun, and the Red Indian’s
crinoline had knocked down two chairs, she recollected the consequences
in time to strangle her own war-whoop, and suggested that they should be
safer on the stairs; to which Ernest readily responded, adding that there
was a great gallery at home all full of pillars and statues, the jolliest
place in the world for making a row.
“Oh dear! oh dear! how I hope I shall go there!” cried Kate, swinging
between the rails of the landing-place. “I do want of all things to see
a statue.”
“A statue! why, don’t you see lots every day?”
“Oh! I don’t mean great equestrian things like the Trafalgar Square
ones, or the Duke—or anything big and horrid, like Achilles in the Park,
holding up a shield like a green umbrella. I want to see the work of the
great sculptor Julio Romano.”
“He wasn’t a sculptor.”
“Yes, he was; didn’t he sculp—no, what is the word—Hermione. No; I mean
they pretended he had done her.”
“Hermione! What, have you seen the ‘Winter’s Tale?’”
“Papa—Uncle Wardour, that is—read it to us last Christmas.”
“Well, I’ve seen it. Alfred and I went to it last spring with our
tutor.”
“Oh! then do, pray, let us play at it. Look, there’s a little stand up
there, where I have always so wanted to get up and be Hermione, and
descend to the sound of slow music. There’s a musical-box in the back
drawing-room that will make the music.
“Very well; but I must be the lion and bear killing the courtier.”
“O yes—very well, and I’ll be courtier; only I must get a sofa-cushion to
be Perdita.”
“And where’s Bohemia?”
“Oh! the hall must be Bohemia, and the stair-carpet the sea, because then
the aunts won’t hear the lion and bear roaring.”
With these precautions, the characteristic roaring and growling of lion
and bear, and the shrieks of the courtier, though not absolutely unheard
in the drawing-room, produced no immediate results. But in the very
midst of Lady Jane’s signing her name to some paper, she gave a violent
start, and dropped the pen, for they were no stage shrieks—“Ah! ah! It
is coming down! Help me down! Ernest, Ernest! help me down! Ah!”—and
then a great fall.
The little mahogany bracket on the wall had been mounted by the help of a
chair, but it was only fixed into the plaster, being intended to hold a
small lamp, and not for young ladies to stand on; so no sooner was the
chair removed by which Kate had mounted, than she felt not only giddy in
her elevation, but found her pedestal loosening! There was no room to
jump; and Ernest, perhaps enjoying what he regarded as a girl’s foolish
fright, was a good way off, endeavouring to wind up the musical-box, when
the bracket gave way, and Hermione descended precipitately with anything
but the sound of soft music; and as the inhabitants of the drawing-room
rushed out to the rescue, her legs were seen kicking in the air upon the
landing-place; Ernest looking on, not knowing whether to laugh or be
dismayed.
Lord de la Poer picked her up, and sat down on the stairs with her
between his knees to look her over and see whether she were hurt, or what
was the matter, while she stood half sobbing with the fright and shock.
He asked his son rather severely what he had been doing to her.
“He did nothing,” gasped Kate; “I was only Hermione.”
“Yes, that’s all, Papa,” repeated Ernest; “it is all the fault of the
plaster.”
And a sort of explanation was performed between the two children, at
which Lord de la Poer could hardly keep his gravity, though he was
somewhat vexed at the turn affairs had taken. He was not entirely devoid
of awe of the Lady Barbara, and would have liked his children to be on
their best behaviour before her.
“Well,” he said, “I am glad there is no worse harm done. You had better
defer your statueship till we can find you a sounder pedestal, Lady
Caergwent.”
“Oh! call me Kate,” whispered she in his ear, turning redder than the
fright had made her.
He smiled, and patted her hand; then added, “We must go and beg pardon, I
suppose; I should not wonder if the catastrophe had damaged Aunt Jane the
most; and if so, I don’t know what will be done to us!”
He was right; Lady Barbara had only satisfied herself that no bones had
been broken, and then turned back to reassure her sister; but Lady Jane
could not be frightened without suffering for it, and was lying back on
the sofa, almost faint with palpitation, when Lord de la Poer, with
Kate’s hand in his, came to the door, looking much more consciously
guilty than his son, who on the whole was more diverted than penitent at
the commotion they had made.
Lady Barbara looked very grand and very dignified, but Lord de la Poer
was so grieved for Lady Jane’s indisposition, that she was somewhat
softened; and then he began asking pardon, blending himself with the
children so comically, that in all her fright and anxiety, Kate wondered
how her aunt could help laughing.
It never was Lady Barbara’s way to reprove before a guest; but this good
gentleman was determined that she should not reserve her displeasure for
his departure, and he would not go away till he had absolutely made her
promise that his little friend, as he called Kate, should hear nothing
more about anything that had that day taken place.
Lady Barbara kept her promise. She uttered no reproof either on her
niece’s awkward greeting, her abrupt conversation and its tendency to
pertness, nor on the loudness of the unlucky game and the impropriety of
climbing; nor even on what had greatly annoyed her, the asking for the
subscription to the church. There was neither blame nor punishment; but
she could not help a certain cold restraint of manner, by which Kate knew
that she was greatly displeased, and regarded her as the most hopeless
little saucy romp that ever maiden aunt was afflicted with.
And certainly it was hard on her. She had a great regard for Lord de la
Poer, and thought his a particularly well trained family; and she was
especially desirous that her little niece should appear to advantage
before him. Nothing, she was sure, but Katharine’s innate naughtiness
could have made that well-behaved little Ernest break out into rudeness;
and though his father had shown such good nature, he must have been very
much shocked. What was to be done to tame this terrible little savage,
was poor Lady Barbara’s haunting thought, morning, noon, and night!
And what was it that Kate did want? I believe nothing could have made
her perfectly happy, or suited to her aunt; but that she would have been
infinitely happier and better off had she had the spirit of obedience, of
humility, or of unselfishness.