Countess Kate

It was a pity that Kate always grew loud when she was earnest; and Lord de la Poer’s interest in the conversation was considerably lessened by the discomfort of seeing some strangers looking surprised at the five syllables in the squeaky voice coming out of the mouth of so small a lady.

“Gently, my dear,” he softly said; and Kate for a moment felt it hard that the torment about her voice should pursue her even in such moments, and spoil the Alhambra itself.

However, her good humour recovered the next minute, at the Fountain of Lions.  She wanted to know how the Moors came to have lions; she thought she had heard that no Mahometans were allowed to represent any living creature, for fear it should be an idol.  Lord de la Poer said she was quite right, and that the Mahometans think these forms will come round their makers at the last day, demanding to have souls given to them; but that her friends, the Moors of Spain, were much less strict than any others of their faith.  She could see, however, that the carving of such figures was a new art with them, since these lions were very rude and clumsy performances for people who could make such delicate tracery as they had seen within.  And then, while Kate was happily looking with Adelaide at the orange trees that completed the Spanish air of the court, and hoping to see the fountain play in the evening, he told Grace that it was worth while taking people to see sights if they had as much intelligence and observation as Kate had, and did not go gazing idly about, thinking of nothing.

He meant it to stir up his rather indolent-minded Grace—he did not mean the countess to hear it; but some people’s eyes and ears are wonderfully quick at gathering what is to their own credit, and Kate, who had not heard a bit of commendation for a long time, was greatly elated.

Luckily for appearances, she remembered how Miss Edgeworth’s Frank made himself ridiculous by showing off to Mrs. J—, and how she herself had once been overwhelmed by the laughter of the Wardour family for having rehearsed to poor Mrs. Brown all the characters of the gods of the Northmen—Odin, Thor, and all—when she had just learnt them.  So she was more careful than before not to pour out all the little that she knew; and she was glad she had not committed herself, for she had very nearly volunteered the information that Pompeii was overwhelmed by Mount Etna, before she heard some one say Vesuvius, and perceived her mistake, feeling as if she had been rewarded for her modesty like a good child in a book.

She applauded herself much more for keeping back her knowledge till it was wanted, than for having it; but this self-satisfaction looked out in another loop-hole.  She avoided pedantry, but she was too much elated not to let her spirits get the better of her; and when Lady de la Poer and the elder girls came up, they found her in a suppressed state of capering, more like a puppy on its hind logs, than like a countess or any other well-bred child.

The party met under the screen of kings and queens, and there had some dinner, at one of the marble tables that just held them pleasantly.  The cold chicken and tongue were wonderfully good on that hot hungry day, and still better were the strawberries that succeeded them; and oh! what mirth went on all the time!  Kate was chattering fastest of all, and loudest—not to say the most nonsensically.  It was not nice nonsense—that was the worst of it—it was pert and saucy.  It was rather the family habit to laugh at Mary de la Poer for ways that were thought a little fanciful; and Kate caught this up, and bantered without discretion, in a way not becoming towards anybody, especially one some years her elder.  Mary was good-humoured, but evidently did not like being asked if she had stayed in the mediæval court, because she was afraid the great bulls of Nineveh would run at her with their five legs.

“She will be afraid of being teazed by a little goose another time,” said Lord de la Poer, intending to give his little friend a hint that she was making herself very silly; but Kate took it quite another way, and not a pretty one, for she answered, “Dear me, Mary, can’t you say bo to a goose!”

“Say what?” cried Adelaide, who was always apt to be a good deal excited by Kate; and who had been going off into fits of laughter at all these foolish sallies.

“It is not a very nice thing to say,” answered her mother gravely; “so there is no occasion to learn it.”

Kate did take the hint this time, and coloured up to the ears, partly with vexation, partly with shame.  She sat silent and confused for several minutes, till her friends took pity on her, and a few good-natured words about her choice of an ice quite restored her liveliness.  It is well to be good-humoured; but it is unlucky, nay, wrong, when a check from friends without authority to scold, does not suffice to bring soberness instead of rattling giddiness.  Lady de la Poer was absolutely glad to break up the dinner, so as to work off the folly and excitement by moving about, before it should make the little girl expose herself, or infect Adelaide.

They intended to have gone into the gardens till four o’clock, when the fountains were to play; but as they moved towards the great door, they perceived a dark heavy cloud was hiding the sun that had hitherto shone so dazzlingly through the crystal walls.

“That is nice,” said Lady Fanny; “it will be cool and pleasant now before the rain.”

“If the rain is not imminent,” began her father.

“Oh! is it going to be a thunder-storm?” cried Kate.  “Oh dear!  I do so hate thunder!  What shall I do?” cried she; all her excitement turning into terror.

Before anyone could answer her, there was a flash of bright white light before all their eyes, and a little scream.

“She’s struck! she’s struck!” cried Adelaide, her hands before her eyes.

For Kate had disappeared.  No, she was in the great pond, beside which they had been standing, and Mary was kneeling on the edge, holding fast by her frock.  But before the deep voice of the thunder was roaring and reverberating through the vaults, Lord de la Poer had her in his grasp, and the growl had not ceased before she was on her feet again, drenched and trembling, beginning to be the centre of a crowd, who were running together to help or to see the child who had been either struck by lightning or drowned.

“Is she struck?  Will she be blind?” sobbed Adelaide, still with her hands before her eyes; and the inquiry was echoed by the nearer people, while more distant ones told each other that the young lady was blind for life.

“Struck! nonsense!” said Lord de la Poer; “the lightning was twenty miles off at least.  Are you hurt, my dear?”

“No,” said Kate, shaking herself, and answering “No,” more decidedly.  “Only I am so wet, and my things stick to me.”

“How did it happen?” asked Grace.

“I don’t know.  I wanted to get away from the thunder!” said bewildered Kate.

Meantime, an elderly lady, who had come up among the spectators, was telling Lady de la Poer that she lived close by, and insisting that the little girl should be taken at once to her house, put to bed, and her clothes dried.  Lady de la Poer was thankful to accept the kind offer without loss of time; and in the fewest possible words it was settled that she would go and attend to the little drowned rat, while her girls should remain with their father at the palace till the time of going home, when they would meet at the station.  They must walk to the good lady’s house, be the storm what it would, as the best chance of preventing Kate from catching cold.  She looked a rueful spectacle, dripping so as to make a little pool on the stone floor; her hat and feather limp and streaming; her hair in long lank rats’ tails, each discharging its own waterfall; her clothes, ribbons, and all, pasted down upon her!  There was no time to be lost; and the stranger took her by one hand, Lady de la Poer by the other, and exchanging some civil speeches with one another half out of breath, they almost swung her from one step of the grand stone stairs to another, and hurried her along as fast as these beplastered garments would let her move.  There was no rain as yet, but there was another clap of thunder much louder than the first; but they held Kate too fast to let her stop, or otherwise make herself more foolish.

In a very few minutes they were at the good lady’s door; in another minute in her bedroom, where, while she and her maid bustled off to warm the bed, Lady de la Poer tried to get the clothes off—a service of difficulty, when every tie held fast, every button was slippery, and the tighter garments fitted like skins.  Kate was subdued and frightened; she gave no trouble, but all the help she gave was to pull a string so as to make a hopeless knot of the bow that her friend had nearly undone.

However, by the time the bed was warm the dress was off, and the child, rolled up in a great loose night-dress of the kind lady’s, was installed in it, feeling—sultry day though it were—that the warm dryness was extremely comfortable to her chilled limbs.  The good lady brought her some hot tea, and moved away to the window, talking in a low murmuring voice to Lady de la Poer.  Presently a fresh flash of lightning made her bury her head in the pillow; and there she began thinking how hard it was that the thunder should come to spoil her one day’s pleasure; but soon stopped this, remembering Who sends storm and thunder, and feeling afraid to murmur.  Then she remembered that perhaps she deserved to be disappointed.  She had been wild and troublesome, had spoilt Adelaide’s birthday, teazed Mary, and made kind Lady de la Poer grave and displeased.

She would say how sorry she was, and ask pardon.  But the two ladies still stood talking.  She must wait till this stranger was gone.  And while she was waiting—how it was she knew not—but Countess Kate was fast asleep.

CHAPTER VIII

When Kate opened her eyes again, and turned her face up from the pillow, she saw the drops on the window shining in the sun, and Lady de la Poer, with her bonnet off, reading under it.

All that had happened began to return on Kate’s brain in a funny medley; and the first thing she exclaimed was, “Oh! those poor little fishes, how I must have frightened them!”

“My dear!”

“Do you think I did much mischief?” said Kate, raising herself on her arm.  “I am sure the fishes must have been frightened, and the water-lilies broken.  Oh! you can’t think how nasty their great coiling stems were—just like snakes!  But those pretty blue and pink flowers!  Did it hurt them much, do you think—or the fish?”

“I should think the fish had recovered the shock,” said Lady de la Poer, smiling; “but as to the lilies, I should be glad to be sure you had done yourself as little harm as you have to them.”

“Oh no,” said Kate, “I’m not hurt—if Aunt Barbara won’t be terribly angry.  Now I wouldn’t mind that, only that I’ve spoilt Addie’s birthday, and all your day.  Please, I’m very sorry!”

She said this so sadly and earnestly, that Lady de la Poer came and gave her a kind hiss of forgiveness, and said:

“Never mind, the girls are very happy with their father, and the rest is good for me.”

Kate thought this very comfortable and kind, and clung to the kind hand gratefully; but though it was a fine occasion for one of the speeches she could have composed in private, all that came out of her mouth was, “How horrid it is—the way everything turns out with me!”

“Nay, things need not turn out horrid, if a certain little girl would keep herself from being silly.”

“But I am a silly little girl!” cried Kate with emphasis.  “Uncle Wardour says he never saw such a silly one, and so does Aunt Barbara!”

“Well, my dear,” said Lady de la Poer very calmly, “when clever people take to being silly, they can be sillier than anyone else.”

“Clever people!” cried Kate half breathlessly.

“Yes,” said the lady, “you are a clever child; and if you made the most of yourself, you could be very sensible, and hinder yourself from being foolish and unguarded, and getting into scrapes.”

Kate gasped.  It was not pleasant to be in a scrape; and yet her whole self recoiled from being guarded and watchful, even though for the first time she heard she was not absolutely foolish.  She began to argue, “I was naughty, I know, to teaze Mary; and Mary at home would not have let me; but I could not help the tumbling into the pond.  I wanted to get out of the way of the lightning.”

“Now, Kate, you are trying to show how silly you can make yourself.”

“But I can’t bear thunder and lightning.  It frightens me so, I don’t know what to do; and Aunt Jane is just as bad.  She always has the shutters shut.”

“Your Aunt Jane has had her nerves weakened by bad health; but you are young and strong, and you ought to fight with fanciful terrors.”

“But it is not fancy about lightning.  It does kill people.”

“A storm is very awful, and is one of the great instances of God’s power.  He does sometimes allow His lightnings to fall; but I do not think it can be quite the thought of this that terrifies you, Kate, for the recollection of His Hand is comforting.”

“No,” said Kate honestly, “it is not thinking of that.  It is that the glare—coming no one knows when—and the great rattling clap are so—so frightful!”

“Then, my dear, I think all you can do is to pray not only for protection from lightning and tempest, but that you may be guarded from the fright that makes you forget to watch yourself, and so renders the danger greater!  You could not well have been drowned where you fell; but if it had been a river—”