Countess Kate

“But did you correct them?”

“O Papa, I did not mean it!  But I am naughty now!  I always am naughty, so much worse than I used to be at home.  Indeed I am, and I never do get into a good vein now.  O Papa, Papa, can’t you get me out of it all?  If you could only take me home again!  I don’t think my aunts want to keep me—they say I am so bad and horrid, and that I make Aunt Jane ill.  Oh, take me back, Papa!”

He did take her on his knee, and held her close to him.  “I wish I could, my dear,” he said; “I should like to have you again! but it cannot be.  It is a different state of life that has been appointed for you; and you would not be allowed to make your home with me, with no older a person than Mary to manage for you.  If your aunt had not been taken from us, then—” and Kate ventured to put her arm round his neck—“then this would have been your natural home; but as things are with us, I could not make my house such as would suit the requirements of those who arrange for you.  And, my poor child, I fear we let the very faults spring up that are your sorrow now.”

“Oh no, no, Papa, you helped me!  Aunt Barbara only makes me—oh! may I say?—hate her! for indeed there is no helping it!  I can’t be good there.”

“What is it?  What do you mean, my dear?  What is your difficulty?  And I will try to help you.”

Poor Kate found it not at all easy to explain when she came to particulars.  “Always cross,” was the clearest idea in her mind; “never pleased with her, never liking anything she did—not punishing, but much worse.”  She had not made out her case, she knew; but she could only murmur again, “It all went wrong, and I was very unhappy.”

Mr. Wardour sighed from the bottom of his heart; he was very sorrowful, too, for the child that was as his own.  And then he went back and thought of his early college friend, and of his own wife who had so fondled the little orphan—all that was left of her sister.  It was grievous to him to put that child away from him when she came clinging to him, and saying she was unhappy, and led into faults.

“It will be better when your uncle comes home,” he began.

“Oh no, Papa, indeed it will not.  Uncle Giles is more stern than Aunt Barbara.  Aunt Jane says it used to make her quite unhappy to see how sharp he was with poor Giles and Frank.”

“I never saw him in his own family,” said Mr. Wardour thoughtfully; “but this I know, Kate, that your father looked up to him, young as he then was, more than to anyone; that he was the only person among them all who ever concerned himself about you or your mother; and that on the two occasions when I saw him, I thought him very like your father.”

“I had rather he was like you, Papa,” sighed Kate.  “Oh, if I was but your child!” she added, led on by a little involuntary pressure of his encircling arm.

“Don’t let us talk of what is not, but of what is,” said Mr. Wardour; “let us try to look on things in their right light.  It has been the will of Heaven to call you, my little girl, to a station where you will, if you live, have many people’s welfare depending on you, and your example will be of weight with many.  You must go through training for it, and strict training may be the best for you.  Indeed, it must be the best, or it would not have been permitted to befall you.”

“But it does not make me good, it makes me naughty.”

“No, Kate; nothing, nobody can make you naughty; nothing is strong enough to do that.”

Kate knew what he meant, and hung her head.

“My dear, I do believe that you feel forlorn and dreary, and miss the affection you have had among us; but have you ever thought of the Friend who is closest of all to us, and who is especially kind to a fatherless child?”

“I can’t—I can’t feel it—Papa, I can’t.  And then, why was it made so that I must go away from you and all?”

“You will see some day, though you cannot see now, my dear.  If you use it rightly, you will feel the benefit.  Meantime, you must take it on trust, just as you do my love for you, though I am going to carry you back.”

“Yes; but I can feel you loving me.”

“My dear child, it only depends on yourself to feel your Heavenly Father loving you.  If you will set yourself to pray with your heart, and think of His goodness to you, and ask Him for help and solace in all your present vexatious and difficulties, never mind how small, you will become conscious of his tender pity and love to you.”

“Ah! but I am not good!”

“But He can make you so, Kate.  Your have been wearied by religious teaching hitherto, have you not?”

“Except when it was pretty and like poetry,” whispered Kate.

“Put your heart to your prayers now, Kate.  Look in the Psalms for verses to suit your loneliness; recollect that you meet us in spirit when you use the same Prayers, read the same Lessons, and think of each other.  Or, better still, carry your troubles to Him; and when you have felt His help, you will know what that is far better than I can tell you.”

Kate only answered with a long breath; not feeling as if she could understand such comfort, but with a resolve to try.

“And now,” said Mr. Wardour, “I must take you home to-morrow, and I will speak for you to Lady Barbara, and try to obtain her forgiveness; but, Kate, I do not think you quite understand what a shocking proceeding this was of yours.”

“I know it was wrong to fancy that, and say that about Aunt Barbara.  I’ll tell her so,” said Kate, with a trembling voice.

“Yes, that will be right; but it was this—this expedition that I meant.”

“It was coming to you, Papa!”

“Yes, Kate; but did you think what an outrageous act it was?  There is something particularly grievous in a little girl, or a woman of any age, casting off restraint, and setting out in the world unprotected and contrary to authority.  Do you know, it frightened me so much, that till I saw more of you I did not like you to be left alone with Sylvia.”

The deep red colour flushed all over Kate’s face and neck in her angry shame and confusion, burning darker and more crimson, so that Mr. Wardour was very sorry for her, and added, “I am obliged to say this, because you ought to know that it is both very wrong in itself, and will be regarded by other people as more terrible than what you are repenting of more.  So, if you do find yourself distrusted and in disgrace, you must not think it unjust and cruel, but try to submit patiently, and learn not to be reckless and imprudent.  My poor child, I wish you could have so come to us that we might have been happier together.  Perhaps you will some day; and in the meantime, if you have any troubles, or want to know anything, you may always write to me.”

“Writing is not speaking,” said Kate ruefully.

“No; but it comes nearer to it as people get older.  Now go, my dear; I am busy, and you had better make the most of your time with your cousins.”

Kate’s heart was unburthened now; and though there was much alarm, pain, and grief, in anticipation, yet she felt more comfortable in herself than she had done for months.  “Papa” had never been so tender with her, and she knew that he had forgiven her.  She stept back to the drawing-room, very gentle and subdued, and tried to carry out her plans of living one of her old days, by beginning with sharing the lessons as usual, and then going out with her cousins to visit the school, and see some of the parishioners.  It was very nice and pleasant; she was as quiet and loving as possible, and threw herself into all the dear old home matters.  It was as if for a little while Katharine was driven out of Katharine, and a very sweet little maiden left instead—thinking about other things and people instead of herself, and full of affection and warmth.  The improvement that the half year’s discipline had made in her bearing and manners was visible now; her uncouth abrupt ways were softened, though still she felt that the naturally gentle and graceful Sylvia would have made a better countess than she did.

They spent the evening in little tastes of all their favourite drawing-room games, just for the sake of having tried them once more; and Papa himself came in and took a share—a very rare treat;—and he always thought of such admirable things in “Twenty questions,” and made “What’s my thought like?” more full of fun than anyone.

It was a very happy evening—one of the most happy that Kate had ever passed.  She knew how to enjoy her friends now, and how precious they were to her; and she was just so much tamed by the morning’s conversation, and by the dread of the future, as not to be betrayed into dangerously high spirits.  That loving, pitying way of Mary’s, and her own Sylvia’s exceeding pleasure in having her, were delightful; and all through she felt the difference between the real genuine love that she could rest on, and the mere habit of fondling of the other Sylvia.

“O Sylvia,” she said, as they walked upstairs, hand in hand, pausing on every stop to make it longer, “how could I be so glad to go away before?”

“We didn’t know,” said Sylvia.

“No,” as they crept up another step; “Sylvia, will you always think of me just here on this step, as you go up to bed?”

“Yes,” said Sylvia, “that I will.  And, Katie, would it be wrong just to whisper a little prayer then that you might be good and happy?”

“It couldn’t be wrong, Sylvia; only couldn’t you just ask, too, for me to come home?”

“I don’t know,” said Sylvia thoughtfully, pausing a long time on the step.  “You see we know it is sure to be God’s will that you should be good and happy; but if it was not for you to come home, we might be like Balaam, you know, if we asked it too much, and it might come about in some terrible way.”

“I didn’t think of that,” said Kate.  And the two little girls parted gravely and peacefully; Kate somehow feeling as if, though grievous things were before her, the good little kind Sylvia’s hearty prayers must obtain some good for her.

There is no use in telling how sad the parting was when Mr. Wardour and the little Countess set out for London again.  Mary had begged hard to go too, thinking that she could plead for Kate better than anyone else; but Mr. Wardour thought Lady Barbara more likely to be angered than softened by their clinging to their former charge; and besides, it was too great an expense.

He had no doubt of Lady Barbara’s displeasure from the tone of the note that morning received, coldly thanking him and Miss Wardour for their intelligence, and his promise to restore Lady Caergwent on Tuesday.  She was sorry to trouble him to bring the child back; she would have come herself, but that her sister was exceedingly unwell, from the alarm coming at a time of great family affliction.  If Lady Caergwent were not able to return on Tuesday, she would send down her own maid to bring her home on Wednesday.  The letter was civility itself; but it was plain that Lady Barbara thought Kate’s illness no better than the “previous engagement,” in the note that never was written.

What was the family affliction?  Kate could not guess, but was inclined to imagine privately that Aunt Barbara was magnifying Uncle Giles’s return without being a General into a family affliction, on purpose to aggravate her offence.  However, in the train, Mr. Wardour, who had been looking at the Supplement of the Times, lent to him by a fellow-traveller, touched her, and made her read—

“On the 11th, at Alexandria, in his 23rd year, Lieutenant Giles de la Poer Umfraville, of the 109th regiment; eldest, and last survivor of the children of the Honourable Giles Umfraville, late Lieutenant-Colonel of the 109th regiment.”

Kate knew she ought to be very sorry, and greatly pity the bereaved father and mother; but, somehow, she could not help dwelling most upon the certainty that everyone would be much more hard upon her, and cast up this trouble to her, as if she had known of it, and run away on purpose to make it worse.  It must have been this that they were talking about in Aunt Jane’s room, and this must have made them so slow to detect her flight.

In due time the train arrived, a cab was taken, and Kate, beginning to tremble with fright, sat by Mr. Wardour, and held his coat as if clinging to him as long as she could was a comfort.  Sometimes she wished the cab would go faster, so that it might be over; sometimes—especially when the streets became only too well known to her—she wished that they would stretch out and out for ever, that she might still be sitting by Papa, holding his coat.  It seemed as if that would be happiness enough for life!

Here was Bruton Street; here the door that on Saturday had shut behind her!  It was only too soon open, and Kate kept her eyes on the ground, ashamed that even the butler should see her.  She hung back, waiting till Mr. Wardour had paid the cabman; but there was no spinning it out, she had to walk upstairs, her only comfort being that her hand was in his.