Countess Kate Part 24

"We must hear what your uncle says, for you must know that he meant the box for you."

"It isn't that I don't care for it," said Kate, with a sudden glistening in her eyes; "it is because I do care for it so very much that I want Mary to have it."

"I know it is, my dear;" and her aunt kissed her; "but we must think about it a little. Perhaps Mary would not think an Indian shawl quite so stupid as you do."

"Mary isn't a nasty vain conceited girl!" cried Kate indignantly.

"She always looks nice; but I heard Papa say her dress did not cost much more than Sylvia's and mine, because she never tore anything, and took such care!"

"Well, we will see," said Mrs. Umfraville, perhaps not entirely convinced that the shawl would not be a greater prize to the thrifty girl than Kate perceived.

Kate meanwhile had sprung unmolested on a beautiful sandalwood case for Sylvia, and a set of rice-paper pictures for Lily; and the appropriating other treasures to the De la Poers, packing them up, and directing them, accompanied with explanations of their habits and tastes, lasted till so late, that after the litter was cleared away there was only time for one game at chess with the grand pieces; and in truth the honour of using them was greater than the pleasure.

They covered up the board, so that there was no seeing the squares, and it was necessary to be most inconveniently cautious in lifting them. They were made to be looked at, not played with; and yet, wonderful to relate, Kate did not do one of the delicate things a mischief!

Was it that she was really grown more handy, or was it that with this gentle aunt she was quite at her ease, yet too much subdued to be careless and rough?

The luncheon came; and after it, she drove with her aunt first to a few shops, and then to take up the Colonel, who had been with his lawyer. Kate quaked a little inwardly, lest it should be about the Lord Chancellor, and tried to frame a question on the subject to her aunt; but even the most chattering little girls know what it is to have their lips sealed by an odd sort of reserve upon the very matters that make them most uneasy; and just because her wild imagination had been thinking that perhaps this was all a plot to waylay her into the Lord Chancellor's clutches, she could not utter a word on the matter, while they drove through the quiet squares where lawyers live.

Mrs. Umfraville, however, soon put that out of her head by talking to her about the Wardours, and setting open the flood gates of her eloquence about Sylvia. So delightful was it to have a listener, that Kate did not grow impatient, long as they waited at the lawyer's door in the dull square, and indeed was sorry when the Colonel made his appearance. He just said to her that he hoped she was not tired of waiting; and as she replied with a frightened little "No, thank you," began telling his wife something that Kate soon perceived belonged to his own concerns, not to hers; so she left off trying to gather the meaning in the rumble of the wheels, and looked out of window, for she could never be quite at ease when she felt that those eyes might be upon her.

On coming back to the hotel, Mrs. Umfraville found a note on the table for her: she read it, gave it to her husband, and said, "I had better go directly."

"Will it not be too much? Can you?" he said very low; and there was the same repressed twitching of the muscles of his face, as Kate had seen when he was left with his sister Jane.

"Oh yes!" she said fervently; "I shall like it. And it is her only chance; you see she goes to-morrow."

The carriage was ordered again, and Mrs. Umfraville explained to Kate that the note was from a poor invalid lady whose son was in their own regiment in India, that she was longing to hear about him, and was going out of town the next day.

"And what shall I give you to amuse yourself with, my dear?" asked Mrs. Umfraville. "I am afraid we have hardly a book that will suit you."

Kate had a great mind to ask to go and sit in the carriage, rather than remain alone with the terrible black moustache; but she was afraid of the Colonel's mentioning Aunt Barbara's orders that she was not to be let out of sight. "If you please," she said, "if I might write to Sylvia."

Her aunt kindly established her at a little table, with a leathern writing-case, and her uncle mended a pen for her. Then her aunt went away, and he sat down to his own letters.

Kate durst not speak to him, but she watched him under her eyelashes, and noticed how he presently laid down his pen, and gave a long, heavy, sad sigh, such as she had never heard when his wife was present; then sat musing, looking fixedly at the grey window; till, rousing himself with another such sigh, he seemed to force himself to go on writing, but paused again, as if he were so wearied and oppressed that he could hardly bear it.

It gave Kate a great awe of him, partly because a little girl in a book would have gone up, slid her hand into his, and kissed him; but she could nearly as soon have slid her hand into a lion's; and she was right, it would have been very obtrusive.

Some little time had pa.s.sed before there was an opening of the door, and the announcement, "Lord de la Poer."

Up started Kate, but she was quite lost in the greeting of the two friends; Lord de la Poer, with his eyes full of tears, wringing his friend's hand, hardly able to speak, but just saying, "Dear Giles, I am glad to have you at home. How is she?"

"Wonderfully well," said the Colonel, with the calm voice but the twitching face. "She is gone to see Mrs. Ducie, the mother of a lad in my regiment, who was wounded at the same time as Giles, and whom she nursed with him."

"Is not it very trying?"

"Nothing that is a kindness ever is trying to Emily," he said, and his voice did tremble this time.

Kate had quietly re-seated herself in her chair. She felt that it was no moment to thrust herself in; nor did she feel herself aggrieved, even though unnoticed by such a favourite friend.

Something in the whole spirit of the day had made her only sensible that she was a little girl, and quite forgot that she was a Countess.

The friends were much too intent on one another to think of her, as she sat in the recess of the window, their backs to her. They drew their chairs close to the fire, and began to talk, bending down together; and Kate felt sure, that as her uncle at least knew she was there, she need not interrupt. Besides, what they spoke of was what she had longed to hear, and would never have dared to ask. Lord de la Poer had been like a father to his friend's two sons when they were left in England; and now the Colonel was telling him--as, perhaps, he could have told no one else--about their brave spirit, and especially of Giles's patience and resolution through his lingering illness; how he had been entirely unselfish in entreating that anything might happen rather than that his father should resign his post; but though longing to be with his parents, and desponding as to his chance of recovery, had resigned himself in patience to whatever might be thought right; and how through the last sudden accession of illness brought on by the journey, his sole thought had been for his parents.

"And she has borne up!" said Lord de la Poer.

"As HE truly said, 'As long as she has anyone to care for, she will never break down.' Luckily, I was entirely knocked up for a few days just at first; and coming home we had a poor young woman on board very ill, and Emily nursed her day and night."

"And now you will bring her to f.a.n.n.y and me to take care of."

"Thank you--another time. But, old fellow, I don't know whether we either of us could stand your house full of children yet. Emily would be always among them, and think she liked it; but I knew how it would be. It was just so when I took her to a kind friend of ours after the little girls were taken; she had the children constantly with her, but I never saw her so ill as she was afterwards."

"Reaction! Well, whenever you please; you shall have your rooms to yourselves, and only see us when you like. But I don't mean to press you; only, what are you going to do next?"

"I can hardly tell. There are business matters of our own, and about poor James's little girl, to keep us here a little while." ("Who is that?" thought Kate.)

"Then you must go into our house. I was in hopes it might be so, and told the housekeeper to make ready."

"Thank you; if Emily--We will see, when she comes in I want to make up my mind about that child. Have you seen much of her?"

Kate began to think honour required her to come forward, but her heart throbbed with fright.

"Not so much as I could wish. It is an intelligent little monkey, and our girls were delighted with her; but I believe Barbara thinks me a corrupter of youth, for she discountenances us."

"Ah! one of the last times I was alone with Giles, he said, smiling, 'That little girl in Bruton Street will be just what Mamma wants;'

and I know Emily has never ceased to want to get hold of the motherless thing ever since Mrs. Wardour's death. I know it would be the greatest comfort to Emily, but I only doubted taking the child away from my sisters. I thought it would be such a happy thing to have Jane's kind heart drawn out; and if Barbara had forgiven the old sore, and used her real admirable good sense affectionately, it would have been like new life to them. Besides, it must make a great difference to their income. But is it possible that it can be the old prejudice, De la Poer? Barbara evidently dislikes the poor child, and treats her like a state prisoner!"

Honour prevailed entirely above fear and curiosity. Out flew Kate, to the exceeding amaze and discomfiture of the two gentlemen. "No, no, Uncle Giles; it is--it is because I ran away! Aunt Barbara said she would not tell, for if you knew it, you would--you would despise me;--and you," looking at Lord de la Poer, "would never let me play with Grace and Addy again!"

She covered her face with her hands--it was all burning red; and she was nearly rushing off, but she felt herself lifted tenderly upon a knee, and an arm round her. She thought it her old friend; but behold, it was her uncle's voice that said, in the softest gentlest way, "My dear, I never despise where I meet with truth. Tell me how it was; or had you rather tell your Aunt Emily?"

"I'll tell you," said Kate, all her fears softened by his touch. "Oh no! please don't go, Lord de la Poer; I do want you to know, for I couldn't have played with Grace and Adelaide on false pretences!"

And encouraged by her uncle's tender pressure, she murmured out, "I ran away--I did--I went home!"

"To Oldburgh!"

"Yes--yes! It was very wrong; Papa--Uncle Wardour, I mean--made me see it was."

"And what made you do it?" said her uncle kindly. "Do not be afraid to tell me."

"It was because I was angry. Aunt Barbara would not let me go to the other Wardours, and wanted me to write a--what I thought--a fashionable falsehood; and when I said it was a lie," (if possible, Kate here became deeper crimson than she was before,) "she sent me to my room till I would beg her pardon, and write the note. So--so I got out of the house, and took a cab, and went home by the train. I didn't know it was so very dreadful a thing, or indeed I would not."

And Kate hid her burning face on her uncle's breast, and was considerably startled by what she heard next, from the Marquis.

"Hm! All I have to say is, that if Barbara had the keeping of me, I should run away at the end of a week."

"Probably!" and Lord de la Poer saw, what Kate did not, the first shadow of a smile on the face of his friend, as he pressed his arm round the still trembling girl; "but, you see, Barbara justly thinks you corrupt youth.--My little girl, you must not let HIM make you think lightly of this--"

"Oh, no, I never could! Papa was so shocked!" and she was again covered with confusion at the thought.