Then there were her walks. She was sent out with Josephine in the morning and desired to walk nowhere but in the Square; and in the afternoon she and Josephine were usually set down by the carriage together in one of the parks, and appointed where to meet it again after Lady Jane had taken her airing when she was well enough, for she soon became more ailing than usual. They were to keep in the quiet paths, and not speak to anyone.
But neither Josephine nor her young lady had any turn for what was "triste." One morning, when Kate was in great want of a bit of India-rubber, and had been sighing because of the displeasure she should meet for having lost her own through using it in play-hours, Josephine offered to take her--only a little out of her way--to buy a new piece.
Kate knew this was not plain dealing, and hated herself for it, but she was tired of being scolded, and consented! And then how miserable she was; how afraid of being asked where she had been; how terrified lest her aunt should observe that it was a new, not an old, piece; how humiliated by knowing she was acting untruth!
And then Josephine took more liberties. When Kate was walking along the path, thinking how to rhyme to "pride," she saw Josephine talking over the iron rail to a man with a beard; and she told her maid afterwards that it was wrong; but Josephine said, "Miladi had too good a heart to betray her," and the man came again and again, and once even walked home part of the way with Josephine, a little behind the young lady.
Kate was desperately affronted, and had a great mind to complain to her aunts. But then Josephine could have told that they had not been in the Square garden at all that morning, but in much more entertaining streets! Poor Kate, these daily disobediences did not weigh on her nearly as much as the first one did; it was all one general sense of naughtiness!
Working at her harebell was the pleasantest thing she did, but her eagerness about it often made her neglectful and brought her into scrapes. She had filled one blank book with her verses and pictures, some rather good, some very bad; and for want of help and correction she was greatly delighted with her own performance, and thought it quite worthy of a little ornamental album, where she could write out the verses and gum in the drawings.
"Please, Aunt Barbara, let me go to the Soho Bazaar to-day?"
"I cannot take you there, I have an engagement."
"But may I not go with Josephine?"
"Certainly not. I would not trust you there with her. Besides, you spend too much upon trumpery, as it is."
"I don't want it for myself; I want something to get ready for Sylvia's birthday--the Sylvia that is come to London, I mean."
"I do not approve of a habit of making presents."
"Oh! but, Aunt Barbara, I am to drink tea with her on her birthday, and spend the day, and go to the Zoological Gardens, and I have all ready but my presents! and it will not be in time if you won't let me go to-day."
"I never grant anything to pertinacity," answered Lady Barbara. "I have told you that I cannot go with you to-day, and you ought to submit."
"But the birthday, Aunt Barbara!"
"I have answered you once, Katharine; you ought to know better than to persist."
Kate pouted, and the tears swelled in her eyes at the cruelty of depriving her of the pleasure of making her purchase, and at having her beautiful fanciful production thus ruined by her aunt's unkindness. As she sat over her geography lesson, out of sight of her own bad writing, her broken-backed illuminated capitals, her lumpy campanulas, crooked-winged fairies, queer perspective, and dabs of blue paint, she saw her performance not as it was, but as it was meant to be, heard her own lines without their awkward rhymes and bits like prose, and thought of the wonder and admiration of all the Wardour family, and of the charms of having it secretly lent about as a dear simple sweet effusion of the talented young countess, who longed for rural retirement. And down came a great tear into the red trimming of British North America, and Kate unadvisedly trying to wipe it up with her handkerchief, made a red smear all across to Cape Verd! Formerly she would have exclaimed at once; now she only held up the other side of the book that her aunt might not see, and felt very shabby all the time. But Lady Barbara was reading over a letter, and did not look. If Kate had not been wrapt up in herself, she would have seen that anxious distressed face.
There came a knock to the schoolroom door. It was Mr. Mercer, the doctor, who always came to see Lady Jane twice a week, and startled and alarmed, Lady Barbara sprang up. "Do you want me, Mr. Mercer? I'll come."
"No, thank you," said the doctor, coming in. "It was only that I promised I would look at this little lady, just to satisfy Lady Jane, who does not think her quite well."
Kate's love of being important always made her ready to be looked at by Mr. Mercer, who was a kind, fatherly old gentleman, not greatly apt to give physic, very good-natured, and from his long attendance more intimate with the two sisters than perhaps any other person was. Lady Barbara gave an odd sort of smile, and said, "Oh! very well!" and the old gentleman laughed as the two bright clear eyes met his, and said, "No great weight there, I think! Only a geography fever, eh? Any more giddy heads lately, eh? Or only when you make cheeses?"
"I can't make cheeses now, my frocks are so short," said Kate, whose spirits always recovered with the least change.
"No more dreams?"
"Not since I went to Bournemouth."
"Your tongue." And as Kate, who had a certain queer pleasure in the operation, put out the long pinky member with its ruddier tip, quivering like an animal, he laughed again, and said, "Thank you, Lady Caergwent; it is a satisfaction once in a way to see something perfectly healthy! You would not particularly wish for a spoonful of cod-liver oil, would you?"
Kate laughed, made a face, and shook her head.
"Well," said the doctor as he released her, "I may set Lady Jane's mind at rest. Nothing the matter there with the health."
"Nothing the matter but perverseness, I am afraid," said Lady Barbara, as Kate stole back to her place, and shut her face in with the board of her atlas. "It is my sister who is the victim, and I cannot have it go on. She is so dreadfully distressed whenever the child is in disgrace that it is doing her serious injury. Do you not see it, Mr. Mercer?"
"She is very fond of the child," said Mr. Mercer.
"That is the very thing! She is constantly worrying herself about her, takes all her naughtiness for illness, and then cannot bear to see her reproved. I assure you I am forced for my sister's sake to overlook many things which I know I ought not to pass by." (Kate shuddered.) "But the very anxiety about her is doing great harm."
"I thought Lady Jane nervous and excited this morning," said Mr. Mercer: "but that seemed to me to be chiefly about the Colonel's return."
"Yes," said Lady Barbara, "of course in some ways it will be a great pleasure; but it is very unlucky, after staying till the war was over, that he has had to sell out without getting his promotion. It will make a great difference!"
"On account of his son's health, is it not?"
"Yes; of course everything must give way to that, but it is most unfortunate. The boy has never recovered from his wound at Lucknow, and they could not bear to part, or they ought to have sent him home with his mother long ago; and now my brother has remained at his post till he thought he could be spared; but he has not got his promotion, which he must have had in a few months."
"When do you expect him?"
"They were to set off in a fortnight from the time he wrote, but it all depended on how Giles might be. I wish we knew; I wish there could be any certainty, this is so bad for my sister. And just at this very time, without a governess, when some children would be especially thoughtful and considerate, that we should have this strange fit of idleness and perverseness! It is very trying; I feel quite hopeless sometimes!"