CHAPTER III
Kate Courtenay rushed across the park in a passion of mortification and childish despair, and fled as fast as her swift feet could carry her to a favourite spot—a little dell, through which the tiniest of brooks ran trickling, so hidden under the trees and copse that even Summer never quite dried it up. There was a little semi-artificial waterfall, just where the brook descended into the depths of this little dell. In Spring it was a wilderness of primroses and violets; and so long as wild flowers would blow, they were always to be found in this sunny nook. The only drawback was that a footpath ran within sight of it, and that the village had an often-contested right of way skirting the bank. Kate had issued arbitrary orders more than once that no one was to be suffered to pass; but the law was too strong for Kate, as it had been for her grandfathers before her; and, on the whole, perhaps the occasional passenger had paid for his intrusion by the additional liveliness he had given to the landscape. It was one of Kate’s ‘tricks,’ her governess once went so far as to say, to take her evening walk here, in order to detect the parties of lovers with whom this footway was a favourite resort. All this, however, was absent from Kate’s mind now. She rushed through the trees and bushes, and threw herself on the sunny grass by the brookside; and at fifteen passion is not silent, as it endeavours to be at a more advanced age. Kate did not weep only, but cried, and sobbed, and made a noise, so that some one passing by in the footway on the other side of the bushes was arrested by the sound, and drew near.
It is hard to hear sounds of weeping in a warm Summer evening, when the air is sweet with sounds of pleasure. There is something incongruous in it, which wounds the listener. The passenger in this case was young and tender-hearted, and he was so far like Kate herself, that when he heard sounds of trouble, he felt that he had a right to interfere. He was a clergyman’s son, and in the course of training to be a clergyman too. His immediate destination was, as soon as he should be old enough to be ordained, the curacy of Langton-Courtenay, of which his father was Rector. Whether he should eventually succeed his father was of course in the hands of Providence and Miss Courtenay; he had not taken his degree yet, and was at least two years off the time when he could take orders; but still the shadow of his profession was upon him, and, in right of that, Herbert Hardwick felt that it was his business to interfere.
What he saw, when he looked through the screen of trees, was the figure of a girl in a light Summer dress, half seated, half lying on the grass. Her head was bent down between her hands; and even had this not been the case, it is probable Bertie, who had scarcely seen Miss Courtenay, would not have recognised her. Of course, had he taken time to think, he must have known at once that nobody except Kate, or some visitor at the Hall, was likely to be there; but he never took time to think. It was not his way. He stepped at once over the fence, walking through the brushwood, and strode across the brook without pause or hesitation.
‘What is the matter?’ he said, in his boyish promptitude. ‘Have you hurt yourself?—have you lost your way?—what is wrong?’
For a moment she took no notice of him, except to turn her back more completely on him. Herbert had sisters, and he was not so ceremonious to young womankind generally as might otherwise have happened. He laid his hand quite frankly on her shoulder, and knelt down beside her on the grass. ‘No,’ he said, with a certain authority, ‘my poor child, whoever you may be, I can’t leave you to cry your eyes out. What is the matter? Look up and tell me. Have you lost yourself? If you will tell me where you have come from, I will take you home. Or have you hurt yourself? Now, pray don’t be cross, but answer, and let me know what I can do.’
Kate had almost got her weeping-fit over, and surprise had wakened a new sentiment in her mind. Surprise and curiosity, and the liveliest desire to know whose the voice was, and whose the hand laid so lightly, yet with a certain authority, upon her shoulder. She made a dash with her handkerchief across her face to clear away the tears, and then she suddenly turned round and confronted her comforter. She looked up at him with tears hanging on her eyelashes, and her face wet with them, yet with all the soul of self-will which was natural to her looking out of her eyes.
‘Do you know,’ she said hastily, ‘that you are trespassing? This is private property, and you have no right to be here.’
The answer which Bertie Hardwick made to this was, first, an astonished stare, and then a burst of laughter. The sudden change from sympathy and concern to amusement was so great that it produced an explosion of merriment which he could not restrain. He was a handsome lad of twenty—blue-eyed, with brown hair curling closely about his head, strongly built, and full of life, though not gigantic in his proportions. Even now, though he had heard of the imperious little Lady of the Manor, it did not occur to him to connect her with this stranger. He laughed with perfect heartiness and abandon; she looking on quite gravely and steadily, the while, assisting at the outburst—a fact which did not diminish the amusing character of the scene.
‘I came to help you,’ he said. ‘I hope you will not give information. Nobody will know I have trespassed unless you tell, and that would be ungrateful; for I thought there was something the matter, and came to be of use to you.’
‘There is nothing the matter,’ said Kate, very gravely, making a photograph of him with the keen, inquisitive eyes, from which, by this time, all tears were gone.
‘I am glad to hear it,’ he said; and then, with another laugh—‘I suppose you are trespassing too. Can I help you over the fence?—or is there anything that I can do?’
‘I am not trespassing—I am at home—I am Miss Courtenay,’ said Kate, with infinite dignity, rising from the grass. She stood thus looking at him with the air of a queen defending her realm from invasion; she felt, to tell the truth, something like Helen Macgregor, when she starts up suddenly, and demands of the Sassenach how they dare to come into Macgregor’s country. But the young man was not impressed; the muscles about his mouth quivered with suppressed laughter and the strenuous effort to keep it down. He made her a bow—the best he could under the circumstances—and stood with the evening sunshine shining upon his uncovered head and crisp curls, a very pleasant object to look upon, in an attitude of respect which was half fun and half mockery, though Kate did not find that out.
‘Then I have been mistaken, and there is nothing for it but to apologise, and take myself off,’ said Bertie. ‘I am very sorry, I am sure. I thought something had gone wrong. To tell the truth I thought you were—crying.’
‘I was crying,’ said Kate. She did not in the least want him to go. He was company—he was novelty—he was something quite fresh, and already had altogether driven away her passion and her tears. Her heart quite leapt up at this agreeable diversion. ‘I was crying, and something had gone very wrong,’ she said in a subdued tone, and with a gentle sigh.
‘I am very sorry,’ said Bertie. ‘I don’t suppose it is anything in which I could be of use—?’
She looked at him again. ‘I think I know who you are,’ she said. ‘You must be the second son at the Rectory—the one whom they call Bertie. At least I don’t know who else you could be.’
‘Yes, I am the one they call Bertie,’ he said, laughing. ‘Herbert Hardwick, at your service. And I did not mean to trespass.’
The laugh rang pleasantly through all the echoes. It was infectious. Kate felt that, but for her dignity, she would like to laugh too. And yet it was a serious matter; and to aid and abet a trespasser, and at the same time ‘encourage’ the Rectory people, was, she felt, a thing which she ought not to do. But then it had been real concern for herself, the Lady of the Manor, which had been at the bottom of it; and that deserved to be considered on the other side.
‘I suppose not,’ she said, seriously. ‘Indeed, I am very particular about it. I don’t see why you should laugh. I should not think of going to walk in your grounds without leave, and why should you in mine? But since you are here, you must not go all that way back. If you like to come with me, I will show you a nearer way. Don’t you think it is a very fine park? Were you ever in one like it before?’
‘Yes,’ said Herbert, calmly, ‘a great many. Langton-Courtenay is very nice, but it wants size. The glades are pretty, and the trees are charming, but everything is on a small scale.’
‘On a small scale!’ Kate cried, half-choking with indignation. This unparalleled presumption took away even her voice.
‘Yes, decidedly small. How many acres are there in it? My uncle, Sir Herbert Eldridge, has five hundred acres in his. I am called after him, and I have been a great deal with him, you know. That is why I think your park so small. But it is very pretty!’ said Herbert, condescendingly, with a sense of the humour of the situation. As for Kate, she was crushed. She looked up at him first in a blaze of disdain, intending to do battle for her own, but the number of acres in Sir Herbert Eldridge’s park made an end of Kate.
‘I thought you were going to be a clergyman,’ she said.
‘So I am, I suppose; but what then?’
‘Oh! I thought—I didn’t know,’ cried Kate. ‘I supposed perhaps you were not very well off. But if you have such a rich uncle, with such a beautiful park–’
‘I don’t know what that has to do with it,’ said Bertie, with a mischievous light in his eyes. ‘We are not so very poor. We have dinners three or four times a week, and bread and cheese on the other days. A great many people are worse off than that.’
‘If you mean to laugh at me,’ said Kate, stopping short, with an angry gesture, ‘I think you had better turn back again. I am not a person to be made fun of.’ And then instantly the water rushed to her eyes, for she was as susceptible as any child is to ridicule. The young man checked himself on the verge of laughter, and apologised.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘I did not mean to make myself disagreeable. Besides, I don’t think you are quite well. I hope you will let me walk with you as far as the Hall.’
‘Oh! no,’ said Kate. But the suppressed tears, which had come to her eyes out of rage and indignation, suddenly grew blinding with self-pity, and recollection of her hard fate. ‘Oh! you can’t think how unhappy I am,’ she said, suddenly clasping her hands together—and a big tear came with a rush down her innocent nose, and fell, throwing up a little shower of salt spray from the concussion, upon her ungloved hand. This startled her, and her sense of dignity once more awoke; but she struggled with difficulty against her desire for sympathy. ‘I ought not to talk to a stranger,’ she said; ‘but, oh! you can’t think how disagreeable Uncle Courtenay can make himself, though he looks so nice. And Miss Blank does not mind if I were dead and buried! Oh!’ This exclamation was called forth by another great blot of dew from her eyes, which once more dashed and broke upon her hand, as a wave does on a rock. Kate looked at it with a silent concern which absorbed her. Her own tears! What was there in the world more touching or more sad?
‘I am so sorry,’ said Bertie Hardwick, moved by compassion. ‘Was that what you were crying for? You should come to the Rectory, to my mother, who always sets everybody right.’
‘Your mother would not care to see me,’ said Kate, looking at him wistfully. ‘She does not like me—she thinks I am your enemy. People should consider, Mr. Bertie—they should consider my position–’
‘Yes, you poor little thing,’ said Bertie, with the utmost sympathy; ‘that is quite true—you have neither father nor mother to keep you right—people ought to make allowance for that.’
To describe Kate’s consternation at this speech would be impossible. She a poor little thing!—she without any one to set her right! Was the boy mad? She was so stunned for the moment that she could make no reply—so many new emotions overwhelmed her. To make the discovery that Bertie Hardwick was nice, that he had an uncle with a park larger than the park at Langton-Courtenay; to learn that Langton-Courtenay was ‘small,’ and that she herself was a poor little thing. ‘What next?’ Kate asked herself. For all this had come to her knowledge in the course of half an hour. If life was to bring a succession of such surprises, how strange, how very strange it must be!
‘And I do wish you knew my mother,’ he went on innocently, not having the least idea that Kate’s silence arose from the fact that she was dumb with indignation; ‘she has the gift of understanding everybody. Isn’t it a pity that you should not know us, Miss Courtenay? My little sister Minnie is about your age, I should think.’
‘It is not my fault I don’t know you,’ burst forth Kate; ‘it is because you have not behaved properly to me—because your father would not pay any attention. Is it right for a clergyman to set a bad example, and teach people to rebel? He never even took any notice of my letter, though I am the natural head of the parish–’
‘You poor child!’ cried Bertie; and then he laughed.
Kate could not bear it—this was worse than her Uncle Courtenay. She stood still for a moment, and looked at him with things unspeakable in her eyes; and then she turned round, and rushed off across the green sward to the Hall, leaving him bewildered and amazed in the middle of the park, this time most evidently a trespasser, not even knowing his way back. He called after her, but received no answer; he stood and gazed round him in his consternation. Finally he laughed, though this time it was at himself, thus left in the lurch. But Kate was not aware of that fact. She heard the laugh, and it gave her wings; she fled to her melancholy home, where there was nobody to comfort her, choking with sobs and rage. Oh! how forlorn she was!—oh! how insulted, despised, trodden upon by everybody, she who was the lawful lady of the land! He would go and tell the Rectory girls, and together they would laugh at her. Kate would have sent a thunderbolt on the Rectory, or fire from Heaven, if she could.
CHAPTER IV
Kate rushed upstairs to her own room when she reached the Hall; she was wild with mortification and the sense of downfall. It was the first time she had come into collision with her fellow-creatures of a class equal to her own. Servants and poor people in the village had been impertinent to her ere now; but these were accidents, which Kate treated with the contempt they deserved, and which she could punish by the withdrawal of privileges and presents. She could scold, and did so soundly; and she could punish. But she could neither scold nor punish in the present case. Her Uncle Courtenay would only look at her in that exasperating way, with that cool smile on his face, as if she were a kitten; and this new being, with whom already she felt herself so well acquainted—Bertie would laugh, and be kind, and sorry for her. ‘Poor child!—poor little thing!’ These were the words he had dared to use. ‘Oh!’ Kate thought, I would like to kill him! I would like to–’ And then she asked herself what would he say at home? and writhed on the bed on which she had thrown herself in inextinguishable shame. They would laugh at her; they would make fun of her. ‘Oh! I would like to kill myself,’ cried Kate, in her thoughts. She cried her eyes out in the silence of her room. There was no Bertie to come there with sympathetic eyes to ask what she was doing. Miss Blank did not care; neither did any one in the house—not even her own maid, who was always about her, and to whom she would talk for hours together. Kate buried her head in her pillow, and tried to picture to herself the aspect of the Rectory. There would be the mother—who, Bertie said, understood everybody—seated somewhere near the table; and Edith and Minnie in the room—one of them, perhaps, doing worsted-work, one at the piano, or copying music, or drawing, as young ladies do in novels. Now and then, no doubt Mrs. Hardwick would give them little orders; she would say, perhaps, ‘Play me one of the Lieder, Minnie,’ or ‘that little air of Mozart’s.’ And she would say something about her work to Edith. Involuntarily that picture rose before lonely Kate. She seemed to see them seated there, with the windows open, and sweet scents coming in from the garden. She heard the voices murmuring, and a soft little strain, andante pianissimo, tinkling like the soft flow of a stream through the pleasant place. Oh! how pleasant it must be—even though she did not like the Rectory people, though Mr. Hardwick had been so rebellious, though they did not believe in her (Kate’s) natural headship of Church and Slate in Langton-Courtenay.
She sobbed as she lay and dreamed, and developed her new imagination. She had wondered, half angrily, half wistfully, about the Rectory people before, but Bertie seemed to give a certain reality to them. He was the brother of the girl whom Kate had so often inspected with keen eyes, but did not know; and he said ‘Mamma’ to that unknown Mrs. Hardwick. ‘Mamma!’ What a curious word it was, when you came to think of it! Not so serious, nor full of meaning as mother was, but soft and caressing—as of some one who would always feel for you, always put her arm round you, say ‘dear’ to you, ask what was the matter? Miss Blank never asked what was the matter! She took it for granted that Kate was cross, that it was ‘her own fault,’ or, as the very kindest hypothesis, that she had a headache, which was not in Kate’s way.
She lay sobbing, as I have said; but sobbing softly, as her emotion wore itself out, without tears. Her eyes were red, and her temples throbbed a little. She was worn out; she would not rouse herself and go downstairs to tempt another conflict with her uncle, as, had it not been for this last event, she would have felt disposed to do. And yet, poor child, she wanted her tea. Dinner had not been a satisfactory meal, and Kate could not help saying to herself that if Minnie and Edith had been suffering as she was, their mamma would have come to them in the dark, and kissed them, and bathed their hot foreheads, and brought them cups of tea. But there was no one to bring a cup of tea, without being asked, to a girl who had no mother. Kate had but to ring her bell, and she could have had whatever she pleased; but what did that matter? No one came near her, as it happened. The governess and her maid both supposed her to be with her uncle, and it was only when Maryanne came in at nine o’clock to prepare her young mistress’s hair-brushes and dressing-gown, that the young mistress was found, to Maryanne’s consternation, stretched on her bed, with a face as white as her dress, and eyes surrounded with red rings. And in the dark, of all things in the world, in a place like Langton-Courtenay, where it was well known the Blue Lady walked, and turned folks to stone! At the first glance Maryanne felt certain that the Blue Lady only could be responsible for the condition in which her young mistress was found.
‘Oh! miss,’ she cried, ‘and why didn’t you ring the bell?’
‘It did not matter,’ said Kate, reproachful and proud.
‘Lying there all in the dark—and it don’t matter! ‘Oh! miss, I know as you ain’t timorsome like me, but if you was once to see something–’
‘Hold your tongue!’ said Kate, peremptorily. ‘See something! The thing is, in this house, that one never sees anything! One might die, and it never would be known. You don’t care enough for one to come and look if one is dead or alive.’
‘Oh! miss!’
‘Don’t say “Oh miss!” to me,’ cried Kate, indignantly, ‘or pretend– Go and fetch me some tea. That is the only thing you can do. You don’t forget your own tea, or anything else you want; but when I am out of sorts, or have a—headache–’
Kate had no headache, except such as her crying had made; but it was the staple malady, the thing that did duty for everything in Miss Blank’s vocabulary, and her pupil naturally followed her example, to this extent, at least.
‘Have you got a headache, miss? I’ll tell Miss Blank—I’ll go and fetch the housekeeper.’
‘If you do, I will ask Uncle Courtenay to send you away to-morrow!’ cried Kate. ‘Go and fetch me some tea.’
But the tea which she had to order for herself was very different, she felt sure, from the tea that Edith Hardwick’s mother would have carried upstairs to her unasked. It was tea made by Maryanne, who was not very careful if the kettle was boiling, and who had filled a large teapot full of water, in order to get this one cup. It was very hot and very washy, and made Kate angry. She sent away Maryanne in a fit of indignation, and did her own hair for the night, and made herself very uncomfortable. How different it must be with Edith and Minnie! If Kate had only known it, however, Edith and Minnie, had they conducted themselves as she was doing, would have been metaphorically whipped and put to bed.
In the morning she came down with pale cheeks, but no one took any notice. Uncle Courtenay was reading his paper, and had other things to think of; and Miss Blank intended to ask what her pupil had been doing with herself when they should be alone together in the school-room. They ate their meal in a solemn silence, broken only now and then by a remark from Miss Blank, which was scarcely less solemn. Uncle Courtenay took no notice—he read his paper, which veiled him even from his companion’s eyes. At last, Miss Blank, having finished her breakfast, made a sign to Kate that it was time to rise; and then Kate took courage.
‘Uncle Courtenay,’ she said very softly, ‘you said you were going to call—at—the Rectory?’
Uncle Courtenay looked at her round the corner of his paper. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘what of that? Of course I shall call at the Rectory—after what you have told me, I have no choice.’
‘Then please—may I go with you?’ said Kate. She cast down her eyes demurely as she spoke, and consequently did not see the inquiring glance that he cast at her; but she saw, under her eyelashes, that he had laid down his paper; and this evidence of commotion was a comfort to her soul.
‘Go with me!’ he said. ‘Not to give the Rector any further impertinence, I hope?’
Kate’s eyes flashed, but she restrained herself. ‘I have never been impertinent to any one, uncle. If I mistook what I had a right to, was that my fault? I am willing to make it up, if they are; and I can go alone if I mayn’t go with you.’
‘Oh! you can go with me if you choose,’ said Mr. Courtenay, ungraciously; and then he took up his paper. But he was not so ungracious as he appeared; he was rather glad, on the whole, to have this opportunity of talking to her, and to see that (as he thought) his reproof of the previous night had produced so immediate an effect. He said to himself, cheerfully, ‘Come, the child is not so ungovernable after all;’ and was pleased, involuntarily, by the success of his operation. He was pleased, too, with her appearance when she was dressed, and ready to accompany him. She was subdued in tone, and less talkative a great deal than she had been the day before. He took it for granted that it was his influence that had done this—‘Another proof,’ he said to himself, ‘how expedient it is to show that you are master, and will stand no nonsense.’ He had been so despairing about her the night before, and saw such a vista of troubles before him in the six years of guardianship that remained, that this docility made him at once complacent and triumphant now.
‘I don’t want to be hard upon you, Kate,’ he said; ‘but you must recollect that at present, in the eye of the law, you are a child, and have no right to interfere with anything—neither parish, nor estate, nor even house.’
‘But it is all mine, Uncle Courtenay.’
‘That has nothing to do with it,’ said her guardian, promptly. ‘The deer in the park have about as much right to meddle as you.’
‘Is our park small?’ said Kate. ‘Do you know Sir Herbert Eldridge, Uncle Courtenay? Where does he live?—and has he a very fine place? I can’t believe that there are five hundred acres in his park; and I don’t know how many there are in ours. I don’t understand measuring one’s own places. What does it matter an acre or two? I am sure there is no park so nice as Langton-Courtenay under the sun.’
‘What is all this about parks? You take away my breath,’ said Mr. Courtenay, in dismay.
‘Oh! nothing,’ said Kate; ‘only that I heard a person say—when I was out last night I met one of the Rectory people, Uncle Courtenay—it is partly for that I want to go—his sister, he says, is the same age as I–’
‘His sister!—it was a he, then?’ said Mr. Courtenay, with that prompt suspiciousness which is natural to the guardian of an heiress.
‘It was Bertie, the second son—of course it was a he. A girl could not have jumped over the fence—one might scramble, you know, but one couldn’t jump it with one’s petticoats. He told me one or two things—about his family.’
‘But why did he jump over the fence? And what do you know about him? Do you talk to everybody that comes in your way—about his family?’ cried Mr. Courtenay, with returning dismay.
‘Of course I do, Uncle Courtenay,’ said Kate, looking full at him. ‘You may say I have no right to interfere, but I have always known that Langton was to be mine, and I have always taken an interest in—everybody. Why, it was my duty. What else could I do?’
‘I should prefer that you did almost anything else,’ said Mr. Courtenay, hastily; and then he stopped short, feeling that it was incautious to betray his reasons, or suggest to the lively imagination of this perverse young woman that there was danger in Bertie Hardwick and his talk. ‘The danger’s self were lure alone,’ he said to himself, and plunged, in his dismay, into another subject. ‘Do you remember what I said to you last night about your Aunt Anderson?’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t you like to go and see her, Kate? She has a daughter of your own age, an only child. They have been abroad all their lives, and, I daresay, speak a dozen languages—that sort of people generally do. I think it would be a right thing to visit her–’
‘If it would be a right thing to visit her, Uncle Courtenay, it would be still righter to ask her to come here.’
‘But that I forbid, my dear,’ said the old man.
Then there was a pause. Kate was greatly tempted to lose her temper, but, on the whole, experience taught her that losing one’s temper seldom does much good, and she restrained herself. She tried a different mode of attack.
‘Uncle Courtenay,’ she said, pathetically, ‘is it because you don’t want any one to love me that nobody is ever allowed to stay here?’
‘When you are older, Kate, you will see what I mean,’ said Mr. Courtenay. ‘I don’t wish you to enter the world with any yoke on your neck. I mean you to be free. You will thank me afterwards, when you see how you have been saved from a tribe of locusts—from a household of dependents–’
Kate stopped and gazed at him with a curious, semi-comprehension. She put her head a little on one side, and looked up to him with her bright eyes. ‘Dependents!’ she said—‘dependents, uncle! Miss Blank tells me I have a great number of dependents, but I am sure they don’t care for me.’
‘They never do,’ said Mr. Courtenay—this was, he thought, the one grand experience which he had won from life.