'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!'
Some children, as Lady Barbara said, would have been rendered thoughtful and considerate by hearing such a conversation as this, and have tried to make themselves as little troublesome to their elders as possible; but there are others who, unless they are directly addressed, only take in, in a strange dreamy way, that which belongs to the grown-up world, though quick enough to catch what concerns themselves. Thus Kate, though aware that Aunt Barbara thought her naughtiness made Aunt Jane ill, and that there was a fresh threat of the Lord Chancellor upon the return of her great- uncle from India, did not in the least perceive that her Aunt Barbara was greatly perplexed and harassed, divided between her care for her sister and for her niece, grieved for her brother's anxiety, and disappointed that he had been obliged to leave the army, instead of being made a General. The upshot of all that she carried away with her was, that it was very cross of Aunt Barbara to think she made Aunt Jane ill, and very very hard that she could not go to the bazaar.
Lady Jane did not go out that afternoon, and Lady Barbara set her niece and Josephine down in the Park, saying that she was going into Belgravia, and desiring them to meet her near Apsley House. They began to walk, and Kate began to lament. 'If she could only have gone to the bazaar for her album! It was very hard!'
'Eh,' Josephine said, 'why should they not go? There was plenty of time. Miladi Barbe had given them till four. She would take la petite.'
Kate hung back. She knew it was wrong. She should never dare produce the book if she had it.
But Josephine did not attend to the faltered English words, or disposed of them with a 'Bah! Miladi will guess nothing!' and she had turned decidedly out of the Park, and was making a sign to a cab. Kate was greatly frightened, but was more afraid of checking Josephine in the open street, and making her dismiss the cab, than of getting into it. Besides, there was a very strong desire in her for the red and gold square book that had imprinted itself on her imagination. She could not but be glad to do something in spite of Aunt Barbara. So they were shut in, and went off along Piccadilly, Kate's feelings in a strange whirl of fright and triumph, amid the clattering of the glasses. Just suppose she saw anyone she knew!
But they got to Soho Square at last; and through the glass door, in among the stalls--that fairy land in general to Kate; but now she was too much frightened and bewildered to do more than hurry along the passages, staring so wildly for her albums, that Josephine touched her, and said, 'Tenez, Miladi, they will think you farouche. Ah! see the beautiful wreaths!'
'Come on, Josephine,' said Kate impatiently.
But it was not so easy to get the French maid on. A bazaar was felicity to her, and she had her little lady in her power; she stood and gazed, admired, and criticised, at every stall that afforded ornamental wearing apparel or work patterns; and Kate, making little excursions, and coming back again to her side, could not get her on three yards in a quarter of an hour, and was too shy and afraid of being lost, to wander away and transact her own business. At last they did come to a counter with ornamental stationery; and after looking at four or five books, Kate bought a purple embossed one, not at all what she had had in her mind's eye, just because she was in too great a fright to look further; and then step by step, very nearly crying at last, so as to alarm Josephine lest she should really cry, she got her out at last. It was a quarter to four, and Josephine was in vain sure that Miladi Barbe would never be at the place in time; Kate's heart was sick with fright at the thought of the shame of detection.
She begged to get out at the Marble Arch, and not risk driving along Park Lane; but Josephine was triumphant in her certainty that there was time; and on they went, Kate fancying every bay nose that passed the window would turn out to have the brougham, the man-servant, and Aunt Barbara behind it.
At length they were set down at what the Frenchwoman thought a safe distance, and paying the cabman, set
