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