“I don’t fear; I know she is.”
“Write—I fear you may be expecting me on Monday, as something passed on the subject at Bournemouth; and in order to prevent inconvenience, I write to say that it will not be in my power to call on that day, as my aunt had made a previous engagement for me.”
“I am sure I sha’n’t say that!” cried Kate, breaking out of all bounds in her indignation.
“Recollect yourself, Lady Caergwent,” said Lady Barbara calmly.
“It is not true!” cried Kate passionately, jumping up from her seat. “You had not made an engagement for me! I won’t write it! I won’t write lies, and you sha’n’t make me.”
“I do not allow such words or such a manner in speaking to me,” said Lady Barbara, not in the least above her usual low voice; and her calmness made Kate the more furious, and jump and dance round with passion, repeating, “I’ll never write lies, nor tell lies, for you or anyone; you may kill me, but I won’t!”
“That is enough exposure of yourself, Lady Caergwent,” said her aunt. “When you have come to your senses, and choose to apologize for insulting me, and show me the letter written as I desire, you may come to me.”
And away walked Lady Barbara, as cool and unmoved apparently as if she had been made of cast iron; though within she was as sorry, and hardly less angry, than the poor frantic child she left.
Kate did not fly about now. She was very indignant, but she was proud of herself too; she had spoken as if she had been in a book, and she believed herself persecuted for adhering to old friends, and refusing to adopt fashionable falsehoods, such as she had read of. She was a heroine in her own eyes, and that made her inclined to magnify all the persecution and cruelty. They wanted to shut her up from the friends of her childhood, to force her to be false and fashionable; they had made her naughtier and naughtier ever since she came there; they were teaching her to tell falsehoods now, and to give up the Wardours. She would never never do it! Helpless girl as she was, she would be as brave as the knights and earls her ancestors, and stand up for the truth. But what would they do at her! Oh! could she bear Aunt Barbara’s dreadful set Diana face again, and not write as she was told!
The poor weak little heart shrank with terror as she only looked at Aunt Barbara’s chair—not much like the Sir Giles de Umfraville she had thought of just now. “And I’m naughty now; I did betray my trust: I’m much naughtier than I was. Oh, if Papa was but here!” And then a light darted into Kate’s eye, and a smile came on her lip. “Why should not I go home? Papa would have me again; I know he would! He would die rather than leave his child Kate to be made wicked, and forced to tell lies! Perhaps he’ll hide me! Oh, if I could go to school with the children at home in disguise, and let Uncle Giles be Earl of Caergwent if he likes! I’ve had enough of grandeur! I’ll come as Cardinal Wolsey did, when he said he was come to lay his bones among them—and Sylvia and Mary, and Charlie and Armyn—oh, I must go where someone will be kind to me again! Can I really, though? Why not?” and her heart beat violently. “Yes, yes; nothing would happen to me; I know how to manage! If I can only get there, they will hide me from Aunt Barbara and the Lord Chancellor; and even if I had to go back, I should have had one kiss of them all. Perhaps if I don’t go now I shall never see them again!”