Ombra

‘That shows that Providence is of my way of thinking,’ said her antagonist. ‘Why should one cross one’s children, and worry them? They will have enough of that in their lives! Besides, I have practical proof on my side. Look, at Ombra! There is a child that never was crossed since she was born; and if I had scolded till I made myself ill, do you think I could have improved upon that?’

Mrs. Eldridge stood still for a moment, not believing her ears. She had daughters of her own, and to have Ombra set up as a model of excellence! But she recovered herself speedily, and gave vent to her feelings in a more courteous way.

‘Ah! it is easy to see you never had any boys,’ she said, with that sense of superiority which the mother of both sections of humanity feels over her who has produced but one. ‘Ombra, indeed!’ Mrs. Eldridge said, within herself. And, indeed, it was a want of ‘proper feeling,’ on Mrs. Anderson’s part, to set up so manifestly her own daughter above other people’s. She felt it, and immediately did what she could to atone.

‘Boys, of course, are different,’ she said; ‘but I am sure you will agree with me that a poor child who has never had any one to love her, who has been brought up among servants, a girl who is motherless–’

‘Oh! poor child! I can only say you are too good—too good! With such a troublesome disposition, too. I never could be half as good!’ cried the Rector’s wife.

Thus Mrs. Anderson triumphed in the argument. And as it happened that ripening under the sunshine was just what Kate wanted, the system answered in the most perfect way, especially as a gently chilling breeze, a kind of moral east wind, extremely subdued, but sufficiently keen, came from Ombra, checking Kate’s irregularities, without seeming to do so, and keeping her high spirit down. Ombra’s influence over her cousin increased as time went on. She was Kate’s model of all that was beautiful and sweet. The girl subdued herself with all her might, and clipped and snipped at her own character, to bring it to the same mould as that of her cousin. And as such worship cannot go long unnoted, Ombra gradually grew aware of it, and softened under its influence. The Cottage grew very harmonious and pleasant within doors. When Kate went to bed, the mother and daughter would still linger and have little conversations about her, conversations in which the one still defended and the other attacked—or made a semblance of attacking—the new-comer; but the acrid tone had gone out of Ombra’s remarks.

‘I don’t want to say a word against Kate,’ she would say, keeping up her old rôle. ‘I think there is a great deal of good about her; but you know we have no longer our house to ourselves.’

‘Could we enjoy our house to ourselves, Ombra, knowing that poor child to have no home?’ said Mrs. Anderson, with feeling.

‘Well, mamma, the poor child has a great many advantages over us,’ said Ombra, hesitating. ‘I should like to have had her on a visit; but to be always between you and me–’

‘No one can be between you and me, my child.’

‘That is true, perhaps. But then our little house, our quiet life all to ourselves.’

‘That was a dream, my dear—that was a mere dream of your own. People in our position cannot have a life all to ourselves. We have our duties to society; and I have my duty to you, Ombra. Do you think I could be so selfish as to keep you altogether to myself, and never let you see the world, or have your chance of choosing some one who will take care of you better than I can?’

‘Please don’t,’ said Ombra. ‘I am quite content with you; and there is not much at Shanklin that can be called society or the world.’

‘The world is everywhere,’ said Mrs. Anderson, with dignity. ‘I am not one of those who confine the term to a certain class. Your papa was but a Consul, but I have seen many an ambassador who was very inferior to him. Shanklin is a very nice place, Ombra; and the society, what there is, is very nice also. I like my neighbours very much—they are not lords and ladies, but they are well-bred, and some of them are well-born.’

‘I don’t suppose we are among that number,’ said Ombra, with a momentary laugh. This was one of her pet perversities, said out of sheer opposition; for though she thrust the fact forward, she did not like it herself.

‘I think you are mistaken,’ said her mother, with a flush upon her face. ‘Your papa had very good connections in Scotland; and my father’s family, though it was not equal to the Courtenays, which my sister married into, was one of the most respectable in the county. You are not like Kate—you have not the pedigree which belongs to a house which has landed property; but you need not look down upon your forefathers for all that.’

‘I do not look down upon them. I only wish not to stand up upon them, mamma, for they are not strong enough to bear me, I fear,’ Ombra said, with a little forced laugh.

‘I don’t like joking on such subjects,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘But to return to Kate. She admires you very, very much, my darling—I don’t wonder at that–’

‘Silly child!’ said Ombra, in a much softened tone.

‘It shows her sense, I think; but it throws all the greater a responsibility on you. Oh! my dear love, could you and I, who are so happy together, dare to shut our hearts against that poor desolate child?’

Once more Ombra slightly, very slightly shrugged her shoulders; but she answered—

‘I am sure I have no wish to shut my heart against her, mamma.’

‘For my part,’ said Mrs. Anderson, ‘I feel I cannot pet her too much, or be too indulgent to her, to make up to her for fifteen years spent among strangers, with nobody to love.’

‘How odd that she should have found nobody to love!’ said Ombra, turning away. She herself was, as she believed, ‘not demonstrative,’ not ‘effusive.’ She was one of the many persons who think that people who do not express any feeling at all, must necessarily have more real feeling than those who disclose it—a curious idea, quite frequent in the world; and she rather prided herself upon her own reserve. Yet, reserved as she was, she, Ombra, had always found people to love her, and why not Kate? This was the thought that passed through her mind as she gave up the subject; but still she had grown reconciled to her cousin, had begun to like her, and to be gratified by her eager, girlish homage. Kate’s admiration spoke in every look and word, in her abject submission to Ombra’s opinion, her concurrence in all that Ombra said, her imitation of everything she did. Ombra was a good musician, and Kate, who had no great faculty that way, got up and practised every morning, waking the early echoes, and getting anything but blessings from her idol, whose bed was exactly above the piano on the next floor. Ombra was a great linguist, by dint of her many travels, and Kate sent unlimited orders for dictionaries and grammars to her uncle, and began to learn verbs with enthusiasm. She had all the masters who came from London to Miss Story’s quiet establishment, men whose hours were golden, and whom nobody but an heiress could have entertained in such profusion; and she applied herself with the greatest diligence to such branches of study as were favoured by Ombra, putting her own private tastes aside for them with an enthusiasm only possible to first love. Perhaps Kate’s enthusiasm was all the greater because of the slow and rather grudging approbation which her efforts to please elicited. Mrs. Anderson was always pleased, always ready to commend and admire; but Ombra was very difficult. She made little allowance for any weakness, and demanded absolute perfection, as mentors at the age of seventeen generally do; and Kate hung on her very breath. Thus she took instinctively the best way to please the only one in the house who had set up any resistance to her. Over the rest Kate had an easy victory. It was Ombra who, all unawares, and not by any virtue of hers, exercised the best control and influence possible over the head-strong, self-opinioned girl. She was head-strong enough herself, and very imperfect, but that did not affect her all-potent visionary sway.

And nothing could be more regular, nothing more quiet and monotonous, than the routine of life in the Cottage. The coming of the masters was the event in it; and that was a mild kind of event, causing little enthusiasm. They breakfasted, worked, walked, and dined, and then rose next morning to do the same thing over again. Notwithstanding Mrs. Anderson’s talk about her duty to society, there were very few claims made upon her. She was not much called upon to fulfil these duties. Sometimes the ladies went out to the Rectory to tea; sometimes, indeed, Mrs. Anderson and Ombra dined there; but on these occasions Kate was left at home, as too young for such an intoxicating pleasure. ‘And, besides, my darling, I promised your uncle,’ Mrs. Anderson would say. But Kate was always of the party when it was tea. There were other neighbours who gave similar entertainments; and before a year had passed, Kate had tasted the bread and butter of all the houses in the parish which Mrs. Anderson thought worthy of her friendship. But only to tea; ‘I made that condition with Mr. Courtenay, and I must hold by it, though my heart is broken to leave you behind. If you knew how trying it was, my dearest child!’ she would say with melancholy tones, as she stepped out, with a shawl over her evening toilet; but these were very rare occurrences indeed. And Kate went to the teas, and was happy.

How happy she was! When she was tired of the drawing-room (as happened sometimes), she would rush away to an odd little room under the leads, which was Francesca’s work-room and oratory, where the other maids were never permitted to enter, but which had been made free to Mees Katta. Francesca was not like English servants, holding jealously by one special metier. She was cook, and she was housekeeper, but, at the same time, she was Mrs. Anderson’s private milliner, making her dresses; and the personal attendant of both mother and daughter. Even Jane, the housemaid, scorned her for this versatility; but Francesca took no notice of the scorn. She was not born to confine herself within such narrow limits as an English kitchen afforded her; and she took compensation for her unusual labours. She lectured Ombra, as we have seen; she interfered in a great many things which were not her business; she gave her advice freely to her mistress; she was one of the household, not less interested than the mistress herself. And when Kate arrived, Francesca added another branch of occupation to the others; or, rather, she revived an art which she had once exercised with great applause, but which had fallen into disuse since Ombra ceased to be a child. She became the minstrel, the improvisatore, the ancient chronicler, the muse of the new-comer. When Kate felt the afternoon growing languid she snatched up a piece of work, and flew up the stairs to Francesca’s retreat. ‘Tell me something,’ she would say; and, sitting at the old woman’s feet, would forget her work, and her dulness, and everything in heaven and earth, in the entrancement of a tale. These were not fairy-tales, but bits of those stories, more strange than fairy-tales, which still haunt the old houses of Italy. Francesca’s tales were without end. She would begin upon a family pedigree, and work her way up or down through a few generations, without missing a stitch in her work, or dropping a thread in her story. She filled Kate’s head with counts and barons, and gloomy castles and great palaces. It was an amusement which combined the delight of gossip and the delight of novel-reading in one.

And thus Kate’s life ran on, as noiseless, as simple as the growth of a lily or a rose, with nothing but sunshine all about, warming her, ripening her, as her new guardian said, bringing slowly on, day by day, the moment of blossoming, the time of the perfect flower.

CHAPTER XV

It was summer when Kate arrived at the Cottage, and it was not till the Easter after that any disturbing influences came into the quiet scene. Easter was so late that year that it was almost summer again. The rich slopes of the landslip were covered with starry primroses, and those violets which have their own blue-eyed beauty only to surround them, and want the sweetness of their rarer sisters. The landslip is a kind of fairyland at that enchanted moment. Everything is coming—the hawthorn, the wild roses, all the flowers of early summer, are, as it were, on tiptoe, waiting for the hour of their call; and the primroses have come, and are crowding everywhere, turning the darkest corners into gardens of delight. Then there is the sea, now matchless blue, now veiled with mists, framing in every headland and jutting cliff, without any margin of beach to break its full tone of colour; and above, the new-budded trees, the verdure that grows and opens every day, the specks of white houses everywhere, dotted all over the heights. Spring, which makes everything and every one gay, which brings even to the sorrowful a touch of that reaction of nature that makes pain sorer for the moment, yet marks the new springing of life—fancy what it was to the sixteen-year-old girl, now first emancipated, among people who loved her, never judged her harshly, nor fretted her life with uncalled-for opposition!

Kate felt as if the primroses were a crowd of playmates, suddenly come to her out of the bountiful heart of nature. She gathered baskets full every day, and yet they never decreased. She passed her mornings in delicious idleness making them into enormous bouquets, which gave the Cottage something of the same aspect as the slopes outside. She had a taste for this frivolous but delightful occupation. I am free to confess that to spend hours putting primroses and violets together, in the biggest flat dishes which the Cottage could produce, was an extremely frivolous occupation; most likely she would have been a great deal better employed in improving her mind, in learning verbs, or practising exercises, or doing something useful. But youth has a great deal of leisure, and this bright fresh girl, in the bright little hall of the Cottage, arranging her flowers in the spring sunshine, made a very pretty picture. She put the primroses in, with their natural leaves about them, with sweet bunches of blue violets to heighten the effect, touching them as if she loved them; and, as she did it, she sang as the birds do, running on with unconscious music, and sweetness, and gladness. It was Spring with her as with them. Nothing was as yet required of her but to bloom and grow, and make earth fairer. And she did this unawares and was as happy over her vast, simple bouquet, and took as much sweet thought how to arrange it, as if that had been the great aim of life. She was one with her flowers, and both together they belonged to Spring—the Spring of the year, the Spring of life, the sweet time which comes but once, and never lasts too long.

She was thus employed one morning when steps came through the garden, steps which she did not much heed. For one thing, she but half heard them, being occupied with her ‘work,’ as she called it, and her song, and having no fear that anything unwelcome would appear at that sunny, open door. No one could come who did not know everybody in the little house, who was not friendly, and smiling, and kind, whose hand would not be held out in pleasant familiarity. Here were no trespassers, no strangers. Therefore Kate heard the steps as though she heard them not, and did not even pause to ask herself who was coming. She was roused, but then only with the mildest expectation, when a shadow fell across her bit of sunshine. She looked up with her song still on her lip, and her hands full of flowers. She stopped singing. ‘Oh! Bertie!’ she cried, half to herself, and made an eager step forward. But then suddenly she paused—she dropped her flowers. Curiosity, wonder, amazement came over her face. She went on slowly to the door, gazing, and questioning with her eyes.

‘Are there two of you?’ she said gravely. ‘I heard that Bertie Hardwick was coming. Oh! which is you? Stop—don’t tell me. I am not going to be mystified. I can find it out for myself.’

There were two young men standing in the hall, who laughed and blushed as they stood submitting to her inspection; but Kate was perfectly serious. She stood and looked at them with an unmoved and somewhat anxious countenance. A certain symbolical gravity and earnestness was in her face; but there was indeed occasion to hesitate. The two who stood before her seemed at the first glance identical. They had the same eyes, the same curling brown hair, the same features, the same figure. Gradually, however, the uncertainty cleared away from Kate’s face.

‘It must be you,’ she said, still very seriously. ‘You are not quite so tall, and I think I remember your eyes. You must be Bertie, I am sure.’

‘We are both Bertie,’ said the young man, laughing.

‘Ah! but you must be my Bertie; I am certain of it,’ said Kate. Not a gleam of maiden consciousness was in her; she said it with all simplicity and seriousness. She did not understand the colour that came to one Bertie’s face or the smile that flashed over the other; and she held out her hand to the one whom she had selected. ‘I am so glad to see you. Come in, and tell me all about Langton. Dear old Langton! Though you were so disagreeable about the size of the park–’

‘I will never be disagreeable again.’

‘Oh, nonsense!’ cried Kate, interrupting him. ‘As if one could stop being anything that is natural! My aunt is somewhere about, and Ombra is in the drawing-room. Come in. Perhaps, though, you had better tell me who this—other gentleman– Why, Mr. Bertie, I am not quite sure, after all, which is the other and which is you!’

‘This is my cousin, Bertie Eldridge,’ said her old friend. ‘You will soon know the difference. You remember what an exemplary character I am, and he is quite the reverse. I am always getting into trouble on his account.’

‘Miss Courtenay will soon know better than to believe you,’ said the other; at which Kate started and clapped her hands.

‘Oh! I know now that is not your voice. Ombra, please, here are two gentlemen–’

This is how the two cousins were introduced into the Cottage. They had been there before separately; but neither Mrs. Anderson nor her daughter knew how slight was the acquaintance which entitled Kate to qualify one of the new-comers as ‘my Bertie.’ They were both young, not much over twenty, and their likeness was wonderful; it was, however, a likeness which diminished as they talked, for their expression was as different as their voices. Kate had no hesitation in appropriating the one she knew.

‘Tell me about Langton,’ she said—‘all about it. I have heard nothing for nearly a year. Oh! don’t laugh. I know the house stands just where it used to stand, and no one dares to cut down the trees. But itself– Don’t you know what Langton means to me?’

‘Home?’ said Bertie Hardwick, but with a little doubt in his tone.

‘Home!’ repeated Kate; and then she, too, paused perplexed. ‘Not exactly home, for there is no one there I care for—much. Oh! but can’t you understand? It is not home; I am much happier here; but, in a kind of a way, it is me!’

Bertie Hardwick was puzzled, and he was dazzled too. His first meeting with her had made no small impression upon him; and now Kate was almost a full-grown woman, and the brightness about her dazzled his eyes.

‘It cannot be you now,’ he said. ‘It is—let.’

Kate gave a fierce little cry, and clenched her hands.

‘Oh! Uncle Courtenay, I wish I could just kill you!’ she said, half to herself.

‘It is let, for four or five years, to the only kind of people who can afford to have great houses now—to Mr. Donkin, who has a large—shop in town.’