Ombra

‘Auntie, stop a minute. Oh! auntie, take me into your confidence. I love her, and you too. I will never say a word, or let any one see that I know. Oh! Auntie—Ombra—has she gone with them?—has she—run—away?’

‘Ombra—run away!’ cried Mrs. Anderson, throwing her niece’s arm from her. ‘Child, how dare you? Do you mean to insult both her and me?’

Kate stood abashed, drawn back to a little distance, tears coming to her eyes.

‘I did not mean any harm,’ she said, humbly.

‘Not mean any harm! But you thought my child—my Ombra—had run away!’

‘Oh! forgive me,’ said Kate. ‘I know now how absurd it was; but—I thought—she might be—in love. People do it—at least in books. Don’t be angry with me, auntie. I thought so because of your face. Then what is the matter? Oh! do tell me; no one shall ever know from me.’

Mrs. Anderson was worn out. She suffered Kate’s supporting arm to steal round her. She leant her head upon the girl’s shoulder.

‘I can’t tell you, dear,’ she said, with a sob. ‘She has mistaken her feelings; she is—very unhappy. You must be very, very kind and good to her, and never let her see you know anything. Oh! Kate, my darling is very unhappy. She thinks she has broken her heart.’

‘Then I know!’ cried Kate, stamping her foot upon the gravel, and feeling as Mr. Sugden did. ‘Oh! I will go after them and bring them back! It is their fault.’

CHAPTER XXII

Mrs. Anderson awaited her daughter’s awakening next morning with an anxiety which was indescribable. She wondered even at the deep sleep into which Ombra fell after the agitation of the night—wondered, not because it was new or unexpected, but with that wonder which moves the elder mind at the sight of youth in all its vagaries, capable of such wild emotion at one moment, sinking into profound repose at another. But, after all, Ombra had been for some time awake, ere her watchful mother observed. When Mrs. Anderson looked at her, she was lying with her mouth closely shut and her eyes open, gazing fixedly at the light, pale as the morning itself, which was misty, and rainy, and wan, after the brightness of last night. Her look was so fixed and her lips so firmly shut, that her mother grew alarmed.

‘Ombra!’ she said softly—‘Ombra, my darling, my poor child!’

Ombra turned round sharply, fixing her eyes now on her mother’s face as she had fixed them on the light.

‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Why are you up so early? I am not ill, am I!’ and looked at her with a kind of menace, forbidding, as it were, any reference to what was past.

‘I hope not, dear,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘You have too much courage and good sense, my darling, to be ill.’

‘Do courage and good sense keep one from being ill?’ said Ombra, with something like a sneer; and then she said, ‘Please, mamma, go away. I want to get up.’

‘Not yet, dear. Keep still a little longer. You are not able to get up yet,’ said poor Mrs. Anderson, trembling for the news which would meet her when she came into the outer world again. What strange change was it that had come upon Ombra? She looked almost derisively, almost threateningly into her mother’s face.

‘One would think I had had a fever, or that some great misfortune had happened to me,’ she said; ‘but I am not aware of it. Leave me alone, please. I have a thousand things to do. I want to get up. Mother, for heaven’s sake, don’t look at me so! You will drive me wild! My nerves cannot stand it; nor—nor my temper,’ said Ombra, with a shrill in her voice which had never been heard there before. ‘Mamma, if you have any pity, go away.’

‘If my lady will permit, I will attend Mees Ombra,’ said old Francesca, coming in with a look of ominous significance. And poor Mrs. Anderson was worn out—she had been up half the night, and during the other half she did not sleep, though Ombra slept, who was the chief sufferer. Vanquished now by her daughter’s unfilial looks, she stole away, and cried by herself for a few moments in a corner, which did her good, and relieved her heart.

But Francesca advanced to the bedside with intentions far different from any her mistress had divined. She approached Ombra solemnly, holding out two fingers at her.

‘I make the horns,’ said Francesca; ‘I advance not to you again, Mademoiselle, without making the horns. Either you are an ice-maiden, as I said, and make enchantments, or you have the evil eye–’

‘Oh! be quiet, please, and leave me alone. I want to get up. I don’t want to be talked to. Mamma leaves me when I ask her, and why should not you?’

‘Because, Mademoiselle,’ said Francesca, with elaborate politeness, ‘my lady has fear of grieving her child; but for me I have not fear. Figure to yourself that I have made you like the child of my bosom for eighteen—nineteen year—and shall I stand by now, and see you drive love from you, drive life from you? You think so, perhaps? No, I am bolder than my dear padrona. I do not care sixpence if I break your heart. You are ice, you are stone, you are worse than all the winters and the frosts! Signorina Ghiaccia, you haf done it now!’

‘Francesca, go away! You have no right to speak to me so. What have I done?’

‘Done!’ cried Francesca, ‘done!—all the evil things you can do. You have driven all away from you who cared for you. Figure to yourself that a little ship went away from the golf last night, and the two young signorini in it. You will say to me that it is not you who have done it; but I believe you not. Who but you, Mees Ombra, Mees Ice and Snow? And so you will do with all till you are left alone, lone in the world—I know it. You turn to ze wall, you cry, you think you make me cry too, but no, Francesca will speak ze trutt to you, if none else. Last night, as soon as you come home, ze little ship go away—cacciato—what you call dreaven away—dreaven away, like by ze Tramontana, ze wind from ze ice-mountains! That is you. Already I haf said it. You are Ghiaccia—you will leave yourself lone, lone in ze world, wizout one zing to lof!’

Francesca’s English grew more and more broken as she rose into fervour. She stood now by Ombra’s bedside, with all the eloquence of indignation in her words, and looks, and gestures; her little uncovered head, with its knot of scanty hair twisted tightly up behind, nodding and quivering; her brown little hands gesticulating; her foot patting the floor; her black eyes flashing. Ombra had turned to the wall, as she said. She could discomfit her gentle mother, but she could not put down Francesca. And then this news which Francesca brought her went like a stone to the depths of her heart.

‘But I will tell you vat vill komm,’ she went on, with sparks of fire, as it seemed, flashing from her eyes—‘there vill komm a day when the ice will melt, like ze torrents in ze mountains. There will be a rush, and a flow, and a swirl, and then the avalanche! The ice will become water—it will run down, it will flood ze contree; but it will not do good to nobody, Mademoiselle. They will be gone the persons who would have loved. All will be over. Ze melting and ze flowing will be too late—it will be like the torrents in May, all will go with it, ze home, ze friends, ze comfort that you love, you English. All will go. Mademoiselle will be sorry then,’ said Francesca, regaining her composure, and making a vindictive courtesy. She smiled at the tremendous picture she was conscious of having drawn, with a certain complacency. She had beaten down with her fierce storm of words the white figure which lay turned away from her with hidden face. But Francesca’s heart did not melt. ‘Now I have told you ze trutt,’ she said, impressively. ‘Ze bath, and all things is ready, if Mademoiselle wishes to get up now.’

‘What have you been saying to my child, Francesca?’ said Mrs. Anderson, who met her as she left the room, looking very grave, and with red eyes.

‘Nozing but ze trutt,’ said Francesca, with returning excitement; ‘vich nobody will say but me—for I lof her—I lof her! She is my bébé too. Madame will please go downstairs, and have her breakfast,’ she added calmly. ‘Mees Ombra is getting up—there is nothing more to say. She will come down in quarter of an hour, and all will be as usual. It will be better that Madame says nothing more.’

Mrs. Anderson was not unused to such interference on Francesca’s part; the only difference was that no such grave crisis had ever happened before. She was aware that, in milder cases, her own caressing and indulgent ways had been powerfully aided by the decided action of Francesca, and her determination to speak ‘ze trutt,’ as she called it, without being moved by Ombra’s indignation, or even by her tears. Her mistress, though too proud to appeal to her for aid, had been but too glad to accept it ere now. But this was such an emergency as had never happened before, and she stood doubtful, unable to make up her mind what she should do, at the door of Ombra’s room, until the sounds within made it apparent that Ombra had really got up, and that there was, for the moment, nothing further to be done. She went away half disconsolate, half relieved, to the bright little dining-room below, where the pretty breakfast-table was spread, with flowers on it, and sunshine straying in through the network of honeysuckles and roses. Kate was at her favourite occupation, arranging flowers in the hall, but singing under her breath, lest she should disturb her cousin.

‘How is Ombra?’ she whispered, as if the sound of a voice would be injurious to her.

‘She is better, dear; I think much better. But oh, Kate, for heaven’s sake, take no notice, not a word! Don’t look even as if you supposed– ’

‘Of course not, auntie,’ said Kate, with momentary indignation that she should be supposed capable of such unwomanly want of comprehension. They were seated quite cheerfully at breakfast when Ombra appeared. She gave them a suspicious look to discover if they had been talking of her—if Kate knew anything; but Kate (she thanked heaven), knew better than to betray herself. She asked after her cousin’s headache, on the contrary, in the most easy and natural way; she talked (very little) of the events of the preceding day. She propounded a plan of her own for that afternoon, which was to drive along the coast to a point which Ombra had wished to make a sketch of. ‘It will be the very thing for to-day,’ said Kate. ‘The rain is over, and the sun is shining; but it is too misty for sea-views, and we must be content with the land.’

‘Is it true,’ said Ombra, looking her mother in the face, ‘that the yacht went away last night?’

‘Oh yes,’ cried Kate, taking the subject out of Mrs. Anderson’s hands, ‘quite true. They found letters at the railway calling them off—or, at least, so they said. Some of us thought it was your fault for going away, but my opinion is that they did it abruptly to keep up our interest. One cannot go on yachting for ever and ever; for my part, I was beginning to get tired. Whereas, if they come back again, after a month or so, it will all be as fresh as ever.’

‘Are they coming back?’

‘Yes,’ said, boldly, the undaunted Kate.

Mrs. Anderson spoke not a word; she sat and trembled, pitying her child to the bottom of her heart—longing to take her into her arms, to speak consolation to her, but not daring. The mother, who would have tried if she could to get the moon for Ombra, had to stand aside, and let Francesca ‘tell ze trutt,’ and Kate give the consolation. Some women would have resented the interference, but she was heroic, and kept silence. The audacious little fib which Kate had told so gayly, had already done its work; the cloud of dull quiet which had been on Ombra’s face, brightened. All was perhaps not over yet.

Thus after this interruption of their tranquillity they fell back into the old dull routine. Mr. Sugden was once more master of the field. Ombra kept herself so entirely in subjection, that nobody out of the Cottage guessed what crisis she had passed through, except this one observer, whose eyes were quickened by jealousy and by love. The Curate was not deceived by her smiles, by her expressions of content with the restored quietness, by her eagerness to return to all their old occupations. He watched her with anxious eyes, noting all her little caprices, noting the paleness which would come over her, the wistful gaze over the sea, which sometimes abstracted her from her companions.

‘She is not happy as she used to be—she is only making-believe, like the angel she is, to keep us from being wretched,’ he said to Kate.

‘Mr. Sugden, you talk great nonsense; there is nothing the matter with my cousin,’ Kate would reply. On which Mr. Sugden sighed heavily and shook his head, and went off to find Mrs. Anderson, whom he gently beguiled into a corner.

‘You remember what I said,’ he would whisper to her earnestly—‘if you want my services in any way. It is not what I would have wished; but think of me as her—brother; let me act for you, as her brother would, if there is any need for it. Remember, you promised that you would–’

‘What does the man want me to bid him do?’ Mrs. Anderson would ask in perplexity, talking the matter over with Kate—a relief which she sometimes permitted herself; for Ombra forbade all reference to the subject, and she could not shut up her anxieties entirely in her own heart. But Kate could throw no light on the subject. Kate herself was not at all clear what had happened. She could not make quite sure, from her aunt’s vague statement, whether it was Ombra that was in the wrong, or the Berties, or if it was both the Berties, or which it was. There were so many complications in the question, that it was very difficult to come to any conclusion about it. But she held fast by her conviction that they must come back to Shanklin—it was inevitable that they must come back.

CHAPTER XXIII

Kate was so far a true prophet that the Berties did return, but not till Christmas, and then only for a few days. For the first time during the Autumn and early Winter, time hung heavy upon the hands of the little household. Their innocent routine of life, which had supported them so pleasantly hitherto, supplying a course of gentle duties and necessities, broke down now, no one could tell why. Routine is one of the pleasantest stays of monotonous life, so long as no agitating influence has come into it. It makes existence more supportable to millions of people who have ceased to be excited by the vicissitudes of life, or who have not yet left the pleasant creeks and bays of youth for the more agitated and stormy sea; but when that first interruption has come, without bringing either satisfaction or happiness with it, the bond of routine becomes terrible. All the succession of duties and pleasures which had seemed to her as the course of nature a few months before—as unchangeable as the succession of day and night, and as necessary—became now a burden to Ombra, under which her nerves, her temper, her very life gave way. She asked herself, and often asked the others, why they should do the same things every day?—what was the good of it? The studies which she shared with her cousin, the little charities they did—visits to this poor woman or the other, expeditions with the small round basket, which held a bit of chicken, or some jelly, or a pudding for a sick pensioner; the walks they took for exercise, their sketchings and practisings, and all the graceful details of their innocent life—what was the good of them? ‘The poor people don’t want our puddings and things. I daresay they throw them away when we are gone,’ said Ombra. ‘They don’t want to be interfered with—I should not, if I were in their place; and if we go on sketching till the end of time, we never shall make a tolerable picture—you could buy a better for five shillings; and the poorest pianist in a concert-room would play better than we could, though we spent half the day practising. What is the good of it? Oh! if you only knew how sick I am of it all!’

‘But, dear, you could not sit idle all day—you could not read all day. You must do something,’ said poor Mrs. Anderson, not knowing how to meet this terrible criticism, ‘for your own sake.’

‘For my own sake!’ said Ombra. ‘Ah! that is just what makes it so dreadful, so disgusting! I am to go on with all this mass of nonsense for my own sake. Not that it is, or ever will be, of use to any one; not that there is any need to do it, or any good in doing it; but for my own sake! Oh! mamma, don’t you see what a satire it is? No man, nobody who criticises women, ever said worse than you have just said. We are so useless to the world, so little wanted by the world, that we are obliged to furbish up little silly, senseless occupations, simply to keep us from yawning ourselves to death—for our own sakes!’

‘Indeed, Ombra, I do not understand what you mean, or what you would have,’ Mrs. Anderson would answer, all but crying, the vexation of being unable to answer categorically, increasing her distress at her daughter’s contradictoriness; for, to be sure, when you anatomized all these simple habits of life, what Ombra said was true enough. The music and the drawing were done for occupation rather than for results. The visits to the poor did but little practical service, though the whole routine had made up a pleasant life, gently busy, and full of kindly interchanges.

Mrs. Anderson felt that she herself had not been a useless member of society, or one whose withdrawal would have made no difference to the world; but in what words was she to say so? She was partially affronted, vexed, and distressed. Even when she reflected on the subject, she did not know in what words to reply to her argumentative child. She could justify her own existence to herself—for was not she the head and centre of this house, upon whom five other persons depended for comfort and guidance. ‘Five persons,’ Mrs. Anderson said to herself. ‘Even Ombra—what would she do without me? And Kate would have no home, if I were not here to make one for her; and those maids who eat our bread!’ All this she repeated to herself, feeling that she was not, even now, without use in the world; but how could she have said it to her daughter? Probably Ombra would have answered that the whole household might be swept off the face of the earth without harm to any one—that there was no use in them;—a proposition which it was impossible either to refute or to accept.

Thus the household had changed its character, no one knew how. When Kate arranged the last winterly bouquets of chrysanthemums and Autumnal leaves in the flat dishes which she had once filled with primroses, her sentiments were almost as different as the season. She was nipped by a subtle cold more penetrating than that which blew about the Cottage in the November winds, and tried to get entrance through the closed windows. She was made uncomfortable in all her habits, unsettled in her youthful opinions. Sometimes a refreshing little breeze of impatience crossed her mind, but generally she was depressed by the change, without well knowing why.