Ombra

Kate was taken by surprise. She did not quite know whether she was delighted or disappointed by the idea; but before she could reply, she met the eye of her cousin, whose whole face had kindled into passion. Ombra sprang to her feet, and drew Kate aside with a nervous haste that startled her. She grasped her arm tight, and whispered in her ear, ‘We are to be kept till you are of age—I see it all now—we are prisoners till you are of age. Oh! Kate, will you bear it? You can resist, but I can’t—they will listen to you.’

It is impossible to describe the shock which was given to Kate’s loyalty by this speech. It was the first actual suggestion of rebellion which had been made to her, and it jarred her every nerve. She had not been a submissive child, but she had never plotted—never done anything in secret. She said aloud, in painful wonder—

‘Why should we be prisoners?—and what has my coming of age to do with it?’ turning round, and looking bewildered into her cousin’s face.

Ombra made no reply; she went back to her seat, and retired into herself for the rest of the day. Things had gone smoothly since the journey began up to this moment. She had almost ceased to brood, and had begun to take some natural interest in what was going on about her. But now all at once the gloom returned. She sat with her eyes fixed on the shore of the lake, and with the old flush of feverish red, half wretchedness, half anger, under her eyes. Kate, who had grown happy in the brightening of the domestic atmosphere, was affected by this change in spite of herself. She exchanged mournful looks with her aunt. The beautiful lake and the sunny peaks were immediately clouded over; she was doubly checked in the midst of her frank enjoyment.

‘You are wrong, Ombra,’ said Mrs. Anderson, after a long pause. ‘I don’t know what you have said to Kate, but I am sure you have taken up a false idea. There is no compulsion. We are to go only when we please, and to stay only as long as we like.’

‘But we are not to return home this year?’

‘I did not say so; but I think, perhaps, on the whole, that to go a little further, and see a little more, would be best both for you and Kate.’

‘Exactly,’ said Ombra, with bitterness, nodding her head in a derisive assent.

Kate looked on with wistful and startled eyes. It was almost the first time that the idea of real dissension between these two had crossed her mind; and still more this infinitely startling doubt whether all that was said to her was true. At least there had been concealment; and was it really, truly the good of Ombra and Kate, or some private arrangement with Uncle Courtenay, that was in her aunt’s mind. This suggestion came suddenly into her very heart, wounding her as with an arrow; and from that day, though sometimes lessening and sometimes deepening, the cloud upon Ombra’s face came back. But as she grew less amiable, she grew more powerful. Henceforward the party became guided by her wayward fancies. She took a sudden liking for one of the quietest secluded places—a village on the little blue lake of Zug—and there they settled for some time, without rhyme or reason. Green slopes, with grey stone-peaks above, and glimpses of snow beyond, shut in this lake-valley. I agree with Ombra that it is very sweet in its stillness, the lake so blue, the air so clear, and the noble nut-bearing trees so umbrageous, shadowing the pleasant châlets. In the centre was a little white-washed village church among its graves, its altar all decked with stately May lilies, the flowers of the Annunciation. The church had no beauty of architecture, no fine pictures—not even great antiquity to recommend it; but Ombra was fond of the sunshiny, still place. She would go there when she was tired, and sit down on one of the rush-bottomed chairs, and sometimes was to be seen kneeling furtively on the white altar steps.

Kate, who roamed up and down everywhere, and had soon all the facility of a young mountaineer, would stop at the open church-door as she came down from the hills, alpenstock in hand, sunburnt and agile as a young Diana.

‘You are not going to turn a Roman Catholic, Ombra?’ she said. ‘I think it would make my aunt very unhappy.’

‘I am not going to turn anything,’ said Ombra. ‘I shall never be different from what I am—never any better. One tries and tries, and it is no good.’

‘Then stop trying, and come up on the hills and shake it off,’ said Kate.

‘Perhaps I might if I were like you; but I am not like you.’

‘Or let us go on, and see people and do things again—do all sorts of things. I like this little lake,’ said Kate. ‘One has a home-feeling. I almost think I should begin to poke about the cottages, and find fault with the people, if we were to stay long. But that is not your temptation, Ombra. Why do you like to stay?’

‘I stay because it is so still—because nobody comes here, nothing can happen here; it must always be the same for ever and for ever and ever!’ cried Ombra. ‘The hills and the deep water, and the lilies in the church—which are artificial, you know, and cannot fade.’

Kate did not understand this little bitter jibe at the end of her cousin’s speech; but was overwhelmed with surprise when Ombra next morning suggested that they should resume their journey. They were losing their time where they were, she said; and as, if they were to go to Italy for the Winter, it would be necessary to return by Switzerland next year, she proposed to strike off from the mountains at this spot, to go to Germany, to the strange old historical cities that were within reach. ‘Kate should see Nuremberg,’ she said; and Kate, to her amazement, found the whole matter settled, and the packing commenced that day. Ombra managed the whole journey, and was a practical person, handy and rational, until they came to that old-world place, where she became reveuse and melancholy once more.

‘Do you like this better than Switzerland?’ Kate asked, as they looked down from their windows along the three-hundred-years-old street, where it was so strange to see people walking about in ordinary dresses and not in trunkhose and velvet mantles.

‘I don’t care for any place. I have seen so many, and one is so much like another,’ said Ombra. ‘But look, Kate, there is one advantage. Anything might happen here; any one might be coming along those streets and you would never feel surprised. If I were to see my father walking quietly this way, I should not think it at all strange.’

‘But, Ombra—he is dead!’ said Kate, shrinking a little, with natural uneasiness.

‘Yes, he is dead, but that does not matter. Look down that hazy street with all the gables. Any one might be coming—people whom we have forgotten—even,’ she said, pressing Kate’s arm, ‘people who have forgotten us.’

‘Oh! Ombra, how strangely you speak! People that care for you don’t forget you,’ cried Kate.

‘That does not mend the matter,’ said Ombra, and withdrew hurriedly from the window.

Poor Kate tried very hard to make something out of it, but could not; and therefore she shrugged her shoulders and gave her head a little shake, and went to her German, which she was working at fitfully, to make the best of her opportunities. The German, though she thought sometimes it would break her heart, was not so hard as Ombra; and even the study of languages had to her something amusing in it.

One of the young waiters in the hotel kept a dictionary in the staircase window, and studied it as he flew up and down stairs for a new word to experiment with upon the young ladies; and another had, by means of the same dictionary, set up a flirtation with Maryanne; so fun was still possible, notwithstanding all; and whether it was by the mountain paths, or in those hazy strange old streets, Kate walked with her head, as it were, in the clouds, in a soft rapture of delight and pleasantness, taking in all that was sweet and lovely and good, and letting the rest drop off from her like a shower of rain. She even ceased to think of Ombra’s odd ways—not out of want of consideration, but with the facility which youth has for taking everything for granted, and consenting to whatever is. It was a great pity, but it could not be helped, and one must make the best of it all the same.

And thus the Summer passed on, full of wonders and delights. Mrs. Anderson and her daughter, and even Francesca, were invaluable to the ignorant girl. They knew how everything had to be done; they were acquainted alike with picture-galleries and railway-tickets, and knew even what to say about every work of art—an accomplishment deeply amazing to Kate, who did not know what to say about anything, and who had several times committed herself by praising vehemently some daub which was beyond the reach of praise. When she made such a mistake as this, her mortification and shame were great; but unfortunately her pride made her hold by her opinion. They saw so many pictures, so many churches, so much that was picturesque and beautiful, that her brain was in a maze, and her intellect had become speechless.

They took their way across the mountains in Autumn, getting entangled in the vast common tide of travellers to Italy; and, after all, Francesca’s words came true, and it was a relief to Kate to get back into the stream—it relieved the strain upon her mind. Instead of thinking of more and lovelier pictures still, she was pleased to rest and see nothing; and even—a confession which she was ashamed to make to herself—Kate was as much delighted with the prospect of mundane pleasures as she had been with the scenery. Society had acquired a new charm. She had never been at anything more than ‘a little dance,’ or a country concert, and balls and operas held out their arms to her. One of the few diplomatic friends whom Mrs. Anderson had made in her consular career was at Florence; and even Mr. Courtenay could not object to his niece’s receiving the hospitalities of the Embassy. She was to ‘come out’ at the Ambassador’s ball—not in her full-blown glory, as an heiress and a great lady, but as Mrs. Anderson’s niece, a pretty, young, undistinguished English girl. Kate knew nothing about this, nor cared. She threw herself into the new joys as she had done into the old. A new chapter, however it might begin, was always a pleasant thing in her fresh and genial life.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Florence altogether was full of pleasant novelty to the young traveller. To find herself living up two pair of stairs, with windows overlooking the Arno, and at a little distance the quaint buildings of the Ponte Vecchio, was as great a change as the first change had been from Langton-Courtenay to the little Cottage at Shanklin. Mrs. Anderson’s apartment on the second floor of the Casa Graziana was not large. There was a drawing-room which looked to the front, and received all the sunshine which Florentine skies could give; and half a mile off, at the other end of the house, there was a grim and spare dining-room, furnished with the indispensable tables and chairs, and with a curious little fireplace in the corner, raised upon a slab of stone, as on a pedestal. It would be difficult to tell how cold it was here as the Winter advanced; but in the salone it was genial as Summer whenever the sun shone. The family went, as it were, from Nice to Inverness when they went from the front to the back, for their meals. Perhaps it might have been inappropriate for Miss Courtenay of Langton-Courtenay to live up two pair of stairs; but it was not at all unsuitable for Mrs. Anderson; and, indeed, when Lady Barker, who was Mrs. Anderson’s friend, came to call, she was much surprised by the superior character of the establishment. Lady Barker had been a Consul’s daughter, and had risen immensely in life by marrying the foolish young attaché, whom she now kept in the way he ought to go. She was not the Ambassadress, but the Ambassadress’s friend, and a member of the Legation; and, though she was now in a manner a great lady herself, she remembered quite well what were the means of the Andersons, and knew that even the terzo piano of a house on the Lung-Arno was more than they could have ventured on in the ancient days.

‘What a pretty apartment,’ she said; ‘and how nicely situated! I am afraid you will find it rather dear. Florence is so changed since your time. Do you remember how cheap everything used to be in the old days? Well, if you will believe me, you pay just fifteen times as much for every article now.’

‘So I perceive,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘We give a thousand francs for these rooms, which ought not to be more than a hundred scudi—and without even the old attraction of a pleasant accessible Court.’

Lady Barker opened her eyes—at once, at the fact of Mrs. Anderson paying a thousand francs a month for her rooms, and at her familiar mention of the pleasant Court.

‘Oh, there are some very pleasant people here now!’ she said; ‘if your young ladies are fond of dancing, I think I can help them to some amusement. Lady Granton will send you cards for her ball. Is Ombra delicate?—do you still call her Ombra? How odd it is that you and I, under such different circumstances, should meet here!’

‘Yes—very odd,’ said Mrs. Anderson; ‘and yet I don’t know. People who have been once in Italy always come back. There is a charm about it—a–’

‘Ah, we didn’t think so once!’ said Lady Barker, with a laugh. She could remember the time when the Andersons, like so many other people compelled to live abroad, looked upon everything that was not English with absolute enmity. ‘You used to think Italy did not agree with your daughter,’ she said; ‘have you brought her for her health now?’

‘Oh no! Ombra is quite well; she is always pale,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘We have come rather on account of my niece—not for her health, but because she had never seen anything out of her own country. We think it right that she should make good use of her time before she comes of age.’

‘Oh! will she come of age?’ said Lady Barker, with a glance of laughing curiosity. She decided that the pretty girl at the window, who had two or three times broken into the conversation, was a great deal too pretty to be largely endowed by fortune; and smiled at her old friend’s grandiloquence, which she remembered so well. She made a very good story of it at the little cosy dinner-party at the Embassy that evening, and prepared the good people for some amusement. ‘A pretty English country girl, with some property, no doubt,’ she said. ‘A cottage ornée, most likely, and some fields about it; but her aunt talks as if she were heiress to a Grand Duke. She has come abroad to improve her mind before she comes of age.’

‘And when she goes back there will be a grand assemblage of the tenantry, no doubt, and triumphal arches, and all the rest of it,’ said another of the fine people.

‘So Mrs. Vice-Consul allows one to suppose,’ said Lady Barker. ‘But she is so pretty—prettier than anything I have seen for ages; and Ombra, too, is pretty, the late Vice-Consul’s heiress. They will far furore—two such new faces, and both so English; so fresh; so gauche!’

This was Lady Barker’s way of backing her friends; but the friends did not know of it, and it procured them their invitation all the same, and Lady Granton’s card to put on the top of the few other cards which callers had left. And Mrs. Anderson came to be, without knowing it, the favourite joke of the ambassadorial circle. Mrs. Vice-Consul had more wonderful sayings fastened upon her than she ever dreamt of, and became the type and symbol of the heavy British matron to that lively party. Her friend made her out to be a bland and dignified mixture of Mrs. Malaprop and Mrs. Nickleby. Meanwhile, she had a great many things to do, which occupied her, and drove even her anxieties out of her mind. There was the settling down—the hiring of servants and additional furniture, and all the trifles necessary to make their rooms ‘comfortable;’ and then the dresses of the girls to be put in order, and especially the dress in which Kate was to make her first appearance.

Mrs. Anderson had accepted Mr. Courtenay’s conditions; she had acquiesced in the propriety of keeping silent as to Kate’s pretensions, and guarding her from all approach of fortune-hunters. There was even something in this which was not disagreeable to her maternal feelings; for to have Kate made first, and Ombra second, would not have been pleasant. But still, at the same time, she could not restrain a natural inclination to enhance the importance of her party by a hint—an inference. That little intimation about Kate’s coming of age, she had meant to tell, as indeed it did, more than she intended; and now her mind was greatly exercised about her niece’s ball-dress. ‘White tarlatane is, of course, very nice for a young girl,’ she said, doubtfully, ‘it is all my Ombra has ever had; but, for Kate, with her pretensions–’

This was said rather as one talks to one’s self, thinking aloud, than as actually asking advice.

‘But I thought Kate in Florence was to be simply your niece,’ said Ombra, who was in the room. ‘To make her very fine would be bad taste; besides,’ she added, with a little sigh, ‘Kate would look well in white calico. Nature has decked her so. I suppose I never, at my best, was anything like that.’

Ombra had improved very much since their arrival in Florence. Her fretfulness had much abated, and there was no envy in this sigh.

‘At your best, Ombra! My foolish darling, do you think your best is over?’ said the mother, with a smile.

‘I mean the bloom,’ said Ombra. ‘I never had any bloom—and Kate’s is wonderful. I think she gives a pearly, rosy tint to the very air. I was always a little shadow, you know!’

‘You will not do yourself justice,’ cried Mrs. Anderson. ‘Oh! Ombra, if you only knew how it grieves me! You draw back, and you droop into that dreamy, melancholy way; there is always a mist about you. My darling, this is a new place, you will meet new people, everything is fresh and strange. Could you not make a new beginning, dear, and shake it off!’

‘I try,’ said Ombra, in a low tone.

‘I don’t want to be hard upon you, my own child; but, then, dear, you must blame yourself, not any one else. It was not his fault.’

‘Please don’t speak of it,’ cried the girl. ‘If you could know how humbled I feel to think that it is that which has upset my whole life! Ill-temper, jealousy, envy, meanness—pleasant things to have in one’s heart! I fight with them, but I can’t overcome them. If I could only “not care!” How happy people are who can take things easily, and who don’t care!’