‘Ne voyez vous pas que la nuit est profonde,Et que le mondeN’est que souci.’
‘Ne voyez vous pas que la nuit est profonde,Et que le mondeN’est que souci.’
‘Ne voyez vous pas que la nuit est profonde,Et que le mondeN’est que souci.’
Strange, at nineteen, in all the sweetness of her youth, the heiress of Langton had come to understand how that might be!
Lady Caryisfort took more urgent measures on her side than Mr. Courtenay had thought it wise to do. She detained her friend, the Countess Strozzi, and her friend’s nephew, when all the other guests were gone. This flattered Antonio, who thought it possible some proposition might be about to be made to him, and made the Countess uncomfortable, who knew the English better than he. Lady Caryisfort made a very bold assault upon the two. She took high ground, and assured them that, without her consent and countenance, to mature a scheme of this kind under her wing, as it were, was a wrong thing to do. She was so very virtuous, in short, that Countess Strozzi woke up to a sudden and lively hope that Lady Caryisfort had more reasons than those which concerned Kate for disliking the match; but this she kept to herself; and the party sat late and long into the night discussing the matter. Antonio was reluctant, very reluctant, to give up the little English maiden, whom he declared he loved.
‘Would you love her if she were penniless—if she had no lands and castles, but was as her cousin?’ said Lady Caryisfort; and the young man paused. He said at last that, though probably he would love her still better in these circumstances, he should not dare to ask her to marry him. But was that possible? And then it was truly that Lady Caryisfort distinguished herself. She told him all that was possible to a ferocious English guardian—how, though he could not take the money away, he could bind it up so that it would advantage no one; how he could make the poor husband no better than a pensioner of the rich wife, or even settle it so that even the rich wife should become poor, and have nothing in her power except the income, which, of course, could not be taken from her. ‘Even that she will not have till she is of age, two long years hence,’ Lady Caryisfortexplained; and then gave such a lucid sketch of trustees and settlements that the young Italian’s soul shrank into his boots. His face grew longer and longer as he listened.
‘But I am committed—my honour is involved,’ he said.
‘Ah! pazzo, allora hai parlato?’ cried his kinswoman.
‘No, I have not spoken, not in so many words; but I have been understood,’ said Antonio, with that imbecile smile and blush of vanity which women know so well.
‘I think you may make yourself easy in that respect,’ said Lady Caryisfort. ‘Kate is not in love with you,’ a speech which almost undid what she had been labouring to do; for Antonio’s pride was up, and could scarcely be pacified. He had committed himself; he had given Kate to understand that he was her lover, and how was he now to withdraw? ‘If he proposes, she is a romantic child—no more than a child—and she is capable of accepting him,’ Lady Caryisfort said to his aunt in their last moment of consultation.
‘Leave him to me,cara mia,’ said the Countess—‘leave him to me.’ And that noble lady went away with her head full of new combinations. ‘The girl will not be of age for two years, and in that time anything may happen. It would be hard for you to wait two years, Antoniomio; let us think a little. I know another, young still, very handsome, and with everything in her own power——’
Antonio was indignant, and resented the suggestion; but Countess Strozzi was not impatient. She knew very well that to such arguments, in the long run, all Antonios yield.
Mr. Courtenay entered the drawing room in the Lung-Arno next day at noon, and found all the ladies there. Again the Berties were absent, but there was no cloud that morning upon Ombra’s face. Kate had made her appearance, looking pale and ill, and the hearts of her companions had been touched. They were compunctious and ashamed, and eager to make up for the neglect of which she had never complained. Even Ombra had kissed her a second time after the formal morning salutation, and had said ‘Forgive me!’ as she did so.
‘For what?’ said Kate, with the intention of being proud and unconscious. But when she had looked up, and met her aunt’s anxious look, and Ombra’s eyes with tears in them, her own overflowed. ‘Oh! I am so ill-tempered,’ she said, ‘and ungrateful. Don’t speak to me.’
‘You are just as I was a little while ago,’ said Ombra. ‘But, Kate, with you it is all delusion, and soon, very soon, you will know better. Don’t be as I was.’
As Ombra was! Kate dried her eyes, yet she did not know whether to be gratified or to be angry. Why should she be as Ombra had been? But yet even these few words brought abouta better understanding. And the three were seated together, in the old way, when Mr. Courtenay entered. He had the air of a man full of business. In his hand he carried a packet of letters, some of which he had not yet opened.
‘I have just had letters from Langton,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if you take any interest in Langton—or these ladies, who have never even seen it——’
‘Of course I do, uncle,’ cried Kate. ‘Take interest in my own house, my dear old home!’
‘It does not follow that young ladies who are fond of Italy should care about a dull old place in the heart of England,’ said this wily old man. ‘Grieve tells me it is going to rack and ruin, which is not pleasant news. He says it is wicked and shameful to leave it so long without inhabitants; that the village is discontented, and dirty, and wretched, with no one to look after it. In short, ladies, if I look miserable, you must forgive me, for I have not got over Grieve’s letter.’
‘Who is Grieve, uncle?’
‘The new estate-agent, Kate. Didn’t you know? Ah! you must begin to take an interest in the estate. My time is drawing to a close, and I shall be glad, very glad, to be rid of it. If I could go down and live there, I might do something; but as that is impossible, I suppose things must continue going to the bad till you come of age.’
Kate sat upright in her chair; her cheeks began to glow, and her eyes to shine.
‘Why should things go to the bad?’ she said. ‘I would rather they did not, for my part.’
‘How can they do otherwise,’ said Mr. Courtenay, ‘while the house is shut up, and there is no one to see to anything? Grieve is a good fellow, but I can’t give him Langton to live in, or make him into a Courtenay.’
‘I should hope not,’ said Kate, setting her small white teeth. By this time her whole countenance began to gleam with excitement and resolution, and that charm to which she always responded with such delight and readiness, the charm of novelty. Then she made a pause, and drew in her breath. ‘Uncle,’ she said, ‘I am not a child any longer. Why shouldn’t I go home, and open the house, and live as I ought? I want something to do. I want duty, such as other people have. It is my business to look after Langton. Let me go home.’
‘You foolish child!’ he said; which was a proof, though Kate did not see it, that everything was working as he wished. ‘You foolish child! How could you, at nineteen, go and live in that house alone?’
She looked up. Her crimson cheek grew white, her eyes went in one wistful, imploring look from her aunt to Ombra,from Ombra back again to Mrs. Anderson. Her lips parted in her eagerness, her eyes shone out like lights. She was as if about to speak—but stopped short, and referred to them, as it were, for the answer. Mr. Courtenay looked at them too, not without a little anxiety; but the interest in his face was of a very different kind from that shown by Kate.
‘If you mean,’ said Mrs. Anderson, faltering, and, for her part, consulting Ombra with her eyes, ‘that you would like me to go with you—Kate, my darling, thank you for wishing it—oh! thank you, I have not deserved—— But most likely your uncle would not like it, Kate.’
‘On the contrary,’ said Mr. Courtenay, with his best bow, ‘if you would entertain the idea—if it suits with your other plans to go to Langton till Kate comes of age, it would be everything that I could desire.’
The three looked at each other for a full moment in uncertainty and wonder. And then Kate suddenly jumped up, overturned the little table by her side, on which stood the remains of her violets, and danced round the room with wild delight.
‘Oh! let us go at once!—let us leave this horrid old picture-gallery! Let us go home, home!’ she cried, in an outburst of joy. The vase was broken, and the dead violets strewed over the carpet. Francesca came in and swept them away, and no one took any notice. That was over. And now for home—for home!
Thesuccess of this move had gone far beyond Mr. Courtenay’s highest hopes. He was unprepared for the suddenness of its acceptance. He went off and told Lady Caryisfort, with a surprise and satisfaction that was almost rueful. ‘Since that woman came into my niece’s affairs,’ he said, ‘I have had to sacrifice something for every step I have gained; and I find that I have made the sacrifice exactly when it suited her—to buy a concession she was dying to make. I never meant her to set foot in Langton, and now she is going there as mistress; and just, I am certain, at the time it suits her to go. This is what happens to a simple-minded man when he ventures to enter the lists with women. I have a great mind to put everything in her hands and retire from the field.’
‘I don’t think she is so clever as you give her credit for,’ said Lady Caryisfort, who was somewhat languid after the night’s exertions. ‘I suspect it was you who found out the moment that suited you rather than she.’
But she gave him, in her turn, an account of what she had done, and they formed an alliance offensive and defensive—a public treaty of friendship for the world’s inspection, and a secret alliance known only to themselves, by the conditions of which Lady Caryisfort bound herself to repair to London and take Kate under her charge when it should be thought necessary and expedient by the allied powers. She pledged herself to present the heiress and watch over her and guard her from all match-makers, that the humble chaperon might be dismissed, and allowed to go in peace. When he had concluded this bargain Mr. Courtenay went away with a lighter heart, to make preparations for his niece’s return. He had been most successful in his pretence to get her away from Florence; and now this second arrangement to get rid of the relations who would be no longer necessary, seemed to him a miracle of diplomacy. He chuckled to himself over it, and rubbed his hands.
‘Kate must not be treated as a child any longer—she is grown up, she has a judgment of her own,’ he said, with a delicioussense of humour; and then he listened very gravely to all her enthusiastic descriptions of what she was to do when she got to Langton. Kate, however, after the first glow of her resolution, did not feel the matter so easy as it appeared. She had no thought of the violets, which Francesca swept up, at the moment; but afterwards the recollection of them came back to her. She had allowed them to be swept away without a thought. What a cold heart—what an ungrateful nature—she must have! And poor Antonio! In the light of Langton, Antonio looked to her all at once impossible—as impossible as it would be to transplant his old palace to English soil. No way could the two ideas be harmonised. She puckered her brows over it till she made her head ache. Count Buoncompagni and Langton-Courtenay! They would not come together—could not—it was impossible! Indeed the one idea chased the other from her mind. And how was she to intimate this strange and cruel fact to him? How was she to show that all his graceful attentions must be brought to an end?—that she was going home, and all must be over! And the worst was that it could not be done gradually; but one way or another must be managed at once.
The next day Lady Caryisfort came, as usual, on her way to the Cascine; but, to Kate’s surprise and relief, and, it must be owned, also to her disappointment, Antonio was not there. She declined the next invitation to Lady Caryisfort’s, inventing a headache for the occasion, and growing more and more perplexed the longer she thought over that difficult matter. It was while she was musing thus that Bertie Hardwick one day managed to get beside her for a moment, while Ombra was talking to his cousin. Bertie Eldridge had raised a discussion about some literary matter, and the two had gone to consult a book in the little ante-room, which served as a kind of library; the other Bertie was left alone with Kate, a thing which had not happened before for weeks. He went up to her the moment they were gone, and stood hesitating and embarrassed before her.
‘Miss Courtenay,’ he said, and waited till she looked up.
Something moved in Kate’s heart at the sound of his voice—some chord of early recollection—remembrances which seemed to her to stretch so far back—before the world began.
‘Well, Mr. Hardwick?’ she said, looking up with a smile. Why there should be something pathetic in that smile, and a little tightness across her eyelids, as if she could have cried, Kate could not have told, and neither can I.
‘Are you pleased to go home?—is it with your own will? or did your uncle’s coming distress you?’ he said, in a voice which was—yes, very kind, almost more than friendly; brotherly, Kate said to herself.
‘Distress me?’ she said.
‘Yes; I have thought you looked a little troubled sometimes. I can’t help noticing. Don’t think me impertinent, but I can’t bear to see trouble in your face.’
Kate made no reply, but she looked up at him—looked him straight in the eyes. Once more she did not know why she did it, and she did not think of half the meanings which he saw written in her face. He faltered; he turned away; he grew red and grew pale; and then came back to her with an answering look which did not falter; but for the re-entrance of the others he must have said something. But they came back, and he did not speak. If he had spoken, what would he have said?
This gave a new direction to Kate’s thoughts, but still it was with a heavy heart that she entered Lady Caryisfort’s drawing-room, not more than a week after that evening when Antonio had asked for the violets, and she had hesitated whether she would give them. She had hesitated! It was this thought which made her so much ashamed. She had been lonely, and she had been willing to accept his heart as a plaything; and how could she say to him now, ‘I am no longer lonely. I am going home; and I could not take you, a stranger, back, to be master of Langton?’ She could not say this, and what was she to say? Antonio Buoncompagni was not much more comfortable; he had been thoroughly schooled, and he had begun to accept his part. He even saw, and that clearly, that a pretty, independent bird in the hand, able to pipe as he wished, was better than a fluttering, uncertain fledgling in the bush; but he had a lively sense of honour, and he had committed himself. The young lady, he thought, ought at least to have the privilege of refusing him. ‘Go, then, and be refused—pazzo!’ said his aunt. ‘Most people avoid a refusal, but thou wishest it. It is a pity that thou shouldst not be satisfied.’ But, having obtained this permission, the young Count was not, perhaps, so ready to avail himself of it. He did not care to be rejected any more than other men, but he was anxious to reconcile his conscience to his desertion; and he had a tender sense that he himself—Antonio—was not one to be easily forgotten. He watched Kate from the moment of her entry, and persuaded himself that she was pale. ‘Poverina!’ he said, beneath his moustache. Alas! the sacrifice must be made; but then it might be done in a gentle way.
The evening, however, was half over before he had found his way to her side—a circumstance which filled Kate with wonder, and kept her in a curious suspense; for she could not talk freely to anyone else while he was within sight, to whom she had so much (she thought) to say. He came, and Kate was confused and troubled. Somehow she felt he was changed. Was he less handsome, less tall, less graceful? What had happened to him? Surely there was something. He was no longer the young herowho had dropped on his knee, and kissed her hand for Italy. She was confused, and could not tell how it was.
‘You are going to leave Florence?’ he said. ‘It is sudden—it is too sad to think of. Miss Courtenay, I hope it is not you who wish to leave our beautiful Italy—you, who have understood her so well?’
‘No, it is not I,’ said Kate. ‘I should not have gone of my own free will; but yet I am very willing—I am ready to go—it is home,’ she added, hastily, and with meaning. ‘It is the place I love best in the world.’
‘Ah!’ he said, ‘I had thought—I had hoped you loved Italy too.’
‘Oh! so I do, Count Buoncompagni—and I thought I did still more,’ cried the girl, eager to make her hidden and shy, yet brave apology. ‘I thought I could have lived and died here, where people were so good to me. But, you know, whenever I heard the name of home, it made my blood all dance in my veins. I felt I had been making a mistake, and that there was nothing in the world I loved like Langton-Courtenay. I made a great mistake, but I did not mean it. I hope nobody will think it is unkind of me, or that I am fond of change.’
Count Antonio stood and listened to this speech with a grim smile on his face, and a look in his eyes which was new to Kate. He, too, was making a disagreeable discovery, and he did not like it. He made her a bow, but he did not make any answer. He stood by her side a few moments, and then he asked her suddenly, ‘May I get you some tea?—can I bring you anything?’ with a forced quietness; and when Kate said ‘No,’ he went away, and devoted himself for all the rest of the evening to Lady Caryisfort. There was pique in his manner, but there was something more, which she could not make out; and she sat rather alone for the rest of the evening. She was left to feel her mistake, to wonder, to be somewhat offended and affronted; and went back to the Lung-Arno impatient to hurry over all the packing, and get home at once. But she never found out that in thus taking the weight of the breaking off on her own shoulders, she had saved Count Antonio a great deal of trouble.
When Lady Caryisfort found out what had passed, her amusement was very great. ‘She will go now and think all her life that she has done him an injury, and broken his heart, and all kinds of nonsense,’ she said to herself. ‘Poor Antonio! what a horrible thing money is! But he has escaped very cheaply, thanks to Kate, and she will make a melancholy hero of him, poor dear child, for the rest of her life.’
In this, however, Lady Caryisfort, not knowing all the circumstances, was wrong; for Kate felt vaguely that there was something more than the honourable despair of a young Paladinin her Count’s acceptance of her explanation. He accepted it too readily, with too little attempt to resist or remonstrate. She was more angry than pitiful, ignorant as she was. A man who takes a woman so entirely at her first word almost insults her, even though the separation is her own doing. Kate felt this vaguely, and a hot blush rose to her cheek for two or three days after, at the very mention of Antonio’s name.
The person, however, who felt this breaking off most was old Francesca, who had gone to an extra mass for weeks back, to promote the suit she had so much at heart. She cried herself sick when she saw it was all over, and said to herself, she knew something evil would happen as soon asil vecchiocame.Il vecchio’sappearance was always the signal for mischief. He had come, and now once more the party was on the wing, and she herself was to be torn from her native place, the Florence she adored, for this old man’s caprice. Francesca thought with a little fierce satisfaction that, when his soul went to purgatory, there would be nobody to pray him out, and that his penance would be long enough. The idea gave her a great deal of satisfaction. She would not help him out, she was certain—not so much as by a single prayer.
But all the time she got on with her packing, and the ladies began to frequent the shops to buy little souvenirs of Florence. It was a busy time, and there was a great deal of movement, and so much occupation that the members of the little party lost sight of each other, as it were, and pursued their different preparations in their own way. ‘She is packing,’ or, ‘she is shopping,’ was said, first of one, and then of another; and no further questions were asked. And thus the days crept on, and the time approached when they were to set out once more on the journey home.
Yes, packing, without doubt, takes up a great deal of time, and that must have been the reason why Mrs. Anderson and Ombra were so much occupied. They had so many things to do. Francesca, of course, was occupied with the household; she did the greater part of the cooking, and superintended everything, and consequently had not time for the manifold arrangements—the selection of things they did not immediately want, which were to be sent off direct from Leghorn, and of those which they would require to carry with them. And in this work the ladies toiled sometimes for days together.
Kate had no occasion to make a slave of herself. She had Maryanne to attend to all her immediate requirements, and, in her own person, had nothing better to do than to sit alone, and read, or gaze out of the window upon the passengers below, and the brown Arno running his course in the sunshine, and the high roofs blazing into the mellow light on the other side, while the houses below were in deepest shadow. Kate was too young, and had too many requirements, and hungers of the heart, to enjoy this scene for itself so much, perhaps, as she ought to have done. Had there been somebody by to whom she could have pointed out, or who would have pointed out to her, the beautiful gleams of colour and sunshine, I have no doubt her appreciation of it all would have been much greater. As it was, she felt very solitary; and often after, when life was running low with her, her imagination would bring up that picture of the brown river, and the housetops shining in the sun, and all the people streaming across the Ponte della Trinità, to the other side of the Arno—stranger people, whom she did not know, who were always coming and going, coming and going. Morning made no difference to them, nor night, nor the cold days, nor the rain. They were always crossing that bridge. Oh! what a curious, tedious thing life was, Kate thought—always the same thing over again, year after year, day after day. It was so still that she almost heard her own breathing within the warm, low room, where the sunshine entered so freely, but where nothing else entered all the morning, except herself.
To be sure, this was only for a few days; but, after all, what a strange end it was to the life in Florence, which had begun so differently! In the afternoon, to be sure, it was not lonely. Her uncle would come, and Lady Caryisfort, and the Berties, but not so often as usual. They never came when Mr. Courtenay was expected; but Kate felt, by instinct, that when she and her uncle were at Lady Caryisfort’s, the two young men reappeared, and the evenings were spent very pleasantly. What had she done to be thus shut out? It was a question she could not answer. Now and then the young clergyman would appear, who was the friend of Bertie Eldridge, a timid young man, with light hair and troubled eyes. And sometimes she caught Bertie Hardwick looking at herself with a melancholy, anxious gaze, which she still less understood. Why should he so regard her? she was making no complaint, no show of her own depression; and why should her aunt look at her so wistfully, and beg her pardon in every tone or gesture? Kate could not tell; but the last week was hard upon her, and still more hard was a strange accident which occurred at the end.
This happened two or three days before they left Florence. She was roused early, she did not know how, by a sound which she could not identify. Whether it was distant thunder, which seemed unlikely, or the shutting of a door close at hand, she could not tell. It was still dark of the winter morning, and Kate, rousing up, heard some early street cries outside, only to be heard in that morning darkness before the dawn, and felt something in the air, she could not tell what, which excited her. She got up, and cautiously peered into the ante-room out of which her own room opened. To her wonder she saw a bright fire burning. Was it late, she thought? and hastened to dress, thinking she had overslept herself. But when she had finished her morning toilette, and came forth to warm her cold fingers at that fire, there was still no appearance of anyone stirring. What did it mean? The shutters were still closed, and everything was dark, except this brisk fire, which must have been made up quite recently. Kate had taken down a book, and was about to make herself comfortable by the fireside, when the sound of some one coming startled her. It was Francesca, who looked in, with her warm shawl on.
‘I thought I heard some one,’ said Francesca. ‘Mees Katta, you haf give me a bad fright. Why do you get up so early, without warning anyone? I hear the sound, and I say to myself my lady is ill—and behold it is only Mees Katta. It does not show education, waking poor peoples in ze cold out of their good warm bet.’
‘But, Francesca, I heard noises too; and what can be the matter?’ said Kate, becoming a little alarmed.
‘Ah! but there is nosing the matter. Madame sleep—she would not answer even when I knocked. And since you have made me get up so early, it shall be for ze good of my soul, Mees Katta. I am going to mass.’
‘Oh! let me go too,’ said Kate. ‘I have never been at church so early. Don’t say a word, Francesca, because Iknowmy aunt will not mind. I will get my hat in a minute. See, I am ready.’
‘The Signorina will always have her way,’ said Francesca; and Kate found herself, before she knew, in the street.
It was still dark, but day was breaking; and it was by no means the particularly early hour that Kate supposed. There were no fine people certainly about the streets, but the poorer population was all awake and afoot. It was very cold—the beginning of January—the very heart of winter. The lamps were being extinguished along the streets; but the cold glimmer of the day neither warmed nor cleared the air to speak of; and through that pale dimness the great houses rose like ghosts. Kate glanced round her with a shiver, taking in a strange wild vision, all in tints of grey and black, of the houses along the side of the Arno, the arched line of the bridge, the great dim mass of the other part of the town beyond, faint in the darkness, and veiled, indistinct figures still coming and going. And then she followed Francesca, with scarcely a word, to the little out-of-the-way church, with nothing in it to make a show, which Francesca loved, partly because it was humble. For poor people have a liking for those homely, mean little places, where no grandeur of ornament nor pomp of service can ever be. This is a fact, explain it as they can, who think the attractions of ritualistic art and splendid ceremonial are the chief charms of the worship of Rome.
Francesca found out this squalid little church by instinct, as a poor woman of her class in England would find a Bethesda chapel. But at this moment the little church looked cheery, with its lighted altar blazing into the chilly darkness. Kate followed into one of the corners, and kneeled down reverently by her companion. Her head was confused by the strangeness of the scene. She listened, and tried to join in what was going on, with that obstinate English prejudice which makes common prayer a necessity in a church. But it was not common prayer that was to be found here. The priest was making his sacrifice at the altar; the solitary kneeling worshippers were having their private intercourse with God, as it were, under the shadow of the greater rite. While Francesca crossed herself and muttered her prayer under her breath, Kate, scarcely capable of that, covered her eyes with her hand, and pondered and wondered. Poor little church, visited by no admiring stranger;poor unknown people, snatching a moment from their work, market-people, sellers of chestnuts from the streets, servants, the lowliest of the low; but morning after morning their feeble candles twinkled into the dark, and they knelt upon the damp stones in the unseen corners. How strange it was! Not like English ideas—not like the virtuous ladies who patronised the daily service at Shanklin. Kate’s heart felt a great yearning towards those badly-dressed poor folks, some of whom smelled of garlic. She cried a little silently, the tears dropping one by one, like the last of a summer shower, from behind the shelter of her hand. And when Francesca had ended her prayers, and Kate, startled from her thinking, took her hand from her eyes, the little grey church was all full of the splendour of the morning, the candles put to flight, the priest’s muttering over.
‘If my young lady will come this way,’ whispered Francesca, ‘she will be able to kiss the shrine of the famous Madonna—she who stopped the cholera in the village, where my blessed aunt Agnese, of the Reparazione, was so much beloved.’
‘I would rather kiss you, Francesca,’ cried Kate, in a little transport, audible, so that some praying people raised their heads to look at her, ‘for you are a good woman.’
She spoke in English; and the people at their prayers looked down again, and took no more notice. It was nothing wonderful for an English visitor to talk loud in a church.
It was bright daylight when they came out, and everything was gay. The sun already shone dazzling on all the towers and heights, for it was no longer early; it was half-past eight o’clock, and already the forenoon had begun in that early Italian world. As they returned to the Lung-Arno the river was sparkling in the light, and the passengers moving quickly, half because of the cold, and half because the sun was so warm and exhilarating.
‘My aunt and Ombra will only be getting up,’ said Kate, with a little laugh of superiority; when suddenly she felt herself clutched by Francesca, and, looking round, suddenly stopped short also in the uttermost amaze. In front of her, walking along the bright street, were the two whom she had just named—her aunt and Ombra—and not alone. The two young men were walking with them—one with each lady. Ombra was clinging to the arm of the one by her side; and they all kept close together, with a half-guilty, half clandestine air. The sight of them filled Kate with so much consternation, as well as wonder, that these particulars recurred to her afterwards, as do the details of an accident to those who have been too painfully excited to observe them at the moment of their occurrence.
Francesca clutched her close and held her back as the group went on. They passed, almost brushing by the twospectators, yet in their haste perceiving nothing. But Kate had no inclination to rush forward and join herself to the party, as the old woman feared. After a moment’s interval the two resumed their walk, slowly, in speechless wonder. What did it mean? Perhaps Francesca guessed more truly than Kate did; but even she was not in the secret. Before, however, they reached the door, Kate had recovered herself. She quickened her steps, though Francesca held her back.
‘They must know that we have seen them,’ she said over and over to herself, with a parched throat.
And when the door was reached, the two parties met. It was Ombra who made the discovery first. She had turned round upon her companion to say some word of parting; her face was pale, but full of emotion; she was like one of the attendant saints at a martyrdom, so pale was she, and with a strange look of trance and rapture. But when her eye caught Kate behind, Ombra was strangely moved. She gave a little cry, and without another word ran into the house and up the stairs. Mrs. Anderson turned suddenly round when Ombra disappeared. She stood before the door of the house, and faced the new comers.
‘What, Kate!’ she said, half frightened, half relieved, ‘is it you? What has brought you out so early—and with Francesca, too?’
‘You too are out early, aunt.’
‘That is true; but it is not an answer,’ said Mrs. Anderson with a flush that rose over all her face.
And the two young men stood irresolute, as if they did not know whether to go or stay. Bertie Eldridge, it seemed to Kate, wore his usual indifferent look. He was alwaysblaséand languid, and did not give himself much trouble about anything; but Bertie Hardwick was much agitated. He turned white, and he turned red, and he gave Kate looks which she could not understand. It seemed to her as if he were always trying to apologise and explain with his eyes; and what right had Bertie Hardwick to think that she wanted anything explained or cared what he did? She was angry, she did not quite know why—angry and wounded—hurt as if some one had struck her, and she did not care to stop and ask or answer questions. She followed Mrs. Anderson upstairs, listening doubtfully to Francesca’s voluble explanation—how Mademoiselle had been disturbed by some sounds in the house, ‘possibly my lady herself, though I was far from thinking so when I left,’ said Francesca, pointedly; and how Mees Katta had insisted upon going to mass with her?
Mrs. Anderson shook her head, but turned round to Kate at the door with a softened look, which had something in it akinto Bertie’s. She kissed Kate, though the girl half averted her face.
‘I do not blame you, my dear, but your uncle might not like it. You must not go again,’ she said, thus gently placing the inferior matter in the first place.
And they went in, to find the fire in the ante-room burning all alone, as when Kate had left, and the calm little house looking in its best order, as if nothing had ever happened there.
Thatwas a curious day—a day full of strange excitement and suppressed feeling—suppressed on all sides, yet betraying itself in some unexplainable way. Mrs. Anderson made no explanation whatever of her early expedition—at least to Kate; she did not even refer to it. She gave her a little lecture at breakfast, while they sat alone together—for Ombra did not appear—about the inexpediency of going with Francesca to church. ‘I know that you did not mean anything, my darling,’ she said, tenderly; ‘but it is very touching to see the poor people at their prayers, and I have known a girl to be led away so, and to desert her own church. Such an idea must never be entertained for you; you are not a private individual, Kate—you are a woman with a great stake in the country, an example to many——’
‘Oh, I am so tired of hearing that I have a stake in the country!’ cried Kate, who at that moment, to tell the truth, was sick of everything, and loathed her life heartily, and everything she heard and saw.
‘But that is wrong,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘You must not be tired of such an honour and privilege. You must be aware, Kate, that an ordinary girl of your years would not be considered and studied as you have been. Had you been only my dear sister’s child, and not the mistress of Langton-Courtenay, even I should have treated you differently; though, for your own good,’ Mrs. Anderson added, ‘I have tried as much as possible to forget your position, and look upon you as my younger child.’
Kate’s heart was full—full of a yearning for the old undoubting love, and yet a sense that it had been withdrawn from her by no fault of hers, which made it impossible for her to make overtures of tenderness, or even to accept them. She said, ‘I like that best;’ but she said it low, with her eyes fixed upon her plate, and her voice choking. And perhaps her aunt did not hear. Mrs. Anderson had deliberately mounted upon her high horse. She had invoked, as it were, the assistance of her chief weakness, and was making use of it freely. She said a good deal more about Kate’s position—about the necessity of beingfaithful to one’s church, not only as a religious, but a public duty; and thus kept up the discussion till breakfast was fairly over. Then, as usual, Kate was left alone. Francesca had a private interview after in her mistress’s room, but what was said to her was never known to anyone. She left it looking as if tears still lay very near her eyes, but not a word did she repeat of any explanation given to her—and, indeed, avoided Kate, so that the girl was left utterly alone in the very heart of that small, and once so tender, household.
And thus life went on strangely, in a mist of suppressed excitement, for some days. How her aunt and cousin spent that time Kate could not tell. She saw little of them, and scarcely cared to note what visits they received, or what happened. In the seclusion of her own room she heard footsteps coming and going, and unusual sounds, but took no notice; and from that strange morning encounter, saw no more of the Berties until they made their appearance suddenly one day in the forenoon, when Mr. Courtenay was there; when they announced their immediate departure, and took their leave at one and the same moment. The parting was a strange one; they all shook hands stiffly with each other, as if they had been mere acquaintances. They said not a word of meeting again; and the young men were both agitated, looking pale and strange. When they left at last, Mr. Courtenay, in his airy way, remarked that he did not think Florence had agreed with them. ‘They look as if they were both going to have the fever,’ he said; ‘though, by-the-bye, it is in Rome people have the fever, not in Florence.’
‘I suppose they are sorry to leave,’ said Mrs. Anderson, steadily; and then the subject dropped.
It seemed to Kate as if the world went round and round, and then suddenly settled back into its place. And by this time all was over—everything had stopped short. There was no more shopping, nor even packing. Francesca was equal to everything that remained to be done; and the moment of their own departure drew very near.
Ombra drew down her veil as they were carried away out of sight of Florence on the gentle bit of railway which then existed, going to the north. And Mrs. Anderson looked back upon the town with her hands clasped tight together in her lap, and tears in her eyes. Kate noted both details, but even in her own mind drew no deductions from them. She herself was confused in her head as well as in her heart, bewildered, uncertain, walking like some one in a dream. The last person she saw in the railway-station was Antonio Buoncompagni, with a bunch of violets in his coat. He walked as far as he could go when the slow little train got itself into motion, and took off his hat, with a little gesture which went to Kate’s heart. Poor Antonio!—had sheperhaps been unkind to him after all? There was something sad, and yet not painful—something almost comforting in the thought.
And so they were really on their way again, and Florence was over like yesterday when it is past, and like a tale that is told! How strange to think so! A place never perhaps to be entered again—never, certainly, with the same feelings as now. Ombra’s veil was down, and it was thick, and concealed her, and tears stood in Mrs. Anderson’s eyes. They had their own thoughts, too, though Kate had no clue to them. No clue! Probably these thoughts dwelt upon things absolutely unknown to her—probably they too were saying to themselves, ‘How strange to leave Florence in the past—to be done with it!’ But had they left it in the past?
As for Mr. Courtenay, he read his paper, which he had just received from England. There was a debate in it about some object which interested him, and theTimeswas full of abuse of some of his friends. The old man chuckled a little over this, as he sat on the comfortable side, with his back towards the engine, and his rug tucked over his knees. He did not so much as give Florence a glance as they glided away. What was Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba? Nothing had happened to him there. Nothing happened to him anywhere—though his ward gave him a good deal of trouble. As for this journey of his, it was a bore, but still it had been successful, which was something, and he made himself extremely comfortable, and read over, as they rolled leisurely along, every word of theTimes.
And thus they travelled home.
Itis a curious sensation to return, after a long interval, to the home of one’s youth, especially if one has had very great ideas of that home, and thought it magnificent. Even a short absence changes most curiously this first conception of grandeur. When Kate ran into Langton-Courtenay on her return, rushing through the row of new servants, who bowed and curtseyed in the hall, her sense of mortification and disappointment was intense. Everything had shrunken somehow; the rooms were smaller, the ceilings lower, the whole place diminished. Were these the rooms which she had compared in her mind with the suite in which the English ambassadress gave her ball? Kate stood aghast, blushing up to the roots of her hair, and felt so mortified that she did not remember to do the honours to her aunt and cousin. When she recollected, she went back to where they had placed themselves in the great old hall, round the great fireplace. There was a comfortable old-fashioned settle by it, and on this Mrs. Anderson had seated herself, to warm her frozen fingers, and give Kate time to recover herself.
‘I have not the least doubt we shall find everything very comfortable,’ she said to the new housekeeper, who stood before her, curtseying in her rustling silk gown, and wondering already whether she was to have three mistresses, or which was to be the ‘lady of the house.’ Mrs. Spigot felt instinctively that the place was not likely to suit her, when Kate ran against the new housemaid, and made the new butler (Mr. Spigot) fall back out of her way. This was not a dignified beginning for a young lady coming home; and if the aunt was to be mistress, it was evident that the situation would not be what the housekeeper thought.
‘My niece is a little excited by coming home,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘To-morrow Miss Courtenay will be rested, and able to notice you all.’ And she nodded to the servants, and waved her hand, dismissing them. If a feeling passed through Mrs. Anderson’s mind, as she did so, that this was truly the position that she ought to have filled, and that Kate, a chit ofnineteen, was not half so well endowed for it by nature as she herself would have been, who can blame her? She gave a sigh at this thought, and then smiled graciously as the servants went away, and felt that to have such a house, and so many servants under her control, even provisionally, would be pleasant. The housemaids thought her a very affable lady; but the upper servants were not so enthusiastic. Mrs. Anderson had mounted upon her very highest horse. She had put away all the vagaries of Italian life, and settled down into the very blandest of British matrons. She talked again about proper feeling, and a regard for the opinions of society. She had resumed all the caressing and instructive ways which, at the very beginning of their intercourse, she had adopted with Kate. And all these sentiments and habits came back so readily that there were moments in which she asked herself, ‘Had she ever been in Italy at all?’ But yes, alas, yes! Never, if she lived a thousand years, could she forget the three months just past.
Kate came back with some confusion to the hall, to find Ombra kneeling on the great white sheepskin mat before the fire; while Mrs. Anderson sat benignly on the settle, throwing off her shawls, and loosing her bonnet. Ombra’s veil was thrown quite back; the ruddy glow threw a pink reflection on her face, and her eyes seemed to have thawed in the cheery, warm radiance. They were bright, and there seemed to be a little moisture in them. She held out her hand to her cousin, and drew her down beside her.
‘This is the warmest place,’ said Ombra; ‘and your hands are like ice, Kate. But how warm it feels to be at home in England! and I like your house—it looks as if it had never been anything but a home.’
‘It is delightful!—it is much larger and handsomer than I supposed,’ said Mrs. Anderson, from the settle. ‘With such a place to come home to, dear, I think you may be pardoned a little sensation of pride.’
‘Oh! do you think so?’ said Kate, gratified. ‘I am so very glad you like it. It seems to me so insignificant, after all we have seen. I used to think it was the biggest, the finest, the most delightful house in the world; but if you only knew how the roofs have come down, and the rooms have shrunk!—I feel as if I could both laugh and cry.’
‘That is quite natural—quite natural. Kate, I have sent the servants away. I thought you would be better able to see them to-morrow,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘But when you have warmed yourself, I think we may ask for Mrs. Spigot again, and go over the rooms, and see which we are to live in. It will not be necessary to open the whole house for us three, especially in Winter. Besides our bed-rooms and the dining-room, I think a snug littleroom that we can make ourselves comfortable in—that will be warm, and not too large——’
It pleased Mrs. Anderson to sit there in the warmth and stillness, and make all these suggestions. The big house gave her a sensible pleasure. It was delicious to think that a small room might be chosen for comfort, while there were miles of larger ones all at her orders. She smiled and beamed upon the two girls on the hearth. And indeed it was a pretty picture—Kate began to glow and brighten, with her hat off, and her bright hair shining in the firelight. Her travelling-dress was trimmed round the throat with white fur, like a bird’s plumage, which caught a pink tinge too from the firelight, and seemed to caress her, nestling against her pretty cheek. The journey, and the arrival, and all the excitement had driven away, for the moment at least, all mists and clouds, and there was a pretty conflict in her face—half pleasure to be at home, half whimsical discontent with home. Ombra with her veil quite back, and her face cleared also of some other mystical veil, had her hand on Kate’s shoulder, and was looking at her kindly, almost tenderly; and one of Ombra’s cheeks was getting more than pink—it was crimson in the genial glow; she held up her hand to shield it, which looked transparent against the firelight. Mrs. Anderson looked very complacently, very fondly at both. Now that everything was over, she said to herself, and they had gothome, surely at least a little interval of calm might come. She shut her eyes and her ears, and refused to look forward, refused to think of the seeds sown, and the results that must come from them. She had been carried away to permit and even sanction many things that her conscience disapproved; but perhaps the Fates would exact no vengeance this time—perhaps all would go well. She looked at Ombra, and it seemed to her that her child, after so many agitations, looked happy—yes, really happy—not with feverish joy or excitement, but with a genial quiet that belonged to home. Oh! if it might be so?—and why might it not be so?—at least for a time.
Mr. Courtenay had stayed in town, and the three ladies were alone in the house. They settled down in a few days into ease and comfort which, after their travelling, was very sweet. Things were different altogether from what they had been in the Shanklin cottage; and though Mrs. Anderson was in the place of Kate’s guardian, yet Kate was no longer a child, to be managed for and ruled in an arbitrary way. It was now that the elder lady showed her wisdom. It was a sensible pleasure to her to govern the great house; here at last she seemed to have scope for her powers; but yet, though she ruled, she did so from the background; with heroic self-denial she kept Kate in the position she was so soon to occupy by right, trained her for it, guided her first steps, and taught her what to do.
‘When you are of age, this is how you must manage,’ she would say.
‘But when I am of age, why should not you manage for me?’ Kate replied; and her aunt made no answer.
They had come together again, and the old love had asserted itself once more. The mysteries unexplained had been buried by common consent. Kate lulled her own curiosity to rest, and when various questions came to the very tip of her tongue, she bit and stilled that unruly member, and made a not unsuccessful effort to restrain herself. But it was a hard discipline, and strained her strength. Sometimes, when she saw the continual letters which her aunt and cousin were always receiving, curiosity would give her a renewed pinch. But generally she kept herself down, and pretended not to see the correspondence, which was so much larger than it ever used to be. She was so virtuous even as not to look at the addresses of the letters. What good would it do her to know who wrote them? Of course some must be from the Berties, one, or both—what did it matter? The Berties were nothing to Kate; and, whatever the connection might be, Kate had evidently nothing to do with it, for it had never been told her. With this reasoning she kept herself down, though she was always sore and disposed to be cross about the hour of breakfast. Mrs. Anderson, for her part, would never see the crossness. She petted Kate, and smoothed her down, and read out, with anxious conciliation, scraps from Lady Barker’s letters, and others of a similarly indifferent character; while, in the meantime, the other letters, ones which were not indifferent nor apt for quotation, were read by Ombra. The moment was always a disagreeable one for Kate—but she bore it, and made no sign.
But to live side by side with a secret has a very curious effect upon the mind; it sharpens some faculties and deadens others in the strangest way. Kate had now a great many things to think of, and much to do; people came to call, hearing she had come home; and she made more acquaintances in a fortnight than she had done before in a year. And yet, notwithstanding this, I think it was only a fortnight that the reign of peace and domestic happiness lasted. During that time, she made the most strenuous effort a girl could make to put out of her mind the recollection that there was something in the lives of her companions that had been concealed from her. Sometimes, indeed, when she sat by her cousin’s side, there would suddenly rise up before her a glimpse of that group at the doorway on the Lung-Arno, and the scared look with which Ombra had rushed away; or some one of the many evening scenes when she was left out, and the other four, clustered about the table, would glide across her eyes like a ghost. Why was she left out?What difference would it have made to them, if they had made her one of themselves—was she likely to have betrayed their secret? And then Bertie Hardwick’s troubled face would come before her, and his looks, half-apologetic, half-explanatory; looks, which, now she thought of them, seemed to have been so very frequent. Why was he always looking at her, as if he wanted to explain; as if he were disturbed and ill at ease; as if he felt her to be wronged? Though, of course, she was not in the least wronged, Kate said to herself, proudly; for what was it to her if all the Berties in the world had been at Ombra’s feet?—Kate did not want them! Of that, at least, she was perfectly sure.
Mrs. Anderson’s room was a large one; opening into that of Ombra on the one side, and into an ante-room, which they could sit in, or dress in, or read and write in, for it was furnished for all uses. It was apetit appartement, charmingly shut in and cosy, one of the best set of rooms in the house, which Kate had specially chosen for her aunt. Here the mother and daughter met one night after a very tranquil day, over the fire in the central room. It was a bright fire, and the cosy chairs that stood before it were luxurious, and the warm firelight flickered through the large room, upon the ruddy damask of the curtains, and the long mirror, and all the pretty furnishings. Ombra came in from her own room in her dressing-gown, with her dusky hair over her shoulders. Dusky were her looks altogether, like evening in a Winter’s twilight. Her dressing-gown was of a faint grey-blue—not a pretty colour in itself, but it suited Ombra; and her long hair fell over it almost to her waist. She came in noiselessly to her mother’s room, and it was her voice which first betrayed her presence there. Mrs. Anderson had been sitting thinking, with a very serious face; she started at her child’s voice.
‘I have been trying my very best to bear it—I think I have done my very best; I have smiled, and kept my temper, and tried to look as if I were not ready to die of misery. Oh! mamma, mamma, can this go on for ever? What am I to do?’
‘Oh! Ombra, for God’s sake have patience!’ cried her mother—‘nothing new has happened to-day?’
‘Nothing new!—is it nothing new to have those girls here from the Rectory, jabbering about their brother? and to know that he is coming—next week, they say? We shall be obliged to meet—and how are we to meet? when I think how I took leave of him last! My life is odious to me!’ cried the girl, sinking down in a chair, and covering her face with her hands. ‘I don’t know how to hold up my head and look those people in the face; and it is worse when no one comes. To live for awhole long, endless day without seeing a strange face, with Kate’s eyes going through and through me——’
‘Don’t make things worse than they are,’ said her mother, ‘Oh! Ombra, have a little patience! Kate suspects nothing.’
‘Suspects!’ cried Ombra—‘sheknowsthere is something—not what it is, but that there is something. Do you think I don’t see her looks in the morning, when the letters come? Poor Kate! she will not look at them; she is full of honour—but to say she does not suspect!’
‘I don’t know what to say to satisfy you, Ombra,’ said her mother. ‘Did not I beg you on my knees to take her into your confidence? It would have made everything so much easier, and her so much happier.’
‘Oh! mamma, my life is hard enough of itself—don’t make it harder and harder!’ cried Ombra; and then she laid down her head upon her mother’s shoulder, and wept. Poor Mrs. Anderson bore it all heroically; she kissed and soothed her child, and persuaded her that it could not last long—that Bertie would bring good news—that everything would be explained and atoned for in the end. ‘There can be no permanent harm, dear—no permanent harm,’ she repeated, ‘and everybody will be sorry and forgive.’ And so, by degrees, Ombra was pacified, and put to bed, and forgot her troubles.
This was the kind of scene which took place night after night in the tranquil house, where all the three ladies seemed so quietly happy. Kate heard no echo of it through the thick walls and curtains, yet not without troubles of her own was the heiress. The intimation of Bertie’s coming disturbed her too. She thought she had got quite composed about the whole matter, willing to wait until the secret should be disclosed, and the connection between him and her cousin, whatever it was, made known. But to have him here again, with his wistful looks, and the whole mystery to be resumed, as if there had been no interruption of it—this was more than Kate felt she could bear.
Thenews which had made so much commotion in the Hall came from the Rectory in a very simple way. Edith and Minnie had come up to call. Their mother rather wished them to do so frequently. She urged upon them that it might demand a little sacrifice of personal feeling, yet that personal feeling was always a thing that ought to be sacrificed—it was a good moral exercise, irrespective of everything else; and Miss Courtenay was older, and, no doubt, more sensible than when she went away—not likely to shock them as she did then—and that it would be good for her to see a good deal of them, and pleasant for people to know that they went a good deal to the Hall. All this mass of reasoning was scarcely required, yet Edith and Minnie, on the whole, were glad to know that it was their duty to visit Kate. They both felt deeply that a thing which you do as a duty takes a higher rank than a thing you do as a pleasure; and their visits might have taken that profane character had not all this been impressed upon them in time.
‘Oh! Miss Courtenay, we have such news,’ said Edith; and Minnie added, in a parenthesis (‘We are so happy!’) ‘Dear Bertie is coming home for a few days. He wrote that he was so busy, he could not possibly come; but papa insisted’ (‘I am so glad papa insisted,’ from Minnie, who was the accompaniment), ‘and so he is coming—just for two days. He is going to bring us the things he bought for us at Florence.’ (‘Oh! I do so want to see them!’) ‘You saw a great deal of him at Florence, did you not?’
‘Yes, we saw him—a great many times,’ said Kate, noticing, under her eyelids, how Ombra suddenly caught her breath.
‘He used to mention you in his letters at first—only at first. I suppose you made too many friends to see much of each other.’ (‘Bertie is such a fellow for society.’) ‘He is reading up now for the bar. Perhaps you don’t know that he has given up the church?’
‘I think I heard him say so,’ answered Kate.
And then there was a little pause. The Hardwick girlsthought their great news was received very coldly, and were indignant at the want of interest shown in ‘our Bertie!’ After awhile Edith explained, with some dignity:
‘Of course my brother is very important to us’ (‘He is just the very nicest boy that ever was!’ from Minnie), ‘though we can’t expect others to take the same interest——’
Kate had looked up by instinct, and she caught Ombra’s eyes, which were opened in a curious little stare, with an elevation of the eyebrows which spoke volumes. Not the same interest! Kate’s heart grew a little sick—she could not tell why—and she turned away, making some conventional answer, she did not know what. A pause again, and then Mrs. Anderson asked, without looking up from her work:
‘Is Mr. Hardwick coming to the Rectory alone?’
‘Oh, yes! At least we think so,’ said the two girls in one.
‘I ask because he and his cousin were so inseparable,’ said Mrs. Anderson, smiling. ‘We used to say that when one was visible the other could not be far off.’
‘Oh! you mean Bertie Eldridge,’ said Edith. ‘No, I am sure he is not coming. Papa does not like our Bertie to be so much with him as he has been. We do not think Bertie Eldridge a nice companion for him,’ said the serious young woman, who rather looked down upon the boys, and echoed her parents’ sentiments, without any sense of inappropriateness. ‘No, we don’t at all like them to be so much together,’ said Minnie. Again Kate turned round instinctively. This time Ombra was smiling, almost laughing, with quite a gay light in her eyes.
‘Of course that is a subject beyond me,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘They seemed much attached to each other.’ And then the matter dropped, and the girls entered upon parish news, which left them full scope for prattle. Edith was engaged to be married to a neighbouring clergyman, and, accordingly, she was more than ever clerical and parochial in all her ways of thinking; while Minnie looked forward with a flutter, half of fear and half of excitement, to becoming the eldest Miss Hardwick, and having to manage the Sunday School and decorate the church by herself.
‘What shall I do when Edith is married?’ was the burden of all the talk she ventured upon alone. ‘Mamma is so much occupied, she can’t give very much assistance,’ she said. ‘Oh! dear Miss Courtenay, if you would come and help me sometimes when Edith goes away!’
‘I will do anything I can,’ said Kate, shortly. And the two girls withdrew at last, somewhat chilled by the want of sympathy. Had they but known what excitement, what commotion, their simple news carried into that still volcano of a house!
He was to come in a week. Kate schooled herself to be very strong, and think nothing of it, but her heart grew sick when she thought of the Florence scenes all over again—perhaps worse, for at Florence at least there were two. And to Ombra the day passed with feverish haste, and all her pretences at tranquillity and good humour began to fail in the rising tide of excitement.
‘I shall be better again when he has gone away,’ she said to her mother. ‘But, oh! how can I—how can I take it quietly? Could you, if you were in my position? Think of all the misery and uncertainty. And he must be coming for a purpose. He would not come unless he had something to say.’
‘Oh! Ombra, if there was anything, why should it not be said in a letter?’ cried her mother. ‘You have letters often enough. I wish you would just put them in your pocket, and not read them at the breakfast table. You keep me in terror lest Kate should see the handwriting or something. After all our precautions——’
‘Can you really suppose that Kate is so ignorant?’ said Ombra. ‘Do you think she does not know well enough whom my letters are from?’
‘Then, for God’s sake, if you think so, let me tell her, and be done with this horrible secret,’ cried her mother. ‘It kills me to keep up this concealment; and if you think she knows, why, why should it go on?’
‘You are so impetuous, mamma!’ said Ombra, with a smile. ‘There is a great difference between her guessing and direct information procured from ourselves. And how can we tell what she might do? She would interfere; it is her nature. You could not trust anything so serious to such a child.’
‘Kate is not a child now,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘And oh! Ombra, if you will consider how ungrateful, how untrue, how unkind it is——’
‘Stop, mamma!’ cried Ombra, with a flush of angry colour. ‘That is enough—that is a great deal too much—ungrateful! Are we expected to be grateful to Kate? You will tell me next to look up to her, to reverence her——’
‘Ombra, you have always been hard upon Kate.’
‘It is not my fault,’ cried Ombra, suddenly giving way to a little burst of weeping. ‘If you consider how different her position is—— All this wretched complication—everything that has happened lately—would have been unnecessary if I had had the same prospects as Kate. Everything would have gone on easily then. There would have been no need for concealment—no occasion for deceit.’
‘That is not Kate’s fault,’ said Mrs. Anderson, who was at her wit’s end.
‘Oh! mother, mother, don’t worry me out of my senses. Did I say it was Kate’s fault? It is no one’s fault. But all we poor miserables must suffer as if it were. And there is no help for it; and it is so hard, so hard to bear!’
‘Ombra, I told you to count the cost,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘I told you it would be no easy business. You thought you had strength of mind for the struggle then.’
‘And it turns out that I have no strength of mind,’ cried Ombra, almost wildly. And then she started up and went to her own room again, where her mother could hear her sighing and moaning till she fell asleep.
These night scenes took away from Mrs. Anderson’s enjoyment of the great mansion and the many servants, and that luxurious room which Kate’s affection had selected for her aunt. She sat over the fire when she was left alone, and would wonder and ask herself what would come of it, what could ever come of it, and whether it was possible that she should ever be happy again. She looked back with a longing which she could not subdue upon the humble days at Shanklin, when they were all so happy. The little tiny cottage, the small rooms, all rose up before her. The drawing-room itself was not half so large as Mrs. Anderson’s bed-room at Langton-Courtenay. But what happy days these had been! She was not an old woman, though she was Ombra’s mother. It was not as if life was nearly over for her, as if she could look forward to a speedy end of all her troubles. And she knew better than Ombra that somehow or other the world always exacts punishment, whether immediately or at an after period, from those who transgress its regulations. She said to herself mournfully that things do not come right in life as they do in story-books. Her daughter had taken a weak and foolish step, and she too had shared in the folly by consenting to it. She had done so, she could not explain to herself why, in a moment of excitement. And though Ombra was capable of hoping that some wonderful chain of accidents might occur to solve every difficulty, Mrs. Anderson was not young enough, or inexperienced enough, to think anything of the kind possible. Accidents happen, she was aware, when you do not want them, not when you do. When a catastrophe is foreseen and calculated upon, it never happens. In such a case, the most rotten vessel that ever sunk in a storm will weather a cyclone. Fate would not interfere to help; and when Mrs. Anderson considered how slowly and steadily the ordinary course of nature works, and how little it is likely to suit itself to any pressure of human necessity, her heart grew sick within her. She had a higher opinion of her niece than Ombra had, and she knew that Kate would have been a tower of strength and protection to them, besides all the embarrassment that wouldhave been avoided, and all the pain and shame of deceit. But what could she do? The young people were stronger than she, and had overridden all her remonstrances; and now all that could be done was to carry on as steadily as possible—to conceal the secret—to hope that something might happen, unlikely though she knew that was.
Thus was this gentle household distracted and torn asunder; for there is no such painful thing in the world to carry about with one as a secret;—it will thrust itself to the surface, notwithstanding the most elaborate attempts to heap trifles and the common routine of life over it. It is like a living thing, and moves, or breathes, or cries out at the wrong moment, disclosing itself under the most elaborate covers; and finally, howsoever people may deceive themselves, it is never really hidden. While we are throwing the embroidered veil over it, and flattering ourselves that it is buried in concealment dark as night, our friends all the time are watching it throb under the veil, and wondering with a smile or a sigh, according to their dispositions, how we can be so foolish as to believe that it is hidden from them. The best we can do for our secret is to confuse the reality of it, most often making it look a great deal worse than it is. And this was what Ombra and her mother were doing, while poor Kate looked on wistful, seeing all their transparent manœuvres; and a choking, painful sense of concealment was in the air—a feeling that any moment some volcano might burst forth.