Itwas summer when Kate arrived at the Cottage, and it was not till the Easter after that any disturbing influences came into the quiet scene. Easter was so late that year that it was almost summer again. The rich slopes of the landslip were covered with starry primroses, and those violets which have their own blue-eyed beauty only to surround them, and want the sweetness of their rarer sisters. The landslip is a kind of fairyland at that enchanted moment. Everything is coming—the hawthorn, the wild roses, all the flowers of early summer, are, as it were, on tiptoe, waiting for the hour of their call; and the primroses have come, and are crowding everywhere, turning the darkest corners into gardens of delight. Then there is the sea, now matchless blue, now veiled with mists, framing in every headland and jutting cliff, without any margin of beach to break its full tone of colour; and above, the new-budded trees, the verdure that grows and opens every day, the specks of white houses everywhere, dotted all over the heights. Spring, which makes everything and every one gay, which brings even to the sorrowful a touch of that reaction of nature that makes pain sorer for the moment, yet marks the new springing of life—fancy what it was to the sixteen-year-old girl, now first emancipated, among people who loved her, never judged her harshly, nor fretted her life with uncalled-for opposition!
Kate felt as if the primroses were a crowd of playmates, suddenly come to her out of the bountiful heart of nature. She gathered baskets full every day, and yet they never decreased. She passed her mornings in delicious idleness making them into enormous bouquets, which gave the Cottage something of the same aspect as the slopes outside. She had a taste for this frivolous but delightful occupation. I am free to confess that to spend hours putting primroses and violets together, in the biggest flat dishes which the Cottage could produce, was an extremely frivolous occupation; most likely she would have been a great deal better employed in improving her mind, in learning verbs, or practising exercises, or doing something useful. But youth has a great deal of leisure, and this bright fresh girl, in the bright little hall of the Cottage, arranging her flowers in the spring sunshine, made a very pretty picture. She put the primrosesin, with their natural leaves about them, with sweet bunches of blue violets to heighten the effect, touching them as if she loved them; and, as she did it, she sang as the birds do, running on with unconscious music, and sweetness, and gladness. It was Spring with her as with them. Nothing was as yet required of her but to bloom and grow, and make earth fairer. And she did this unawares and was as happy over her vast, simple bouquet, and took as much sweet thought how to arrange it, as if that had been the great aim of life. She was one with her flowers, and both together they belonged to Spring—the Spring of the year, the Spring of life, the sweet time which comes but once, and never lasts too long.
She was thus employed one morning when steps came through the garden, steps which she did not much heed. For one thing, she but half heard them, being occupied with her ‘work,’ as she called it, and her song, and having no fear that anything unwelcome would appear at that sunny, open door. No one could come who did not know everybody in the little house, who was not friendly, and smiling, and kind, whose hand would not be held out in pleasant familiarity. Here were no trespassers, no strangers. Therefore Kate heard the steps as though she heard them not, and did not even pause to ask herself who was coming. She was roused, but then only with the mildest expectation, when a shadow fell across her bit of sunshine. She looked up with her song still on her lip, and her hands full of flowers. She stopped singing. ‘Oh! Bertie!’ she cried, half to herself, and made an eager step forward. But then suddenly she paused—she dropped her flowers. Curiosity, wonder, amazement came over her face. She went on slowly to the door, gazing, and questioning with her eyes.
‘Are there two of you?’ she said gravely. ‘I heard that Bertie Hardwick was coming. Oh! which is you? Stop—don’t tell me. I am not going to be mystified. I can find it out for myself.’
There were two young men standing in the hall, who laughed and blushed as they stood submitting to her inspection; but Kate was perfectly serious. She stood and looked at them with an unmoved and somewhat anxious countenance. A certain symbolical gravity and earnestness was in her face; but there was indeed occasion to hesitate. The two who stood before her seemed at the first glance identical. They had the same eyes, the same curling brown hair, the same features, the same figure. Gradually, however, the uncertainty cleared away from Kate’s face.
‘It must be you,’ she said, still very seriously. ‘You are not quite so tall, and I think I remember your eyes. You must be Bertie, I am sure.’
‘We are both Bertie,’ said the young man, laughing.
‘Ah! but you must bemyBertie; I am certain of it,’ saidKate. Not a gleam of maiden consciousness was in her; she said it with all simplicity and seriousness. She did not understand the colour that came to one Bertie’s face or the smile that flashed over the other; and she held out her hand to the one whom she had selected. ‘I am so glad to see you. Come in, and tell me all about Langton. Dear old Langton! Though you were so disagreeable about the size of the park——’
‘I will never be disagreeable again.’
‘Oh, nonsense!’ cried Kate, interrupting him. ‘As if one could stop being anything that is natural! My aunt is somewhere about, and Ombra is in the drawing-room. Come in. Perhaps, though, you had better tell me who this—other gentleman—— Why, Mr. Bertie, I am not quite sure, after all, which is the other and which is you!’
‘This is my cousin, Bertie Eldridge,’ said her old friend. ‘You will soon know the difference. You remember what an exemplary character I am, and he is quite the reverse. I am always getting into trouble on his account.’
‘Miss Courtenay will soon know better than to believe you,’ said the other; at which Kate started and clapped her hands.
‘Oh! I know now that is not your voice. Ombra, please, here are two gentlemen——’
This is how the two cousins were introduced into the Cottage. They had been there before separately; but neither Mrs. Anderson nor her daughter knew how slight was the acquaintance which entitled Kate to qualify one of the new-comers as ‘my Bertie.’ They were both young, not much over twenty, and their likeness was wonderful; it was, however, a likeness which diminished as they talked, for their expression was as different as their voices. Kate had no hesitation in appropriating the one she knew.
‘Tell me about Langton,’ she said—‘all about it. I have heard nothing for nearly a year. Oh! don’t laugh. I know the house stands just where it used to stand, and no one dares to cut down the trees. But itself—— Don’t you know what Langton means to me?’
‘Home?’ said Bertie Hardwick, but with a little doubt in his tone.
‘Home!’ repeated Kate; and then she, too, paused perplexed. ‘Not exactly home, for there is no one there I care for—much. Oh! but can’t you understand? It is not home; I am much happier here; but, in a kind of a way, it is me!’
Bertie Hardwick was puzzled, and he was dazzled too. His first meeting with her had made no small impression upon him; and now Kate was almost a full-grown woman, and the brightness about her dazzled his eyes.
‘It cannot be you now,’ he said. ‘It is—let.’
Kate gave a fierce little cry, and clenched her hands.
‘Oh! Uncle Courtenay, I wish I could just kill you!’ she said, half to herself.
‘It is let, for four or five years, to the only kind of people who can afford to have great houses now—to Mr. Donkin, who has a large—shop in town.’
Kate moaned again, but then recovered herself.
‘I don’t see that it matters much about the shop. I think if I were obliged to work, I should not mind keeping a shop. It would be such fun! But, oh! if Uncle Courtenay were only here!’
‘It is better not. There might be bloodshed, and you would regret it after,’ said Bertie, gravely.
‘Don’t laugh at me; I mean it. And, if you won’t tell me anything about Langton, tell me about yourself. Who ishe? What does he mean by being so like you? He is different when he talks; but at the first glance—— Why do you allow any one to be so like you, Mr. Bertie? If he is not nice, as you said——’
‘I did not mean you to believe me,’ said Bertie. ‘He is the best fellow going. I wish I were half as good, or half as clever. He is my cousin, and just like my brother. Why, I am proud of being like him. We are taken for each other every day.’
‘Ishould not like it,’ said Kate. ‘Ombra and I are not like each other, though we are cousins too. Do you know Ombra? I think there never was any one like her; but, on the whole, I think it is best to be two people, not one. Are you still at Oxford?—and is he at Oxford? Mr. Bertie, if I were you, I don’t think I should be a clergyman.’
‘Why?’ said Bertie, who, unfortunately for himself, was much of her mind.
‘You might not get a living, you know,’ said Kate.
This she said conscientiously, to prepare him for the fact that he was not to have Langton-Courtenay; but his laugh disconcerted her, and immediately brought before her eyes the other idea that his objectionable uncle, who had a park larger than Langton, might have a living too. She coloured high, having begun to find out, by means of her education in the Cottage, when she had committed herself.
‘Or,’ she went on, with all the calmness she could command, ‘when you had a living you might not like it. The Rector here—— Oh! of course he must be your uncle too. He is very good, I am sure, and very nice,’ said Kate, floundering, and feeling that she was getting deeper and deeper into the mire; ‘but it is so strange to hear him talk. The old women in the almshouses, and the poor people, and all that, and mothers’ meetings—— Of course, it must be very right and very good; but, Mr. Bertie, nothing but mothers’ meetings, and old women in almshouses,for all your life——’
‘I suppose he has something more than that,’ said Bertie, half affronted, half amused.
‘I suppose so—or, at least, I hope so,’ said Kate. ‘Do you know what a mothers’ meeting is? But to go to Oxford, you know, for that——! If I were you, I would be something else. There must be a great many other things that you could be. Soldiers are not much good in time of peace, and lawyers have to tell so many lies—or, at least, so people say in books. I will tell you what I should advise, Mr. Bertie. Doctors are of real use in the world—I would be a doctor, if I were you.’
‘But I should not at all like to be a doctor,’ said Bertie. ‘Of all trades in the world, that is the last I should choose. Talk of mothers’ meetings! a doctor is at every fool’s command, to run here and there; and besides—— I think, Miss Courtenay, you have made a mistake.’
‘I am only saying what I would do if it was me,’ said Kate, softly folding her hands. ‘I would rather be a doctor than any of the other things. And you ought to decide, Mr. Bertie; you will not be a boy much longer. You have got something here,’ and she put up her hand to her own soft chin, and stroked it gently, ‘which you did not have the last time I saw you. You are almost—a man.’
This for Bertie to hear, who was one-and-twenty, and an Oxford man—who had felt himself full grown, both in frame and intellect, for these two years past! He was wroth—his cheek burned, and his eye flashed. But, fortunately, Mrs. Anderson interposed, and drew her chair towards them, putting an end to thetête-à-tête. Mrs. Anderson was somewhat disturbed, for her part. Here were two young men—two birds of prey—intruding upon the stillness which surrounded the nest in which she had hidden an heiress. What was she to do? Was it safe to permit them to come, fluttering, perhaps, the nestling? or did stern duty demand of her to close her doors, and shut out every chance of evil? As soon as she perceived that the conversation between Kate and her Bertie was special and private, she trembled and interposed. She asked the young man all about his family, his sisters, his studies—anything she could think of—and so kept her heiress, as she imagined, safe, and the wild beast at bay.
‘You are sure your uncle approved of the Hardwicks as friends for you, Kate?’ she said that evening, when the visit had been talked over in full family conclave. Mrs. Anderson might make what pretence she pleased that they were only ordinary visitors, but the two Berties had made a commotion much greater than the Rector and his wife did, or even the schoolboy and schoolgirl Eldridges, noisy and tumultuous as their visits often were.
‘He made me go to the Rectory with him,’ said Kate, very demurely. ‘It was not my doing at all; he wanted me to go.’
And, after that, what could there be to say?
Thetwo Berties came again next day—they came with their cousins, and they came without them. They joined the party from the Cottage in their walks, with an intuitive knowledge where they were going, which was quite extraordinary. They got up croquet-parties and picnics; they were always in attendance upon the two girls. Mrs. Anderson had many a thought on the subject, and wondered much what her duty was in such a very trying emergency; but there were two things that consoled her—the first that it was Ombra who was the chief object of the two young men’s admiration; and the second that they could not possibly stay long. Ombra was their first object. She assured herself of this with a warm and pleasant glow at her heart, though she was not a match-making mother, nor at all desirous of ‘marrying off,’ and ‘getting rid of’ her only child. Besides, the young men were too young for anything serious—not very long out of their teens; lads still under strict parental observation and guidance; they were too young to make matrimonial proposals to any one, or to carry such proposals out. But, nevertheless, it was pleasant to Mrs. Anderson to feel that Ombra was their first object, and that her ‘bairn’ was ‘respected like the lave.’ ‘Thank Heaven, Kate’s money has nothing to do with it,’ she said to herself; and where was the use of sending away two handsome young men, whom the girls liked, and who were a change to them? Besides, they were going away so soon—in a fortnight—no harm could possibly come.
So Mrs. Anderson tolerated them, invited them, gave them luncheon sometimes, and often tea, till they became as familiar about the house as the young Eldridges were, or any other near neighbours. And the girls did not have their heads at all turned by the new cavaliers, who were so assiduous in their attentions. Ombra gently ridiculed them both, hitting them with dainty little arrows of scorn, smiling at their boyish ways, their impetuosity and self-opinion. Kate, on the contrary, took them up very gravely, with a motherly, not to say grandmotherly interest in their future, giving to him whom she called her old friend the very best of good advice. Mrs. Anderson herself was much amused by this new development of her charge’s powers. She said to herself, a dozen times in a day, how ridiculous it was to suppose that boys and girls could not be in eachother’s company without falling in love. Why, here were two pairs continually in each other’s company, and without the faintest shadow of any such folly to disturb them! Perhaps a sense that it was to her own perfect good management that this was owing, increased her satisfaction. She ‘kept her eye on them,’ never officiously, never demonstratively, but in the most vigilant way; and a certain gentle complacency mingled with her content. Had she left them to roam about as they pleased without her, then indeed trouble might have been looked for; but Mrs. Anderson was heroic, and put aside her own ease, and was their companion everywhere. At the same time (but this was done with the utmost caution) she took a little pains to find out all about Sir Herbert Eldridge, the father of one of the Berties—his county, and the amount of his property, and all the information that was possible. She breathed not a word of this to any one—not even to Ombra; but she put Bertie Eldridge on her daughter’s side of the table at tea; and perhaps showed him a little preference, for her own part, a preference, however, so slight, so undiscernible to the vulgar eye, that neither of the young men found it out. She was very good to them, quite irrespective of their family, or the difference in their prospects; and she missed them much when they went away. For go away they did, at the end of their fortnight, leaving the girls rather dull, and somewhat satirical. It was the first invasion of the kind that had been made into their life. The boys at the Rectory were still nothing but boys; and men did not abound in the neighbourhood. Even Ombra was slightly misanthropical when the Berties went away.
‘What it is to be a boy!’ she said; ‘they go where they like, these two, and arrange their lives as they please. What a fuss everybody makes about them; and yet they are commonplace enough. If they were girls like us, how little any one would care——’
‘My dear, Mr. Eldridge will be a great landed proprietor, and have a great deal in his power,’ said Mrs. Anderson.
‘Because he happens to have been born Sir Herbert’s son; no thanks tohim,’ said Ombra, with disdain. ‘And most likely, when he is a great landed proprietor he will do nothing worth noticing. The other is more interesting to me; he at least has his own way to make.’
‘I wonder what poor Bertie will do?’ said Kate, with her grandmother air. ‘I should not like to see him a clergyman. What Ombra says is very true, auntie. When one is a great Squire, you know, one can’t help one’s self; one’s life is all settled before one is born. But when one can choose what to be!—— For my part,’ said Kate, with great gravity, ‘I am anxious about Bertie, too. I gave him all the advice I could—but I am not sure that he is the sort of boy to take advice.’
‘He is older than you are, my love, and perhaps he may think he knows better,’ said Mrs. Anderson with a smile.
‘But that would be a mistake,’ said Kate. ‘Boys have so many things to do, they have no time to think. And then they don’t consider things as we do; and besides——’ But here Kate paused, doubting the wisdom of further explanations. What she had meant to say was that, having no thinking to do for herself, her own position being settled and established beyond the reach of fate, she had the more time to give to the concerns of her neighbours. But it occurred to her that Ombra had scorned Bertie Eldridge’s position, and might scorn hers also, and she held her peace.
‘Besides, there is always a fuss made about them, as if they were better than other people. Don’t let us talk of them any more; I am sick of the subject,’ said Ombra, withdrawing into a book. The others made no objection; they acquiesced with a calmness which perhaps scarcely satisfied Ombra. Mrs. Anderson declared openly that she missed the visitors much; and Kate avowed, without hesitation, that the boys were fun, and she was sorry that they were gone. But the chances are that it was Ombra who missed them most, though she professed to be rather glad than otherwise. ‘They were a nuisance, interrupting one whatever one was doing. Boys at that age always are a nuisance,’ she said, with an air of severity, and she returned to all her occupations with an immense deal of seriousness.
But this disturbance of their quiet affected her in reality much more than it affected her companions—the very earnestnest of her resumed duties testified to this. She was on the edge of personal life, wondering and already longing to taste its excitements and troubles; and everything that disturbed the peaceful routine felt like that life which was surely coming, and stirred her pulses. It was like the first creeping up of the tide about the boat which is destined to live upon the waves; not enough yet to float the little vessel off from the stays which hold it, but enough to rock and stir it with prophetic sensation of the fuller flood to come.
Ombra was ‘viewy,’ to use a word which has become well-nigh obsolete. She was full of opinions and speculations, which she called thought; a little temper, a good deal of unconscious egotism, and a reflective disposition, united to make her what is called, a ‘thoughtful girl.’ She mused upon herself, and upon the few varieties of human life she knew, and upon the world, and all its accidents and misunderstandings, as she had seen them, and upon the subjects which she read about. But partly her youth, and partly her character, made her thoughts like the observations of a traveller newly entered into a strange country, and feeling himself capable, as superficial travellersoften are, to lay bare its character, and fathom all its problems at a glance. Other people were, to this young philosopher, as foreigners are to the inexperienced traveller. She was very curious about them, and marked their external peculiarities with sufficient quickness; but she had not imagination enough to feel for them or with them, or to see their life from their own point of view. Her own standing-point was the only one in the world to her. She could judge others only by herself.
Curiously enough, however, with this want of sympathetic imagination there was combined a good deal of fancy. Ombra had written little stories from her earliest youth. She had a literary turn. At this period of her life, when she was nearly eighteen, and the world was full of wonders and delightful mysteries to her, she wrote a great deal, sometimes in verse, sometimes in prose, and now and then asked herself whether it was not genius which inspired her. Some of her poems, as she called them, had been printed in little religious magazines and newspapers—for Ombra’s muse was as yet highly religious. She had every reason to believe herself one of the stars that shine unseen—a creature superior to the ordinary run of humanity. She read more than any one she knew, and thought, or believed that she thought, deeply on a great many subjects. And one of these subjects naturally was that of the position of women. She was girl enough, and had enough of nature in her, to enjoy the momentary brightness of the firmament which the two Berties had brought. She liked the movement and commotion as much as the others did—the walks, the little parties, the expeditions, and even the games; and she felt the absence of these little excitements when they came to an end. And thereupon she set herself to reflect upon them. She carried her little portfolio up to a rustic seat which had been made on the cliff, sheltered by some ledges of rock, and covered with flowers and bushes, and set herself to think. And here her thoughts took that turn which is so natural, yet so hackneyed and conventional. No one would, in reality, have been less disposed than Ombra to give up a woman’s—a lady’s privileges. To go forth into the world unattended, without the shield and guard of honour, which her semi-foreign education made doubly necessary to her, would have seemed to the girl the utmost misery of desolation. She would have resented the need as a wrong done her by fate. But nevertheless she sat up in her rocky bower, and looked over the blue sea, and the white headlands, and said to herself, bitterly, what a different lot had fallen to these two Berties from that which was her own. They could go where they liked, society imposed no restraints upon them; when they were tired of one place, they could pass on to another. Heaven and earth was moved for their education, to make everything known tothem, to rifle all the old treasure-houses, to communicate to them every discovery which human wisdom had ever made. And for what slight creatures were all these pains taken; boys upon whom she looked down in the fuller development of her womanhood, feeling them ever so much younger than she was, less serious in their ideas, less able to do anything worth living for! It seemed to Ombra, at that moment, that there was in herself a power such as none of ‘these boys’ had a conception of—genius, the divinest thing in humanity! But that which would have been fostered and cultivated in them, would be quenched, or at least hampered and kept down in her. ‘For I am only a woman!’ said Ombra, with a swelling heart.
All this was perfectly natural; and, at the same time, it was quite conventional. It was a little overflow of that depression after a feast, that reaction of excitement, which makes every human creature blaspheme in one way or other. The sound of Kate’s voice, singing as she came up the little path to the cliff, made her cousin angry, in this state of her mind and nerves. Here was a girl no better than the boys, a creature without thought, who neither desired a high destiny, nor could understand what it meant.
‘How careless you are, Kate!’ she cried, in the impulse of the moment. ‘Always singing, or some nonsense—and you know you can’t sing! If I were as young as you are, I would not lose my time as you do! Do you never think?’
‘Yes,’ said Kate, with a meekness she never showed but to Ombra, ‘a great deal sometimes. But I can’t on such a morning. There seems nothing in all the world but sunshine and primroses, and the air is so sweet! Come up to the top of the cliff, and try how far you can see. I think I can make out that big ship that kept firing so the other day. Ombra, if you don’t mind, I shall be first at the top!’
‘As if I cared who was first at the top! Oh! Kate, Kate, you are as frivolous as—as—the silly creatures in novels—or as these boys themselves!’
‘The boys were very good boys!’ said Kate. ‘If they are silly, they can’t help it. Of course they were not as clever as you—no one is; and Bertie, you know—little Bertie, my Bertie—ought to think more of what he is going to do. But they were very nice, as boys go. We can’t expect them to be likeus. Ombra, do come and try a run for the top.’
‘What a foolish child you are!’ said Ombra, suffering her portfolio to be taken out of her hands; and then her youth vindicated itself, and she started off like a young fawn up the little path. Kate could have won the race had she tried, but was too loyal to outstrip her princess. And thus the cobwebs were blown away from the young thinker’s brain.
Itwill be seen, however, that, though Kate’s interpretation of the imperfections of ‘the boys’ was more genial than that of Ombra, yet that still there was a certain condescension in her remarks, and sense that she herself was older, graver, and of much more serious stuff altogether than the late visitors. Her instinct for interference, which had been in abeyance since she came to the Cottage, sprung up into full force the moment these inferior creatures came within her reach. She felt that it was her natural mission, the work for which she was qualified, to set and keep them right. This she had been quite unable to feel herself entitled to do in the Cottage. Mrs. Anderson’s indulgence and tenderness, and Ombra’s superiority, had silenced even her lively spirit. She could not tender her advice to them, much as she might have desired to do so. But Bertie Hardwick was a bit of Langton, one of her own people, a natural-born subject, for whose advantage all her powers were called forth. She thought a great deal about his future, and did not hesitate to say so. She spoke of it to Mr. Eldridge, electrifying the excellent Rector.
‘What a trouble boys must be!’ she said, when she ran in with some message from her aunt, and found the whole party gathered at luncheon. There were ten Eldridges, so that the party was a large one; and as the holidays were not yet over, Tom and Herbert, the two eldest, had not returned to school.
‘Theyarea trouble, in the holidays,’ said Mrs. Eldridge, with a sigh; and then she looked at Lucy, her eldest girl, who was in disgrace, and added seriously, ‘but not more than girls. One expects girls to know better. To see a great creature of fifteen, nearly in long dresses, romping like a Tom-boy, is enough to break one’s heart.’
‘But I was thinking of the future,’ said Kate, and she too gave a little sigh, as meaning that the question was a very serious one indeed.
The Rector smiled, but Mrs. Eldridge did not join him. Somehow Kate’s position, which the Rector’s wife was fond of talking of, gave her a certain solemnity, which made up for her want of age and experience in that excellent woman’s eyes.
‘As for us,’ Kate continued very gravely, ‘either we marry or we don’t, and that settles the question; but boys that have to work—— Oh! when I think what a trouble they are, it makes me quite sad.’
‘Poor Kate!’ said the laughing Rector; ‘but you have not any boys of your own yet, which must simplify the matter.’
‘No,’ said Kate gravely, ‘not quite of my own; but if you consider the interest I take in Langton, and all that I have to do with it, you will see that it does not make much difference. There is Bertie Hardwick, for instance, Mr. Eldridge——’
The Rector interrupted her with a hearty outburst of laughter.
‘Is Bertie Hardwick one of the boys whom you regard as almost your own?’ he said.
‘Well,’ Kate answered stoutly, ‘of course I take a great interest in him. I am anxious about what he is to be. I don’t think he ought to go into the Church; I have thought a great deal about it, and I don’t think that would be the best thing for him. Mr. Eldridge, why do you laugh?’
‘Be quiet, dear,’ said his wife, knitting her brows at him significantly. Mrs. Eldridge had not a lively sense of humour; and she had pricked up her ears at Bertie Hardwick’s name. Already many a time had she regretted bitterly that her own Herbert (she would not have him called Bertie, like the rest) was not old enough to aspire to the heiress. And, as that could not be mended, the mention of Bertie Hardwick’s name stirred her into a state of excitement. She was not a mercenary woman, neither had it ever occurred to her to set up as a match-maker; ‘but,’ as she said, ‘when a thing stares you in the face——’ And then it would be so much for Kate’s good.
‘You ought not to laugh,’ said Kate, with gentle and mild reproof, ‘for I mean what I say. He could not live the kind of life that you live, Mr. Eldridge. I suppose you did not like it yourself when you were young?’
‘My dear child, you go too far—you go too fast,’ cried the Rector, alarmed. ‘Who said I did not like it when I was young? Miss Kate, though I laugh, you must not forget that I think my work the most important work in the world.’
‘Oh! yes, to be sure,’ said Kate; ‘of course one knows—but then when you were young—— And Bertie is quite young—he is not much more than a boy; I cannot see how he is to bear it—the almshouses, and the old women, and the mothers’ meetings.’
‘You must not talk, my child, of things you don’t understand,’ said the Rector, quite recovered from his laughter. He had ten pairs of eyes turned upon him, ten minds, to which it had never occurred to inquire whether there was anything more important in the world than mothers’ meetings. Perhaps hadhe allowed himself to utter freely his own opinions, he might have agreed with Kate that these details of his profession occupied too prominent a place in it. But he was not at liberty then to enter upon any such question. He had to preserve his own importance, and that of his office, in presence of his family. The wrinkles of laughter all faded from the corners of his mouth. He put up his hand gravely, as if to put her aside from this sacred ark which she was touching with profane hands.
‘Kate talks nonsense sometimes, as most young persons do,’ said Mrs. Eldridge, interfering. ‘But at present it is you who don’t understand what she is saying—or, at least, what she means is something quite different. She means that Bertie Hardwick would not like such a laborious life as yours; and, indeed, what she says is quite true; and if you had known all at once what you were coming to, all the toil and fatigues—— Ah! I don’t like to think of it. Yes, Kate, a clergyman’s life is a very trying life, especially when a man is so conscientious as my husband. There are four mothers’ meetings in different parts of the parish; and there is the penny club, and the Christmas clothing, and the schools, not to speak of two services every Sunday, and two on Wednesdays and Fridays; and a Curate, who really does not do half so much as he ought. I do not want to say anything against Mr. Sugden, but he does pay very little attention to the almshouses; and as for the infant-school——’
‘My dear, the children are present,’ said the Rector.
‘I am very well aware of that, Fred; but they have ears and eyes as well as the rest of us. After all, the infant-school and the Sunday-schools are not very much to be left to one; and there are only ten old people in the almshouses. And, I must say, my dear, considering that Mr. Sugden is able to walk a hundred miles a day, I do believe, when he has an object——’
‘Hush! hush!’ said the Rector, ‘we must not enter into personal discussions. He is fresh from University life, and has not quite settled down as yet to his work. University life is very different, as I have often told you. It takes a man some time to get accustomed to change his habits and ways of thinking. Sugden is rather lazy, I must say—he does not mean it, but he is a little careless. Did I tell you that he had forgotten to put down Farmer Thompson’s name in the Easter list? It was a trifle, you know—it really was not of any consequence; but, still, he forgot all about it. It is the negligent spirit, not the thing itself, that troubles me.’
‘A trifle!’ said Mrs. Eldridge, indignantly; and they entered so deeply into the history of this offence, that Kate, whose attention had been wandering, had to state her errand, and finish her luncheon without further reference to Bertie. But her curiosity was roused; and when, some time after, she met Mr. Sugden,the Curate, it was not in her to refrain from further inquiries. This time she was walking with her aunt and cousin, and could not have everything her own way; but the curate was only too well pleased to join the little party. He was a young man, tall and strong, looking, as Mrs. Rector said, as if he could walk a hundred miles a day; and his manner was not that of one who would be guilty of indolence. He was glad to join the party from the Cottage, because he was one of those who had been partially enslaved by Ombra—partially, for he was prudent, and knew that falling in love was not a pastime to be indulged in by a curate; but yet sufficiently to be roused by the sight of her into sudden anxiety, to look and show himself at his best.
‘Ask him to tea, auntie, please,’ said Kate, whispering, as the Curate divided the party, securing himself a place by the side of Ombra. Mrs. Anderson looked at the girl with amazement.
‘I have no objection,’ she said, wondering. ‘But why?’
‘Oh! never mind why—to please me,’ said the girl. Mrs. Anderson was not in the habit of putting herself into opposition; and besides, the little languor and vacancy caused by the departure of the Berties had not yet quite passed away. She gave the invitation with a smile and a whispered injunction. ‘But you must promise not to become one of the young ladies who worship curates, Kate.’
‘Me!’ said Kate, with indignation, and without grammar; and she gazed at the big figure before her with a certain friendly contempt. Mr. Sugden lived a dull life, and he was glad to meet with the pretty Ombra, to walk by her side, and talk to her, or hear her talk, and even to be invited to tea. His fall from the life of Oxford to the life of this little rural parish had been sudden, and it had been almost more than the poor young fellow’s head could bear. One day surrounded by young life and energy, and all the merriment and commotion of a large community, where there was much intellectual stir, to which his mind, fortunately for himself, responded but faintly, and a great deal of external activity, into which he had entered with all his heart; and the next day to be dropped into the grey, immovable atmosphere of rural existence—the almshouses, the infant-schools, and Farmer Thompson! The young man had not recovered it. Life had grown strange to him, as it seems after a sudden and bewildering fall. And it never occurred to anybody what a great change it was, except the Rector, who thought it rather sinful that he could not make up his mind to it at once. Therefore, though he had a chop indifferently cooked waiting for him at home, he abandoned it gladly for Mrs. Anderson’s bread and butter. Ombra was very pretty, and it was a variety in the monotonous tenor of his life.
When they had returned to the Cottage, and had seated themselves to the simple and lady-like meal, which did not much content his vigorous young appetite, Mr. Sugden began to be drawn out without quite understanding the process. The scene and circumstances were quite new to him. There was a feminine perfume about the place which subdued and fascinated him. Everything was pleasant to look at—even the mother, who was still a handsome woman; and a certain charm stole over the Curate, though the bread and butter was scarcely a satisfactory meal.
‘I hope you like Shanklin?’ Mrs. Anderson said, as she poured him out his tea.
‘Of course Mr. Sugden must say he does, whether or not,’ said Ombra. ‘Fancy having the courage to say that one does not like Shanklin before the people who are devoted to it! But speak frankly, please, for I am not devoted to it. I think it is dull; it is too pretty, like a scene at the opera. Whenever you turn a corner, you come upon a picture you have seen at some exhibition. I should like to hang it up on the wall, but not to live in it. Now, Mr. Sugden, you can speak your mind.’
‘I never was at an exhibition,’ said Kate, ‘nor at the opera. I never saw such a lovely place, and you know you don’t mean it, Ombra—you, who are never tired of sketching or writing poetry about it.’
‘Does Miss Anderson write poetry?’ said the Curate, somewhat startled. He was frightened, like most men, by such a discovery. It froze the words on his lips.
‘No, no—she only amuses herself,’ said the mother, who knew what the effect of such an announcement was likely to be; upon which the poor Curate drew breath.
‘Shanklin is a very pretty place,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I am not so used to pretty places as I ought to be. I come from the Fens myself. It is hilly here, and there is a great deal of sea; but I don’t think,’ he added, with a little outburst, and a painful consciousness that he had not been eloquent—‘I don’t think there is very much to do.’
‘Except the infant-schools and the almshouses,’ said Kate.
‘Good Lord!’ said the poor young man, driven to his wits’ end; and then he grew very red, and coughed violently, to cover, if possible, the ejaculation into which he had been betrayed. Then he did his best to correct himself, and put on a professional tone. ‘There is always the work of the parish for me,’ he said, trying to look assured and comfortable; ‘but I was rather thinking of you ladies; unless you are fond of yachting—but I suppose everybody is who lives in the Isle of Wight?’
‘Not me,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘I do not like it, and I wouldnot trust my girls, even if they had a chance, which they have not. Oh! no; we content ourselves with a very quiet life. They have their studies, and we do what we can in the parish. I assure you a school-feast is quite a great event.’
Mr. Sugden shuddered; he could not help it; he had not been brought up to it; he had been trained to a lively life, full of variety, and amusement, and exercise. He tried to say faintly that he was sure a quiet life was the best, but the words nearly choked him. It was now henceforward hisrôleto say that sort of thing; and how was he to do it, poor young muscular, untamed man! He gasped and drank a cup of hot tea, which he did not want, and which made him very uncomfortable. Tea and bread and butter, and a school-feast by way of excitement! This was what a man was brought to, when he took upon himself the office of a priest.
‘Mr. Sugden, please tell me,’ said Kate, ‘for I want to know—is it a very great change after Oxford to come to such a place as this?’
‘O Lord!’ cried the poor Curate again. A groan burst from him in spite of himself. It was as if she had asked him if the change was great from the top of an Alpine peak to the bottom of a crevasse. ‘I hope you’ll excuse me,’ he said, with a burning blush, turning to Mrs. Anderson, and wiping the moisture from his forehead. ‘It was such an awfully rapid change for me; I have not had time to get used to it. I come out with words I ought not to use, and feel inclined to do ever so many things I oughtn’t to do—I know I oughtn’t; but then use, you know, is second nature, and I have not had time to get out of it. If you knew how awfully sorry I was——’
‘There is nothing to be awfully sorry about,’ said Mrs. Anderson, with a smile. But she changed the conversation, and she was rather severe upon her guest when he went away. ‘It is clear that such a young man has no business in the Church,’ she said, with a sharpness quite unusual to her. ‘How can he ever be a good clergyman, when his heart is so little in it? I do not approve of that sort of thing at all.’
‘But, auntie, perhaps he did not want to go into the Church,’ said Kate; and she felt more and more certain that it was not the thing for Bertie Hardwick, and that he never would take such a step, except in defiance of her valuable advice.
Circumstancesafter this threw Mr. Sugden a great deal in their way. He lived in a superior sort of cottage in the village, a cottage which had once been the village doctor’s, and had been given up by him only when he built that house on the Undercliff, which still shone so white and new among its half-grown trees. It must be understood that it was the Shanklin of the past of which we speak—not the little semi-urban place with lines of new villas, which now bears that name. The mistress of the house was the dressmaker of the district as well, and much became known about her lodger by her means. She was a person who had seen better days, and who had taken up dressmaking at first only for her own amusement, she informed her customers, and consequently she had very high manners, and a great deal of gentility, and frightened her humble neighbours. Her house had two stories, and was very respectable. It could not help having a great tree of jessamine all over one side, and a honeysuckle clinging about the porch, for such decorations are inevitable in the Isle of Wight; but still there were no more flowers than were absolutely necessary, and that of itself was a distinction. The upper floor was Mr. Sugden’s. He had two windows in his sitting-room, and one in his bedroom, which commanded the street and all that was going on there; and it was the opinion of the Rector’s wife that no man could desire more cheerful rooms. He saw everybody who went or came from the Rectory. He could moralise as much as he pleased upon the sad numbers who frequented the ‘Red Lion.’ He could see the wheelwright’s shop, and the smithy, and I don’t know how many more besides. From the same window he could even catch a glimpse of the rare tourists or passing travellers who came to see the Chine. And what more would the young man have?
Miss Richardson, the dressmaker, had many little jobs to do for Kate. Sometimes she took it into her head to have a dress made of more rapidly than Maryanne’s leisurely fingers could do it; sometimes she saw a fashion-book in Miss Richardson’swindow to which she took a sudden fancy; so that there was a great deal of intercourse kept up between the dressmaker’s house and the Cottage. This did not mean that Kate was much addicted to dress, or extravagant in that point; but she was fanciful and fond of changes—and Maryanne, having very little to do, became capable of doing less and less every day. Old Francesca made all Mrs. Anderson’s gowns and most of Ombra’s, besides her other work; but Maryanne, a free-born Briton, was not to be bound to any such slavery. And thus it happened that Miss Richardson went often to the Cottage. She wore what was then called a cottage-bonnet, surrounding, with a border of clean quilted net, her prim but pleasant face, and a black merino dress with white collar and cuffs; she looked, in short, very much as a novice Sister would look now; but England was very Protestant at that moment, and there were no Sisters in Miss Richardson’s day.
‘My young gentleman is getting a little better used to things, thank you, ma’am,’ said Miss Richardson. ‘Since he has been a little more taken out of an evening, you and other ladies inviting him to tea, you can’t think what a load is lifted off my mind. The way he used to walk about at first, crushing over my head till I thought the house would come down! They all feel it a bit, ma’am, do my gentlemen. The last one was a sensible man, and fond of reading, but they ain’t all fond of reading—more’s the pity! I’ve been out in the world myself, and I know how cold it strikes coming right into the country like this.’
‘But he has his parish work,’ said Mrs. Anderson, with a little severity.
‘That is what Mrs. Eldridge says; but, bless you, what’s his parish work to a young gentleman like that, fresh from college? He don’t know what to say to the folks—he don’t know what to do with them. Bless your heart,’ said Miss Richardson, warming into excitement, ‘what should he know about a poor woman’s troubles with her family—or a man’s, either, for that part? He just puts his hand in his pocket; that’s all he does. “I’m sure I’m very sorry for you, and here’s half-a-crown,” he says. It’s natural. I’d have done it myself when I was as young, before I knew the world, if I’d had the halfcrown; and he won’t have it long, if he goes on like this.’
‘It is very kind of him, and very nice of him,’ said Kate.
‘Yes, Miss, it’s kind in meaning, but it don’t do any good. It’s just a way of getting rid of them, the same as sending them off altogether. There ain’t one gentleman in a thousand that understands poor folks. Give them a bit of money, and get quit of them; that’s what young men think; but poor folks want something different. I’ve nothing to say against Greek andLatin; they’re all very fine, I don’t doubt, but they don’t tell you how to manage a parish. You can’t, you know, unless you’ve seen life a bit, and understand folk’s ways, and how things strike them. Turn round, if you please, Miss, till I fit it under the arm. It’s just like as if Miss Ombra there should think she could make a dress, because she can draw a pretty figure. You think you could, Miss?—then just you try, that’s all I have got to say. The gentlemen think like you. They read their books, and they think they understand folk’s hearts, but they don’t, any more than you know how to gore a skirt. Miss Kate, if you don’t keep still, I can’t get on. The scissors will snip you, and it would be a thousand pities to snip such a nice white neck. Now turn round, please, and show the ladies. There’s something that fits, I’m proud to think. I’ve practised my trade in town and all about; I haven’t taken it out of books. Though you can draw beautiful, Miss Ombra, you couldn’t make a fit like that.’
Miss Richardson resumed, with pins in her mouth, when she had turned Kate round and round, ‘There’s nobody I pity in all the world, ma’am, as I pity those young gentlemen. They’re very nice, as a rule; they speak civil, and don’t give more trouble than they can help. Toss their boots about the room, and smoke their cigars, and make a mess—that’s to be looked for; but civil and nice-spoken, and don’t give trouble when they think of it. But, bless your heart, if I had plenty to live on, and no work to do but to look out of my window and take walks, and smoke my cigar, I’d kill myself, that’s what I’d do! Well, there’s the schools and things; but he can’t be poking among the babies more than half an hour or so now and then; and I ask you, ladies, as folks with some sense, whatisthat young gentleman to do in a mothers’ meeting? No, ma’am, ask him to tea if you’d be his friend, and give him a little interest in his life. They didn’t ought to send young gentlemen like that into small country parishes. And if he falls in love with one of your young ladies, ma’am, none the worse.’
‘But suppose my young ladies would have nothing to say to him?’ said Mrs. Anderson, smiling upon her child, for whom, surely, she might expect a higher fate. As for Kate, the heiress, the prize, such a thing was not to be thought of. But Kate was only a child; she did not occur to the mother, who even in her heiress-ship saw nothing which could counterbalance the superior attractions of Ombra.
Miss Richardson took the pins out of her mouth, and turned Kate round again, and nodded half a dozen times in succession her knowing head.
‘Never mind, ma’am,’ she said, ‘never mind—none the worse, say I. Them young gentlemen ought to learn that they can’thave the first they fancy. Does ’em good. Men are all a deal too confident now-a-days—though I’ve seen the time! But just you ask him to tea, ma’am, if you’d stand his friend, and leave it to the young ladies to rouse him up. Better folks than him has had their hearts broken, and done ’em good!’
It was not with these bloodthirsty intentions that Mrs. Anderson adopted the dressmaker’s advice; but, notwithstanding, it came about that Mr. Sugden was asked a great many times to tea. He began to grow familiar about the house, as the Berties had been; to have his corner, where he always sat; to escort them in their walks. And it cannot be denied that this mild addition to the interests of life roused him much more than the almshouses and the infant schools. He wrote home, to his paternal house in the Fens, that he was beginning, now he knew it better, as his mother had prophesied, to take a great deal more interest in the parish; that there were some nice people in it, and that it was a privilege, after all, to live in such a lovely spot! This was the greatest relief to the mind of his mother, who was afraid, at the first, that the boy was not happy. ‘Thank heaven, he has found out now that a life devoted to the service of his Maker is a happy life!’ that pious woman said, in the fulness of her heart; not knowing, alas! that it was devotion to Ombra which had brightened his heavy existence.
He fell in love gradually, before the eyes of the older people, who looked on with more amusement than any graver feeling; and, with a natural malice, everybody urged it on—from Kate, who gave up her seat by her cousin’s to the Curate, up to Mr. Eldridge himself, who would praise Ombra’s beauty, and applaud her cleverness with a twinkle in his eye, till the gratified young man felt ready to go through fire and water for his chief. The only spectators who were serious in the contemplation of this little tragi-comedy were Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Eldridge, of whom one was alarmed, and the other disapproving. Mrs. Anderson uttered little words of warning from time to time, and did all she could to keep the two apart; but then her anxiety was all for her daughter, who perhaps was the sole person in the parish unaware of the fact of Mr. Sugden’s devotion to her. When she had made quite sure of this, I am afraid she was not very solicitous about the Curate’s possible heartbreak. He was a natural victim; it was scarcely likely that he could escape that heartbreak sooner or later, and in the meantime he was happy.
‘What can I do?’ she said to the Rector’s wife. ‘I cannot forbid him my house; and we have never given him any encouragement—in that way. What can I do?’
‘If Ombra does not care for him, I think she is behaving very badly,’ said Mrs. Eldridge. ‘I should speak to her, if Iwere in your place. I never would allow my Lucy to treat any man so. Of course, if she means to accept him, it is a different matter; but I should certainly speak to Ombra, if I were in your place.’
‘The child has not an idea of anything of the kind,’ said Mrs. Anderson, faltering. ‘Why should I disturb her unconsciousness?’
‘Oh!’ said Mrs. Eldridge, ironically, ‘I am sure I beg your pardon. I don’t, for my part, understand the unconsciousness of a girl of nineteen!’
‘Not quite nineteen,’ said Ombra’s mother, with a certain humility.
‘A girl old enough to be married,’ said the other, vehemently. ‘I was married myself at eighteen and a half. I don’t understand it, and I don’t approve of it. If she doesn’t know, she ought to know; and unless she means to accept him, I shall always say she has treated him very badly. I would speak to her, if it were I, before another day had passed.’
Mrs. Anderson was an impressionable woman, and though she resented her neighbour’s interference, she acted upon her advice. She took Ombra into her arms that evening, when they were alone, in the favourite hour of talk which they enjoyed after Kate had gone to bed.
‘My darling!’ she said, ‘I want to speak to you. Mr. Sugden has taken to coming very often—we are never free of him. Perhaps it would be better not to let him come quite so much.’
‘I don’t see how we can help it,’ said Ombra, calmly; ‘he is dull, he likes it; and I am sure he is very inoffensive. I do not mind him at all, for my part.’
‘Yes, dear,’ said Mrs. Anderson, faltering; ‘but then, perhaps, he may mind you.’
‘In that case he would stop away,’ said Ombra, with perfect unconcern.
‘You don’t understand me, dear. Perhaps he thinks of you too much; perhaps he is coming too often, for his own good.’
‘Thinks of me—too much!’ said Ombra, with wide-opened eyes; and then a passing blush came over her face, and she laughed. ‘He is very careful not to show any signs of it, then,’ she said. ‘Mamma, this is not your idea. Mrs. Eldridge has put it into your head.’
‘Well, my darling, but if it were true——’
‘Why, then, send him away,’ said Ombra, laughing. ‘But how very silly! Should not I have found it out if he cared for me? If he is in love with any one, it is with you.’
And after this what could the mother do?
Ombrawas a young woman, as we have said, full of fancy, but without any sympathetic imagination. She had made a picture to herself—as was inevitable—of what the lover would be like when he first approached her. It was a fancy sketch entirely, not even founded upon observation of others. She had said to herself that love would speak in his eyes, as clearly as any tongue could reveal it; she had pictured to herself the kind of chivalrous devotion which belongs to the age of romance—or, at least, which is taken for granted as having belonged to it. And as she was a girl who did not talk very much, or enter into any exposition of her feelings, she had cherished the ideal very deeply in her mind, and thought over it a great deal. She could not understand any type of love but this one; and consequently poor Mr. Sugden, who did not possess expressive eyes, and could not have talked with them to save his life, was very far from coming up to her ideal. When her mother made this suggestion, Ombra thought over it seriously, and thought over him who was the subject of it, and laughed within herself at the want of perception which associated Mr. Sugden and love together. ‘Poor dear mamma,’ she said in her heart, ‘it is so long since she had anything to do with it, she has forgotten what it looks like.’ And all that day she kept laughing to herself over this strange mistake; for Ombra had this other peculiarity of self-contained people, that she did not care much for the opinion of others. What she made out for herself, she believed in, but not much else. Mr. Sugden was very good, she thought—kind to everybody, and kind to herself, always willing to be of service; but to speak of him and love in the same breath! He was at the Cottage that same evening, and she watched him with a little amused curiosity. Kate gave up the seat next to her to the Curate, and Ombra smiled secretly, saying to herself that Kate and her mother were in a conspiracy against her. And the Curate looked at her with dull, light blue eyes, which were dazzled and abashed, not made expressive and eloquent by feeling. He approached awkwardly, with a kind of terror. He directed his conversation chiefly to Mrs. Anderson; and did not address herself directly for a whole half hour at least. The thing seemed simply comical to Ombra. ‘Comehere, Mr. Sugden,’ she said, when she changed her seat after tea, calling him after her, ‘and tell me all about yesterday, and what you saw and what you did.’ She did this with a little bravado, to show the spectators she did not care; but caught a meaning glance from Mrs. Eldridge, and blushed, in spite of herself. So, then, Mrs. Eldridge thought so too! How foolish people are! ‘Here is a seat for you, Mr. Sugden,’ said Ombra, in defiance. And the Curate, in a state of perfect bliss, went after her, to tell her of an expedition which she cared nothing in the world about. Heaven knows what more besides the poor young fellow might have told her, for he was deceived by her manner, as the others were, and believed in his soul that, if never before, she had given him actual ‘encouragement’ to-night. But the Rector’s wife came to the rescue, for she was a virtuous woman, who could not see harm done before her very eyes without an attempt to interfere.
‘I hope you see what you are doing,’ she whispered severely in Ombra’s ear before she sat down, and fixed her eyes upon her with all the solemnity of a judge.
‘Oh! surely, dear Mrs. Eldridge—I want to hear about this expedition to the fleet,’ said Ombra. ‘Pray, Mr. Sugden, begin.’
Poor fellow! the Curate was not eloquent, and to feel his Rectoress beside him, noting all his words, took away from him what little faculty he had. He began his stumbling, uncomfortable story, while Ombra sat sweetly in her corner, and smiled and knitted. He could look at her when she was not looking at him; and she, in defiance of all absurd theories, was kind to him, and listened, and encouraged him to go on.
‘Yes. I daresay nothing particular occurred,’ Mrs. Eldridge said at last, with some impatience. ‘You went over theRoyal Sovereign, as everybody does. I don’t wonder you are at a loss for words to describe it. It is a fine sight, but dreadfully hackneyed. I wonder very much, Ombra, you never were there.’
‘But for that reason Mr. Sugden’s account is very interesting to me,’ said Ombra, giving him a still more encouraging look.
‘Dreadful little flirt!’ Mrs. Eldridge said to herself, and with virtuous resolution, went on—‘The boys, I suppose, will go too, on their way here. They are coming in Bertie’s new yacht this time. I am sure I wish yachts had never been invented. I suppose these two will keep me miserable about the children from the moment they reach Sandown pier.’
‘Which two?’ said Ombra. It was odd that she should have asked the question, for her attention had at once forsaken the Curate, and she knew exactly who was meant.
‘Oh! the Berties, of course. Did not you know they were coming?’ said Mrs. Eldridge. ‘I like the boys very well—but their yacht! Adieu to peace for me from the hour it arrives! Iknow I shall be put down by everybody, and my anxieties laughed at; and you girls will have your heads turned, and think of nothing else.’
‘The Berties!—are they coming?’ cried Kate, making a spring towards them. ‘I am so glad! When are they coming?—and what was that about a yacht? A yacht!—the very thing one wanted—the thing I have been sighing, dying for! Oh! you dear Mrs. Eldridge, tell me when they are coming. And do you think they will take us out every day?’
‘There!’ said the Rector’s wife, with the composure of despair. ‘I told you how it would be. Kate has lost her head already, and Ombra has no longer any interest in your expedition, Mr. Sugden. Are you fond of yachting too? Well, thank Providence you are strong, and must be a good swimmer, and won’t let the children be drowned, if anything happens. That is the only comfort I have had since I heard of it. They are coming to-morrow—we had a letter this morning—both together, as usual, and wasting their time in the same way. I disapprove of it very much, for my part. A thing which may do very well for Bertie Eldridge, with the family property, and title, and everything coming to him, is very unsuitable for Bertie Hardwick, who has nothing. But nobody will see it in that light but me.’
‘I must talk to him about it,’ said Kate, thoughtfully. Ombra did not say anything, but as the Rector’s wife remarked, she had no longer any interest in the Curate’s narrative. She was not uncivil, she listened to what he said afterwards, but it fell flat upon her, and she asked him if he knew the Berties, and if he did not think yachting would be extremely pleasant? It may be forgiven to him if we record that Mr. Sugden went home that night with a hatred of the Berties, which was anything but Christian-like. He (almost) wished the yacht might founder before it reached Sandown Bay; he wished they might be driven out to sea, and get sick of it, and abandon all thoughts of the Isle of Wight. Of course they were fresh-water sailors, who had never known what a gale was, he said contemptuously in his heart.
But nothing happened to the yacht. It arrived, and everything came true which Mrs. Eldridge had predicted. The young people in the village and neighbourhood lost their heads. There was nothing but voyages talked about, and expeditions here and there. They circumnavigated the island, they visited the Needles, they went to Spithead to see the fleet, they did everything which it was alarming and distressing for a mother to see her children do. And sometimes, which was the greatest wonder of all, she was wheedled into going with them herself. Sometimes it was Mrs. Anderson who was thechaperonof the merry party. The Berties themselves were unchanged. They were asmuch alike as ever, as inseparable, as friendly and pleasant. They even recommended themselves to the Curate, though he was very reluctant to be made a friend of against his will. As soon as they arrived, the wings of life seemed to be freer, the wheels rolled easier, everything went faster. The very sun seemed to shine more brightly. The whole talk of the little community at Shanklin was about the yacht and its masters. They met perpetually to discuss this subject. The croquet, the long walks, all the inland amusements, were intermitted. ‘Where shall we go to-morrow?’ they asked each other, and discussed the winds and the tides like ancient mariners. In the presence of this excitement, the gossip about Mr. Sugden died a natural death. The Curate was not less devoted to Ombra. He haunted her, if not night and day, at least by sea and land, which had become the most appropriate phraseology. He kept by her in every company; but as the Berties occupied all the front of the picture, there was no room in any one’s mind for the Curate. Even Mrs. Anderson forgot about him—she had something more important on her mind.
For that was Ombra’s day of triumph and universal victory. Sometimes such a moment comes even to girls who are not much distinguished either for their beauty or qualities of any kind—girls who sink into the second class immediately after, and carry with them a sore and puzzled consciousness of undeserved downfall. Ombra was at this height of youthful eminence now. The girls round her were all younger than she, not quite beyond the nursery, or, at least, the schoolroom. With Kate and Lucy Eldridge by her, she looked like a half-opened rose, in the perfection of bloom, beside two unclosed buds—or such, at least, was her aspect to the young men, who calmly considered the younger girls as sisters and playmates, but looked up to Ombra as the ideal maiden, the heroine of youthful fancy. Perhaps, had they been older, this fact might have been different; but at the age of the Berties sixteen was naught. As they were never apart, it was difficult to distinguish the sentiments of these young men, the one from the other. But the only conclusion to be drawn by the spectators was that both of them were at Ombra’s feet. They consulted her obsequiously about all their movements. They caught at every hint of her wishes with the eagerness of vassals longing to please their mistress. They vied with each other in arranging cloaks and cushions for her.
Their yacht was called theShadow; no one knew why, except, indeed, its owners themselves, and Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Eldridge, who made a shrewd guess. But this was a very different matter from the Curate’s untold love. The Rector’s wife, ready as she was to interfere, could say nothing about this. She would not, for the world, put such an idea into the girl’shead, she said. It was, no doubt, but a passing fancy, and could come to nothing; for Bertie Hardwick had nothing to marry on, and Bertie Eldridge would never be permitted to unite himself to Ombra Anderson, a girl without a penny, whose father had been nothing more than a Consul.
‘The best thing we can wish for her is that they may soon go away; and I, for one, will never ask them again,’ said Mrs. Eldridge, with deep concern in her voice. The Rector thought less of it, as was natural to a man. He laughed at the whole business.
‘If you can’t tell which is the lover, the love can’t be very dangerous,’ he said. Thus totally ignoring, as his wife felt, the worst difficulty of all.
‘It might be both,’ she said solemnly; ‘and if it is only one, the other is aiding and abetting. It is true I can’t tell which it is; but if I were Maria, or if I were Annie——’
‘Thank Heaven you are neither,’ said the Rector; ‘and with ten children of our own, and your nervousness in respect to them, I think you have plenty on your shoulders, without taking up either Annie’s or Maria’s share.’
‘I am a mother, and I can’t help feeling for other mothers,’ said Mrs. Eldridge, who gave herself a great deal of trouble unnecessarily in this way. But she did not feel for Ombra’s mother in these perplexing circumstances. She was angry with Ombra. It was the girl’s fault, she felt, that she was thus dangerous to other women’s boys. Why should she, a creature of no account, turn the heads of the young men? ‘She is not very pretty, even—not half so pretty as her cousin will be, who is worth thinking of,’ she said, in her vexation. Any young man would have been fully justified in falling in love with Kate. But Ombra, who was nobody! It was too bad, she felt; it was a spite of fate!
As for Mrs. Anderson, she, warned by the failure of her former suggestions, said nothing to her child of the possibilities that seemed to be dawning upon her; but she thought the more. She watched the Berties with eyes which, being more deeply interested, were keener and clearer than anybody else’s eyes; and she drew her own conclusions with a heart that beat high, and sometimes would flutter, like a girl’s, in her breast.
Ombra accepted very graciously all the homage paid to her. She felt the better and the happier for it, whatever her opinion as to its origin might be. She began to talk more, being confident of the applause of the audience. In a hundred little subtle ways she was influenced by it, brightened, and stimulated. Did she know why? Would she choose as she ought? Was it some superficial satisfaction with the admiration she was receiving that moved her, or some dawning of deeper feeling? Mrs. Anderson watched her child with the deepest anxiety, but she could not answer these questions. The merest stranger knew as much as she did what Ombra would do or say.