Маргарет Олифант
Ombra
CHAPTER XXXI
In the little bustle of preparation which ensued, there was, of course, a good deal of dressmaking to do, and Miss Richardson, the dressmaker from the village, who was Mr. Sugden’s landlady, was almost a resident at the Cottage for the following week. She set out every morning in her close black bonnet and black shawl, with her little parcel of properties—including the last fashion book, done up in a very tight roll. She helped Maryanne, and she helped Francesca, who was more difficult to deal with; and she was helped in her turn by the young ladies themselves, who did not disdain the task. It was very pleasant to Miss Richardson, who was a person of refined tastes, to find herself in such refined society. She was never tired remarking what a pleasure it was to talk to ladies who could understand you, and who were not proud, and took an interest in their fellow creatures; and it was during this busy week that Kate acquired that absolute knowledge of Miss Richardson’s private history with which she enlightened her friends at a later period. She sat and sewed and talked in the little parlour which served for Kate’s studies, and for many other miscellaneous purposes; and it was there, in the midst of all the litter of dressmaking, that Mrs. Anderson and the girls took their afternoon tea, and that even Mrs. Eldridge and some other intimate friends were occasionally introduced. Mrs. Eldridge knew Miss Richardson intimately, as was natural, and liked to hear from her all that was going on in the village; but the dressmaker’s private affairs were not of much interest to the Rector’s wife—it required a lively and universal human interest like Kate’s to enter into such details.
It was only on the last evening of her labours, however, that Miss Richardson made so bold as to volunteer a little private communication to Mrs. Anderson. The girls had gone out into the garden, after a busy day. All was quiet in the soft April evening; even Mr. Sugden had not come that night. They were all alone, feeling a little excited by the coming departure, a little wearied with their many occupations, a little sad at the thought of leaving the familiar place. At least, such were Mrs. Anderson’s feelings, as she stood in the verandah looking out. It was a little more than twilight, and less than night. Ombra was standing in a corner of the low garden wall, looking out upon the sea. Kate was not visible—a certain wistfulness, sadness, farewell feeling, seemed about in the very air. What may have happened before we come back? Mrs. Anderson sighed softly, with this thought in her mind. But she was not unhappy. There was enough excitement in the new step about to be taken to keep all darker shades of feeling in suspense. ‘If I might make so bold, ma’am,’ said Miss Richardson, suddenly, by her side.
Mrs. Anderson started, but composed herself immediately. ‘Surely,’ she said, with her habitual deference to other people’s wishes. The dressmaker coughed, cleared her throat, and made two or three inarticulate beginnings. At length she burst forth—
‘The comfort of speaking to a real lady is, as she don’t mistake your meaning, nor bring it up against you after. I’m not one as interferes in a general way. I do think, Mrs. Anderson, ma’am, as I’m well enough known in Shanklin to take upon me to say that. But my heart does bleed for my poor young gentleman; and I must say, even if you should be angry, whatever he is to do, when you and the young ladies go away, is more than I can tell. When I saw his face this morning, though he’s a clergyman, and as good as gold, the thing as came into my head—and I give you my word for it, ma’am—was as he’d do himself some harm.’
‘You mean Mr. Sugden? I do not understand this at all,’ said Mrs. Anderson, who had found time to collect herself. ‘Why should he do himself any harm? You mean he will work too much, and make himself ill?’
‘No, ma’am,’ said Miss Richardson, with dignity. ‘I don’t apologise for saying it, for you’ve eyes, ma’am, and can see as well as me what’s been a-going on. He’s been here, ma’am, spending the evenings, take one week with another, five nights out of the seven—and now you and the young ladies is going away. And Miss Ombra—but I don’t speak to one as can’t take notice, and see how things is going as well as me.’
‘Miss Richardson, I think we all ought to be very careful how we talk of a young man, and a clergyman. I have been very glad to see him here. I have always thought it was good for a young man to have a family circle open to him. But if any gossip has got up about the young ladies, it is perfectly without foundation. I should not have expected from you–’
‘Oh! Mrs. Anderson, ma’am!’ cried the dressmaker, carried away by her feelings. ‘Talk to me of gossip, when I was speaking as a friend! an ’umble friend, I don’t say different, but still one that takes a deep interest. Foundation or no foundation, ma’am, that poor young gentleman is a-breaking of his heart. I see it before I heard the news. I said to myself, “Miss Ombra’s been and refused him;” and then I heard you and the young ladies were going away. Whether he’s spoken, and been refused, or whether he haven’t had the courage to speak, it ain’t for me to guess; but oh! Mrs. Anderson, ma’am, speak a word of comfort to the poor young gentleman! My heart is in it. I can’t stop, even if I make you angry. I’m not one to gossip, and, when I’m trusted, wild horses won’t drag a word out of me; but I make bold to speak to you—though you’re a lady, and I work for my bread—as one woman to another, ma’am. If you hadn’t been a real lady, I wouldn’t have dared to a-done it. Oh, if you’d but give him a word of good advice! such as we can’t have everything we want; and there’s a deal of good left, even though Miss Ombra won’t have him; and he oughtn’t to be ungrateful to God, and that. He’d take it from you. Oh! ma’am, if you’d give him a word of good advice!’
Miss Richardson wept while she spoke; and at length her emotion affected her companion.
‘You are a good soul,’ said Mrs. Anderson, holding out her hand; ‘you are a kind creature. I will always think better of you for this. But you must not say a word about Miss Ombra. He has never spoken to me; and till a man speaks, you know, a lady has no right to take such a thing for granted. But I will not forget what you have said; and I will speak to him, if I can find an opportunity—if he will give me the least excuse for doing it. He will miss us, I am sure.’
‘Oh! miss you, ma’am!’ cried Miss Richardson; ‘all the parish will miss you, and me among the first, as you’ve always been so good to; but as for my poor young gentleman, what I’m afraid of is as he’ll do himself some harm.’
‘Hush! my daughter is coming!’ said Mrs. Anderson; and she added, in a louder tone, ‘I will see that you have everything you want to-morrow; and you must try to give us two days more. I think two days will be enough, Ombra, with everybody helping a little. Good night. To-morrow, when you come, you must make us all work.’
‘Thank you very kindly, ma’am,’ said the dressmaker, with a curtsey; ‘and good night.’
‘What was she talking to you about, mamma?’ said Ombra’s languid voice, in the soft evening gloom; not that she cared to know—the words came mechanically to her lips.
‘About the trimming of your travelling dress, my dear,’ said her mother, calmly, with that virtuous composure which accompanies so many gentle fibs. (‘And so she was, though not just now,’ Mrs. Anderson added to herself, in self-exculpation.)
And then Kate joined them, and they went indoors and lit the lamp. Mr. Sugden had been taking a long walk, that night. Some one was sick at the other end of the parish, to whom the Rector had sent him; and he was glad. The invalid was six miles off, and he had walked there and back. But every piece of work, alas! comes to an end, and so did this; and he found himself in front of the Cottage, he could not tell how, just after this soft domestic light began to shine under the verandah, as under an eyelid. He stood and looked at it, poor fellow! with a sick and sore heart. A few nights more, and that lamp would be lit no longer; and the light of his life would be gone out. He stood and looked at it in a rapture of love and pain. There was no one to see him; but if there had been a hundred, he would not have known nor cared, so lost was he in this absorbing passion and anguish. He had not the heart to go in, though the times were so few that he would see her again. He went away, with his head bent on his breast, saying to himself that if she had been happy he could have borne it; but she was not happy; and he ground his teeth, and cursed the Berties, those two butterflies, those two fools, in his heart!
There was one, however, who saw him, and that was Francesca, who was cutting some salad in the corner of the kitchen-garden, in the faint light which preceded the rising of the moon. The old woman looked over the wall, and saw him, and was sorry. ‘The villains!’ she said to herself. But though she was sorry, she laughed softly as she went in, as people will, while the world lasts, laugh at such miseries. Francesca was sorry for the young man—so sorry, even, that she forgot that he was a priest, and, therefore, a terrible sinner in thinking such thoughts; but she was not displeased with Ombra this time. This was natural. ‘What is the good of being young and beautiful if one has not a few victims?’ she said to herself. ‘Time passes fast enough and then it is all over, and the man has it his own way. If nostra Ombra did no more harm than that!’ And, on the whole, Francesca went in with the salad for her ladies’ supper rather exhilarated than otherwise by the sight of the hopeless lover. It was the woman’s revenge upon man for a great deal that he makes her suffer; and in the abstract women are seldom sorry for such natural victims.
Next evening, however, Mr. Sugden took heart, and went to the Cottage, and there spent a few hours of very sweet wretchedness, Ombra being unusually good to him—and to the Curate she always was good. After the simple supper had been eaten, and Francesca’s salad, Mrs. Anderson contrived that both the girls should be called away to try on their travelling-dresses, at which Miss Richardson and Maryanne were working with passion. The window was open; the night was warm, and the moon had risen over the sea. Mrs. Anderson stepped out upon the verandah with the Curate, and they exchanged a few sentences on the beauty of the night, such as were consistent with the occasion; then she broke off the unreal, and took up the true. ‘Mr. Sugden,’ she said, ‘I wanted to speak to you. It seems vain to take such a thing for granted, but I am afraid you will miss us when we go away.’
‘Miss you!’ he cried; and then tears came into the poor fellow’s eyes, and into his voice, and he took her hand with despairing gratitude. ‘Thanks for giving me a chance to speak,’ he said—‘it is like yourself. Miss you!—I feel as if life would cease altogether after Monday—it won’t, I suppose, and most things will go on as usual; but I cannot think it—everything will be over for me.’
‘You must not think so,’ she said; ‘it will be hard upon you at first, but you will find things will arrange themselves better than you expect—other habits will come in instead of this. No, indeed I am not unkind, but I know life better than you do. But for that, you know, we could not go on living, with all the changes that happen to us. We should be killed at the first blow.’
‘And so I shall be killed,’ he said, turning from her with heavier gloom than before, and angry with the consolation. ‘Oh! not bodily, I suppose. One can go on and do one’s work all the same; and one good thing is, it will be of importance to nobody but myself.’
‘Don’t say so,’ said kind Mrs. Anderson, with tears in her eyes. ‘Oh! my dear boy—if you will let me call you so—think what your visionary loss is in comparison with so many losses that people have to bear every day.’
‘It is no visionary loss to me,’ he said, bitterly. ‘But if she were happy, I should not mind. I could bear it, if all were well with her. I hope I am not such a wretch as to think of myself in comparison. Don’t think I am too stupid to see how kind you are to me; but there is one thing—only one that could give me real comfort. Promise that, if the circumstances are ever such as to call for a brother’s interference, you will send for me. It is not what I would have wished, God knows!—not what I would have wished—but I will be a brother to her, if she needs a brother. Promise. There are some things which a man can do best, and if she is wronged, if her brother could set things right–’
‘Dear Mr. Sugden, I don’t understand you,’ said Mrs. Anderson, faltering.
‘But you will, if such a time should come? You will remember that you have promised. I will say good night now. I can’t go in again after this and see her without making a fool of myself, and it is best she should keep some confidence in me. Good night.’
Had she fulfilled Miss Richardson’s commission?—or had she pledged herself to appeal to him instead, in some incomprehensible contingency? Mrs. Anderson looked after him bewildered, and did not know.
CHAPTER XXXII
Sunday was their last evening at Shanklin, and they were all rather melancholy—even Kate, who had been to church three times, and to the Sunday school, and over the almshouses, and had filled up the interstices between these occupations by a succession of tearful rambles round the Rectory garden with Lucy Eldridge, whose tears flowed at the smallest provocation. ‘I will remember everything you have told me,’ Lucy protested. ‘I will go to the old women every week, and take them their tea and sugar—for oh! Kate, you know papa does not approve of money—and I will see that the little Joliffes are kept at school—and I will go every week to see after your flowers; but oh! what shall I do without you? I shan’t care about my studies, or anything; and those duets which we used to play together, and our German, which we always meant to take up—I shall not have any heart for them now. Oh! Kate, I wish you were not going! But that is selfish. Of course I want you to have the pleasure; only–’
‘I wish you were going,’ said Kate—‘I wish everybody was coming; but, as that is impossible, we must just make the best of it; and if anybody should take the Cottage, and you should go and make as great friends with them as you ever did with me–’
‘How can you think so?’ said Lucy, with fresh tears.
‘Well,’ said Kate, ‘if I were very good, I suppose I ought to hope you would make friends with them; but I am not so frightened of being selfish as you are. One must be a little selfish—but for that, people would have no character at all.’
‘Oh! Kate, if mamma were to hear you–’
‘I should not mind. Mrs. Eldridge knows as well as I do. Giving in to other people is all very well; but if you have not the heart or the courage to keep something of your very own, which you won’t give away, what is the good of you? I don’t approve of sacrificing like that.’
‘I am sure you would sacrifice yourself, though you speak so,’ said Lucy. ‘Oh! Kate, you would sacrifice anything—even a—person—you loved—if some one else loved him.’
‘I should do nothing of the sort,’ said Kate, stoutly. ‘In the first place, you mean a man, I suppose, and it is only women who are called persons. I should do nothing of the sort. What right should I have to sacrifice him if he were fond of me, and hand him over to some one else? That is not self-sacrifice—it is the height of impertinence; and if he were not fond of me, of course there would be nothing in my power. Oh, no; I am not that sort of person. I will never give up any one’s love or any one’s friendship to give it to another. Now, Lucy, remember that. And if you are as great friends with the new people as you are with me–’
‘What odd ideas you have!’ said Lucy. ‘I suppose it is because you are so independent and a great lady; and it seems natural that everybody should yield to you.’
Upon which Kate flushed crimson.
‘How mean you must think me! To stand up for my own way because I shall be rich. But never mind, Lucy. I don’t suppose you can understand, and I am fond of you all the same. I am fond of you now; but if you go and forget me, and go off after other people, you don’t know how different I can be. I shall hate you—I shall–’
‘Oh! Kate, don’t be so dreadful!’ cried Lucy. ‘What would mamma say?’
‘Then don’t provoke me,’ said Kate. And then they fell back upon more peaceful details, and the hundred commissions which Lucy undertook so eagerly. I am not sure that Kate was quite certain of the sincerity of her self-sacrificing friend. She made a great many wise reflections on the subject when she had left her, and settled it with a philosophy unusual to her years.
‘She does not mean to be insincere,’ Kate mused to herself. ‘She does not understand. If there is nothing deeper in it, how can she help it? When the new people come, she will be quite sure she will not care for them; and then they will call, and she will change her mind. I suppose I will change my mind too. How queer people are! But, at all events, I don’t pretend to be better than I am.’ And with a little premonitory smart, feeling that her friend was already, in imagination, unfaithful, Kate walked home, looking tenderly at everything.
‘Oh! how lovely the sea is!’ she said to herself—‘how blue, and grey, and green, and all sorts of colours! I hope it will not be rough when we cross to-morrow. I wonder if the voyage from Southampton will be disagreeable, and how Ombra will stand it. Is Ombra really ill now, or is it only her mind? Of course she cannot turn round to my aunt and say it is her mind, or that the Berties had anything to do with it. I wonder what really happened that night; and I wonder which it is. She cannot be in love with them both at once, and they cannot be both in love with her, or they would not be such friends. I wonder– but, there, I am doing nothing but wondering, and there are so many things that are queer. How beautiful that white headland is with a little light about it, as if the day had forgotten to carry all that belonged to it away! And perhaps I may never see it any more. Perhaps I may never come back to the Cottage, or the cliffs, or the sea. What a long time I have been here—and what a horrid disagreeable girl I was! I think I must be a little better now. I am not so impertinent, at all events, though I do like to meddle. I suppose I shall always like to meddle. Oh! I wonder how I shall feel when I go back again to Langton-Courtenay? I am eighteen past, and in three years I shall be able to do whatever I like. Lucy said a great lady—a great lady! I think, on the whole, I like the idea. It is so different from most other people. I shall not require to marry unless I please, or to do anything that is disagreeable. And if I don’t set the parish to rights! The poor folks shall be all as happy as the day is long,’ cried Kate to herself, with energy. ‘They shall have each a nice garden, and a bit of potato-ground, and grass for a cow. And what if I were to buy a quantity of those nice little Brittany cows when we are abroad? Auntie thinks they are the best. How comfortable everybody will be with a cow and a garden! But, oh dear! what a long time it will be first! and I don’t know if I shall ever see this dear Cottage, and the bay, and the headland, and all the cliffs and the landslips, and the ups and the downs again.’
‘Mees Katta, you vill catzh ze cold,’ said Francesca, coming briskly up to her. ‘It is not so beautiful this road, that you should take the long looks, and have the air so dull. Sorry, no, she is not sorry—my young lady is not sorry to go to see Italy, and ze mountains, and ze world– ’
‘Not quite that, Francesca,’ said Kate; ‘but I have been so happy at the Cottage, and I was thinking what if I should never see it again!’
‘That is what you call non-sense,’ said Francesca. ‘Why should not Mademoiselle, who is verra young, comm back and zee all she lofs? If it was an old, like me—but I think nothink, nothink of ze kind, for I always comms back, like what you call ze bad penny. This is pretty, but were you once to see Italy, Mees Katta, you never would think no more of this—never no more!’
‘Indeed, I should!’ cried Kate, indignantly; ‘and if this was the ugliest place in England, and your Italy as beautiful as heaven, I should still like this best.’
Francesca laughed, and shook her little brown head.
‘Wait till my young lady see,’ she said—‘wait till she see. The air is never damp like this, but sweet as heaven, as Mees Katta says; and the sea blue, all blue; you never see nozing like it. It makes you well, you English, only to see Italy. What does Mademoiselle say?’
‘Oh! do you think the change of air will cure Ombra?’ cried Kate.
‘No,’ said Francesca, turning round upon her, ‘not the change of air, but the change of mind, will cure Mees Ombra. What she wants is the change of mind.’
‘I do not understand you,’ said Kate. ‘I suppose you mean the change of scene, the novelty, the–’
‘I mean the change of ze mind,’ said Francesca; ‘when she will understand herself, and the ozer people’s; when she knows to do right, and puts away her face of stone, then she will be well—quite well. It is not sickness; it is her mind that makes ill, Mees Katta. When she will put ze ice away and be true, then she shall be well.’
‘Oh, Francesca, you talk like an old witch, and I am frightened for you!’ cried Kate. ‘I don’t believe in illness of the mind; you will see Ombra will get better as soon as we begin to move about.’
‘As soon as she change her mind she will be better,’ said the oracular Francesca. ‘There is nobody that tells her the truth but me. She is my child, and I lof her, and I tell her the trutt.’
‘I think I see my aunt in the garden,’ said Kate, hurrying on; for though she was very curious, she was honourable, and did not wish to discover her cousin’s secrets through Francesca’s revelations.
‘If your aunt kill me, I care not,’ said Francesca, ‘but my lady is the most good, the most sense– She knows Mees Ombra, and she lets me talk. She is cured when she will change the mind.’
‘I don’t want to hear any more, please,’ said honourable Kate. But Francesca went on nodding her head, and repeating her sentiment: ‘When she change the mind, she will be well,’ till it got to honest Kate’s ears, and mixed with her dreams. The mother and daughter were in the garden, talking not too cheerfully. A certain sadness was in the air. The lamp burned dimly in the drawing-room, throwing a faint, desolate light over the emptiness. ‘This is what it will look like to-morrow,’ said Kate; and she cried. And the others were very much disposed to follow her example. It was the last night—words which are always melancholy; and presently poor Mr. Sugden stole up in the darkness, and joined them, with a countenance of such despair that poor Kate, excited, and tired, and dismal as she herself felt, had hard ado to keep from laughing. The new-comer added no cheer to the little party. He was dismal as Don Quixote, and, poor fellow, as simple-minded and as true.
And next morning they went away. Mr. Courtenay himself, who had lingered in the neighbourhood, paying a visit to some friends, either from excess of kindness, or determination to see the last of them, met them at Southampton, and put them into the boat for Havre, the nearest French port. Kate had her Maryanne, who, confounded by the idea of foreign travel, was already helpless; and the two other ladies were attended by old Francesca, as brisk and busy as a little brown bee, who was of use to everybody, and knew all about luggage and steamboats. Mr. Sugden, who had begged that privilege from Mrs. Anderson, went with them so far, and pointed out the ships of the fleet as they passed, and took them about the town, indicating all its principal wonders to them, as if he were reading his own or their death-warrants.
‘If it goes on much longer, I shall laugh,’ whispered Kate, in her aunt’s ear.
‘It would be very cruel of you,’ said that kind woman. But even her composure was tried. And in the evening they sailed, with all the suppressed excitement natural to the circumstances.
‘You have the very best time of the year for your start,’ said Mr. Courtenay, as he shook hands with them.
‘And, thanks to you, every comfort in travelling,’ said Mrs. Anderson.
Thus they parted, with mutual compliments. Mr. Sugden wrung her hand, and whispered hoarsely, ‘Remember—like her brother!’ He stalked like a ghost on shore. His face was the last they saw when the steamboat moved, as he stood in the grey of the evening, grey as the evening, looking after them as long as they were visible. The sight of him made the little party very silent. They made no explanation to each other; but Kate had no longer any inclination to laugh. ‘Like a brother!—like her brother!’ These words, the Curate, left to himself, said over and over in his heart as he walked back and forward on the pier for hours, watching the way they had gone. The same soft evening breeze which helped them on, blew about him, but refreshed him not. The object of his life was gone.
