Маргарет Олифант
Ombra
CHAPTER LXIV
All that Summer Mr. Sugden wandered about the world like a soul in pain. He went everywhere, unable to settle in one place. Some obliging friend had died, and left him a little money, and this was how he disposed of it. His people at home disapproved much. They thought he ought to have been happy in the other curacy which they had found him quite close to his own parish, and should have invested his legacy, and perhaps looked out for some nice girl with money, and married as soon as a handy living fell vacant. This routine, however, did not commend itself to his mind. He tore himself away from mothers’-meetings, and clothing-clubs, and daily services; he went wandering, dissatisfied and unhappy, through the world. He had been crossed in love. It is a thing people do not own to readily, but still it is nothing to be ashamed of. And not only was it the restlessness of unhappiness that moved him; a lingering hope was yet in his mind that he might be of use to Ombra still. He went over the route which the party had taken only a year before; he went to the Swiss village where they had passed so long, and was easily able to glean some information about the English ladies, and the one who was fond of the Church. He went there after her, and knelt upon the white flags and wondered what she had been thinking of, and prayed for her with his face towards Madonna on the altar, with her gilt crown, and all her tall artificial lilies.
Poor honest, broken-hearted lover! If she had been happy he would have been half cured by this time; but she was not happy—or, at least, he thought so, and his heart burned over her with regretful love and anguish. Oh, if Providence had but given her to him, though unworthy, how he would have shielded and kept her from all evil! He wandered on to Florence, where he stayed for some time, with the same vain idol-worship. He remained until the Autumn flood of tourists began to arrive, and the English Church was opened. And it was here he acquired the information which changed all his plans. The same young clergyman who was a friend of Bertie Eldridge’s, and had known the party in Florence, returned again that Winter, and officiated once more in the Conventicle of the English visitors. And Mr. Sugden had known him, too, at school or college; the two young clergymen grew intimate, and, one day, all at once, without warning, the Curate had a secret confided to him, which thrilled him through and through from head to heel. His friend told him of all the importunities he had been subjected to, to induce him to celebrate a marriage, and how he had consented, and how his conscience had been uneasy ever since. ‘Was I wrong?’ he asked his friend. ‘The young lady’s mother was there and consenting, and the man—you know him—was of full age, and able to judge for himself; the only thing was the secrecy—do you think I was wrong?’
Mr. Sugden gave no answer. He scarcely heard the words that were addressed to him; a revolution had taken place in all his ideas. He had not spent more than half his legacy, and he had half the Winter before him, yet immediately he made up his mind to go home.
Two days after he started, and in a week was making his way down to Langton-Courtenay, for no very intelligible reason. What his plea would have been, had he been forced to give it, we cannot tell, but he did not explain himself even to himself; he had a vague feeling that something new had come into the story, and that Kate ought to be informed—an idea quite vague, but obstinate. He went down, as he had gone before, to Westerton, and there engaged a fly to take him to Langton. But, when he arrived, he was startled to find the house lighted up, and all the appearance of company. He did not know what to do. There was a dinner-party, he was told, and he felt that he and his news, such as they were, could not be obtruded into the midst of it. He was possessed by his mission as by incipient madness. It seemed to him like a divine message, which he was bound to deliver. He went back to the little inn in the village, and dressed himself in evening clothes—for he had brought his portmanteau on with him all the way, not having wits enough left to leave it behind. And when it was late, he walked up the long avenue to the Hall. He knew Kate well enough, he thought, to take so much liberty with her—and then his news! What was it that made his news seem so important to him? He could not tell.
Mr. Courtenay was at Langton, and so was Lady Caryisfort. The lady, who should have been mentioned first, had stayed with Kate for a fortnight on her first visit, and then, leaving her alone all the Summer, had gone off upon other visits, promising a return in Autumn. It was October now, and Mr. Courtenay too had at last found it convenient to pay his niece a visit. He had brought with him some people for the shooting, men, chiefly, of respectable age, with wives and daughters. The party was highly respectable, but not very amusing, and, indeed, Lady Caryisfort found it tedious; but such as it was, it was the first party of guests which had ever been gathered under Kate’s roof, and she was excited and anxious that everything should go off well. In six months more she would be her own mistress, and the undue delays which had taken place in her life were then to be all remedied.
‘You ought to have been introduced to the world at least two years ago,’ said Lady Caryisfort. ‘But never mind, my dear; it does not matter for you, and next season will make up for everything. You have the bloom of sixteen still, and you have Langton-Courtenay,’ the lady added, kissing her.
To Kate there was little pleasure in this speech; but she swallowed it, as she had learned to swallow a great many things.
‘I have Langton-Courtenay,’ she said to herself, with a smile of bitter indignation—‘that makes up for everything. That I have nobody who cares for me does not matter in comparison.’
But yet she was excited about her first party, and hoped with all her heart it would go off well. There were several girls beside herself; but there were only two young men—one a wealthy and formal young diplomatist, the other a penniless cousin of Lady Caryisfort’s—‘too penniless and too foolish even to try for an heiress,’ she had assured Mr. Courtenay. The rest were old bachelors—Mr. Courtenay’s own contemporaries, or the respectable married men above described. A most safe party to surround an heiress, and not amusing, but still, as the first means of exercising her hospitality in her own house, exciting to Kate.
The dinner had gone off well enough. It was a good dinner, and even Uncle Courtenay had been tolerably satisfied. The only thing that had happened to discompose Kate was that she had seen Lady Caryisfort yawn twice. But that was a thing scarcely to be guarded against. When the ladies got back to the drawing-room she felt that the worst of her labours were over, and that she might rest; but her surprise was great when, half an hour later, she suddenly saw Mr. Sugden standing in a corner behind her. He had come there as if by magic—like a ghost starting up out of nothing. Kate rose to her feet suddenly with a little cry, and went to him. What a good thing that it was a dull, steady-going party, not curious, as livelier society is! She went up to him hurriedly, holding out her hand.
‘Mr. Sugden! When did you come? I never saw you. Have you dropped through from the skies?’
‘I ought to apologise,’ said the Curate, growing red.
‘Oh, never mind apologising! I know you have something to tell me!’ cried Kate.
‘But how can I tell you here? Yes, it is something—not bad news—oh, not bad news—don’t think so. I came off at once without thinking. A letter might have done as well; but I get confused, and don’t think till too late–’
‘I am so sorry for you!’ cried Kate impulsively, holding out her hand to him once more.
He took it, and then he dropped it, poor fellow! not knowing what else to do. Kate’s hand was nothing to him, nor any woman’s, except the one which was given into another man’s keeping. He was still dazed with his journey, and all that had happened. His theory was that, as he had found it out another way, he was clear of his promise to Mrs. Anderson; and then he had to set a mistake right. How could he tell what harm that mistake might do?
‘Your cousin—is married,’ he said.
‘Married!’ cried Kate. A slight shiver ran over her, a thrill that went through her frame, and then died out, and left her quite steady and calm. But, somehow, in that moment her colour, the bloom of sixteen, as Lady Caryisfort called it, died away from her cheek. She stood with her hands clasped, and her face raised, looking up to him. Of course it was only what she felt must happen some day; she said to herself that she had known it. There was nothing to be surprised about.
‘She was married last year, in Florence,’ the Curate resumed. And then the thrill came back again, and so strongly that Kate shook as if with cold. In a moment there rose up before her the group which she had met at the doorway on the Lung-Arno, the group which moved so quickly, and kept so close together, Ombra leaning on her husband’s arm. Yes, how blind she had been! That was the explanation—at a glance she saw it all. Oh! heaven and earth, how the universe reeled under her! He had looked at herself, spoken to her, touched her hand as only he had ever touched, and looked, and spoken—after that! The blood ebbed away from Kate’s heart; but though the world spun and swam so in the uncertainty of space, that she feared every moment to fall, or rather to be dashed down by its swaying, she kept standing, to all appearance immovable, before the tall Curate, with her hands clasped, and a smile upon her pale face.
‘Kate!’ said some one behind her—‘Kate!’
She turned round. It was Lady Caryisfort who had called her. And what was there more to be told? Now she knew all. Spigot was standing behind her, with a yellow envelope upon a silver tray. A telegram—the first one she had ever got in her life! No civility could hesitate before such a letter as that. But for the news which she had just heard she would have been frightened; but that preparation had steeled her. She tore it open and read it eagerly. Then she raised a bewildered look to Lady Caryisfort and Mr. Sugden, who were both close by her.
‘I don’t understand it,’ she said. She held it up to him, because he was nearest. And then suddenly put up her hand to stop him, as he began to read aloud. ‘Hush! Hush! Mrs. Hardwick is here,’ she said.
‘What is the matter?’ said Lady Caryisfort, rising to shield this group, which began to attract the eyes of the party. ‘Kate, what is your telegram about?’
Kate held it out to her without a word. The message it contained was this: “Sir Herbert Eldridge died here last night.’”
‘Sir Herbert Eldridge?’ repeated Lady Caryisfort. ‘What is he to you, Kate? What does it mean? Child, are you ill? You are like a ghost!’
‘He is nothing in the world to me,’ said Kate, rousing herself. ‘If I am like a ghost it is because—oh! I am so cold!—because—it is so strange! I never saw Sir Herbert Eldridge in my life. Mr. Sugden, what do you think it means?’
She looked up and looked round for the Curate. He was gone. She gazed all round her in consternation.
‘Where is he?’ she cried.
‘The gentleman you were talking to went out a minute ago. Who is he? Kate, dear, don’t look so strange. Who was this man, and what did he come to tell you about?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the girl, faintly, her eyes still seeking for him round the room. ‘I don’t know where he came from, or where he has gone to. I think he must have been a ghost.’
‘What was he telling you—you must know that at least?’
Kate made no reply. She pushed a chair towards the fireplace, and warmed her trembling fingers. She crushed up the big yellow envelope in her hand, under her laced handkerchief.
’“Sir Robert Eldridge died last night.” What is that to me! What have I to do with it?’ she said.
CHAPTER LXV
The reason of Kate’s strange paleness and agitation was afterwards explained to be the fact that she had suddenly heard, no one knew how, of the death of Mrs. Hardwick’s brother; while that lady was sitting by her, happy and undisturbed, and knowing nothing. This was the reason Lady Caryisfort gave to several of the ladies in the house, who remarked next morning on Miss Courtenay’s looks.
‘Poor Kate did not know what to do; and the feelings are strong at her age. I daresay Mrs. Hardwick, when she heard of it, took the news with perfect composure, said Lady Caryisfort; ‘but then at twenty it is difficult to realise that.’
‘Ah! now I understand,’ said one of the ladies. ‘It was told her, no doubt, by that tall young man, like a clergyman, who appeared in the drawing-room all of a sudden, after the gentlemen came downstairs, and disappeared again directly after.’
‘Yes, you are quite right,’ said Lady Caryisfort. She said so because she was aware that to have any appearance of mystery about Kate would be fatal to that brilliant début which she intended her to make; but in her own mind she was much disturbed about this tall young man like a clergyman. She had questioned Kate about him in vain.
‘He is an old friend, from where we lived in the Isle of Wight,’ the girl explained.
‘But old friends from the Isle of Wight don’t turn up everywhere like this. Did he come about Sir Herbert Eldridge?’
‘He knows nothing about Sir Herbert Eldridge. He came to tell me about—my cousin.’
‘Oh! your cousin! La demoiselle aux deux chevaliers,’ said Lady Caryisfort. ‘And did he bring you news of her?’
‘A little,’ said Kate, faintly, driven to her wit’s end; but she was not a weak-minded young woman, to be driven to despair; and here she drew up and resisted. ‘So little, that it is not worth repeating,’ she added, firmly. ‘I knew it almost all before, but he was not aware of that. He meant it very kindly.’
‘Did he come on purpose, dear?’
‘Yes, I suppose so, the good fellow,’ said Kate, gracefully.
‘My dear, he may be a very good fellow; but curates are like other men, and don’t do such things without hope of reward,’ said Lady Caryisfort, doubtfully. ‘So I would not encourage him to go on secret missions—unless I meant to reward him,’ she added.
‘He does not want any of my rewards,’ said Kate, with that half bitterness of still resentment which she occasionally showed at the suspicions which were so very ready to enter the minds of all about her. ‘I at least have no occasion to think as they do,’ she added to herself, with a feeling of sore humility. ‘Of all the people I have ever known, no one has given me this experience—they have all preferred her, without thinking of me.’
It was with this thought in her mind that she withdrew herself from Lady Caryisfort’s examination. She had nothing more to say, and she would not be made to say any more. But when she was in the sanctuary of her own room, she went over and over, with a heart which beat heavily within her breast, Mr. Sugden’s information. That Ombra should have married Bertie did not surprise her—that she had foreseen, she said to herself. But that they should have married so long ago, under her very eyes, as it were, gave her a strange thrill of pain through and through her. They had not told her even a thing so important as that. Her aunt and Ombra, her dearest friends, had lived with her afterwards, and kissed her night and morning, and at last had broken away from her, and given her up, and yet had never told her. The one seemed to Kate as wonderful as the other. Not in their constant companionship, not when that companionship came to a breach—neither at one time nor the other did they do her so much justice. And Bertie!—that was worst of all. Had his look of gladness to see her at the brook in the park, when they last met, been all simulation?—or had it been worse than simulation?—a horrible disrespect, a feeling that she did not deserve the same observance as men were forced to show to other girls! When she came to this question her brain swam so with wrath and a sense of wrong that she became unable to discriminate. Poor Kate!—and nothing of this did she dare to confide to a creature round her. She who had been so outspoken, so ready to disclose her thoughts—she had to lock them up in her own bosom, and never breathe a word.
Unconnected with this, but still somehow connected with it, was the extraordinary message she had received. On examining it afterwards in her own room, she found it was sent to her by ‘Bertie.’ What did it mean? How did he dare to send such a message to her, and what had she to do with it? Had it been a mistake? Could it have been sent to her, instead of to the Rectory? But Kate ascertained that a similar telegram had been received by the Hardwicks the same night when they went home from her dinner-party. Minnie Hardwick stole up two days later to tell her about it. Minnie was very anxious to do her duty, and to feel sad, as a girl ought whose uncle has just died; but though the blinds were all down in the Rectory, and the village dress-maker and Mrs. Hardwick’s maid were labouring night and day at ‘the mourning,’ Minnie found it hard to be so heart-broken as she thought necessary.
‘It is so strange to think that one of one’s own relations has gone away to—to the Better Land,’ said Minnie, with a very solemn face. ‘I know I ought not to have come out, but I wanted so to see you; and when we are sorrowful, it is then our friends are dearest to us. Don’t you think so, dear Kate?’
‘Were you very fond of your uncle, Minnie?’
‘I—I never saw much of him. He has been thought to be going to die for ever so long,’ said Minnie. ‘He was very stout, and had not a very good temper. Oh! how wicked it is to remember that now! And he did not like girls; so that we never met. Mamma is very, very unhappy, of course.’
‘Yes, it is of course,’ Kate said to herself, with again that tinge of bitterness which was beginning to rise in her mind; ‘even when a man dies, it is of course that people are sorry. If I were to die they would try how sorrowful they could look, and say how sad it was, and care as little about me as they do now.’ This thought crossed her mind as she sat and talked to Minnie, who was turning her innocent little countenance as near as possible into the expression of a mute at a funeral, but who, no doubt, in reality, cared much more for her new mourning than for her old uncle—a man who had neither kindness to herself nor general goodness to commend him. It was she who told Kate of the telegram which had been found waiting at the Rectory when they went home, and how she had remembered that Kate had got one too, and how strange such a coincidence was (but Minnie knew nothing of the news contained in Kate’s), and how frightened she always was at telegrams.
‘They always bring bad news,’ said Minnie, squeezing one innocent little tear into the corner of her eye. Her father had gone off immediately, and Bertie was already with his cousin. ‘It is he who will be Sir Herbert now,’ Minnie said, with awe; ‘and oh! Kate, I am so much afraid he will not be very sorry! His father was not very kind to him. They used to quarrel sometimes—I ought not to say so, but I am sure you will never, never tell anyone. Uncle Herbert used to get into dreadful passions whenever Bertie was silly, and did anything wrong. Uncle Herbert used to storm so; and then it would bring on fits. Oh! Kate, shouldn’t we be thankful to Providence that we have such a dear, kind papa!’
Thus this incident, which she had no connection with, affected Kate’s life, and gave a certain colour to her thoughts. She lived, as it were, for several days within the shadow of the blinds, which were drawn down at the Rectory, and the new mourning that was being made, and her own private trouble, which was kept carefully hidden in her heart of hearts. This gave her such abundant food for thought, that the society of her guests was too much for her, and especially Lady Caryisfort’s lively observations. She had to attend to them, and to look as cheerful as she could in the evenings; but they all remarked what depression had stolen over her. ‘She does not look the same creature,’ the other ladies said to Lady Caryisfort; and that lively person, who had thought Kate’s amusing company her only indemnification for putting up with all this respectability, yawned half her time away, and felt furious with Mr. Courtenay for having deluded her into paying this visit at this particular time. It does not do, she reflected, to put off one’s engagements. Had she kept her tryst in Spring, and brought Kate out, and done all she had promised to do for her, probably she would have been married by this time, and the trouble of taking care of her thrown on other shoulders. Whereas, if she went and threw away her good looks, and settled into pale quietness and dulness, as she seemed about to do, there was no telling what a burden she might be on her friends. With these feelings in her mind, she told Mr. Courtenay that she thought that he had been very unwise in letting the Andersons slip through his fingers. ‘They were exactly what she wanted; people who were amenable to advice; who would do what you wished, and would take themselves off when you were done with them—they were the very people for Kate, with her variable temper. It was a weakness which I did not expect in you, Mr. Courtenay, who know the world.’
‘I never saw any signs of variable temper in Kate,’ said Mr. Courtenay, who felt it necessary to keep his temper when he was talking to Lady Caryisfort.
‘Look at me now!’ said that dissatisfied woman. And she added to herself that it was vain to tell her that Kate knew nothing about Sir Herbert Eldridge, or that the strange appearance for half an hour, in the drawing-room, of the young man who was like a clergyman had no connection with the change of demeanour which followed it. This was an absurd attempt to hoodwink her, a woman who had much experience in society and was not easily deceived. And, by way of showing her sense of the importance of the subject, she began to talk to Kate of Bertie Eldridge, who had always been her favourite of the two cousins.
‘Now his father is dead, he is worth your consideration,’ she said. ‘His father was an ill-tempered wretch, I have always heard; but the young man is very well, as young men go, and has a very nice estate. I have always thought nothing could be more suitable. For my own part, I always liked him best—why? I don’t know, except, perhaps, because most people preferred his cousin. I should think, by the way, that after knocking about the world with Bertie Eldridge, that young man will hardly be very much disposed to drop into the Rectory here, like his father before him, which, I suppose, is his natural fate.’
At that moment there came over Kate’s mind a recollection of the time when she had gravely decided to oppose Mr. Hardwick in the parish, and not to give his son the living. The idea brought an uneasy blush to her cheek.
‘Mr. Bertie Hardwick is not going into the Church; he is reading for the bar,’ she said.
‘Well, I suppose the one will need as much work as the other,’ said Lady Caryisfort. ‘Reading for the bar!—that sounds profitable; but, Kate, if I were you, I would seriously consider the question about Bertie Eldridge. He is not bad-looking, and, unless that old tyrant has been wicked as well as disagreeable, he ought to be very well off. The title is not much, but still it is something; and it is a thoroughly good old family—as good as your own. I would not throw such a chance away.’
‘But I never had the chance, as you call it, Lady Caryisfort,’ said Kate, with indignation, ‘and I don’t want to have it; and I would not accept it, if it was offered to me. Bertie Eldridge is nothing to me. I don’t even care for him as an acquaintance, and never did.’
‘Well, my love, you know what a good authority has said—“that a little aversion is a very good thing to begin upon,”’ said Lady Caryisfort, laughing; but in her heart she did not believe these protestations. Why should Kate have got that telegram if Sir Herbert was nothing to her? Thus, over-wisdom led the woman of the world astray.
Before long, Kate had forgotten all about Sir Herbert Eldridge. It was not half so important to her as the other news which nobody knew of—indeed, it was simply of no interest at all in comparison. Where was Ombra now?—and how must Bertie have deceived his family, who trusted in him; as much as his—wife—was that the word?—his wife had deceived herself. Where were they living? or were they together, or what had become of these two women? Then Kate’s heart melted, and she cried within herself—What had become of them? An unacknowledged wife!—a woman who had to hide herself, and bear a name and assume a character which was not hers! In all the multitude of her thoughts, she at last stopped short upon the ground of deep pity for her cousin, who had so sinned against her. Where was she?—under what name?—in what appearance? The thought of her position, after all this long interval, with no attempt made to own her or set her right with the world, made Kate’s heart sick with compassion in the midst of her anger. And how was she to find Ombra out?—and when she had found her out, what was she to do?
