Ombra

‘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 would not 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 his rôle to 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.

CHAPTER XVIII

Circumstances after 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’s window 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 and Latin; 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, what is that 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’t have 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 I were 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?

CHAPTER XIX

Ombra was 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. ‘Come here, 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 the Royal 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! I know 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.’