Ombra

‘My dear, it goes to my heart to hear how you are working,’ the latter said. ‘I thank God that my own boy is beginning to see what is necessary to hold his place in life. But not too much, dearest Bertie, not too much. What would it avail me if my son came to be Lord Chancellor, and lost his health, or even his life, on the way?’

This confusing sentence did not make Bertie ridicule the writer, for he was, strange to say, very fond of his mother, but he wrote her a merry explanation, and set her fears at rest. However, though he did not indulge in wet towels, he had begun to work with an energy no one expected of him. He had a motive. He had seen the necessity, as his mother said. To wander all over the world with Bertie Eldridge, whose purse was carelessly free, but whose way it was, unconsciously, while intending to save his friends from expense, to draw them into greater and ever greater outlay, was not a thing which could be done, or which it would be at all satisfactory to do for life. And many very grave thoughts had come to Bertie on the journey home. Perhaps he had grown just a little disgusted with his cousin, who saw everything from his own point of view, and could not enter into the feelings and anxieties of a poorer man.

‘Oh! bother! All will come right in the end,’ he would say, when his cousin pointed out to him the impossibility for himself of the situation, so far as he himself was concerned.

‘How can it come right for me?’ Hardwick had asked.

‘How you do worry!’ said Bertie Eldridge. ‘Haven’t we always shared everything? And why shouldn’t we go on doing so? I may be kept out of it, of course, for years and years, but not for ever. Hang it, Bertie, you know all must come right in the end; and haven’t we shared everything all our lives?’

This is a sort of speech which it is very difficult to answer. It is so much easier for the richer man to feel benevolent and liberal than for the poorer man to understand his ground of gratitude in such a partnership. Bertie Eldridge, had, no doubt, shared many of his luxuries with his cousin. He had shared his yacht for instance—a delight which Bertie Hardwick could by no means have procured himself—but, while doing this, he had drawn the other into such waste of time and money as he never could have been tempted to otherwise. Bertie Hardwick knew that had he not ‘shared everything’ with his cousin he would have been a wealthier man: and how then could he be grateful for that community of goods which the other Bertie was so lavishly conscious of?

‘He can have spent nothing while we were together,’ the latter was always saying. ‘He must have saved, in short, out of the allowance my uncle gives him.’

Bertie Hardwick knew that the case was very different, but he could not be so ungenerous as to insist upon this in face of his cousin’s delightful sense of liberality. He held his tongue, and this silence did not make him more amiable. In short, the partnership had been broken, as partnerships of the kind are generally broken, with a little discomfort on both sides.

Bertie Eldridge continued his pleasant, idle life—did what he liked, and went where he liked, though, perhaps, with less freedom than of old; while Bertie Hardwick retired to Pump Court and worked—as the other said—night and day. He was hard at work one of those Spring afternoons which Kate spent down at Langton. His impulse towards labour was new, and, as yet, it had many things to struggle against. He had not been brought up to work; he had been an out-of-door lad, fond of any pursuit that implied open air and exercise. Most young men are so brought up now-a-days, whether it is the best training for them or not; and since he took his degree, which had not been accompanied by any distinction, he had been yachting, travelling, amusing himself—none of which things are favourable to work in Pump Court, upon a bright April afternoon. His window was open, and the very air coming in tantalized and tempted him. It plucked at his hair; it disordered his papers; it even blew the book close which he was bending over. ‘Confound the wind!’ said Bertie. But, somehow, he could not shut the window. How fresh it blew! even off the questionable Thames, reminding the solitary student of walks and rides through the budding woods; of the first days of the boating season; of all the delights of the opening year; confound the wind! He opened his book, and went at it again with a valorous and manful heart, a heart full of anxieties, yet with hope in it too, and, what is almost better than hope—determination. The book was very dry, but Bertie applied to it that rule which is so good in war—so good in play—capital for cricket and football, in the hunting-field, and wherever daring and patience are alike necessary—he would not be beat! It is, perhaps, rather a novel doctrine to apply to a book about conveyancing—or, at least, such a use of it was novel to Bertie. But it answered all the same.

And it was just as he was getting the mastery of his own mind, and forgetting, for the moment, the fascinations of the sunshine and the errant breeze, that some one came upstairs with a resounding hasty footstep and knocked at his door. ‘It’s Bertie,’ he said to himself, with a sigh, and opened to the new-comer. Now he was beat, but not by the book—by fate, and the evil angels—not by any fault of his own.

Bertie Eldridge came in, bringing a gust of fresh air with him. He seated himself on his cousin’s table, scorning the chairs. His brow was a little clouded, though he was like one of the butterflies who toil not, neither do they spin.

‘By Jove! to see you there grinding night and day, makes a man open his eyes—you that were no better than other people. What do you think you’ll ever make of it, old fellow? Not the Woolsack, mind you—I give in to you a great deal, but you’re not clever enough for that.’

‘I never thought I was,’ said the other, laughing, but not with pleasure; and then there was a pause, and I leave it to the reader to judge which were the different interlocutors in the dialogue which follows, for to continue writing ‘Bertie,’ and ‘the other Bertie,’ is more than human patience can bear.

‘You said you had something to say to me—out with it! I have a hundred things to do. You never were so busy in your life as I am. Indeed, I don’t suppose you know what being occupied means.’

‘Of course it is the old subject I want to talk of. What could it be else! What is to be done? You know everything that has happened as well as I do. Busy! If you knew what my reflections are early and late, waking and sleeping–’

‘I think I can form an idea. Has something new occurred—or is it the old question, the eternal old business, which you never thought of, unfortunately, till it was too late?’

‘It is no business of yours to taunt me, nor is it a friend’s office. I am driven to my wit’s ends. For anything I can see, things may go on as they are for a dozen years.’

‘Everybody must have felt so from the beginning. How you could be so mad, both she and you; you most, in one way, for you knew the world better; she most, in another, for it is of more importance to a woman.’

‘Shut up, Bertie. I won’t have any re-discussion of that question. The thing is, what is to be done now? I was such a fool as to write to her about going down to Langton, at my father’s desire; and now I dare not go, or she will go frantic. Besides, she says it must be acknowledged before long: she must do it, if I can’t.’

‘Good God!’

‘What is there to be horrified about? It was all natural. The thing is, what is to be done? If she would keep quiet, all would be right. I am sure her mother could manage everything. One place is as good as another to live in. Don’t look at me like that. I am distracted—going mad—and you won’t give me any help.’

‘The question is, what help can I give?’

‘It is easy enough—as easy as daylight. If I were to go, it would only make us both miserable, and lead to imprudences. I know it would. But if you will do it for me–’

‘Do you love her, Bertie?’

‘Love her! Good heavens! after all the sacrifices I have made! Look at me, as I am, and ask me if I love her! But what can I do? If I speak now we are all ruined; but if she could only be persuaded to wait—only to wait, perhaps for a few days, or a few months–’

‘Or a few years! And to wait for what? How can you expect any good to come to you, when you build everything upon your–’

‘Shut up, I tell you! Is it my fault? He ought to treat me differently. I never would have entertained such a thought, but for– Bertie, listen to me. Will you go? They will hear reason from you.’

‘They ought not to hear reason. It is a cowardly shame! Yes, I don’t mind your angry looks—it is a shame! You and I have been too long together to mince matters between ourselves. I tell you I never knew anything more cowardly and wretched. It is a shame—a–’

‘The question is, not what you think of it,’ said the other sullenly, ‘but will you go?’

‘I suppose I must,’ was the reply.

When the visitor left, half an hour later, after more conversation of this same strain, can it be wondered at if Bertie Hardwick’s studies were no longer so steady as they had been? He shut up his books at last, and went out and walked towards the river. It was black and glistening, and very full with the Spring rains. The tide was coming up—the river was crowded with vessels of all kinds. Bertie walked to Chelsea, and got a boat there, and went up to Richmond with the tide. But he did not go to the ‘Star and Garter,’ where his cousin was dining with a brilliant party. He walked back again to his chambers, turning over in his tired brain a hundred anxieties. And that night he did sit up at work, and for half an hour had recourse to the wet towel. Not because he was working day and night, but because these anxieties had eaten the very heart out of his working day.

CHAPTER LXII

From Pump Court, in the Temple, it is a long way to the banks of a little loch in Scotland, surrounded by hills, covered with heather, and populous with grouse—that is, of course, in the season. The grouse in this early Summer were but babies, chirping among the big roots of the ling, like barndoor chickens; the heather was not purple but only greening over through the grey husks of last year’s bloom. The gorse blossoms were forming; the birch-trees shaking out their folded leaves a little more and more day by day against the sky, which was sometimes so blue, and sometimes so leaden. At that time of the year, or at any other, it is lovely at Loch Arroch. Seated on the high bank behind the little inn, on the soft grass, which is as green as emeralds, but soft as velvet, you can count ten different slopes of hills surrounding the gleaming water, which receives them all impartially; ten distinct ridges, all as various as so many sportsmen, distinct in stature and character—from the kindly birch-crowned heads in front here, away to the solemn distant altitudes, folded in snow-plaids or cloud-mantles, and sometimes in glorious sheen of sunset robes, that dazzle you—which fill up the circle far away. The distant giants are cleft into three peaks, and stand still to have their crowns and garments changed, with a benign patience, greeting you across the loch. There are no tourists, and few strangers, except the fishermen, who spend their days not thinking of you or of the beauties of nature, tossed in heavy cobbles upon the stormy loch, or wading up to their waist in ice-cold pools of the river. The river dashes along its wild channel through the glen, working through rocks, and leaping precipitous corners, shrouding itself, like a coy girl, with the birchen tresses which stream over it, till it comes to another loch—a big silvery clasp upon its foaming chain. Among these woods and waters man is still enough; but Nature is full of commotion. She sings about all the hillsides in a hundred burns, with delicatest treble; she makes her own bass under the riven rocks, among the foam of the greater streams; she mutters over your head with deep, sonorous melancholy utterance in the great pine-trees, and twitters in the leaflets of the birch. Lovely birks!—sweetest of all the trees of the mountains! Never were such haunts for fairies, or for mountain girls as agile and as fair as those sweet birchen woods. ‘Stern and wild,’ do you say? And surely we say it, for so Sir Walter said before us. But what an exquisite idea was that of Nature—what a sweet, fantastic conceit, just like her wayward wealth of resource, to clothe the slopes of those rude hills with the Lady of the Woods! She must have laughed with pleasure, like a child, but with tears of exquisite poet satisfaction in her eyes, when she first saw the wonderful result. And as for you poor people who have never seen Highland loch or river shine through the airy foliage, the white-stemmed grace and lightness of a birch-wood, we are sorry for you, but we will not insult your ignorance; for, soft in your ear, the celebrated Mr. Cook, and all his satellites who make up tours in the holiday season, have never, Heaven be praised! heard of Loch Arroch; and long may it be before the British tourist finds out that tranquil spot.

I cannot tell how Mrs. Anderson and her daughter found it out. The last Consul, it is true, had been from Perthshire, but that of itself gave them little information. They had gone to Edinburgh first, and then, feeling that scarcely sufficiently out of the way, had gone further north, until at last Kinloch-Arroch received them; and they stayed there, they could not tell why, partly because the people looked so kind. The note which Kate received on her birthday had no date, and the post-mark on it was of a distant place, that no distinct clue might be given to their retreat; but Ombra always believed, though without the slightest ground for it, that this note of her mother’s, like all her other injudicious kindnesses to Kate, had done harm, and been the means of betraying them. For it was true that they were now in a kind of hiding, these two women, fearing to be recognised, not wishing to see any one, for reasons which need not be dwelt upon here. They had left Langton-Courtenay with a miserable sense of friendlessness and loneliness, and yet it had been in some respects a relief to them to get away; and the stillness of Loch Arroch, its absolute seclusion, and the kind faces of the people they found there, all concurred in making them decide upon this as their resting-place. They were to stay all the summer, and already they were known to everybody round. Old Francesca had already achieved a great succès in the Perthshire village. The people declared that they understood her much better than if she had been ‘ane o’ thae mincing English.’ She was supposed to be French, and Scotland still remembers that France was once her auld and kind alley. The women in their white mutches wondered a little, it is true, at the little old Italian’s capless head, and knot of scanty hair; but her kind little brown face, and her clever rapid ways, took them by storm. When she spoke Italian to her mistress they gathered round her in admiration. ‘Losh! did you ever hear the like o’ that?’ they cried, with hearty laughs, half restrained by politeness—though half of them spoke Gaelic, and saw nothing wonderful in that achievement.

Ombra, the discontented and unhappy, had never in her life before been so gentle and so sweet. She was not happy still, but for the moment she was penitent, and subdued and at peace, and the admiration and the interest of their humble neighbours pleased her. Mrs. Anderson had given a description of her daughter to the kind landlady of the little inn, which did not tally with the circumstances which the reader knows; but probably she had her own reasons for that, and the tale was such as filled everybody with sympathy. ‘You maunna be doon-hearted, my bonnie lamb,’ the old woman would say to her; and Ombra would blush with painful emotion, and yet would be in her heart touched and consoled by the homely sympathy. Ah! if those kind people had but known how much harder her burden really was! But yet to know how kindly all these poor stranger folk felt towards them was pleasant to the two women, and they clung together closer than ever in the enforced quiet. They were very anxious, restless, and miserable, and yet for a little while they were as nearly happy as two women could be. This is a paradox which some women will understand, but which I cannot pause to explain.

Things were going on in this quiet way, and it was the end of May, a season when as yet few even of the fishers who frequent that spot by nature, and none of the wise wanderers who have discovered Loch Arroch had begun to arrive, when one evening a very tall man, strong and heavy, trudged round the corner into the village, with his knapsack over his shoulders. He was walking through the Highlands alone at this early period of the year. He put his knapsack down on the bench outside the door, and came into the little hall, decorated with glazed cases, in which stuffed trout of gigantic proportions still seemed to swim among the green, green river weeds, to ask kind Mrs. Macdonald, the landlady, if she could put him up. He was ‘a soft-spoken gentleman,’ courteous, such as Highlanders love, and there was a look of sadness about him which moved the mistress of the ‘Macdonald Arms.’ But all at once, while he was talking to her, he started wildly, made a dart at the stair, which Francesca at that moment was leisurely ascending, and upset, as he passed, little Duncan, Mrs. Macdonald’s favourite grandchild.

‘The man’s gane gyte!’ said the landlady.

Francesca for her part took no notice of the stranger. If she saw him, she either did not recognise him, or thought it expedient to ignore him. She went on, carrying high in front of her a tray full of newly-ironed fine linen, her own work, which she was carrying from the kitchen. The stranger stood at the foot of the stairs and watched her, with his face lifted to the light, which streamed from a long window opposite. There was an expression in his countenance (Mrs. Macdonald said afterwards) which was like a picture. He had found what he sought!

‘That is old Francesca,’ he said, coming back to her, ‘Mrs. Anderson’s maid. Then, of course, Mrs. Anderson is here.’

‘Ou ay, sir, the leddies are here,’ said Mrs. Macdonald—‘maybe they are expecting you? There was something said a while ago about a gentleman—a brother, or some near friend to the young goodman.’

‘The young goodman?’

‘Ou ay, sir—him that’s in India, puir gentleman!—at sic a time, too, when he would far rather be at hame. But ye’ll gang up the stair? Kath’rin, take the gentleman up the stair—he’s come to visit the leddies—and put him into No. 10 next door. Being so near the leddies, I never put no man there that I dinna ken something aboot. You’ll find Loch Arroch air, sir, has done the young mistress good.’

The stranger followed upstairs, with a startled sense of other wonders to come; and thus it happened that, without warning, Mr. Sugden suddenly walked into the room where Ombra lay on a sofa by the fireside, with her mother sitting by. Both the ladies started up in dismay. They were so bewildered that neither could speak for a moment. The blood rushed to Ombra’s face in an overpowering blush. He thought he had never seen her look so beautiful, so strange—he did not know how; and her look of bewildered inquiry and suspicion suddenly showed him what he had never thought of till that moment—that he had no right to pry into their privacy—to hunt her, as it were, into a corner—to pursue her here.

‘Mr. Sugden!’ Mrs. Anderson cried in dismay; and then she recovered her prudence, and held out her hand to him, coming between him and Ombra. ‘What a very curious meeting this is!—what an unexpected pleasure! Of all places in the world, to meet a Shanklin friend at Loch Arroch! Ombra, do not disturb yourself, dear; we need not stand on ceremony with such an old friend as Mr. Sugden. My poor child has a dreadful cold.’

And then he took her hand into his own—Ombra’s hand—which he used to sit and watch as she worked—the whitest, softest hand. It felt so small now, like a shadow, and the flush, had gone from her face. He seemed to see nothing but those eyes, watching him with fear and suspicion—eyes which distrusted him, and reminded him that he had no business here.

And he sat down by the sofa, and talked ordinary talk, and told them of Shanklin, which he had left. He had been making a pedestrian tour in Scotland. Yes, it was early, but he did not mind the weather, and the time suited him. It was a surprise to him to see Francesca, but he had heard that Mrs. Anderson had left Langton-Courtenay–

‘Yes,’ she said, briefly, without explanation; and added—‘We were travelling, like you, when Ombra fell in love with this place. You must have seen it to perfection if you walked down the glen to-day—the Glencoe Hills were glorious to-day. Which is your next stage? I am afraid Mrs. Macdonald has scarcely room–’

‘Oh! yes, she has given me a room for to-night,’ he said; and he saw the mother and daughter look at each other, and said to himself, in an agony of humiliation, what a fool he had been—what an intrusive, impertinent fool!

When he took his leave, Mrs. Anderson went after him to the door; she asked, with trepidation in her voice, how long he meant to stay. This was too much for the poor fellow; he led the way along the passage to the staircase window, lest Ombra should hear through the half-open door.

‘Mrs. Anderson,’ he said hoarsely, ‘once you promised me if she should ever want a brother’s help or a brother’s care—not that it is what I could have wished–’

‘Mr. Sugden, this is ridiculous; I can take care of my own child. You have no right to come and hunt us out, when you know—when you can see that we wish—to be private.’ Then, with a sudden change, she added—‘Oh, you are very good—I am sure you are very good, but she wants for nothing. Dear Mr. Sugden, if you care for her or me, go away.

‘I will go away to-morrow,’ he said, with a deep sigh of disappointment and resignation.

She looked out anxiously at the sky. It was clouding over; night was coming on—there was no possibility of sending him away that night.

‘Mr. Sugden,’ she said, wringing her hands, ‘when a gentleman thrusts himself into anyone’s secrets he is bound not to betray them. You will hear news here, which I did not wish to be known at present—Ombra is married.’

‘Married!’ he said, with a groan, which he could not restrain.

‘Yes, her husband is not able to be with her. We are waiting till he can join us—till he can make it public. You have found this out against our will; you must give me your word not to betray us.’

‘Why should I betray you?’ he said; ‘to whom? I came, not knowing. Since ever I knew her I have been her slave, you know. I will be so now. Is she—happy, at least?’

‘She is very happy,’ said Mrs. Anderson; and then her courage failed her, and she cried. She did not burst into tears—such an expression does not apply to women of her age. The tears which were, somehow, near the surface, fell suddenly, leaving no traces. ‘Everything is not so—comfortable as might be wished,’ she said, ‘but, so far as that goes, she is happy.’

‘May I come again?’ he said. His face had grown very long and pale; he looked like a man who had just come back from a funeral. ‘Or would you rather I went away at once?’

She gave another look at the sky, which had cleared; night was more distant than it had seemed ten minutes ago. And Mrs. Anderson did not think that it was selfishness on her part to think of her daughter first. She gave him her hand and pressed his, and said—

‘You are the kindest, the best friend. Oh, for her sake, go!’

And he went away with a heavy heart, striding over the dark unknown hills. It was long past midnight before he got shelter—but what did that matter? He would have done much more joyfully for her sake. But his last hope seemed gone as he went along that mountain way. He had hoped always to serve her sometime or other, and now he could serve her no more!

CHAPTER LXIII

This was the reason why Kate heard no more from Mr. Sugden. He knew, and yet he did not know. That which had been told him was very different from what he had expected to hear. He had gone to seek a deserted maiden, and he had found a wife. He had gone with some wild hope of being able to interpose on her behalf, ‘as her brother would have done,’ and bring her false lover back to her—when, lo! he found that he was intruding upon sacred domestic ground, upon the retreat of a wife whose husband was somewhere ready, no doubt, to defend her from all intrusion. This confounded him for the first moment. He went away, as we have said, without a word, asking no explanation. What right had he to any explanation? Probably Ombra herself, had she known what his mission and what his thoughts were, would have been furious at the impertinence. But her mother judged him more gently, and he, poor fellow, knew in his own soul how different his motives were from those of intrusion or impertinence.