Ombra

‘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?

CHAPTER LXVI

It is hard to be oppressed with private anxiety and care in the midst of a great house full of people, who expect to be amused, and to have all their different wants attended to, both as regards personal comfort and social gratification. Kate had entered upon the undertaking with great zeal and pleasure, but had been suddenly chilled in the midst of her labours by the strange accidents which disturbed her first dinner-party. She had been so excited and confused at the moment, that it had not occurred to her to remember that Mr. Sugden’s information was quite fragmentary, and that he did not tell her where to find her cousin, or give her any real aid in the matter. His appearance, and disappearance too, were equally sudden and mysterious. She ascertained from Spigot when he had come, and it was sufficiently easy to comprehend the noiseless way he had chosen to appear before her, and convey his news; but why had he disappeared when he saw the telegram? Why had he said so little? Why, oh! why had they all conspired to leave her thus, with painful scraps of information, but no real knowledge—alone among strangers, who took no interest in her perplexities, and, indeed, had never learned Ombra’s name? She could not confide in Mrs. Hardwick, for many reasons, and there was no one else whom she could possibly confide in.

She got so unhappy at last that the idea of consulting Lady Caryisfort entered her mind more and more strongly. Lady Caryisfort was a woman of the world. She would not be so shocked as good Mrs. Hardwick would be; and then she could have no prejudice in the matter, and no temptation to betray poor Ombra’s secret. Poor Ombra! Kate was not one of those people who can dismiss an offender out of their mind as soon as his sin is proved. All kinds of relentings, and movements of pity, and impulses to help, came whispering about her after the first shock. To be sure Ombra had her mother to protect and care for her, and how could Kate interfere, a young girl? What could she do in the matter? But yet she felt that if she were known to stand by her cousin, it would be more difficult for the husband to keep her in obscurity. And there was in her mind a longing that Bertie should learn that she knew, and know what her opinion was, of the concealment and secresy. She did as women, people say, are not apt to do. She threw all the blame on him. Her cousin had concealed it from her—but nothing more than that. He had done something more—he had insulted herself in the midst of the concealment. If Kate had followed her own first impulse, she would have rushed forth to find Ombra, she would have brought her home, she would have done what her husband had failed to do—acknowledged, and put her in her right place. All these things Kate pondered and mused over, till sometimes the impulse to action was almost too much for her; and it was in these moments that she felt a longing and a necessity to consult some one, to relieve the pent-up anxieties in her own heart.

It happened one afternoon that she was alone with Lady Caryisfort, in that room which had been her sitting-room under Mrs. Anderson’s sway. That very fact always filled her with recollections. Now that the great drawing-room and all the house was open, this had become a refuge for people who had ‘headaches,’ or any of the ethereal ailments common in highly-refined circles. The ladies of the party were almost all out on this particular afternoon. Some had gone into Westerton on a shopping expedition; some had driven to see a ruined abbey, one of the sights of the neighbourhood; and some had gone to the covert-side, with luncheon for the sportsmen, and had not yet returned. Kate had excused herself under the pretext of a cold, to remedy which she was seated close by the fire, in a very low and comfortable easy-chair. Lady Caryisfort reclined upon a sofa opposite. She had made no pretence at all to get rid of the rest of the party. She was very pettish and discontented, reading a French novel, and wishing herself anywhere but there. There had been at least half an hour of profound silence. Kate was doing nothing but thinking; her head ached with it, and so did her heart. And when a girl of twenty, with a secret on her mind, is thus shut up with an elder woman whom she likes, with no one else within hearing, and after half an hour’s profound silence, that is the very moment in which a confidential disclosure is sure to come.

‘Lady Caryisfort,’ said Kate, faltering, ‘I wonder if I might tell you something which I have very much at heart?’

‘Certainly you may,’ said Lady Caryisfort, yawning, and closing her book. ‘To tell you the truth, Kate, I was just going to put a similar question.’

‘You have something on your mind too!’ cried Kate, clasping her hands.

‘Naturally—a great deal more than you can possibly have,’ said her friend, laughing. ‘But, come, Kate, you have the pas. Proceed—your secret has the right of priority; and then I will tell you mine—perhaps—if it is not too great a bore.’

‘Mine is not about myself,’ said Kate. ‘If it had been about myself, I should have told you long ago—it is about—Ombra.’

‘Oh! about Ombra!’ Lady Caryisfort shrugged her shoulders, and the languid interest which she had been preparing to show suddenly failed her. ‘You think a great deal more about Ombra than she deserves.’

‘You will not think so when you have heard her story,’ said Kate, with some timidity, for she was quickly discouraged on this point. While they were speaking, a carriage was heard to roll up the avenue. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, ‘I thought we were safe. I thought I was sure of you for an hour. And here are those tiresome people come back!’

‘An hour—all about Ombra!’ Lady Caryisfort ejaculated, half within herself; and then she added aloud, ‘Perhaps somebody has come to call. Heaven send us some one amusing! for I think you and I, Kate, must go and hang ourselves if this lasts.’

‘Oh! no; it must be the Wedderburns come back from Westerton,’ said Kate, disconsolate. There were sounds of an arrival, without doubt. ‘They will come straight up here,’ she said, in despair. ‘Since that day when we had afternoon tea here, we have never been safe.’

It was a terrible reward for her hospitality; but certainly the visitors were coming up. The sound of the great hall-door rang through the house; and then Spigot’s voice, advancing, made it certain that there had been an arrival. The new-comers must be strangers, then, as Spigot was conducting them; and what stranger would take the liberty to come here?

Kate turned herself round in the chair. She was a little flushed with the fire, and she was in that state of mind when people think that anything may happen—nay, that it is contrary to the order of Nature when something does not happen, to change the aspect of the world. Lady Caryisfort turned away with a little shrug, which was half impatience, half admiration of the girl’s readiness to be moved by anything new. She opened her book again, and went nearer the window. The light was beginning to fade, for it was now late in October, and Winter might almost be said to have begun. The door opened slowly. The young mistress of the house stood like one spell-bound. Already her heart forecasted who her visitors were. And it was not Spigot’s hand which opened that door. There was a hesitation, a fumbling and doubtfulness—and then–

How dim the evening was! Who were the two people who were standing there looking at her? Kate’s heart gave a leap, and then seemed to stand still.

‘Come in,’ she said, doubtful, and faltering. And just then the fire gave a sudden blaze up, and threw a ruddy light upon the new-comers. Of course, she had known who it must be all along. But they did not advance; and she stood in an icy stupor, feeling as if she were not able to move.

‘Kate,’ said Ombra, from the door, ‘I have been like an evil spirit to you. I will not come in again, unless you will give me your hand and say I am to come.’

She put herself in motion then, languidly. How different a real moment of excitement always is from the visionary one which you go over and over in your own mind, and to which you get used in all its details! Somehow all at once she bethought herself of Geraldine lifted over the threshold by innocent Christabel. She went and held out her hand. Her heart was beating fast, but dull, as if at a long distance off. There stood the husband and wife—two against one. She quickened her steps, and resolved to spare herself as much as she could.

‘Ombra,’ she said, as well as her quick breath would let her, ‘come in. I know. I have heard about it. I am glad to receive you, and—and your husband.’

‘Thanks, Kate,’ said Ombra, with strange confusion. She had thought—I don’t know why—that she would be received with enthusiasm corresponding to her own feelings. She came into the room, leaning upon him, as was natural, with her hand within his arm. He had the grace to be modest—not to put himself forward—or so, at least, Kate thought. But how much worse this moment was than she had supposed it would be! She felt herself tremble and tingle from head to heel. She forgot Lady Caryisfort, who was standing up against the light of the window, roused and inquisitive; she turned her back upon the new-comers, even, and poked the fire violently, making the room full of light. The ruddy blaze shot up into the twilight; it sprang up, quivering and burning into the big mirror. Kate saw the whole scene reflected there—the two figures standing behind her, and Ombra’s black dress; black!—why was she in black, and she a bride? And, good heaven!–

She turned round breathless; she was pricked to the quick with anger and shame. ‘Ombra,’ she said, facing round upon her cousin, ‘I told you I knew everything. Why do you come here thus with anybody but your husband? This is Mr. Eldridge. Did anyone dare to suppose– Why is it Mr. Eldridge, and not him, who has brought you here?’

Ombra’s ice melted as when a flood comes in Spring. She rushed to the reluctant, angry girl, and kissed her, and clung to her, and wept over her. ‘Oh! Kate don’t turn from me!—Bertie Eldridge is my husband—no one else—and who else should bring me back?’

No one but Ombra ever knew that Kate would have fallen but for the strenuous grasp that held her up—no one but Ombra guessed what the convulsion of the moment meant. Ombra felt her cousin’s arms clutch at her with the instinct of self-preservation—she felt Kate’s head drop quite passive on her shoulder, and, with a new-born sympathy, she concealed the crisis which she dimly guessed. She kept whispering into her cousin’s ear, holding her fast, kissing her, terrified at the extent of the emotion which had been so carefully and so long concealed.

‘Now let Kate shake hands at least with me,’ said Bertie, behind, ‘and forgive me, if she can. It was all my fault. Ombra yielded to me because I would not give her any peace, and we dared not make it known. Kate, she has been breaking her heart over it, thinking you could never forgive her. Won’t you forgive me too?’

Bertie Eldridge was a careless, light-hearted soul—one of the men who run all kind of risks of ruin, and whom other people suffer for, but who always come out safe at the end. At the sound of his ordinary easy, untragical voice, Kate roused herself in a moment. What had all this exaggerated feeling to do with him?

‘Yes,’ she said, holding out her hand, ‘Bertie, I will forgive you; but I would not have done so half an hour ago, if I had known. Oh! and here is Lady Caryisfort in the dark, while we are all making fools of ourselves. Ombra, keep here; don’t go away from me,’ she whispered. ‘I feel as if I could not stand.’

‘Kate, mamma is in your room: and one secret more,’ whispered Ombra. ‘Oh! Kate, it is not half told!—Lady Caryisfort will forgive us—I could not stay away a day—an hour longer than I could help.’

‘I will forgive you with all my heart, and I will take myself out of the way,’ said Lady Caryisfort. ‘I daresay you have a great deal to say to each other, and I congratulate you, at the same time, Lady Eldridge; one must take time for that.’

‘Lady Eldridge!’ cried Kate. Oh! how thankful she was to drop out of Ombra’s supporting arm into a seat, and to laugh, in order that she might not cry. ‘Then that was why I had the telegram, and that was why poor Mr. Sugden disappeared, that you might tell me yourself? Oh! Ombra, are you sure it is true, and not a dream? Are you back again, and all the shadows flown away, and things come right?’