MR. COURTENAY had stipulated that Kate was to be met by her aunt, not at his house, but at the railway, and to continue her journey at once. His house, he said, was shut up; but his real reason was reluctance to establish any precedent or pretext for other invasions. Kate started in the very highest spirits, scarcely able to contain herself, running over with talk and laughter, making a perpetual comment upon all that passed before her. Even Miss Blank’s sinister congratulations, when she took leave of the little travelling party, ‘I am sure I wish you joy, sir, and I wish Mrs. Anderson joy!’ did not damp Kate’s spirits. ‘I shall tell my aunt, Miss Blank, and I am sure she will be much obliged to you,’ the girl said, as she took her seat in the carriage. And Maryanne, who, red and excited, was seated by her, tittered in sympathy.
When Mr. Courtenay hid himself behind a newspaper, it was on Maryanne that Kate poured forth the tide of her excitement. ‘Isn’t it delightful!’ she said, a hundred times over. ‘Oh! yes, miss; but father and mother!’ Maryanne answered, with a sob. Kate contemplated her gravely for twenty seconds. Here was a difference, a distinction, which she did not understand. But before the minute was half over her thoughts had gone abroad again in a confusion of expectancy and pleasure. She leant half out of the window, casting eager glances upon the people who were waiting the arrival of the train at the station. The first figure upon which she set her eyes was that of a squat old woman in a red and yellow shawl. ‘Oh! can that be my aunt?’ Kate said to herself, with dismay. The next was a white-haired, substantial old lady, old enough to be Mrs. Anderson’s mother. ‘This is she! She is nice! I shall be fond of her!’ cried Kate to herself. When the white-haired lady found some one else, Kate’s heart sank. Oh! where was the new guardian?
‘Miss Kate! oh! please, Miss Kate!’ said Maryanne; and turning sharply round, Kate found herself in somebody’s arms. She had not time to see who it was; she felt only a warm darkness surround her, the pressure of something which held her close, and a voice murmuring, ‘My darling child! my Catherine’s child!’ murmuring and purring over her. Kate had time to think, ‘Oh! how tall she is! Oh! how warm! Oh! how funny!’ before she was let loose and kissed—which latter process allowed her to see a tall woman, not in the least like the white-haired grandmother whom she had fixed upon—a woman not old, with hair of Kate’s own colour, smiles on her face, and tears in her eyes.
‘Let me look at you, my sweet! I should have known you anywhere. You are so like your darling mother!’ said the new aunt. And then she wept; and then she said, ‘Is it you? Is it really you, my Kate?’ And all this took place at the station, with Uncle Courtenay sneering hard by, and strangers looking on.
‘Yes, aunt, of course it is me,’ said Kate, who scorned grammar; ‘who should it be? I came expressly to meet you; and Uncle Courtenay is there, who will tell you it is all right.’
‘Dearest! as if I had any need of your Uncle Courtenay,’ said Mrs. Anderson; and she kissed her over again, and cried once more, most honest but inappropriate tears.
‘Are you sorry?’ cried Kate, in surprise; ‘because I am glad, very glad to see you. I could not cry for anything—I am as happy as I can be.’
‘You darling!’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘But you are right, it is too public here. I must take you away to have some luncheon, too, my precious child. There is no time to lose. Oh! Kate, Kate, to think I should have you at last, after so many years!’
‘I hope you will be pleased with me now, aunt,’ said Kate, a little alarm mingling with her surprise. Was she worth all this fuss? It was fuss; but Kate had no constitutional objection to fuss, and it was pleasant, on the whole. After all the snubbing she had gone through, it was balm to her to be received so warmly; even though the cynicism which she had been trained into was moved by a certain sense of the ludicrous, too.
‘Kate says well,’ said old Mr. Courtenay. ‘I hope you will be pleased with her, now you have her. To some of us she has been a sufficiently troublesome child; but I trust in your hands—your more skilful hands——’
‘I am not afraid,’ said Mrs. Anderson, with a very suave smile; ‘and even if she were troublesome, I should be glad to have her. But we start directly; and the child must have some luncheon. Will you join us, or must we say good-bye? for we shall not be at home till after dinner, and at present Kate must have something to eat?’
‘I have an engagement,’ said Mr. Courtenay, hastily. What! he lunch at a railway station with a girl of fifteen and this unknown woman, who, by the way, was rather handsome after her fashion! What a fool she must be to think of such a thing! He bowed himself off very politely, with an assurance that now his mind was easy about his ward. She must write to him, he said and let him know in a few days how she liked Shanklin; but in the meantime he was compelled to hurry away.
When Kate felt herself thus stranded as it were upon an utterly lonely and unknown shore, in the hands of a woman she had never seen before, and the last familiar face withdrawn, there ran a little pain, a little thrill, half of excitement, half of dismay, in her heart. She clutched at Maryanne, who stood behind her; she examined once again, with keen eyes, the new guide of her life. This was novelty indeed!—but novelty so sharp and sudden that it took away her breath. Mrs. Anderson’s tone had been very different to her uncle from what it was to herself. What did this mean? Kate was bewildered, half frightened, stunned by the change, and she could not make it out.
‘My dear, I am sure your uncle has a great many engagements,’ said Mrs. Anderson; ‘gentlemen who are in society have so many claims upon them, especially at this time of the year; or perhaps he thought it kindest to let us make friends by ourselves. Of course he must be very fond of you, dear; and I must always be grateful for his good opinion: without that he would not have trusted his treasure in my hands.’
‘Aunt Anderson,’ said Kate, hastily, ‘please don’t make a mistake. I am sure I am no treasure at all to him, but only a trouble and a nuisance. You must not think so well of me as that. He thought me a great trouble, and he was very glad to get rid of me. I know this is true.’
Mrs. Anderson only smiled. She put her arm through the girl’s, and led her away. ‘We will not discuss the question, my darling, for you must have something to eat. When did you leave Langton? Our train starts at two—we have not much time to lose. Are you hungry? Oh! Kate, how glad I am to have you! How very glad I am! You have your mother’s very eyes.’
‘Then don’t cry, aunt, if you are glad.’
‘It is because I am glad, you silly child. Come in here, and give me one good kiss. And now, dear, we will have a little cold chicken, and get settled in the carriage before the crowd comes.’
And how different was the second part of this journey! Mrs. Anderson got no newspaper—she sat opposite to Kate, and smiled at all she said. She told her the names of the places they were passing; she was alive to every light and shade that passed over her young, changeable face. Then Kate fell silent all at once, and began to think, and cast many a furtive look at her new-found relation; at last she said, in a low voice, and with a certain anxiety—
‘Aunt, is it possible that I could remember mamma?’
‘Ah! no, Kate; she died just when you were born.’
‘Then did I ever see you before?’
‘Never since you were a little baby—never that you could know.’
‘It is very strange,’ the girl said half to herself; ‘but I surely know some face like yours. Ah! could it be that?’ She stopped, and her face flushed up to her hair.
‘Could it be what, dear?’
Then Kate laughed out—the softest, most musical, tender little laugh that ever came from her lips. ‘I know,’ she said—‘it is myself!’
Mrs. Anderson blushed, too, with sudden pleasure. It was a positive happiness to her, penetrating beneath all her little proprieties and pretensions. She took the girl’s hands, and bending forward, looked at her in the face; and it was true—they were as like as if they had been mother and daughter—though the elder had toned down, and lost that glory of complexion, that brightness of intelligence; and the younger was brighter, quicker, more intelligent than her predecessor had ever been. This made at once the sweetest, most pleasant link between them; it bound them together by Nature’s warm and visible bond. They were both proud of this tie, which could be seen in their faces, which they could not throw off nor cast away.
But after the ferry was crossed—when they were drawing near Shanklin—a silence fell upon both. Kate, with a quite new-born timidity, was shy of inquiring about her cousin; and Mrs. Anderson was too doubtful of Ombra’s mood to say more of her than she could help. She longed to be able to say, ‘Ombra will be sure to meet us,’ but did not dare. And Ombra did not meet them; she was not to be seen, even, as they walked up to the house. It was a pretty cottage, embowered in luxuriant leafage, just under the shelter of the cliff, and looking out over its own lawn, and a thread of quiet road, and the slopes of the Undercliff, upon the distant sea. There was, however, no one at the door, no one at any of the windows, no trace that they were expected, and Mrs. Anderson’s heart was wrung by the sight. Naturally she grew at once more prodigal of her welcomes and caresses. ‘How glad I am to see you here, my darling Kate! This is your home, dear child. As long as I live, whenever you may want it, my humble house will be yours from this day—always remember that; and welcome, my darling,—welcome home!’
Kate accepted the kisses, but her thoughts were far away. Where was the other who should have given her a welcome too? All the girl’s eager soul rushed upon this new track. Did Ombra object to her?—why was not she here? Ombra’s mother, though she said nothing, had given many anxious glances round her, which were not lost upon Kate’s keen perceptions? Could Ombra object to the intruder? After all her aunt’s effusions, this was a new idea to Kate.
The door was thrown open by a little woman in a curious headdress, made out of a coloured handkerchief, whose appearance filled Kate with amazement, and whose burst of greeting she could not for the first moment understand. Kate’s eyes went over her shoulder to a commonplace English housemaid behind with a sense of relief. ‘Oh! how the young lady is welcome!’ cried old Francesca. ‘How she is as the light to our eyes!—and how like our padrona—how like! Come in—come in; your chamber is ready, little angel. Oh! how bella, bella our lady must have been at that age!’
‘Hush, Francesca; do not put nonsense into the child’s head,’ said Mrs. Anderson, still looking anxiously round.
‘I judge from what I see,’ said the old woman; and then she added, in answer to a question from her mistress’s eyes, ‘Meess Ombra has the bad head again. It was I that made her put herself to bed. I made the room dark, and gave her the tea, as madam herself does it, otherwise she would be here to kiss this new angel, and bid her the welcome. Come in, come in, carissima; come up, I will show you the chamber. Ah! our signorina has not been able to keep still when she heard you, though she has the bad head, the very bad head.’
And then there appeared to Kate, coming downstairs, the slight figure of a girl in a black dress—a girl whom, at the first moment, she thought younger than herself. Ombra was not at all like her mother—she was like her name, a shadowy creature, with no light about her—not even in the doubtful face, pale and fair, which her cousin gazed upon so curiously. She said nothing till she had come up to them, and did not quicken her pace in the least, though they were all gazing at her. To fill up this pause, Mrs. Anderson, who was a great deal more energetic and more impressionable than her daughter, rushed to her across the little hall.
‘My darling, are you ill? I know only that could have prevented you from coming to meet your cousin. Here she is, Ombra mia; here we have her at last—my sweet Kate! Now love each other, girls; be as your mothers were; open your hearts to each other. Oh! my dear children, if you but knew how I love you both!’
And Mrs. Anderson cried while the two stood holding each other’s hands, looking at each other—on Kate’s side with violent curiosity; on Ombra’s apparently with indifference. The mother had to do all the emotion that was necessary, with an impulse which was partly love, and partly vexation, and partly a hope to kindle in them the feelings that became the occasion.
‘How do you do? I am glad to see you. I hope you will like Shanklin,’ said chilly Ombra.
‘Thanks,’ said Kate; and they dropped each other’s hands; while poor Mrs. Anderson wept unavailing tears, and old Francesca, in sympathy, fluttered about the new ‘little angel,’ taking off her cloak, and uttering aloud her admiration and delight. It was a strange beginning to Kate’s new life.
‘I wonder, I wonder——’ the new-comer said to herself when she was safely housed for the night, and alone. Kate had seated herself at the window, from whence a gleam of moon and sky was visible, half veiled in clouds. She was in her dressing-gown, and with her hair all over her shoulders, was a pretty figure to behold, had there been any one to see. ‘I wonder, I wonder!’ she said to herself. But she could not have put into words what her wonderings were. There was only in them an indefinite sense that something not quite apparent had run on beneath the surface in this welcome of hers. She could not tell what it was—why her aunt should have wept; why Ombra should have been so different. Was it the ready tears of the one that chilled the other? Kate was not clear enough on the subject to ask herself this question. She only wondered, feeling there was something more than met the eye. But, on the whole, the child was happy—she had been kissed and blessed when she came upstairs; she seemed to be surrounded with an atmosphere of love and care. There was nobody (except Ombra) indifferent—everybody cared; all were interested. She wondered—but at fifteen one does not demand an answer to all the indefinite wonderings which arise in one’s heart; and, despite of Ombra, Kate’s heart was lighter than it had ever been (she thought) in all her life. Everything was strange, new, unknown to her, yet it was home. And this is a paradox which is always sweet.