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.’
‘The Berties!—are they coming?’ cried Kate, making a spring towards them. ‘I am so glad! When are they coming?—and what was that about a yacht? A yacht!—the very thing one wanted—the thing I have been sighing, dying for! Oh! you dear Mrs. Eldridge, tell me when they are coming. And do you think they will take us out every day?’
‘There!’ said the Rector’s wife, with the composure of despair. ‘I told you how it would be. Kate has lost her head already, and Ombra has no longer any interest in your expedition, Mr. Sugden. Are you fond of yachting too? Well, thank Providence you are strong, and must be a good swimmer, and won’t let the children be drowned, if anything happens. That is the only comfort I have had since I heard of it. They are coming to-morrow—we had a letter this morning—both together, as usual, and wasting their time in the same way. I disapprove of it very much, for my part. A thing which may do very well for Bertie Eldridge, with the family property, and title, and everything coming to him, is very unsuitable for Bertie Hardwick, who has nothing. But nobody will see it in that light but me.’
‘I must talk to him about it,’ said Kate, thoughtfully. Ombra did not say anything, but as the Rector’s wife remarked, she had no longer any interest in the Curate’s narrative. She was not uncivil, she listened to what he said afterwards, but it fell flat upon her, and she asked him if he knew the Berties, and if he did not think yachting would be extremely pleasant? It may be forgiven to him if we record that Mr. Sugden went home that night with a hatred of the Berties, which was anything but Christian-like. He (almost) wished the yacht might founder before it reached Sandown Bay; he wished they might be driven out to sea, and get sick of it, and abandon all thoughts of the Isle of Wight. Of course they were fresh-water sailors, who had never known what a gale was, he said contemptuously in his heart.
But nothing happened to the yacht. It arrived, and everything came true which Mrs. Eldridge had predicted. The young people in the village and neighbourhood lost their heads. There was nothing but voyages talked about, and expeditions here and there. They circumnavigated the island, they visited the Needles, they went to Spithead to see the fleet, they did everything which it was alarming and distressing for a mother to see her children do. And sometimes, which was the greatest wonder of all, she was wheedled into going with them herself. Sometimes it was Mrs. Anderson who was the chaperon of the merry party. The Berties themselves were unchanged. They were as much alike as ever, as inseparable, as friendly and pleasant. They even recommended themselves to the Curate, though he was very reluctant to be made a friend of against his will. As soon as they arrived, the wings of life seemed to be freer, the wheels rolled easier, everything went faster. The very sun seemed to shine more brightly. The whole talk of the little community at Shanklin was about the yacht and its masters. They met perpetually to discuss this subject. The croquet, the long walks, all the inland amusements, were intermitted. ‘Where shall we go to-morrow?’ they asked each other, and discussed the winds and the tides like ancient mariners. In the presence of this excitement, the gossip about Mr. Sugden died a natural death. The Curate was not less devoted to Ombra. He haunted her, if not night and day, at least by sea and land, which had become the most appropriate phraseology. He kept by her in every company; but as the Berties occupied all the front of the picture, there was no room in any one’s mind for the Curate. Even Mrs. Anderson forgot about him—she had something more important on her mind.
For that was Ombra’s day of triumph and universal victory. Sometimes such a moment comes even to girls who are not much distinguished either for their beauty or qualities of any kind—girls who sink into the second class immediately after, and carry with them a sore and puzzled consciousness of undeserved downfall. Ombra was at this height of youthful eminence now. The girls round her were all younger than she, not quite beyond the nursery, or, at least, the schoolroom. With Kate and Lucy Eldridge by her, she looked like a half-opened rose, in the perfection of bloom, beside two unclosed buds—or such, at least, was her aspect to the young men, who calmly considered the younger girls as sisters and playmates, but looked up to Ombra as the ideal maiden, the heroine of youthful fancy. Perhaps, had they been older, this fact might have been different; but at the age of the Berties sixteen was naught. As they were never apart, it was difficult to distinguish the sentiments of these young men, the one from the other. But the only conclusion to be drawn by the spectators was that both of them were at Ombra’s feet. They consulted her obsequiously about all their movements. They caught at every hint of her wishes with the eagerness of vassals longing to please their mistress. They vied with each other in arranging cloaks and cushions for her.
Their yacht was called the Shadow; no one knew why, except, indeed, its owners themselves, and Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Eldridge, who made a shrewd guess. But this was a very different matter from the Curate’s untold love. The Rector’s wife, ready as she was to interfere, could say nothing about this. She would not, for the world, put such an idea into the girl’s head, she said. It was, no doubt, but a passing fancy, and could come to nothing; for Bertie Hardwick had nothing to marry on, and Bertie Eldridge would never be permitted to unite himself to Ombra Anderson, a girl without a penny, whose father had been nothing more than a Consul.
‘The best thing we can wish for her is that they may soon go away; and I, for one, will never ask them again,’ said Mrs. Eldridge, with deep concern in her voice. The Rector thought less of it, as was natural to a man. He laughed at the whole business.
‘If you can’t tell which is the lover, the love can’t be very dangerous,’ he said. Thus totally ignoring, as his wife felt, the worst difficulty of all.
‘It might be both,’ she said solemnly; ‘and if it is only one, the other is aiding and abetting. It is true I can’t tell which it is; but if I were Maria, or if I were Annie——’
‘Thank Heaven you are neither,’ said the Rector; ‘and with ten children of our own, and your nervousness in respect to them, I think you have plenty on your shoulders, without taking up either Annie’s or Maria’s share.’
‘I am a mother, and I can’t help feeling for other mothers,’ said Mrs. Eldridge, who gave herself a great deal of trouble unnecessarily in this way. But she did not feel for Ombra’s mother in these perplexing circumstances. She was angry with Ombra. It was the girl’s fault, she felt, that she was thus dangerous to other women’s boys. Why should she, a creature of no account, turn the heads of the young men? ‘She is not very pretty, even—not half so pretty as her cousin will be, who is worth thinking of,’ she said, in her vexation. Any young man would have been fully justified in falling in love with Kate. But Ombra, who was nobody! It was too bad, she felt; it was a spite of fate!
As for Mrs. Anderson, she, warned by the failure of her former suggestions, said nothing to her child of the possibilities that seemed to be dawning upon her; but she thought the more. She watched the Berties with eyes which, being more deeply interested, were keener and clearer than anybody else’s eyes; and she drew her own conclusions with a heart that beat high, and sometimes would flutter, like a girl’s, in her breast.
Ombra accepted very graciously all the homage paid to her. She felt the better and the happier for it, whatever her opinion as to its origin might be. She began to talk more, being confident of the applause of the audience. In a hundred little subtle ways she was influenced by it, brightened, and stimulated. Did she know why? Would she choose as she ought? Was it some superficial satisfaction with the admiration she was receiving that moved her, or some dawning of deeper feeling? Mrs. Anderson watched her child with the deepest anxiety, but she could not answer these questions. The merest stranger knew as much as she did what Ombra would do or say.