THINGS went on in this way for some weeks, while the Shadow lay in Sandown Bay, or cruised about the sunny sea. There was so much to do during this period, that none of the young people, at least, had much time to think. They were constantly together, always engaged with some project of pleasure, chattering and planning new opportunities to chatter and enjoy themselves once more; and the drama that was going on among them was but partially perceived by themselves, the actors in it. Some little share of personal feeling had awakened in Kate during these gay weeks. She had become sensible, with a certain twinge of mortification, that three or four different times when she had talked to Bertie Hardwick, ‘my Bertie,’ his attention had wandered from her. It was a new sensation, and it would be vain to conceal that she did not like it. He had smiled vacantly at her, and given a vague, murmuring answer, with his eyes turned towards the spot where Ombra was; and he had left her at the first possible opportunity. This filled Kate with consternation and a certain horror. It was very strange. She stood aghast, and looked at him; and so little interest did he take in the matter that he never observed her wondering, bewildered looks. The pang of mortification was sharp, and Kate had to gulp it down, her pride preventing her from showing what she felt. But after awhile her natural buoyancy regained the mastery. Of course it was natural he should like Ombra best—Ombra was beautiful, Ombra was the queen of the moment—Kate’s own queen, though she had been momentarily unwilling to let her have everything. ‘It is natural,’ she said to herself, with philosophy—‘quite natural. What a fool I was to think anything else! Of course he must care more for Ombra than for me; but I shall not give him the chance again.’ This vengeful threat, however, floated out of her unvindictive mind. She forgot all about it, and did give him the chance; and once more he answered her vaguely, with his face turned towards her cousin. This was too much for Kate’s patience. ‘Mr. Bertie,’ she said, ‘go to Ombra if you please—no one wishes to detain you; but she takes no interest in you—to save yourself trouble, you may as well know that; she takes no interest in boys—or in you.’
Upon which Bertie started, and woke up from his abstraction, and made a hundred apologies. Kate turned round in the midst of them and left him; she was angry, and felt herself entitled to be so. To admire Ombra was all very well; but to neglect herself, to neglect civility, to make apologies! She went off affronted, determined never to believe in boys more. There was no jealousy of her cousin in her mind; Kate recognised, with perfect composure and good sense, that it was Ombra’s day. Her own was to come. She was not out of short frocks yet, though she was over sixteen, and to expect to have vassals as Ombra had would be ridiculous. She had no fault to find with that, but she had a right, she felt, to expect that her privilege as old friend and feudal suzeraine should be respected; whereas, even her good advice was all thrown back upon her, and she had so much good advice to offer!
Kate reflected very deeply that morning on the nature of the sentiment called love. She had means of judging, having looked on while Mr. Sugden made himself look very ridiculous; and now the Berties were repeating the process. Both of them? She asked herself the question as Mrs. Eldridge had done. It made them look foolish, and it made them selfish; careless of other people, and especially of herself. It was hard; it was an injury that her own old friend should be thus negligent, and thus apologise! Kate felt that if he had taken her into his confidence, if he had said, ‘I am in love with Ombra—I can’t think of anything else,’ she would have understood him, and all would have been well. But boys were such strange creatures, so wanting in perception; and she resolved that, if ever this sort of thing happened to her, she would make a difference. She would not permit this foolish absorption. She would say plainly, ‘If you neglect your other friends, if you make yourselves look foolish for me, I will have nothing to do with you. Behave as if you had some sense, and do me credit. Do you think I want fools to be in love with me?’ This was what Kate made up her mind she would say, when it came to be her turn.
This gay period, however, came to a strangely abrupt and mysterious end. The party had come home one evening, joyous as usual. They had gone round to Ryde in the morning to a regatta; the day had been perfect, the sea as calm as was compatible with the breeze they wanted, and all had gone well. Mrs. Eldridge herself had accompanied them, and on the whole, though certain tremors had crossed her at one critical moment, when the wind seemed to be rising, these tremors were happily quieted, and she had, ‘on the whole,’ as she cautiously stated, enjoyed the expedition. It was to be wound up, as most of these evenings had been, by a supper at the Rectory. Mrs. Anderson was in her own room, arranging her dress in order to join the sailors in this concluding feast. She had been watching a young moon rise into the twilight sky, and rejoicing in the beauty of the scene, for her children’s sake. Her heart was warm with the thought that Ombra was happy; that she was the queen of the party, deferred to, petted, admired, nay—or the mother’s instinct deceived her—worshipped by some. These thoughts diffused a soft glow of happiness over her mind. Ombra was happy, she was thought of as she ought to be, honoured as she deserved, loved; there was the brightest prospect opening up before her, and her mother, though she had spent the long day alone, felt a soft radiance of reflected light about her, which was to her what the moon was in the sky. It was a warm, soft, balmy Summer evening; the world seemed almost to hold its breath in the mere happiness of being, as if a movement, a sigh, would have broken the spell. Mrs. Anderson put up her hair (which was still pretty hair, and worth the trouble), and arranged her ribbons, and was about to draw round her the light shawl which Francesca had dropped on her shoulders, when all at once she saw Ombra coming through the garden alone. Ombra alone! with her head drooped, and a haze of something sad and mysterious about her, which perhaps the mother’s eyes, perhaps the mere alarm of fancy, discerned at once. Mrs. Anderson gave a little cry. She dropped the shawl from her, and flew downstairs. The child was ill, or something had happened. A hundred wild ideas ran through her head in half a second. Kate had been drowned—Ombra had escaped from a wreck—the Berties! She was almost surprised to see that her daughter was not drenched with sea-water, when she rushed to her, and took her in her arms.
‘What is the matter, Ombra? Something has happened. But you are safe, my darling child!’
‘Don’t,’ said Ombra, withdrawing herself almost pettishly from her mother’s arms. ‘Nothing has happened. I—only was—tired; and I came home.’
She sat down on one of the rustic seats under the verandah, and turned away her head. The moon shone upon her, on the pretty outline of her arm, on which she leant, and the averted head. She had not escaped from a shipwreck. Had she anything to say which she dared not tell? Was it about Kate?
‘Ombra, dear, what is it? I know there is something. Kate?’
‘Kate? Kate is well enough. What should Kate have to do with it?’ cried the girl, with impatient scorn; and then she suddenly turned and hid her face on her mother’s arm. ‘Oh! I am so unhappy!—my heart is like to break! I want to see no one—no one but you again!’
‘What is it, my darling? Tell me what it is.’ Mrs. Anderson knelt down beside her child. She drew her into her arms. She put her soft hand on Ombra’s cheek, drawing it close to her own, and concealing it by the fond artifice. ‘Tell me,’ she whispered.
But Ombra did not say anything. She lay still and sobbed softly, as it were under her breath. And there her mother knelt supporting her, her own eyes full of tears, and her heart of wonder. Ombra, who had been this morning the happiest of all the happy! Dark, impossible shadows crept through Mrs. Anderson’s mind. She grew sick with suspense.
‘I cannot tell you here,’ said Ombra, recovering a little. ‘Come in. Take me upstairs, mamma. Nobody has done it; it is my own fault.’
They went up to the little white room opening from her mother’s, where Ombra slept. The red shawl was still lying on the floor, where it had fallen from Mrs. Anderson’s shoulders. Her little box of trinkets was open, her gloves on the table, and the moonlight, with a soft inquisition, whitening the brown air of the twilight, stole in by the side of the glass in which the two figures were dimly reflected.
‘Do I look like a ghost?’ said Ombra, taking off her hat. She was very pale; she looked like one of those creatures, half demons, half spirits, which poets see about the streams and woods. Never had she been so shadowy, so like her name; but there was a mist of consternation, of alarm, of trouble, about her. She was scared as well as heartbroken, like one who had seen some vision, and had been robbed of all her happiness thereby. ‘Mamma,’ she said, leaning upon her mother, but looking in the glass all the time, ‘this is the end of everything. I will be as patient as I can, and not vex you more than I can help; but it is all over. I do not care to live any more, and it is my own fault.’
‘Ombra, have some pity on me! Tell me, for heaven’s sake, what you mean.’
Then Ombra withdrew from her support, and began to take off her little ornaments—the necklace she wore, according to the fashion of the time, the little black velvet bracelets, the brooch at her throat.
‘It has all happened since sunset,’ she said, as she nervously undid the clasps. ‘He was beside me on the deck—he has been beside me all day. Oh! can’t you tell without having it put into words?’
‘I cannot tell what could make you miserable,’ said her mother, with some impatience. ‘Ombra, if I could be angry with you——’
‘No, no,’ she said, deprecating; ‘Then you did not see it any more than I? So I am not so much, so very much to blame. Oh! mamma, he told me he—loved me—wanted me to—to—be married to him. Oh! when I think of all he said——’
‘But, dear,’ said Mrs. Anderson, recovering in a moment, ‘there is nothing so very dreadful in this. I knew he would tell you so one day or other. I have seen it coming for a long time——’
‘And you never told me—you never so much as tried to help me to see! You would not take the trouble to save your child from—from—— Oh! I will never forgive you, mamma!’
‘Ombra!’ Mrs. Anderson was struck with such absolute consternation that she could not say another word.
‘I refused him,’ said the girl, suddenly, turning away with a quiver in her voice.
‘You refused him?’
‘What could I do else? I did not know what he was going to say. I never thought he cared. Can one see into another’s heart? I was so—taken by surprise. I was so—frightened—he should see. And then, oh! the look he gave me! Oh! mother! mother! it is all over! Everything has come to an end! I shall never be happy any more!’
‘What does it mean?’ cried the bewildered mother. ‘You—refused him; and yet you—— Ombra—this is beyond making a mystery of. Tell me in plain words what you mean.’
‘Then it is this, in plain words,’ said Ombra, rousing up, with a hot flush on her cheek. ‘I was determined he should not see I cared, and I never thought he did; and when he spoke to me, I refused. That is all, in plain words. I did not know what I was doing. Oh! mamma, you might be sorry for me, and not speak to me so! I did not believe him—I did not understand him; not till after——’
‘My dear child, this is mere folly,’ said her mother. ‘If it is only a misunderstanding—and you love each other——’
‘It is no misunderstanding. I made it very plain to him—oh! very plain! I said we were just to be the same as usual. That he was to come to see us—and all that! Mother—let me lie down. I am so faint. I think I shall die!’
‘But, Ombra, listen to me. I can’t let things remain like this. It is a misunderstanding—a mistake even. I will speak to him.’
‘Then you shall never see me more!’ cried Ombra, rising up, as it seemed, to twice her usual height. ‘Mother, you would not shame me! If you do I will go away. I will never speak to you again. I will kill myself rather! Promise you will not say one word.’
‘I will say nothing to—to shame you, as you call it.’
‘Promise you will not say one word.’
‘Ombra, I must act according to my sense of my duty. I will be very careful——’
‘If you do not want to drive me mad, you will promise. The day you speak to him of this, I will go away. You shall never, never see me more!’