DOES this sort of thing happen often?’ said Mr. Courtenay, leading Kate away round the further side of the garden, much to the annoyance of the croquet players. The little kitchen-garden lay on the other side of the house, out of sight even of the pretty lawn. He was determined to have her entirely to himself.
‘What sort of thing, Uncle Courtenay?’
Mr. Courtenay indicated with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder the company they had just left.
‘Oh! the croquet,’ said Kate, cheerfully. ‘No, not often here—more usually it is at the Rectory, or one of the other neighbours. Our lawn is so small; but sometimes, you know, we must take our turn.’
‘Oh! you must take your turn, must you?’ he said. ‘Are all these people your Rectors, or neighbours, I should like to know?’
‘There are more Eldridges than anything else,’ said Kate. ‘There are so many of them—and then all their cousins.’
‘Ah! I thought there must be cousins,’ said Mr. Courtenay. ‘Do you know you have grown quite a young woman, Kate?’
‘Yes, Uncle Courtenay, I know; and I hope I give you satisfaction,’ she said, laughing, and making him a little curtsey.
How changed she was! Her eyes, which were always so bright; had warmed and deepened. She was beautiful in her first bloom, with the blush of eighteen coming and going on her cheeks, and the fresh innocence of her look not yet harmed by any knowledge of the world. She was eighteen, and yet she was younger as well as older than she had been at fifteen, fresher as well as more developed. The old man of the world was puzzled, and did not make it out.
‘You are altered,’ he said, somewhat coldly; and then, ‘I understood from your aunt that you lived very quietly, saw nobody——’
‘Nobody but our friends,’ explained Kate.
‘Friends! I suppose you think everybody that looks pleasant is your friend. Good lack! good lack!’ said the Mentor. ‘Why, this is society—this is dissipation. A season in town would be nothing to it.’
Kate laughed. She thought it a very good joke; and not the faintest idea crossed her mind that her uncle might mean what he said.
‘Why, there are four, five, six grown-up young men,’ he said, standing still and counting them as they came in sight of the lawn. ‘What is that but dissipation? And what are they all doing idle about here? Six young men! And who is that girl who is so unhappy, Kate?’
‘The girl who is unhappy, uncle?’ Kate changed colour; the instinct of concealment came to her at once, though the stranger could have no way of knowing that there was anything to conceal. ‘Oh! I see,’ she added. ‘You mean my cousin Ombra. She is not quite well; that is why she looks so pale.’
‘I am not easily deceived,’ he said. ‘Look here, Kate, I am a keen observer. She is unhappy, and you are in her way.’
‘I, uncle!’
‘You need not be indignant. You, and no other. I saw her before you left your agreeable companions yonder. I think, Kate, you had better do your packing and come away with me.’
‘With you, uncle?’
‘These are not very pleasant answers. Precisely—with me. Am I so much less agreeable than that pompous aunt?’
‘Uncle Courtenay, you seem to forget who I am, and all about it!’ cried Kate, reddening, her eyes brightening. ‘My aunt! Why, she is like my mother. I would not leave her for all the world. I will not hear a word that is not respectful to her. Why, I belong to her! You must forget—— I am sure I beg your pardon, Uncle Courtenay,’ she added, after a pause, subduing herself. ‘Of course you don’t mean it; and now that I see you are joking about my aunt, of course you were only making fun of me about Ombra too.’
‘I am a likely person to make fun,’ said Mr. Courtenay. ‘I know nothing about your Ombras; but I am right, nevertheless, though the fact is of no importance. I have one thing to say, however, which is of importance, and that is, I can’t have this sort of thing. You understand me, Kate? You are a young woman of property, and will have to move in a very different sphere. I can’t allow you to begin your career with the Shanklin tea-parties. We must put a stop to that.’
‘I assure you, Uncle Courtenay,’ cried Kate, very gravely, and with indignant state, ‘that the people here are as good as either you or I. The Eldridges are of very good family. By-the-bye, I forgot to mention, they are cousins of our old friends at the Langton Rectory—the Hardwicks. Don’t you remember, uncle? And Bertie and the rest—you remember Bertie?—visit here.’
‘Oh! they visit here, do they?’ said Mr. Courtenay, with meaning looks.
Something kept Kate from adding, ‘He is here now.’ She meant to have done so, but could not, somehow. Not that she cared for Bertie, she declared loftily to herself; but it was odious to talk to any one who was always taking things into his head! So she merely nodded, and made no other reply.
‘I suppose you are impatient to be back to your Eldridges, and people of good family?’ he said. ‘The best thing for you would be to consider all this merely a shadow, like your friend with the odd name. But I am very much surprised at Mrs. Anderson. She ought to have known better. What! must I not say as much as that?’
‘Not to me, if you please, uncle,’ cried Kate, with all the heat of a youthful champion.
He smiled somewhat grimly. Had the girl taken it into her foolish head to have loved him, Mr. Courtenay would have been much embarrassed by the unnecessary sentiment. But yet this foolish enthusiasm for a person on the other side of the house—for one of the mother’s people, who was herself an interloper, and had really nothing to do with the Courtenay stock, struck him as a robbery from himself. He felt angry, though he was aware it was absurd.
‘I shall take an opportunity, however, of making my opinion very clear,’ he said, deliberately, with a pleasurable sense that at least he could make this ungrateful, unappreciative child unhappy. The latter half of this talk was held at the corner of the lawn, where the two stood together, much observed and noted by all the party. The young people all gazed at Kate’s guardian with a mixture of wonder and awe. What could he be going to do to her? They felt his disapproval affect them somehow like a cold shade; and Mrs. Anderson felt it also, and was disturbed more than she would show, and once more felt vexed and disgusted indeed with Providence, which had so managed matters as to send him on such a day.
‘He looks as if he were displeased,’ she said to Ombra, when her daughter came near her, and she could indulge herself in a moment’s confidence.
‘What does it matter how he looks?’ said Ombra, who herself looked miserable enough.
‘My darling, it is for poor Kate’s sake.’
‘Oh! Kate!—always Kate! I am tired of Kate!’ said Ombra, sinking down listlessly upon a seat. She had the look of being tired of all the rest of the world. Her mother whispered to her, in a tone of alarm, to bestir herself, to try to exert herself, and entertain their guests.
‘People are asking me what is the matter with you already,’ said poor Mrs. Anderson, distracted with these conflicting cares.
‘Tell them it is temper that is the matter,’ said poor Ombra. And then she rose, and made a poor attempt once more to be gay.
This, however, was not long necessary, for Kate came back, flushed, and in wild spirits, announcing that her uncle had gone, and took the whole burden of the entertainment on her own shoulders. Even this, though it was a relief to her, Ombra felt as an injury. She resented Kate’s assumption of the first place; she resented the wistful looks which her cousin directed to herself, and all her caressing words and ways.
‘Dear Ombra, go and rest, and I will look after these tiresome people,’ Kate said, putting her arm round her.
‘I don’t want to rest—pray take no notice of me—let me alone!’ cried Ombra. It was temper—certainly it was temper—nothing more.
‘But don’t think you have got rid of him, auntie, dear,’ whispered Kate, in Mrs. Anderson’s ear. ‘He says he is coming back to-night, when all these people are gone—or if not to-night, at least to-morrow morning—to have some serious talk. Let us keep everybody as late as possible, and balk him for to-night.’
‘Why should I wish to balk him, my dear?’ said Mrs. Anderson, with all her natural dignity. ‘He and I can have but one meeting-ground, one common interest, and that is your welfare, Kate.’
‘Well, auntie, I want to balk him,’ cried the girl, ‘and I shall do all I can to keep him off. After tea we shall have some music,’ she added, with a laugh, ‘for the Berties, auntie, who are so fond of music. The Berties must stay as long as possible, and then everything will come right.’
Poor Mrs. Anderson! she shook her head with a kind of mild despair. The Berties were as painful a subject to her as Mr. Courtenay. She was driven to her wits’ end. To her the disapproving look of the latter was a serious business; and if she could have done it, instead of tempting them to stay all night, she would fain have sent off the two Berties to the end of the world. All this she had to bear upon her weighted shoulders, and all the time to smile, and chat, and make herself agreeable. Thus the pretty Elysium of the Cottage—its banks of early flowers, its flush of Spring vegetation and blossom, and the gay group on the lawn—was like a rose with canker in it—plenty of canker—and seated deep in the very heart of the bloom.
But Kate managed to carry out her intention, as she generally did. She delayed the high tea which was to wind up the rites of the afternoon. When it was no longer possible to put it off, she lengthened it out to the utmost of her capabilities. She introduced music afterwards, as she had threatened—in short, she did everything an ingenious young woman could do to extend the festivities. When she felt quite sure that Mr. Courtenay must have given up all thought of repeating his visit to the Cottage, she relaxed in her exertions, and let the guests go—not reflecting, poor child, in her innocence, that the lighted windows, the music, the gay chatter of conversation which Mr. Courtenay heard when he turned baffled from the Cottage door at nine o’clock, had confirmed all his doubts, and quickened all his fears.
‘Now, auntie, dear, we are safe—at least, for to-night,’ she said; ‘for I fear Uncle Courtenay means to make himself disagreeable. I could see it in his face—and I am sure you are not able for any more worry to-night.’
‘I have no reason to be afraid of your Uncle Courtenay, my dear.’
‘Oh! no—of course not; but you are tired. And where is Ombra?—Ombra, where are you? What has become of her?’ cried Kate.
‘She is more tired than I am—perhaps she has gone to bed. Kate, my darling, don’t make her talk to-night.’
Kate did not hear the end of this speech; she had rushed away, calling Ombra through the house. There was no answer, but she saw a shadow in the verandah, and hurried there to see who it was. There, under the green climbing tendrils of the clematis, a dim figure was standing, clinging to the rustic pillar, looking out into the darkness. Kate stole behind her, and put her arm round her cousin’s waist. To her amazement, she was thrust away, but not so quickly as to be unaware that Ombra was crying. Kate’s consternation was almost beyond the power of speech.
‘Oh! Ombra, what is wrong?—are you ill?—have I done anything? Oh! I cannot bear to see you cry!’
‘I am not crying,’ was the answer, in a voice made steady by pride.
‘Don’t be angry with me, please. Oh! Ombra, I am so sorry! Tell me what it is!’ cried wistful Kate.
‘It is temper,’ cried Ombra, after a pause, with a sudden outburst of sobs. ‘There, that is all; now leave me to myself, after you have made me confess. It is temper, temper, temper—nothing! I thought I had not any, but I have the temper of a fiend, and I am trying to struggle against it. Oh! for heaven’s sake, let me alone!’
Kate took away her arm, and withdrew herself humbly, with a grieved and wondering pain in her heart. Ombra with the temper of a fiend! Ombra repulsing her, turning away from her, rejecting her sympathy! She crept to her little white bedroom, all silent, and frightened in her surprise, not knowing what to think. Was it a mere caprice—a cloud that would be over to-morrow?—was it only the result of illness and weariness? or had some sudden curtain been drawn aside, opening to her a new mystery, an unsuspected darkness in this sweet life?