LONG after Kate’s little bedchamber had fallen into darkness, the light still twinkled in the windows of the Cottage drawing-room. The lamp was still alight at midnight, and Ombra and her mother sat together, with the marks of tears on their cheeks, still talking, discussing, going over their difficulties.
‘I could bear him to go away,’ Ombra had said, in her passion; ‘I could bear never to see him again. Sometimes I think I should be glad. Oh! I am ashamed—ashamed to the bottom of my heart to care for one who perhaps cares no longer for me! if he would only go away; or if I could run away, and never more see him again! It is not that, mamma—it is not that. It is my own fault that I am unhappy. After what he said to me, to see him with—her! Yes, though I should die with shame, I will tell you the truth. He comes and looks at me as if I were a naughty child, and then he goes and smiles and talks to her—after all he said. Oh! it is temper, mamma, vile temper and jealousy, and I don’t know what! I hate her then, and him; and I detest myself. I could kill myself, so much am I ashamed!’
‘Ombra! Ombra! my darling, don’t speak so!—it is so unlike you!’
‘Yes,’ she said, with a certain scorn, ‘it is so unlike me that I was appalled at myself when I found it out. But what do you know about me, mother? How can you tell I might not be capable of anything that is bad, if I were only tempted, as well as this?’
‘My darling! my darling!’ said the mother, in her consternation, not knowing what to say.
‘Yes,’ the girl went on, ‘your darling, whom you have brought up out of the reach of evil, who was always so gentle, and so quiet, and so good. I know—I remember how I have heard people speak of me. I was called Ombra because I was such a shadowy, still creature, too gentle to make a noise. Oh! how often I have heard that I was good; until I was tempted. If I were tempted to murder anybody, perhaps I should be capable of it. I feel half like it sometimes now.’
Mrs. Anderson laid her hand peremptorily on her daughter’s arm.
‘This is monstrous!’ she said. ‘Ombra, you have talked yourself into a state of excitement. I will not be sorry for you any longer. It is mere madness, and it must be brought to a close.’
‘It is not madness!’ she cried—‘I wish it were. I sometimes hope it will come to be. It is temper!—temper! and I hate it! And I cannot struggle against it. Every time he goes near her—every time she speaks to him! Oh! it must be some devil, do you think—like the devils in the Bible—that has got possession of me?’
‘Ombra, you are ill—you must go to bed,’ said her mother. ‘Why do you shake your head? You will wear yourself into a fever; and what is to become of me? Think a little of me. I have troubles, too, though they are not like yours. Try to turn your mind, dear, from what vexes you, and sympathise with me. Think what an unpleasant surprise to me to see that disagreeable old man; and that he should have come to-day, of all days; and the interview I shall have to undergo to-morrow——’
‘Mamma,’ said Ombra, with reproof in her tone, ‘how strange it is that you should think of such trifles. What is he to you? A man whom you care nothing for—whom we have nothing to do with.’
‘My dear,’ said Mrs. Anderson, with eyes steadily fixed upon her daughter, ‘I have told you before it is for Kate’s sake.’
‘Oh! Kate!’ Ombra made a gesture of impatience. In her present mood, she could not bear her cousin’s name. But her mother had been thinking over many things during this long afternoon, which had been so gay, and dragged so heavily. She had considered the whole situation, and had made up her mind, so far as it was practicable, to a certain course of action. Neither for love’s sake, nor for many other considerations, could she spare Kate. Even Ombra’s feelings must yield, though she had been so indiscreet even as to contemplate the idea of sacrificing Kate for Ombra’s feelings. But now she had thought better of it, and had made up her mind to take it for granted that Ombra too could only feel as a sister to Kate.
‘Ombra, you are warped and unhappy just now; you don’t do justice either to your cousin or yourself. But even at this moment, surely you cannot have thrown aside everything; you cannot be devoid of all natural feeling for Kate.’
‘I have no natural feeling,’ she said, hoarsely. ‘Have not I told you so? I would not allow myself to say it till you put it into my head. But, mamma, it is true. I want her out of my way. Oh! you need not look so horrified; you thought so yourself this morning. From the first, I felt she was in my way. She deranged all our plans—she came between you and me. Let her go! she is richer than we are, and better off. Why should she stay here, interfering with our life? Let her go! I want her out of my way!’
‘Ombra!’ said Mrs. Anderson, rising majestically from her chair. She was so near breaking down altogether, and forgetting every other consideration for her child’s pleasure, that it was necessary to her to be very majestic. ‘Ombra, I should have thought that proper feeling alone—— Yes, proper feeling! a sense of what was fit and becoming in our position, and in hers. You turn away—you will not listen. Well, then, it is for me to act. It goes to my heart to feel myself alone like this, having to oppose my own child. But, since it must be so, since you compel me to act by myself, I tell you plainly, Ombra, I will not give up Kate. She is alone in the world; she is my only sister’s only child; she is——’
Ombra put her hands to her ears in petulance and anger.
‘I know,’ she cried; ‘spare me the rest. I know all her description, and what she is to me.’
‘She is five hundred a year,’ said Mrs. Anderson, secretly in her heart, with a heavy sigh, for she was ashamed to acknowledge to herself that this fact would come into the foreground. ‘I will not give the poor child up,’ she said, with a voice that faltered. Bitter to her in every way was this controversy, almost the first in which she had ever resisted Ombra. Though she looked majestic in conscious virtue, what a pained and faltering heart it was which she concealed under that resolute aspect! She put away the books and work-basket from the table, and lighted the candles, and screwed down the lamp with indescribable inward tremors. If she considered Ombra alone in the matter, and Ombra was habitually, invariably her first object, she would be compelled to abandon Kate, whom she loved—and loved truly!—and five hundred a year would be taken out of their housekeeping at once.
Poor Mrs. Anderson! she was not mercenary, she was fond of her niece, but she knew how much comfort, how much modest importance, how much ease of mind, was in five hundred a year. When she settled in the Cottage at first, she had made up her mind and arranged all her plans on the basis of her own small income, and had anxiously determined to ‘make it do,’ knowing that the task would be difficult enough. But Kate’s advent had changed all that. She had brought relief from many petty cares, as well as many comforts and elegancies with her. They could have done without them before she came, but now what a difference this withdrawal would make! Ombra herself would feel it. ‘Ombra would miss her cousin a great deal more than she supposes,’ Mrs. Anderson said to herself, as she went upstairs; ‘and, as for me, how I should miss her!’ She went into Kate’s room that night with a sense in her heart that she had something to make up to Kate. She had wronged her in thinking of the five hundred a year; but, for all that, she loved her. She stole into the small white chamber very softly, and kissed the sleeping face with most motherly fondness. Was it her fault that two sets of feelings—two different motives—influenced her? The shadow of Kate’s future wealth, of the splendour and power to come, stood by the side of the little white bed in which lay a single individual of that species of God’s creation which appeals most forcibly to all tender sympathies—an innocent, unsuspecting girl; and the shadow of worldly disinterestedness came into the room with the kind-hearted woman, who would have been good to any motherless child, and loved this one with all her heart. And it is so difficult to discriminate the shadow from the reality; the false from the true.
Mr. Courtenay came to the Cottage next morning, and had a solemn and long interview with Mrs. Anderson. Kate watched about the door, and hovered in the passages, hoping to be called in. She would have given a great deal to be able to listen at the keyhole, but reluctantly yielded to honour, which forbade such an indulgence. When she saw her uncle go away without asking for her, her heart sank; and still more did her heart sink when she perceived the solemn aspect with which her aunt came into the drawing-room. Mrs. Anderson was very solemn and stately, as majestic as she had been the night before, but there was relief and comfort in her eyes. She looked at the two girls as she came in with a smile of tenderness which looked almost like pleasure. Ombra was writing at the little table in the window—some of her poetry, no doubt. Kate, in a most restless state, had been dancing about from her needlework to her music, and from that to three or four books, which lay open, one here and one there, as she had thrown them down. When her aunt came in she stopped suddenly in the middle of the room, with a yellow magazine in her hand, almost too breathless to ask a question; while Mrs. Anderson seated herself at the table, as if in a pulpit, brimful of something to say.
‘What is it, auntie?’ cried Kate.
‘My dear children, both of you,’ said Mrs. Anderson, ‘I have something very important to say to you. You may have supposed, Kate, that I did not appreciate your excellent uncle; but now that I know his real goodness of heart, and the admirable feeling he has shown—Ombra, do give up your writing for a moment. Kate, your uncle is anxious to give us all a holiday—he wishes me to take you abroad.’
‘Abroad!’ cried both the girls together, one in a shrill tone, as of bewilderment and desperation, one joyous as delight could make it. Mrs. Anderson expanded gradually, and nodded her head.
‘For many reasons,’ she said, significantly, ‘your uncle and I, on talking it over, decided that the very best thing for you both would be to make a little tour. He tells me you have long wished for it, Kate. And to Ombra, too, the novelty will be of use——’
‘Novelty!’ said Ombra, in a tone of scorn. ‘Where does he mean us to go, then? To Japan, or Timbuctoo, I suppose.’
‘Not quite so far,’ said her mother, trying to smile. ‘We have been to a great many places, it is true, but not all the places in the world; and to go back to Italy, for instance, will be novelty, even though we have been there before. We shall go with every comfort, taking the pleasantest way. Ombra, my love!’
‘Oh! you must settle it as you please,’ cried Ombra, rising hastily. She put her papers quickly together; then, with her impetuous movements, swept half of them to the ground, and rushed to the door, not pausing to pick them up. But there she paused, and turned round, her face pale with passion. ‘You know you don’t mean to consult me,’ she said, hurriedly. ‘What is the use of making a pretence? You must settle it as you please.’
‘What is the matter?’ said Kate, after she had disappeared, growing pale with sympathy. ‘Oh! auntie dear, what is the matter? She was never like this before.’
‘She is ill, poor child,’ said the mother, who was distracted, but dared not show it. And then she indulged herself in a few tears, giving an excuse for them which betrayed nothing. ‘Oh! Kate, what will become of me if there is anything serious the matter? She is ill, and I don’t know what to do!’
‘Send for the doctor, aunt,’ suggested Kate.
‘The doctor can do nothing, dear. It is a—a complaint her father had. She would not say anything to the doctor. She has been vexed and bothered——’
‘Then this is the very thing for her,’ said Kate. ‘This will cure her. They say change is good for every one. We have been so long shut up in this poky little place.’
On other occasions Kate had sworn that the island and the cottage were the spots in all the world most dear to her heart. This was the first effect of novelty upon her. She felt, in a moment, that her aspirations were wide as the globe, and that she had been cooped up all her life.
‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Anderson, fervently, ‘I have felt it. We have not been living, we have been vegetating. With change she will be better. But it is illness that makes her irritable. You must promise me to be very gentle and forbearing with her, Kate.’
‘I gentle and forbearing to Ombra!’ cried Kate, half laughing, half crying—‘I! When I think what a cub of a girl I must have been, and how good—how good you both were! Surely everybody in the world should fail you sooner than I!’
‘My dear child,’ said Mrs. Anderson, kissing her with true affection; and once more there was a reason and feasible excuse for the tears of pain and trouble that would come to her eyes.
The plan was perfect—everything that could be desired; but if Ombra set her face against it, it must come to nothing. It was with this thought in her mind that she went upstairs to her troublesome and suffering child.