SUNDAY was their last evening at Shanklin, and they were all rather melancholy—even Kate, who had been to church three times, and to the Sunday school, and over the almshouses, and had filled up the interstices between these occupations by a succession of tearful rambles round the Rectory garden with Lucy Eldridge, whose tears flowed at the smallest provocation. ‘I will remember everything you have told me,’ Lucy protested. ‘I will go to the old women every week, and take them their tea and sugar—for oh! Kate, you know papa does not approve of money—and I will see that the little Joliffes are kept at school—and I will go every week to see after your flowers; but oh! what shall I do without you? I shan’t care about my studies, or anything; and those duets which we used to play together, and our German, which we always meant to take up—I shall not have any heart for them now. Oh! Kate, I wish you were not going! But that is selfish. Of course I want you to have the pleasure; only——’
‘I wish you were going,’ said Kate—‘I wish everybody was coming; but, as that is impossible, we must just make the best of it; and if anybody should take the Cottage, and you should go and make as great friends with them as you ever did with me——’
‘How can you think so?’ said Lucy, with fresh tears.
‘Well,’ said Kate, ‘if I were very good, I suppose I ought to hope you would make friends with them; but I am not so frightened of being selfish as you are. One must be a little selfish—but for that, people would have no character at all.’
‘Oh! Kate, if mamma were to hear you——’
‘I should not mind. Mrs. Eldridge knows as well as I do. Giving in to other people is all very well; but if you have not the heart or the courage to keep something of your very own, which you won’t give away, what is the good of you? I don’t approve of sacrificing like that.’
‘I am sure you would sacrifice yourself, though you speak so,’ said Lucy. ‘Oh! Kate, you would sacrifice anything—even a—person—you loved—if some one else loved him.’
‘I should do nothing of the sort,’ said Kate, stoutly. ‘In the first place, you mean a man, I suppose, and it is only women who are called persons. I should do nothing of the sort. What right should I have to sacrifice him if he were fond of me, and hand him over to some one else? That is not self-sacrifice—it is the height of impertinence; and if he were not fond of me, of course there would be nothing in my power. Oh, no; I am not that sort of person. I will never give up any one’s love or any one’s friendship to give it to another. Now, Lucy, remember that. And if you are as great friends with the new people as you are with me——’
‘What odd ideas you have!’ said Lucy. ‘I suppose it is because you are so independent and a great lady; and it seems natural that everybody should yield to you.’
Upon which Kate flushed crimson.
‘How mean you must think me! To stand up for my own way because I shall be rich. But never mind, Lucy. I don’t suppose you can understand, and I am fond of you all the same. I am fond of you now; but if you go and forget me, and go off after other people, you don’t know how different I can be. I shall hate you—I shall——’
‘Oh! Kate, don’t be so dreadful!’ cried Lucy. ‘What would mamma say?’
‘Then don’t provoke me,’ said Kate. And then they fell back upon more peaceful details, and the hundred commissions which Lucy undertook so eagerly. I am not sure that Kate was quite certain of the sincerity of her self-sacrificing friend. She made a great many wise reflections on the subject when she had left her, and settled it with a philosophy unusual to her years.
‘She does not mean to be insincere,’ Kate mused to herself. ‘She does not understand. If there is nothing deeper in it, how can she help it? When the new people come, she will be quite sure she will not care for them; and then they will call, and she will change her mind. I suppose I will change my mind too. How queer people are! But, at all events, I don’t pretend to be better than I am.’ And with a little premonitory smart, feeling that her friend was already, in imagination, unfaithful, Kate walked home, looking tenderly at everything.
‘Oh! how lovely the sea is!’ she said to herself—‘how blue, and grey, and green, and all sorts of colours! I hope it will not be rough when we cross to-morrow. I wonder if the voyage from Southampton will be disagreeable, and how Ombra will stand it. Is Ombra really ill now, or is it only her mind? Of course she cannot turn round to my aunt and say it is her mind, or that the Berties had anything to do with it. I wonder what really happened that night; and I wonder which it is. She cannot be in love with them both at once, and they cannot be both in love with her, or they would not be such friends. I wonder—— but, there, I am doing nothing but wondering, and there are so many things that are queer. How beautiful that white headland is with a little light about it, as if the day had forgotten to carry all that belonged to it away! And perhaps I may never see it any more. Perhaps I may never come back to the Cottage, or the cliffs, or the sea. What a long time I have been here—and what a horrid disagreeable girl I was! I think I must be a little better now. I am not so impertinent, at all events, though I do like to meddle. I suppose I shall always like to meddle. Oh! I wonder how I shall feel when I go back again to Langton-Courtenay? I am eighteen past, and in three years I shall be able to do whatever I like. Lucy said a great lady—a great lady! I think, on the whole, I like the idea. It is so different from most other people. I shall not require to marry unless I please, or to do anything that is disagreeable. And if I don’t set the parish to rights! The poor folks shall be all as happy as the day is long,’ cried Kate to herself, with energy. ‘They shall have each a nice garden, and a bit of potato-ground, and grass for a cow. And what if I were to buy a quantity of those nice little Brittany cows when we are abroad? Auntie thinks they are the best. How comfortable everybody will be with a cow and a garden! But, oh dear! what a long time it will be first! and I don’t know if I shall ever see this dear Cottage, and the bay, and the headland, and all the cliffs and the landslips, and the ups and the downs again.’
‘Mees Katta, you vill catzh ze cold,’ said Francesca, coming briskly up to her. ‘It is not so beautiful this road, that you should take the long looks, and have the air so dull. Sorry, no, she is not sorry—my young lady is not sorry to go to see Italy, and ze mountains, and ze world—— ’
‘Not quite that, Francesca,’ said Kate; ‘but I have been so happy at the Cottage, and I was thinking what if I should never see it again!’
‘That is what you call non-sense,’ said Francesca. ‘Why should not Mademoiselle, who is verra young, comm back and zee all she lofs? If it was an old, like me—but I think nothink, nothink of ze kind, for I always comms back, like what you call ze bad penny. This is pretty, but were you once to see Italy, Mees Katta, you never would think no more of this—never no more!’
‘Indeed, I should!’ cried Kate, indignantly; ‘and if this was the ugliest place in England, and your Italy as beautiful as heaven, I should still like this best.’
Francesca laughed, and shook her little brown head.
‘Wait till my young lady see,’ she said—‘wait till she see. The air is never damp like this, but sweet as heaven, as Mees Katta says; and the sea blue, all blue; you never see nozing like it. It makes you well, you English, only to see Italy. What does Mademoiselle say?’
‘Oh! do you think the change of air will cure Ombra?’ cried Kate.
‘No,’ said Francesca, turning round upon her, ‘not the change of air, but the change of mind, will cure Mees Ombra. What she wants is the change of mind.’
‘I do not understand you,’ said Kate. ‘I suppose you mean the change of scene, the novelty, the——’
‘I mean the change of ze mind,’ said Francesca; ‘when she will understand herself, and the ozer people’s; when she knows to do right, and puts away her face of stone, then she will be well—quite well. It is not sickness; it is her mind that makes ill, Mees Katta. When she will put ze ice away and be true, then she shall be well.’
‘Oh, Francesca, you talk like an old witch, and I am frightened for you!’ cried Kate. ‘I don’t believe in illness of the mind; you will see Ombra will get better as soon as we begin to move about.’
‘As soon as she change her mind she will be better,’ said the oracular Francesca. ‘There is nobody that tells her the truth but me. She is my child, and I lof her, and I tell her the trutt.’
‘I think I see my aunt in the garden,’ said Kate, hurrying on; for though she was very curious, she was honourable, and did not wish to discover her cousin’s secrets through Francesca’s revelations.
‘If your aunt kill me, I care not,’ said Francesca, ‘but my lady is the most good, the most sense—— She knows Mees Ombra, and she lets me talk. She is cured when she will change the mind.’
‘I don’t want to hear any more, please,’ said honourable Kate. But Francesca went on nodding her head, and repeating her sentiment: ‘When she change the mind, she will be well,’ till it got to honest Kate’s ears, and mixed with her dreams. The mother and daughter were in the garden, talking not too cheerfully. A certain sadness was in the air. The lamp burned dimly in the drawing-room, throwing a faint, desolate light over the emptiness. ‘This is what it will look like to-morrow,’ said Kate; and she cried. And the others were very much disposed to follow her example. It was the last night—words which are always melancholy; and presently poor Mr. Sugden stole up in the darkness, and joined them, with a countenance of such despair that poor Kate, excited, and tired, and dismal as she herself felt, had hard ado to keep from laughing. The new-comer added no cheer to the little party. He was dismal as Don Quixote, and, poor fellow, as simple-minded and as true.
And next morning they went away. Mr. Courtenay himself, who had lingered in the neighbourhood, paying a visit to some friends, either from excess of kindness, or determination to see the last of them, met them at Southampton, and put them into the boat for Havre, the nearest French port. Kate had her Maryanne, who, confounded by the idea of foreign travel, was already helpless; and the two other ladies were attended by old Francesca, as brisk and busy as a little brown bee, who was of use to everybody, and knew all about luggage and steamboats. Mr. Sugden, who had begged that privilege from Mrs. Anderson, went with them so far, and pointed out the ships of the fleet as they passed, and took them about the town, indicating all its principal wonders to them, as if he were reading his own or their death-warrants.
‘If it goes on much longer, I shall laugh,’ whispered Kate, in her aunt’s ear.
‘It would be very cruel of you,’ said that kind woman. But even her composure was tried. And in the evening they sailed, with all the suppressed excitement natural to the circumstances.
‘You have the very best time of the year for your start,’ said Mr. Courtenay, as he shook hands with them.
‘And, thanks to you, every comfort in travelling,’ said Mrs. Anderson.
Thus they parted, with mutual compliments. Mr. Sugden wrung her hand, and whispered hoarsely, ‘Remember—like her brother!’ He stalked like a ghost on shore. His face was the last they saw when the steamboat moved, as he stood in the grey of the evening, grey as the evening, looking after them as long as they were visible. The sight of him made the little party very silent. They made no explanation to each other; but Kate had no longer any inclination to laugh. ‘Like a brother!—like her brother!’ These words, the Curate, left to himself, said over and over in his heart as he walked back and forward on the pier for hours, watching the way they had gone. The same soft evening breeze which helped them on, blew about him, but refreshed him not. The object of his life was gone.