Mrs. Oliphant

“ Don’t you think so, dear Kate?’
‘Were you very fond of your uncle, Minnie?’
‘I—I never saw much of him. He has been thought to be going to die for ever so long,’ said Minnie. ‘He was very stout, and had not a very good temper. Oh! how wicked it is to remember that now! And he did not like girls; so that we never met. Mamma is very, very unhappy, of course.’
‘Yes, it is of course,’ Kate said to herself, with again that tinge of bitterness which was beginning to rise in her mind; ‘even when a man dies, it is of course that people are sorry. ”

“ Why should I care what people think? You may, Miss Blank, because they will find fault with you, and take away your pupils, and that sort of thing; but nobody can do anything to me.’ This was Kate’s vindication of her voice, which rang through all Langton-Courtenay clear as a bell, and sweet enough to hear, but imperative, decisive, high-pitched, and unceasing. When her uncle saw her, his first sensation was one of pleasure. She was waiting for him on the step before the front door, the sunshine surrounding her with a golden halo, made out of the stray golden luminous threads in her hair. ”

“ Kate had felt for years (she said all her life) that in that word ‘abroad’ every delight was included; and now she believed herself. The novelty and movement by themselves would have done a great deal; and the wonderful beauty of this virgin country, which looked as if no crowd of tourists had ever profaned it, as if it had kept its stillness, its stateliness and grandeur, and dazzling light and majestic glooms, all for their enjoyment, elevated her into a paradise of inward delight. Even Maryanne was moved, though chiefly by her mistress’s many and oft-repeated efforts to rouse her. ”

“ And then she turned, and rent herself, so to speak, remembering the sublime emptiness of that space on the wall where the Madonna dei Buoncompagni used to be.
‘If I can ever find it out anywhere, whatever it may cost, I will buy it, and send it back to him,’ Kate said, with a flush on her cheek. And next moment she cried with real distress, feeling for his disappointment, and asking herself why should not she do it?—why not? To make a man happy, and raise up an old house, is worth a woman’s while, surely, even though she might not be very much in love. ”

“ She is not very happy herself, the dear little Signorina. It is dreary for her seeing the other young lady with her lovers; but, perhaps, my beautiful young gentleman, it is not bad for you. When one sees another loved, one wishes to be loved one’s self; but it is hard for Mees Katta. She will be glad to have the Signor Conte’s flowers and his message.’
‘But take care, Francesca mia, you must say they are from my Lady Caryisfort,’ said Count Antonio, ‘and lay me at the feet of my little lady. I hunger—I thirst—I die to see her again! Will she not see my Lady Caryisfort to-day? ”

“ Doctors are of real use in the world—I would be a doctor, if I were you.’
‘But I should not at all like to be a doctor,’ said Bertie. ‘Of all trades in the world, that is the last I should choose. Talk of mothers’ meetings! a doctor is at every fool’s command, to run here and there; and besides—— I think, Miss Courtenay, you have made a mistake.’
‘I am only saying what I would do if it was me,’ said Kate, softly folding her hands. ‘I would rather be a doctor than any of the other things. And you ought to decide, Mr. Bertie; you will not be a boy much longer. ”

“ It was London, and Paris, and Florence all in one; the comfort, the exquisite fare, the society, all helped each other into perfection; and there was a certain flavour of distance and novelty in the old Italian palace which enhanced everything—the flavour of the past. This was not a thing to be had every day, like a Paris dinner. But in the evening Mr. Courtenay was less satisfied. When the great salon, with its warm velvet hangings and its dim{263} frescoes, began to fill, Buoncompagni turned up from some corner or other, and appeared as if by magic at Kate’s side. ”

“ Courtenay, ‘while the house is shut up, and there is no one to see to anything? Grieve is a good fellow, but I can’t give him Langton to live in, or make him into a Courtenay.’
‘I should hope not,’ said Kate, setting her small white teeth. By this time her whole countenance began to gleam with excitement and resolution, and that charm to which she always responded with such delight and readiness, the charm of novelty. Then she made a pause, and drew in her breath. ‘Uncle,’ she said, ‘I am not a child any longer. Why shouldn’t I go home, and open the house, and live as I ought? ”

“ Society had acquired a new charm. She had never been at anything more than ‘a little dance,’ or a country concert, and balls and operas held out their arms to her. One of the few diplomatic friends whom Mrs. Anderson had made in her consular career was at Florence; and even Mr. Courtenay could not object to his niece’s receiving the hospitalities of the Embassy. She was to ‘come out’ at the Ambassador’s ball—not in her full-blown glory, as an heiress and a great lady, but as Mrs. Anderson’s niece, a pretty, young, undistinguished English girl. Kate knew nothing about this, nor cared. ”

“ Spring, which makes everything and every one gay, which brings even to the sorrowful a touch of that reaction of nature that makes pain sorer for the moment, yet marks the new springing of life—fancy what it was to the sixteen-year-old girl, now first emancipated, among people who loved her, never judged her harshly, nor fretted her life with uncalled-for opposition!
Kate felt as if the primroses were a crowd of playmates, suddenly come to her out of the bountiful heart of nature. She gathered baskets full every day, and yet they never decreased. ”

“ It means mouldy hangings, horrible old frescoes, furniture (and very little of that) crumbling to pieces, and nothing in good condition but the coat of arms. Buoncompagni is quite a type of the class—a young, idle, do-nothing fellow, as noble as you like, and as poor as Job; good for leading a cotillion, and for nothing else in this world; and living in his mouldy old palace, like a snail in its shell.’
‘I don’t think you need to be so severe,’ said Kate, with flashing eyes. ‘If he is poor, it is not his fault; and he is not ashamed of it, as some people are. ”

“ It was not his fault.’
‘Please don’t speak of it,’ cried the girl. ‘If you could know how humbled I feel to think that it is that which has upset my whole life! Ill-temper, jealousy, envy, meanness—pleasant things to have in one’s heart! I fight with them, but I can’t overcome them. If I could only “not care!” How happy people are who can take things easily, and who don’t care!’
‘Very few people do,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘Those who have command of themselves don’t show their feelings, but most people feel more or less. The change, however, will do you good. ”

“ Nobody knew or remembered that it was her birthday. There was not so much as an old servant about the place to think of it. Maryanne, to be sure, might have remembered, but did not until next morning, when she broke forth with, ‘La, Miss Kate!’ into good wishes and regrets, which Kate, with a flushed face and sore heart, put a stop to at once. No, no one knew. It is a hard thing, even when one is old, to feel that such domestic anniversaries have fallen into oblivion, and no one cares any longer for the milestones of our life; but when one is young—! ”

“ The Madonna, who, good to everyone, is always specially good to an only son, had no doubt led into his very arms this wealth, which would save the house. So Antonio thought quite devoutly, without an idea in his good-natured soul that there was anything ignoble in his pursuit or in his gratitude. Without money he dared not have dreamed of marrying, and Kate was not one whom he could have ventured to fall in love with apart from the necessity of marriage. ”

“ Ombra’s shadowy cheek coloured deeper and deeper, her eyelashes drooped over it; she shrank from her mother’s eye.
‘Don’t say anything more,’ she said, with passionate deprecation. ‘Don’t! Talking can only make things worse. I am a fool! I am ashamed! I hate myself! It is temper—only temper, mamma!’
‘My own child—my only child!’ said the mother, caressing her; and then she whispered once more, ‘Ombra, would it be better for you if Kate were away?’
‘Better for me!’ The girl flushed up out of her languor and paleness like a sudden storm. ”

“ She must have every advantage, forsooth—freedom and society, and Heaven knows what besides; education as much as if she were going to earn her living as a governess; and even that crowning horror, Lovers, when the time came. Yes, there was no law in the realm forbidding an heiress to have lovers. Miss Blank might resign, not wishing to compromise herself: but he, the unhappy guardian, could not resign. It was not illegal for a young man to speak to Kate—any idle fellow, with an introduction, might chatter to her, and drive her protectors frantic, and yet could not be put into prison for it. ”

“ Nature has decked her so. I suppose I never, at my best, was anything like that.’
Ombra had improved very much since their arrival in Florence. Her fretfulness had much abated, and there was no envy in this sigh.
‘At your best, Ombra! My foolish darling, do you think your best is over?’ said the mother, with a smile.
‘I mean the bloom,’ said Ombra. ‘I never had any bloom—and Kate’s is wonderful. I think she gives a pearly, rosy tint to the very air. I was always a little shadow, you know!’
‘You will not do yourself justice,’ cried Mrs. Anderson. ‘Oh! Ombra, if you only knew how it grieves me! ”

“ Kate shrugged her shoulders with sham disdain; but she felt, with a certain gentle complacency, that it was true. A girl who has once been to a ball must go on. She cannot be shut up again in any nursery and school-room; she is emancipated for ever and ever; the glorious world is thrown open to her. The tarlatane which marked her bread-and-butter days would no doubt yield to more splendid garments; but she could not go back—she had made her entry into life.
Lady Caryisfort called next day—an event which filled Mrs. Anderson with satisfaction. No doubt Kate was the chief object of her visit ”

“ When one has a child, and such a child as our Ombra——’
‘My dear Francesca, we must not be prejudiced,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘Ombra is very sweet to you and me; and I think she is very lovely; but Kate is more beautiful than she is—Kate has such a bloom. I myself admire her very much—not of course so much as—my own child.’
‘If the Signora had said it, I should not have believed her,’ said Francesca. ‘I should be sorry to show any want of education to Madame, but I should not have believed her. Mademoiselle Katta is good child—I love her—I am what you call fond; but she is not like our Ombra. ”

“ Oh! my dear young lady,’ said Francesca, ‘you must not be imprudent. When we receive flowers from a beautiful young gentleman, we take them to our chamber, or we put them in our bosoms—we don’t dance and sing over them—or, at least, young ladies who have education, who know what the world expects of them, must not so behave. In my room, Mees Katta, you will find your flowers. They are sent from the English milady—Milady Caryisfort,’ Francesca added, demurely folding her arms upon her breast.
‘Oh! are they from Lady Caryisfort?’ said Kate, with a little disappointment. ”

“ The new-comers must be strangers, then, as Spigot was conducting them; and what stranger would take the liberty to come here?
Kate turned herself round in the chair. She was a little flushed with the fire, and she was in that state of mind when people think that anything may happen—nay, that it is contrary to the order of Nature when something does not happen, to change the aspect of the world. Lady Caryisfort turned away with a little shrug, which was half impatience, half admiration of the girl’s readiness to be moved by anything new. ”

“ Anderson? Oh! we are all heart-broken! What shall we do without them?’ rose the chorus.
Mrs. Anderson smiled her smile of greeting, and put on a proper look of concern for the loss of the Berties, and was cheerful about her daughter. She behaved herself as a model woman in the circumstances would behave, and she believed, and with some justice, that she had quite succeeded. She succeeded with the greater part of the party, no doubt; but there were two who looked at her with doubtful eyes—the Curate, about whom she had taken no precautions; and Kate, who knew every line of her face. ”

“ 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! ”

“ To make the discovery that Bertie Hardwick was nice, that he had an uncle with a park larger than the park at Langton-Courtenay; to learn that Langton-Courtenay was ‘small,’ and that she herself was a poor little thing. ‘What next?’ Kate asked herself. For all this had come to her knowledge in the course of half an hour. If life was to bring a succession of such surprises, how strange, how very strange it must be! ”

“ 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! ”

“ But, from what followed, it was evident that nobody else observed Kate, and she was still deep in her musings, when she was startled, and brought to instant life, by a voice which seemed to ring through the room to her like a trumpet-note of defiance.
‘Mother, this cannot go on!’ Ombra cried out all at once. ‘If it lasts much longer I shall hate her. I shall want to kill her!’
‘Ombra!’
‘It is true, I shall want to kill her! Oh! not actually with my hands! One never knows what one could do till one is tempted. Still I think I would not touch her. But, God help us, mother, God help us! ”

“ When it is for your good to be warm, you will be ice: you will not be able more to help yourself. You will make love freeze up like the water in the torrent; you will lay it in a tomb of snow, you will build the ice-monument over it, and then all you can do will be vain—it will live no more. Signorina Ghiaccia, if thus you go on, this is what will come to you.’
And with this parting address, Francesca darted forth, not disdaining, like a mere mortal and English domestic, to shut the door with some violence. Ombra had her cry out by herself, while Kate sat wondering in the next room. ”

“ I think it is much better not to be hampered by any fixed time for return.’
‘Oh, much better!’ said the chorus. ‘It is such a bore generally; just when one is beginning to know people, and to enjoy oneself, one has to pack up and go away; but there are few people, of course, who are so free as you are, dear Mrs. Anderson—you have no duty to call you back. And then you know the Continent so well, and how to travel, and all about it. How I envy you! But it will be such a loss for us. I don’t know what we shall do all the Summer through without you and dear Ombra and Kate. ”

“ You can’t, you know, unless you’ve seen life a bit, and understand folk’s ways, and how things strike them. Turn round, if you please, Miss, till I fit it under the arm. It’s just like as if Miss Ombra there should think she could make a dress, because she can draw a pretty figure. You think you could, Miss?—then just you try, that’s all I have got to say. The gentlemen think like you. They read their books, and they think they understand folk’s hearts, but they don’t, any more than you know how to gore a skirt. Miss Kate, if you don’t keep still, I can’t get on. ”

“ Can we bear that the world should see what a snow-maiden we have between us? We did it for your sake, ungrateful one, that no one should see——’
‘I wish you would let me alone,’ said Ombra; and though she was seventeen—two years older than Kate—and had a high sense of her dignity, she began to cry. ‘If you only would be true, I should not mind; but you have so much effusion—you say more than you mean, both mamma and you.’
‘Seems to me that it is better to be too kind than too cold,’ said Francesca, indignantly. ‘And this poor little angel, the orphan, the child of the Madonna—ah! ”

“ Lady Caryisfort was a woman of the world. She would not be so shocked as good Mrs. Hardwick would be; and then she could have no prejudice in the matter, and no temptation to betray poor Ombra’s secret. Poor Ombra! Kate was not one of those people who can dismiss an offender out of their mind as soon as his sin is proved. All kinds of relentings, and movements of pity, and impulses to help, came whispering about her after the first shock. To be sure Ombra had her mother to protect and care for her, and how could Kate interfere, a young girl? ”

“ People in our position cannot have a life all to ourselves. We have our duties to society; and I have my duty to you, Ombra. Do you think I could be so selfish as to keep you altogether to myself, and never let you see the world, or have your chance of choosing some one who will take care of you better than I can?’
‘Please don’t,’ said Ombra. ‘I am quite content with you; and there is not much at Shanklin that can be called society or the world.’
‘The world is everywhere,’ said Mrs. Anderson, with dignity. ”

“ Ombra, being still so young herself, did not characterise it so; nor, indeed, was she aware of this glory of freshness which, at the present moment, was Kate’s crowning charm. But she wondered at her cousin’s beauty, and she did not realise her own, which was so different. ‘Shall I be jealous—shall I hate her?’ she asked herself. At home she had hated her for a moment now and then. Would it be the same again?—was her own mind so mean, her character so low, as that? Thinking well of one’s self, or thinking ill of one’s self, requires only a beginning ”

“ But they did not advance; and she stood in an icy stupor, feeling as if she were not able to move.
‘Kate,’ said Ombra, from the door, ‘I have been like an evil spirit to you. I will not come in again, unless you will give me your hand and say I am to come.’
She put herself in motion then, languidly. How different a real moment of excitement always is from the visionary one which you go over and over in your own mind, and to which you get used in all its details! ”

“ They can never stay very long,’ she said, faltering and stammering, as if she did not quite know what she was saying. But for this Kate would have broken out into aroused remonstrance. Can never stay very long! Why, they stayed generally till midnight, or near it. These words were on Kate’s lips, but she held them back, partly for her aunt’s sake, partly—she could not tell why. Ombra, overcast in a moment from all her brightness, sat behind, drawing her chair back, and began to arrange and put away the silk she had been winding. It shone in the lamplight, vivid and warm in its rich colour. ”

“ Anderson was chilly, and had placed her chair in front of the fire.
‘She is no more a shadow than we all are,’ said Ombra. ‘When the light comes, that vast apparition will disappear, and she will be herself. Kate, don’t you see the parable? We are all stolen out of ourselves, made into ghosts, till the light comes.’
‘I don’t understand parables,’ said Kate.
‘I wish you did this one,’ said Ombra, with a sigh, ‘for it is true.’ And then there was silence for a time, a silence which Kate broke by saying,
‘There is the new moon. ”

“ Kate, who roamed up and down everywhere, and had soon all the facility of a young mountaineer, would stop at the open church-door as she came down from the hills, alpenstock in hand, sunburnt and agile as a young Diana.
‘You are not going to turn a Roman Catholic, Ombra?’ she said. ‘I think it would make my aunt very unhappy.’
‘I am not going to turn anything,’ said Ombra. ‘I shall never be different from what I am—never any better. One tries and tries, and it is no good.’
‘Then stop trying, and come up on the hills and shake it off,’ said Kate. ”

“ Kate was rich, and could have whatever she pleased; but Ombra had nothing but the people who loved her, and she could not bear any interference with them. It was the parable of the ewe-lamb over again, she said to herself; and thus was exciting herself, and swelling her excitement to a higher and higher pitch, when her mother went in—her mother, for whom all this tempest was preparing and upon whom it was about to fall.
‘You have been to see her, mamma! You never think of your own dignity! ”

“ It made her tingle all over with the most curious mixture of pain, and irritation, and nervous excitement. The dancing was going on merrily, and there was a hum of talking and soft laughter all around; people passing and repassing, greeting each other, shaking hands, introducing to each other their common friends. But the three ladies who knew nobody stood by themselves, and felt anything but happy.
‘If this is what you call a ball, I should much rather have been at home,’ said Kate, with indignation.
‘It is not cheerful, is it?’ said Ombra. ”

“ The happiness of her own child was involved; she was bound hand and foot by her love for Ombra. ‘Then,’ she would say to herself, ‘Kate is getting no harm. She is eighteen past—quite old enough to be “out”—indeed, it would be wrong of me to deny her what pleasure I can, and it is not as if I took her wherever we were asked. I am sure, so far as I am concerned, I should have liked much better to go to the Morrises—nice, pleasant people, not too grand to make friends of—but I refused, for Kate’s sake. She shall go nowhere but in the very best society. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Some of her poems, as she called them, had been printed in little religious magazines and newspapers—for Ombra’s muse was as yet highly religious. She had every reason to believe herself one of the stars that shine unseen—a creature superior to the ordinary run of humanity. She read more than any one she knew, and thought, or believed that she thought, deeply on a great many subjects. And one of these subjects naturally was that of the position of women. She was girl enough, and had enough of nature in her, to enjoy the momentary brightness of the firmament which the two Berties had brought. ”