Ombra

The little feminine party brightened up, as women do brighten always under the fresh and exhilarating influence of that breath from outside which only ‘the boys’ can bring. Soon Mrs. Anderson, and even Ombra herself, adopted that affectionate phrase—to throw another delightful, half-delusive veil over all possibilities that might be in the future. It gave a certain ‘family feeling,’ a mutual right to serve and be served; and at times Mrs. Anderson felt as if she could persuade herself that ‘the boys,’ who were so full of that kindly and tender gallantry which young men can pay to a woman old enough to be their mother, were in reality her own as much as the girls were—if not sons, nephews at the least. She said this to herself, by way, I fear, of excusing herself, and placing little pleasant shields of pretence between her and the reality. To be sure, she was the soul of propriety, and never left the young people alone together; but, as she said, ‘at whatever cost to herself,’ bore them company in all their rambles. But yet sometimes a recollection of Mr. Courtenay would cross her mind in an uncomfortable way. And sometimes a still more painful chill would seize her when she thought of Kate, who was thus thrown constantly into the society of the Berties. Kate treated them with the easiest friendliness, and they were sincerely (as Mrs. Anderson believed) brotherly to her. But, still, they were all young; and who could tell what fancies the girl might take into her head? These two thoughts kept her uncomfortable. But yet the life was happy and bright; and Ombra was happy. Her cloud of temper had passed away; her rebellions and philosophies had alike vanished into the air. She was brighter than ever she had been in her life—more loving and more sympathetic. Life ran on like a Summer day, though the Tramontana sometimes blew, and the dining-room was cold as San Lorenzo; but all was warm, harmonious, joyous within.

Kate, for one, never troubled her head to ask why. She accepted the delightful change with unquestioning pleasure. It was perfectly simple to her that her cousin should get well—that the cloud should disperse. In her thoughtlessness she did not even attribute this to any special cause, contenting herself with the happy fact that so it was.

‘How delightful it is that Ombra should have got so well!’ she said, with genuine pleasure, to her aunt.

‘Yes, dear,’ said Mrs. Anderson, looking at her wistfully. ‘It is the Italian air—it works like a charm.’

‘I don’t think it is the air,’ said Kate—‘privately, auntie, I think the Italian air is dreadfully chilly—at least, when one is out of the sun. It is the fun, and the stir, and the occupation. Fun is an excellent thing, and having something to do– Now, don’t say no, please, for I am quite sure of it. I feel so much happier, too.’

‘What makes you happier, my darling?’ said Mrs. Anderson, with a very anxious look.

‘Oh! I don’t know—everything,’ said Kate; and she gave her aunt a kiss, and went off singing, balancing a basket on her head with the pretty action of the girls whom she saw every day carrying water from the fountain.

Mrs. Anderson was alone, and this pretty picture dwelt in her mind, and gave her a great deal of thought. Was it only fun and occupation, as the girl said?—or was there something else unknown to Kate dawning in her heart, and making her life bright, all unconsciously to herself? ‘They are both as brothers to her,’ Mrs. Anderson said to herself, with pain and fear; and then she repeated to herself how good they were, what true gentlemen, how incapable of any pretence which could deceive even so innocent a girl as Kate. The truth was, Mrs. Anderson’s uneasiness increased every day. She was doing by Kate as she would that another should not do by Ombra. She was doubly kind and tender, lavishing affection and caresses upon her, but she was not considering Kate’s interest, or carrying out Mr. Courtenay’s conditions. And what could she do? 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. Her uncle himself could not do better for her than Lady Granton or Lady Caryisfort—most likely not half so well; and he will be hard to please indeed if he is discontented with that,’ Mrs. Anderson said to herself. But notwithstanding all these specious pleadings at that secret bar, where she was at once judge and advocate and culprit, she did not succeed in obtaining a favourable verdict; all she could do was to put the thought away from her by times, and persuade herself that no harm could ensue.

‘Look at Ombra now,’ Kate said, on the same afternoon to Francesca, whose Florentine lore she held in great estimation. Her conversation with her aunt had brought the subject to her mind, and a little curiosity about it had awakened within her when she thought it over. ‘See what change of air has done, as I told you it would—and change of scene.’

‘Mees Katta,’ said Francesca, ‘change of air is very good—I say nothing against that—but, as I have remarked on other occasions, one must not form one’s opinion on ze surface. Mademoiselle Ombra has changed ze mind.’

‘Oh! yes, I know you said she must do that, and you never go back from what you once said; but, Francesca, I don’t understand you in the least. How has she changed her mind?’

‘If Mademoiselle would know, it is best to ask Mees Ombra her-self,’ said Francesca, ‘not one poor servant, as has no way to know.’

‘Oh!’ cried Kate, flushing scarlet, ‘when, you are so humble there is an end of everything—I know that much by this time. There! I will ask Ombra herself; I will not have you make me out to be underhand. Ombra, come here one moment, please. I am so glad you are better; it makes me happy to see you look like your old self; but tell me one thing—my aunt says it is the change of air, and I say it is change of scene and plenty to do. Now, tell me which it is—I want to know.’

Ombra had been passing the open door; she came and stood in the doorway, with one hand upon the lintel. A pretty, flitting, evanescent colour had come upon her pale cheek, and there was now always a dewy look of feeling in her eyes, which made them beautiful. She stood and smiled, in the soft superiority of her elder age, upon the girl who questioned her. Her colour deepened a little, her eyes looked as if there was dew in them, ready to fall. ‘I am better,’ she said, in a voice which seemed to Kate to be full of combined and harmonious notes—‘I am better without knowing why—I suppose because God is so good.’

And then she went away softly, crooning the song which she had been humming to herself, in the lightness of her heart, as her cousin called her. Kate was struck with violent shame and self-disgust. ‘Oh, how wicked I am!’ she said, rushing to her own room and shutting herself in. And there she had a short but refreshing cry, though she was by no means given to tears. She had been brought up piously, to be sure—going to church, attending to her ‘religious duties,’ as a well-brought-up young woman ought to do. But it had not occurred to her to give any such visionary reason for anything that had happened to her. Kate preferred secondary causes, to tell the truth. But there was something more than met the ear in what Ombra said. How was it that God had been so good? Kate was very reverential of this new and unanswerable cause for her cousin’s restoration. But how was it?—there was still something, which she did not fathom, beyond.

Such pleasant days these were! When ‘the boys’ came to pay their greetings in the morning, ‘Where shall we go to-day?’ was the usual question. They went to the pictures two or three days in the week, seeing every scrap of painting that was to be found anywhere—from the great galleries, where all was light and order, to the little out-of-the-way churches, which hid, in the darkness of their heart of hearts, some one precious morsel of an altar-piece, carefully veiled from the common public. And, in the intervals, they would wander through the streets, learning the very houses by heart; gazing into the shop windows, at the mosaics, on the Lung-Arno; at the turquoises and pearls, which then made the Ponte Vecchio a soft blaze of colour, blue and white; at the curiosity shops, and those hung about with copies in which Titian was done into weakness, and Raphael to imbecility. Every bit of Florence was paced over by these English feet, one pair of which were often very tired, but never shrunk from the duty before them. Most frequently ‘the boys’ returned to luncheon, which even Mrs. Anderson, who knew better, was prejudiced enough to create into a steady-going English meal. In the afternoon, if they drove with Lady Caryisfort to the Cascine, the Berties came to the carriage-windows to tell them all that was going on; to bring them bouquets; to point out every new face. When they went to the theatre or opera in the evening, again the same indefatigable escort accompanied and made everything smooth for them. When they had invitations, the Berties, too, were invariably of the party. When they stayed at home the young men, even when not invited, would always manage to present themselves during the evening, uniting in pleasant little choruses of praise to Mrs. Anderson for staying at home. ‘After all, this is the best,’ the young hypocrites would say; and one of them would read while the ladies worked; or there would be ‘a little music,’ in which Ombra was the chief performer. Thus, from the beginning of the day to the end, they were scarcely separated, except for intervals, which gave freshness ever renewed to their meeting. It was like ‘a family party;’ so Mrs. Anderson said to herself a dozen times in a day.

CHAPTER XLI

‘Come and tell me all about yourself, Kate,’ said Lady Caryisfort, from her sofa. She had a cold, and was half an invalid. She had kept Kate with her while the others went out, after paying their call. Lady Caryisfort had enveloped her choice of Kate in the prettiest excuses: ‘I wish one of you girls would give up the sunshine, and stay and keep me company,’ she had said. ‘Let me see—no, I will not choose Ombra, for Ombra has need of all the air that is to be had; but Kate is strong—an afternoon’s seclusion will not make any difference to her. Spare me Kate, please, Mrs. Anderson. I want some one to talk to—I want something pleasant to look at. Let her stay and dine with me, and in the evening I will send her home.’

So it had been settled; and Kate was in the great, somewhat dim drawing-room, which was Lady Caryisfort’s abode. The house was one of the great palazzi in one of the less-known streets of Florence. It was on the sunny side, but long ago the sun had retreated behind the high houses opposite. The great lofty palace itself was like a mountain side, and half way down this mountain side came the tall windows, draped with dark velvet and white muslin, which looked out into the deep ravine, called a street, below. The room was very large and lofty, and had openings on two sides, enveloped in heavy velvet curtains, into two rooms beyond. The two other side walls were covered with large frescoes, almost invisible in this premature twilight; for it was not late, and the top rooms in the palace, which were inhabited by Cesare, the mosaic-worker, still retained the sunshine. All the decorations were of a grandiose character; the velvet hangings were dark, though warm in colour; a cheerful wood fire threw gleams of variable reflection here and there into the tall mirrors; and Lady Caryisfort, wrapped in a huge soft white shawl, which looked like lace, but was Shetland wool, lay on a sofa under one of the frescoes. As the light varied, there would appear now a head, now an uplifted arm, out of the historical composition above. The old world was all about in the old walls, in the waning light, in the grand proportions of the place; but the dainty lady in her shawl, the dainty table with its pretty tea-service, which stood within reach of her hand, and Kate, whose bloom not even the twilight could obliterate, belonged not to the old, but the new. There was a low, round chair, a kind of luxurious shell, covered with the warm, dark velvet, on the other side of the little table.

‘Come and sit down beside me here,’ said Lady Caryisfort, ‘and tell me all about yourself.’

‘There is not very much to tell,’ said Kate, ‘if you mean facts; but if it is me you want to know about, then there is a little more. Which would you like best?’

‘I thought you were a fact.’

‘I suppose I am,’ said Kate, with a laugh. ‘I never thought of that. But then, of course, between the facts that have happened to me and this fact, Kate Courtenay, there is a good deal of difference. Which would you like best? Me? But, then, where must I begin?’

‘As early as you can remember,’ said the inquisitor; ‘and, recollect, I should most likely have sought you out, and known all about you long before this, if you had stayed at Langton—so you may be perfectly frank with me.’

To tell the truth, all the little scene had been got up on purpose for this confidential talk; the apparently chance choice of Kate as a companion, and even Lady Caryisfort’s cold, were means to an end. Kate was of her own county, she was of her own class, she was thrown into a position which Lady Caryisfort thought was not the one she ought to have filled, and with all the fervour of a lively fancy and benevolent meaning she had thrown herself into this little ambush. The last words were just as near a mistake as it was possible for words to be, for Kate had no notion of being anything but frank; and the little assurance that she might be so safely almost put her on her guard.

‘You would not have been allowed to seek me out,’ said Kate. ‘Uncle Courtenay had made up his mind I was to know nobody—I am sure I don’t know why. He used to send me a new governess every year. It was the greatest chance that I was allowed to keep even Maryanne. He thought servants ought to be changed; and I am afraid,’ said Kate, with humility, ‘that I was not at all nice when I was at home.’

‘My poor child! I don’t believe you were ever anything but nice.’

‘No,’ said Kate, taking hold of the caressing hand which was laid on her arm; ‘you can’t think how disagreeable I was till I was fifteen; then my dear aunt—my good aunt, whom you don’t like so much as you might–’

‘How do you know that, you little witch?’

‘Oh, I know very well! She came home to England, after being years away, and she wrote to my uncle, asking if she might see me, and he was horribly worried with me at the time,’ said Kate. ‘I had worried him so that he could not eat his dinner even in peace—and Uncle Courtenay likes his dinner—so he wrote and said she might have me altogether if she pleased; and though he gave the very worst account of me, and said all the harm he could, auntie started off directly and took me home.’

‘That was kind of her, Kate.’

‘Kind of her! Oh, it was a great deal more than kind! Fancy how I felt when she cried and kissed me! I am not sure that anybody had ever kissed me before, and I was such a stupid—such a thing without a soul—that I was quite astonished when she cried. I actually asked her why? Whenever I think of it I feel my cheeks grow crimson.’ And here Kate, with a pretty gesture, laid one of Lady Caryisfort’s soft rose-tipped fingers upon her burning cheek.

‘You poor dear child! Well, I understand why Mrs. Anderson cried, and it was nice of her; but après,’ said Kate’s confessor.

‘Après? I was at home; I was as happy as the day was long. I got to be like other girls; they never paid any attention to me, and they petted me from morning to night.’

‘But how could that be?’ said Lady Caryisfort, whose understanding was not quite equal to the strain thus put upon it.

‘I forgot all about myself after that,’ said Kate. ‘I was just like other girls. Ombra thought me rather a bore at first; but, fortunately, I never found that out till she had got over it. She had always been auntie’s only child, and I think she was a trifle—jealous; I have an idea,’ said Kate–‘But how wicked I am to go and talk of Ombra’s faults to you!’

‘Never mind; I shall never repeat anything you tell me,’ said the confidante.

‘Well, I think, if she has a weakness, it is that perhaps she likes to be first. I don’t mean in any vulgar way,’ said Kate, suddenly flushing red as she saw a smile on her companion’s face, ‘but with people she loves. She would not like (naturally) to see her mother love anyone else as much as her! or even she would not like to see me–’

‘And how about other people?’ cried Lady Caryisfort, amused.

‘About other people I do not know what to say; I don’t think she has ever been tried,’ said Kate, with a grave and puzzled look. ‘She has always been first, without any question—or, at least, so I think; but that is puzzling—that is more difficult. I would rather not go into that question, for, by-the-bye, this is all about Ombra—it is not about me.’

‘That is true,’ said Lady Caryisfort; ‘we must change the subject, for I don’t want you to tell me your cousin’s secrets, Kate.’

‘Secrets! She has not any,’ said Kate, with a laugh.

‘Are you quite sure of that?’

‘Sure of Ombra! Of course I must be. If I were not quite sure of Ombra, whom could I believe in? There are no secrets,’ said Kate, with a little pride, ‘among us.’

‘Poor child!’ thought Lady Caryisfort to herself; but she said nothing, though, after a while, she asked gently, ‘Were you glad to come abroad? I suppose it was your guardian’s wish?’

Once more Kate laughed.

‘That is the funniest thing of all,’ she said. ‘He came to pay us a visit; and fancy he, who never could bear me to have a single companion, arrived precisely on my birthday, when we were much gayer than usual, and had a croquet party! It was as good as a play to see his face. But he made my aunt promise to take us abroad. I suppose he thought we could make no friends abroad.’

‘But in that he has evidently been mistaken, Kate.’

‘I don’t know. Except yourself, Lady Caryisfort, what friends have we made? You have been very kind, and as nice as it is possible to be–’

‘Thanks, dear. The benefit has been mine,’ said Lady Caryisfort, in an undertone.

‘But we don’t call Lady Granton a friend,’ continued Kate, ‘nor the people who have left cards and sent us invitations since they met us there. And until we came to Florence we had not met you.’

‘But then there are these two young men—Mr. Eldridge and Mr. Hardwick.’

‘Oh! the Berties,’ said Kate; and she laughed. ‘They don’t count, surely; they are old friends. We did not require to come to Italy to make acquaintance with them.’

‘Perhaps you came to Italy to avoid them?’ said Lady Caryisfort, drawing her bow at a venture.

Kate looked her suddenly in the face with a start; but the afternoon had gradually grown darker, and neither could make out what was in the other’s face.

‘Why should we come to Italy to avoid them?’ said Kate, gravely.

Her new seriousness quite changed the tone of her voice. She was thinking of Ombra and all the mysterious things that had happened that Summer day after the yachting. It was more than a year ago, and she had almost forgotten; but somehow, Kate could not tell how, the Berties had been woven in with the family existence ever since.

Lady Caryisfort gave her gravity a totally different meaning, ‘So that is how it is,’ she said to herself.

‘If I were you, Kate,’ she said aloud, ‘I would write and tell my guardian all about it, and who the people are whom you are acquainted with here. I think he has a right to know. Would he be quite pleased that the Berties, as you call them, should be with you so much? Pardon me if I say more than I ought.’

‘The Berties!’ said Kate, now fairly puzzled. ‘What has Uncle Courtenay to do with the Berties? He is not Ombra’s guardian, but only mine: and they have nothing to do with me.’

‘Oh! perhaps I am mistaken,’ said Lady Caryisfort; and she changed the subject dexterously, leading Kate altogether away from this too decided suggestion. They talked afterwards of everything in earth and heaven; but at the end of that little dinner, which they ate tête-à-tête, Kate returned to the subject which in the meantime had been occupying a great part of her thoughts.

‘I have been thinking of what you said about Uncle Courtenay,’ she said, quite abruptly, after a pause. ‘I do write to him about once every month, and I always tell him whom we are seeing. I don’t believe he ever reads my letters. He is always paying visits through the Winter when Parliament is up, and I always direct to him at home. I don’t suppose he ever reads them. But that, of course, is not my fault, and whenever we meet anyone new I tell him. We don’t conceal anything; my aunt never permits that.’

‘And I am sure it is your own feeling too,’ cried Lady Caryisfort. ‘It is always best.’

And she dismissed the subject, not feeling herself possessed of sufficient information to enter into it more fully. She was a little shaken in her own theory on the subject of the Berties, one of whom at least she felt convinced must have designs on Kate’s fortune. That was ‘only natural;’ but at least Kate was not aware of it. And Lady Caryisfort was half annoyed and half pleased when one of her friends asked admittance in the evening, bringing with her the young Count Buoncompagni, whom Kate had met at the Embassy. It was a Countess Strozzi, an aunt of his, and an intimate of Lady Caryisfort’s, who was his introducer. There was nothing to be said against the admission of a good young man who had come to escort his aunt in her visit to her invalid friend, but it was odd that they should have chosen that particular night, and no other. Kate was in her morning dress, as she had gone to make a morning call, and was a little troubled to be so discovered; but girls look well in anything, as Lady Caryisfort said to herself, with a sigh.

CHAPTER XLII

It was about this time, about two months after their arrival in Florence, and when the bright and pleasant ‘family life’ we have been describing had gone on for about six weeks in unbroken harmony, that there began to breathe about Kate, like a vague, fitful wind, such as sometimes rises in Autumn or Spring, one can’t tell how or from whence, a curious sense of isolation, of being somehow left out and put aside in the family party. For some time the sensation was quite indefinite. She felt chilled by it; she could not tell how. Then she would find herself sitting alone in a corner, while the others were grouped together, without being able to explain to herself how it happened. It had happened several times, indeed, before she thought of attempting to explain so strange an occurrence; and then she said to herself that of course it was mere chance, or that she herself must have been sulky, and nobody else was aware.

A day or two, however, after her visit to Lady Caryisfort, there came a little incident which could not be quite chance. In the evening Mrs. Anderson sat down by her, and began to talk about indifferent subjects, with a little air of constraint upon her, the air of one who has something not quite pleasant to say. Kate’s faculties had been quickened by the change which she had already perceived, and she saw that something was coming, and was chafed by this preface, as only a very frank and open nature can be. She longed to say, ‘Tell me what it is, and be done with it.’ But she had no excuse for such an outcry. Mrs. Anderson only introduced her real subject after at least an hour’s talk.

‘By-the-bye,’ she said—and Kate knew in a moment that now it was coming—‘we have an invitation for to-morrow, dear, which I wish to accept, for Ombra and myself, but I don’t feel warranted in taking you—and, at the same time, I don’t like the idea of leaving you.’

‘Oh! pray don’t think of me, aunt,’ said Kate, quickly. A flush of evanescent anger at this mode of making it known suddenly came over her. But, in reality, she was half stunned, and could not believe her ears. It made her vague sense of desertion into something tangible at once. It realised all her vague feelings of being one too many. But, at the same time, it stupefied her. She could not understand it. She did not look up, but listened with eyes cast down, and a pain which she did not understand in her heart.