OMBRA
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT
AUTHOR OF
‘MADONNA MARY,’ ‘FOR LOVE AND LIFE,’
‘SQUIRE ARDEN,’ ‘MAY,’ ETC.
_Simon._ ... ‘Your tale, my friend,
Is made from nothing, and of nothings spun--
Foam on the ocean, hoar-frost on the grass,
The gossamer threads that sparkle in the sun
Patterned with morning dew--things that are born
And die, are come and gone, blossom and fade
Ere day mature has drawn one sober breath.’
_Philip._ ’Tis so; and so is life; and so is youth;
Foam, frost, and dew; what would you? Maidens call
That filmy gossamer the Virgin’s threads,
And virgins’ lives are woven of threads like those.’
_The Two Poor Maidens._
NEW EDITION
LONDON CHAPMAN AND HALL (LIMITED) 193 PICCADILLY. 1880.
POPULAR TWO SHILLING NOVELS.
_BY MRS. OLIPHANT._
MAY
FOR LOVE AND LIFE
LAST OF THE MORTIMERS
SQUIRE ARDEN
OMBRA
MADONNA MARY
THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
HARRY MUIR
HEART AND CROSS
MAGDALEN HEPBURN
THE HOUSE ON THE MOOR
LILLIESLEAF
LUCY CROFTON.
London: CHAPMAN & HALL (LIMITED), 193 Piccadilly.
This book was written by the desire and at the suggestion of a dear
friend, to whom it would have been dedicated had Providence
permitted. But since then, all suddenly and unawares, he has been
called upon to take that journey which every man must take. Upon
the grave which has reunited him to his sweet wife, who went
before, I lay this poor little soon-fading handful of mortal
flowers. H. B. and E. B., faithful friends, wheresoever you may be
in His wide universe, God bless you, dear and gentle souls!
_OMBRA._
CHAPTER I.
Katherine Courtenay was an only child, and a great heiress; and both her
parents had died before she was able to form any clear idea of them. She
was brought up in total ignorance of the natural life of childhood--that
world hemmed in by the dear faces of father and mother, brother and
sister, which forms to most girls the introductory chapter into life.
She never knew it. She lived in Langton-Courtenay--with her nurse first,
and then with her governess, the centre of a throng of servants, in the
immense desolate house. Even in these relationships the lonely child did
not find the motherhood which lonely children so often find in the care
of some pitying, tender-hearted stranger. Her guardian, who was her
father’s uncle, an old man of the world, was one of those who distrust
old servants, and accept from their inferiors nothing more than can be
paid for. He had made up his mind from the beginning that little Kate
should not be eaten up by locusts, as he said--that she should have no
kind of retainers about her, flattering her vanity with unnecessary
affection and ostentatious zeal; but only honest servants (as honest, he
would add, as they ever are), who expected nothing but the day’s wages
for the day’s work. To procure this, he allowed no one to remain long
with his ward. Her nurse was changed half a dozen times during the
period in which she required such a guardian; and her governess had
shared the same fate. She had never been allowed to attach herself to
one more than another. When any signs of feeling made themselves
apparent, Mr. Courtenay sent forth his remorseless decree. ‘Kate shall
never be any woman’s slave, nor any old servant’s victim, if I can help
it,’ he said. He would have liked, had that been practicable, to turn
her into a public school, and let her ‘find her level,’ as boys do; but
as that was not practicable, he made sure, at least, that no sentimental
influences should impair his nursling’s independence and vigour. Thus
the alleviations which natural sympathy and pity might have given her,
were lost to Kate. Her attendants were afraid to love her; her
often-changed instructresses had to shut their hearts against the appeal
of compassion, as well as the appeal made by the girl’s natural
attractiveness. She had to be to them as princesses are but rarely to
their teachers and companions--a half-mistress, half-pupil. An act of
utter self-renunciation was required of them before ever they set foot
in Langton-Courtenay. Mr. Courtenay himself made the engagement, and
prescribed its terms. He paid very liberally; and he veiled his
insolence under the garb of perfect politeness. ‘I do not wish Miss
Courtenay to make any friends out of her own class,’ he would say. ‘I
shall do my utmost to make the temporary connection between my niece and
you advantageous to yourself, Miss ----. But I must exact, on the other
side, that there shall be no sentimental bonds formed, no everlasting
friendships, no false relationship. I have seen the harm of such things,
and suffered from it. Therefore, if these should be your ideas----’
‘You wanted a governess, I heard, and I applied for the situation--I
never thought of anything more,’ said quickly, with some offence, the
irritated applicant.
‘Precisely,’ said Mr. Courtenay. ‘With this understanding everything may
be decided at once. I am happy to have met with a lady who understands
my meaning.’ And thus the bargain would be made. But, as it is natural
to suppose, the ladies who were willing to take service under these
terms, were by no means the highest of their class. Sometimes it would
happen that Mr. Courtenay received a sharp rebuff in these preliminary
negotiations. ‘I trust, of course, that I shall grow fond of my pupil,
and she of me,’ said one stouter-hearted woman, for example. And the old
Squire made her a sarcastic bow.
‘Quite unnecessary--wholly unnecessary, I assure you,’ he said.
‘Then there is nothing more to be said about it,’ was the reply; and
this applicant--whose testimonials were so high, and were from such
‘good people’ (meaning, of course, from a succession of duchesses,
countesses, and families of renown), that Mr. Courtenay would, he
confessed, have given ‘any money’ to secure her services--got up with
impatience, and made him a curtsey which would, could she have managed
it, have been as sarcastic as his bow, but which, as it turned out, was
only an agitated and awkward obeisance, tremulous with generous rage:
‘such an arrangement would be quite impossible to me.’
And so poor Kate missed a woman who might have been a kind of secondary
mother to the forlorn child, and acquired a mercenary dragon instead,
who loved nobody, and was incapable of attracting love.
The consequences of this training were not, perhaps, exactly such as
might have been expected. Kate’s high spirits and energetic temper
retained a certain ascendancy over her circumstances; her faults were
serious and deep-rooted, but on the surface she had a _gaieté du
cœur_--an impulsive power of sympathy and capacity for interesting
herself in other people, which could not but be potent for good or evil
in her life. It developed, however, in the first place, into a love of
interference, and consequently of gossip, which would have alarmed
anyone really concerned for her character and happiness. She was kept
from loving or from being loved. She was arbitrarily fixed among
strangers, surrounded with faces which were never permitted to become
familiar, defrauded of all the interests of affection; and her lively
mind avenged itself by a determination to know everything and meddle
with everything within her reach. Kate at fifteen was not mournful,
despondent, or solitary, as might have been looked for; on the contrary,
she was the very type of activity, a little inquisitive despot, the
greatest gossip and busy-body within a dozen miles of Langton-Courtenay.
The tendrils of her nature, which ought to have clung firm and close
around some natural prop, trailed all abroad, and caught at everything.
Nothing was too paltry for her, and nothing too grand. She had the
audacity to interfere in the matter of the lighted candles on the altar,
when the new High-Church Rector of Langton first came into power; and
she interfered remorselessly to take away Widow Budd’s snuff, when it
was found out that the reason she assigned for wanting it--the state of
her eyes--was a shameful pretence. Kate did not shrink from either of
these bold practical assaults upon the liberty of her subjects. She
would no doubt have inquired into the Queen’s habits, and counselled, if
not required some change in them, had that illustrious lady paid a visit
to Langton-Courtenay. This was how Nature managed itself for her
especial training. She could no more be made unsympathetic, unenergetic,
or deprived of her warm interest in the world, than she could be made
sixty. But all these good qualities could be turned into evil, and this
was what her guardian managed to do. It did not occur to him to watch
over her personally during her childhood, and therefore he was
unconscious of the exact progress of affairs.
Old Mr. Courtenay was totally unlike the child whom he had undertaken to
train. He did not care a straw for his fellow-creatures; they took their
way, and he took his, and there was an end of the matter. When any great
calamity occurred, he shrugged his shoulders, and comforted himself with
the reflection that it must be their own fault. When, on the contrary,
there was joy and rejoicing, he took his share of the feast, and
reflected, with a smile, that wise men enjoy the banquets which fools
make. To put yourself out of the way for anything that might happen,
seemed to him the strangest, the most incomprehensible folly. And when
he made up his mind to save the young heiress of his house from the
locusts, and to keep her free from all connections or associations which
might be a drag upon her in future times, he had been honestly
unconscious that he was doing wrong to Nature. Love!--what did she want
with love?--what was the good of it? Mr. Courtenay himself got on very
well without any such frivolous imaginary necessity, and so, of course,
would Kate. He was so confident in the wisdom, and even in the
naturalness of his system, that he did not even think it worth his while
to watch over its progress. Of course it would come all right. Why
should he trouble himself about the details?--to keep fast to this
principle gave him quite enough trouble. Circumstances, however, had
occurred which made it expedient for him to visit Langton-Courtenay when
Kate completed her fifteenth year. New people had appeared on the scene,
who threatened to be a greater trouble to him, and a greater danger for
Kate, than even the governesses; and his sense of duty was strong enough
to move him, in thus far, at least, to personal interference on his
ward’s behalf.
At fifteen Kate Courtenay was the very impersonation of youthful beauty,
vigour, and impetuous life. She seemed to dance as she walked, to be
eloquent and rhetorical when she spoke, out of the mere exuberance of
her being. Her hair, which was full of colour, chestnut-brown, still
fell in negligent abundance about her shoulders; not in stiff curls,
after the old mode, nor _crêpé_, according to the new, but in one
undulating, careless flow. Though she was still dressed in the sackcloth
of the school-room, there was an air of authoritative independence about
her, more imposing a great deal than was that garb of complete
womanhood, the ‘long dress,’ to which she looked forward with awe and
hope. Her figure was full for her age, yet so light, so well-formed, so
free and rapid in movement, that it had all the graceful effect of the
most girlish slenderness. Her voice was slightly high-pitched--not soft
and low, as is the ideal woman’s--and she talked for three people,
pouring forth her experiences, her recollections, her questions and
remarks, in a flood. It was not quite ladylike, more than one unhappy
instructress of Kate’s youth had suggested; but there seemed no reason
in the world why she should pay any attention to such a suggestion. ‘If
it is natural for me to talk so, why should I try to talk otherwise? 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.
‘How do you do, uncle?’ she called out to him as soon as he appeared. ‘I
am so glad you have made up your mind to come at last. It is always a
change to have you here, and there are so many things I want to talk of.
You have taken the fly from the station, I see, though the carriage went
for you half-an-hour ago. That is what I am always telling you, Giles,
you are continually half-an-hour too late. Uncle, mind how you get down.
That fly-horse is the most vicious thing! She’ll go off when you have
one foot to the ground, if you don’t mind. I told old Mrs. Sayer to sell
her, but these people never will do what they are told. I am glad to see
you, Uncle Courtenay. How do you do?’
‘A little bewildered with my journey, Kate--and to find you a young lady
receiving your guests, instead of a shy little girl running off when you
were spoken to.’
‘Was I ever shy?’ said Kate, with unfeigned wonder. ‘What a very odd
thing! I don’t remember it. I thought I had always been as I am now.
Tell Mrs. Sayers, Tom, that I have heard something I don’t like about
one of the people at Glenhouse, and that I am coming to speak to her
to-morrow. Uncle, will you have some tea, or wine, or anything, or shall
I take you to your room! Dinner is to be at seven. I am so glad you have
come to make a change. I _hate_ dinner at two. It suits Miss Blank’s
digestion, but I am sure I hate it, and now it shall be changed. Don’t
you think I am quite grown up, Uncle Courtenay? I am as tall as you.’
He was little, dried-up, shrivelled--a small old man; and she a young
Diana, with a bloom which had still all the freshness of childhood.
Uncle Courtenay felt irritated when she measured her elastic figure
beside the stooping form of his old age.
‘Yes, yes, yes!’ he said, pettishly. ‘Grown up, indeed! I should think
you were. But stop this stream of talk, for heaven’s sake, and moderate
your voice, and take me in somewhere. I don’t want to have your height
discussed among your servants, nor anything else I may have to say.’
‘Oh! for that matter, I do not mind who hears me talk,’ said Kate. ‘Why
should I? Nobody, of course, ever interferes with me. Come into the
library, uncle. It is nice and cool this hot day. Did you see anyone in
the village as you came up? Did you notice if there was anyone at the
Rectory? They are curious people at the Rectory, and don’t take the
trouble to make themselves at all agreeable. Miss Blank thinks it very
strange, considering that I am the Lady of the Manor, and have a right
to their respect, and ought to be considered and obeyed. Don’t you
think, uncle----’
‘Obeyed!’ he said, with a laugh which was half amusement, and half
consternation. ‘A baby of fifteen is no more the Lady of the Manor than
Miss Blank is. You silly child, what do you mean?’
‘I am not a child,’ said Kate, haughtily. ‘I am quite aware of my
position. I may not be of age yet, but that does not make much
difference. However, if you are tired, uncle, as I think you are by your
face, I won’t bore you with that, though it is one of my grievances.
Should you like to be left alone till dinner? If you would let me advise
you, I should say lie down, and have some eau-de-Cologne on a
handkerchief, and perhaps a cup of tea. It is the best thing for worry
and headache.’
‘In heaven’s name, how do you know?’
‘Perfectly well,’ said Kate, calmly. ‘I have made people do it a hundred
times, and it has always succeeded. Perfect quiet, uncle, and a wet
handkerchief on your forehead, and a cup of my special tea. I will tell
Giles to bring you one, and a bottle of eau-de-Cologne; and if you don’t
move till the dressing bell rings, you will find yourself quite
refreshed and restored. Why, I have made people do it over and over
again, and I have never known it to fail.’