While all this agitation was going on over Kate’s fate on one side, it
is not to be supposed that there was no excitement on the other. Her two
relations, the mother and daughter to whom she was about to be confided,
were nearly as much disturbed as Kate herself by the prospect of
receiving her. It might, indeed, be said to have disturbed them more,
for it affected their entire life. They had lately returned to England,
and settled down, after a wandering life, in a house of their own. They
were not rich, but they had enough. They were not humble, but accustomed
to think very well of themselves; and the fact was that, though Mrs.
Anderson had, for many reasons, accepted Mr. Courtenay’s proposal with
enthusiasm, even she felt that the ideal seclusion she had been dreaming
of was at once broken up--even she--and still more Ombra, her daughter,
who was fanciful, and of a somewhat jealous and contradictory temper,
fond of her own way, and of full freedom to carry her fancies out.
Mrs. Anderson, let us say at once, was neither a hypocrite nor a fool,
and never, during their whole intercourse, regarded her heiress-niece as
a means of drawing advantage to herself, or in a mercenary way. She was
a warm-hearted, kind, and just woman; but she had her faults. The chief
of these was a very excess of virtue. Her whole soul was set upon not
being good only, but appearing so. She could not bear the idea of being
deficient in any decorum, in any sentiment which society demanded. No
one could have grieved more sincerely than she did for her husband; but
a bitterer pang even than that caused her by natural sorrow would have
gone through her heart, had she been tempted to smile through her tears
a day sooner than public opinion warranted a widow to smile. In every
position--even that in which she felt most truly--a sense of what
society expected from her was always in her mind. This code of unwritten
law went deeper with her even than nature. She had truly longed and
yearned over Kate, in her kind heart, from the moment she had reached
England; and had she followed her natural instincts, would have rushed
at once to Langton-Courtenay, to see the child who was all that remained
of a sister whom she had loved. But the world, in that case, would have
said that she meant to establish herself at Langton-Courtenay, and that
her affection for her niece was feigned or mercenary.
‘Let her alone, then,’ Ombra said. ‘Why should we trouble ourselves? If
her friends think we are not good enough for her, let her alone. Why
should she think herself better than we?’
‘My love, she is very young,’ said Mrs. Anderson; ‘and, besides, if I
took no notice at all of Catherine’s only child, what would people
suppose? It would be thought either that I had a guilty conscience in
respect to the Courtenays, or that I had been repulsed. Nobody would
believe that we had simply let her alone, as you say; and, besides, I am
longing to see Kate with all my heart.
‘What does it matter what people say?’ said Ombra. ‘I do not see what
any one has to do with our private affairs.’
‘That is a great delusion,’ said Mrs. Anderson, shaking her head; ‘every
one has to do with every one else’s private affairs. If you do not wish
to lay yourself open to remark, you will always keep this in mind. And
our position is very trying, between your cousin’s wealth and our love
for her----’
‘I don’t think I have very much love for her, mamma.’
‘My dear child, don’t let any one but me hear you say so. She ought to
be like a sister to you,’ said Mrs. Anderson.
And Ombra let the discussion drop, and permitted her mother, in this
respect, to have her own way. But she was not in any respect of her
mother’s way of thinking. Her temptation was to hate and despise the
opinion of society just in proportion to the reverence for it which she
had been bred in: a result usual enough with clear-sighted and impetuous
young persons, conscious of the defects of their parents. Ombra was a
pretty, gentle, soft-mannered girl in outward appearance; but a certain
almost fierce independence and determination to guide her own course as
she herself pleased, was in her heart. She would not be influenced, as
her mother had been, by other people’s ideas. She thought, with some
recent writers, that the doctrine of self-sacrifice, as taught specially
to women, was altogether false, vain, and miserable. She felt that she
herself ought to be first in her home and sphere; and she did not feel
disposed even to share with, much less to yield to, the rich cousin whom
she had never seen. She shrugged her shoulders over Mrs. Anderson’s
letter to Kate, but she did not interfere further, until Mr. Courtenay’s
astounding proposal arrived, fluttering the household as a hawk would
flutter the dovecots. At the first reading, it drove Ombra frantic. It
was impossible, out of the question, not to be thought of for a moment!
In this small house, with their two maids, in the quiet of Shanklin,
what were they to do with a self-important girl, a creature, no doubt,
bred from her cradle to a consciousness of her own greatness, and who
wanted all sorts of masters and advantages? Mrs. Anderson knew how to
manage her daughter, and for the moment she allowed her to have her way,
and pour forth her indignation. The letter came by the early post; and
it was only when they were seated at tea in the evening that she brought
forward the other side of the question.
‘What you say is all very true, Ombra; but we have two spare
bedrooms--there would still be one left for a friend, even if we took in
poor dear little Kate.’
‘Poor Kate! Why is she poor? She could buy us over and over,’ said
Ombra, in her indignation.
‘Buy what?’ said her clever mother--‘our love?’
‘Mamma, please don’t speak any nonsense about love!’ said Ombra,
hastily. ‘I can’t love people at a moment’s notice; because a girl whom
I never saw happens to be the child of my aunt, whom I never saw----’
‘Then suppose we leave you out,’ said her mother. ‘She is the child of
my sister, whom I knew well, and was very fond of--that alters the
question so far as I am concerned.’
‘Oh! of course, mamma,’ said Ombra, with darkened brows, ‘I do not
pretend to do more than give my opinion. It is for you to say how it is
to be.’
‘Do you think I can make a decision without you?’ said the mother,
pathetically. ‘You must try to look at it more reasonably, my dear. Next
to you, Kate is the creature most near to me in the world--next to me.
Now, listen, Ombra; she is your nearest relation. Think what it will be
to have a friend and a sister if anything should happen to me. The house
is small, but we cannot truly say that we have not room for a little
girl of fifteen in it. And then think of her loneliness--not a soul to
care for her, except that old Mr. Courtenay----’
‘Oh! that is nonsense; she must have some one to care for her, or else
she must be intensely disagreeable,’ said Ombra. ‘Mamma, remember what I
say--if we take her in, we shall repent it all our lives.’
‘Nothing of the sort, my dear,’ said Mrs. Anderson, eagerly following up
this softened opposition. ‘Why she is only fifteen--a mere child!--we
can mould her as we will. And then, my dearest child, though heaven
knows it is not interest I am thinking of, still it will be a great
advantage; our income will be doubled. I must say Mr. Courtenay is very
liberal, if nothing else. We shall be able to do many things that we
could not do otherwise. Why, Ombra, you look as if you thought I meant
to rob your cousin----’
‘I would not use a penny of her allowance--it should be all spent upon
herself!’ cried the girl, flushing with indignant passion. ‘Our income
doubled! Mamma, what can you be thinking of? Do you suppose I could
endure to be a morsel the better for _that_ Kate?’
‘You are a little fool, and there is no talking to you,’ said Mrs.
Anderson, with natural impatience; and for half an hour they did not
speak to each other. This, however, could not last very long, for
providentially, as Mrs. Anderson said, one of the Rectory girls came in
at the time when it was usual for the ladies to take their morning walk,
and she would not for all the Isle of Wight have permitted Elsie to see
that her child and she were not on their usual terms. When Elsie had
left them, a slight relapse was threatened, but they were then walking
together along the cliff, with one of the loveliest of landscapes before
them--the sun setting, the ruddy glory lighting up Sandown Bay, and all
the earth and sea watching that last crisis and climax of the day.
‘Oh! there is the true daffodil sky!’ Ombra exclaimed, in spite of
herself, and the breach was healed. It was she herself who resumed the
subject some time later, when they turned towards home. ‘I do not see,’
she said abruptly, ‘what we could do about masters for _that_ girl, if
she were to come here. To have them down from town would be ruinous, and
to be constantly going up to town with her--to you, who so hate the
ferry--would be dreadful!’
‘My love, you forget Miss Story’s school, where they have all the best
masters,’ said Mrs. Anderson, mildly.
‘You could not send her to school.’
‘But they would come to us, my dear. Of course they would be very glad
to come to us for a little more money, and I should gladly take the
opportunity for your music, Ombra. I thought of that. I wish everything
could be settled as easily. If you only saw the matter as I do----’
‘There is another thing,’ said Ombra, hastily, ‘which does not matter to
me, for I hate society; but if she is to be kept like a nun, and never
to see any one----’
Mrs. Anderson smiled serenely. ‘My love, who is there to see?--the
Rectory children and a few ladies--people whom we ask to tea. Of course,
I would not think of taking her to balls or even dinner-parties; but
then, I never go to dinner-parties--there is no one to ask us; and as
for balls, Ombra, you know what you said about that nice ball at Ryde.’
‘I hate them!’ said Ombra, vehemently. ‘I hope I shall never be forced
to go to another in all my life.’
‘Then that question is settled very easily,’ said Mrs. Anderson, without
allowing any signs of triumph to appear in her face. And next day she
wrote to Mr. Courtenay, as has been described. When she wrote about ‘our
darling niece,’ the tears were in her eyes. She meant it with all her
heart; but, at the same time, it was the right thing to say, and to be
anxious and eager to receive the orphan were the right sentiments to
entertain. ‘It is the most proper arrangement,’ she said afterwards to
the Rector’s wife, who was her nearest neighbour. ‘Of course her
mother’s sister is her most natural guardian. The property is far best
in Mr. Courtenay’s hands; but the child herself----’
‘Poor child!’ said Mrs. Eldridge, looking at her own children, who were
many, and thinking within herself that to trust them to any one, even an
aunt----
‘Yes, poor child!’ cried Mrs. Anderson, with the tears in her eyes; ‘and
my Catherine would have made such a mother! But we must do what we can
to make it up to her. She will have some one at least to love her here.’
‘I am sure you will be--good to her,’ said the Rector’s wife, looking
wistfully, in her pity, into the face of the woman who, to her simple
mind, did protest too much. Mrs. Eldridge felt, as many a
straightforward person does, that her neighbour’s extreme propriety, and
regard for what was befitting and ‘expected of her,’ was the mask of
insincerity. She did not understand the existence of true feeling
beneath all that careful exterior. But she was puzzled and touched for
the moment by the tears in her companion’s eyes.
‘You can’t get up tears, you know, when you will,’ she said to her
husband, when they discussed poor Kate’s prospects of happiness in her
aunt’s house, that same night.
‘I can’t,’ said the Rector, ‘nor you; but one has heard of crocodile
tears!’
‘Oh! Fred, no--not so bad as that!’
But still both these good people distrusted Mrs. Anderson, through her
very anxiety to do right, and show that she was doing it. They were
afraid of her excess of virtue. The exaggeration of the true seemed to
them false. And they even doubted the amount of Kate’s allowance,
because of the aunt’s frankness in telling them of it. They thought her
intention was to raise her own and her niece’s importance, and
calculated among themselves what the real sum was likely to be. Poor
Mrs. Anderson! everybody was unjust to her--even her daughter--on this
point.
But it was with no sense of this general distrust, but, on the contrary,
with the most genial sense of having done everything that could be
required of her, that she left home on a sunny June morning, with her
heart beating quicker than usual in her breast, to bring home her
charge. Her heart was beating partly out of excitement to see Kate, and
partly out of anxiety about the crossing from Ryde, which she hated. The
sea looked calm, from Sandown, but Mrs. Anderson knew, by long
experience, that the treacherous sea has a way of looking calm until you
have trusted yourself to its tender mercies. This thought, along with
her eagerness to see her sister’s child, made her heart beat.