Circumstances after this threw Mr. Sugden a great deal in their way. He
lived in a superior sort of cottage in the village, a cottage which had
once been the village doctor’s, and had been given up by him only when
he built that house on the Undercliff, which still shone so white and
new among its half-grown trees. It must be understood that it was the
Shanklin of the past of which we speak--not the little semi-urban place
with lines of new villas, which now bears that name. The mistress of the
house was the dressmaker of the district as well, and much became known
about her lodger by her means. She was a person who had seen better
days, and who had taken up dressmaking at first only for her own
amusement, she informed her customers, and consequently she had very
high manners, and a great deal of gentility, and frightened her humble
neighbours. Her house had two stories, and was very respectable. It
could not help having a great tree of jessamine all over one side, and a
honeysuckle clinging about the porch, for such decorations are
inevitable in the Isle of Wight; but still there were no more flowers
than were absolutely necessary, and that of itself was a distinction.
The upper floor was Mr. Sugden’s. He had two windows in his
sitting-room, and one in his bedroom, which commanded the street and all
that was going on there; and it was the opinion of the Rector’s wife
that no man could desire more cheerful rooms. He saw everybody who went
or came from the Rectory. He could moralise as much as he pleased upon
the sad numbers who frequented the ‘Red Lion.’ He could see the
wheelwright’s shop, and the smithy, and I don’t know how many more
besides. From the same window he could even catch a glimpse of the rare
tourists or passing travellers who came to see the Chine. And what more
would the young man have?
Miss Richardson, the dressmaker, had many little jobs to do for Kate.
Sometimes she took it into her head to have a dress made of more rapidly
than Maryanne’s leisurely fingers could do it; sometimes she saw a
fashion-book in Miss Richardson’s window to which she took a sudden
fancy; so that there was a great deal of intercourse kept up between the
dressmaker’s house and the Cottage. This did not mean that Kate was much
addicted to dress, or extravagant in that point; but she was fanciful
and fond of changes--and Maryanne, having very little to do, became
capable of doing less and less every day. Old Francesca made all Mrs.
Anderson’s gowns and most of Ombra’s, besides her other work; but
Maryanne, a free-born Briton, was not to be bound to any such slavery.
And thus it happened that Miss Richardson went often to the Cottage. She
wore what was then called a cottage-bonnet, surrounding, with a border
of clean quilted net, her prim but pleasant face, and a black merino
dress with white collar and cuffs; she looked, in short, very much as a
novice Sister would look now; but England was very Protestant at that
moment, and there were no Sisters in Miss Richardson’s day.
‘My young gentleman is getting a little better used to things, thank
you, ma’am,’ said Miss Richardson. ‘Since he has been a little more
taken out of an evening, you and other ladies inviting him to tea, you
can’t think what a load is lifted off my mind. The way he used to walk
about at first, crushing over my head till I thought the house would
come down! They all feel it a bit, ma’am, do my gentlemen. The last one
was a sensible man, and fond of reading, but they ain’t all fond of
reading--more’s the pity! I’ve been out in the world myself, and I know
how cold it strikes coming right into the country like this.’
‘But he has his parish work,’ said Mrs. Anderson, with a little
severity.
‘That is what Mrs. Eldridge says; but, bless you, what’s his parish work
to a young gentleman like that, fresh from college? He don’t know what
to say to the folks--he don’t know what to do with them. Bless your
heart,’ said Miss Richardson, warming into excitement, ‘what should he
know about a poor woman’s troubles with her family--or a man’s, either,
for that part? He just puts his hand in his pocket; that’s all he does.
“I’m sure I’m very sorry for you, and here’s half-a-crown,” he says.
It’s natural. I’d have done it myself when I was as young, before I knew
the world, if I’d had the halfcrown; and he won’t have it long, if he
goes on like this.’
‘It is very kind of him, and very nice of him,’ said Kate.
‘Yes, Miss, it’s kind in meaning, but it don’t do any good. It’s just a
way of getting rid of them, the same as sending them off altogether.
There ain’t one gentleman in a thousand that understands poor folks.
Give them a bit of money, and get quit of them; that’s what young men
think; but poor folks want something different. I’ve nothing to say
against Greek and Latin; they’re all very fine, I don’t doubt, but they
don’t tell you how to manage a parish. 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. The scissors
will snip you, and it would be a thousand pities to snip such a nice
white neck. Now turn round, please, and show the ladies. There’s
something that fits, I’m proud to think. I’ve practised my trade in town
and all about; I haven’t taken it out of books. Though you can draw
beautiful, Miss Ombra, you couldn’t make a fit like that.’
Miss Richardson resumed, with pins in her mouth, when she had turned
Kate round and round, ‘There’s nobody I pity in all the world, ma’am, as
I pity those young gentlemen. They’re very nice, as a rule; they speak
civil, and don’t give more trouble than they can help. Toss their boots
about the room, and smoke their cigars, and make a mess--that’s to be
looked for; but civil and nice-spoken, and don’t give trouble when they
think of it. But, bless your heart, if I had plenty to live on, and no
work to do but to look out of my window and take walks, and smoke my
cigar, I’d kill myself, that’s what I’d do! Well, there’s the schools
and things; but he can’t be poking among the babies more than half an
hour or so now and then; and I ask you, ladies, as folks with some
sense, what _is_ that young gentleman to do in a mothers’ meeting? No,
ma’am, ask him to tea if you’d be his friend, and give him a little
interest in his life. They didn’t ought to send young gentlemen like
that into small country parishes. And if he falls in love with one of
your young ladies, ma’am, none the worse.’
‘But suppose my young ladies would have nothing to say to him?’ said
Mrs. Anderson, smiling upon her child, for whom, surely, she might
expect a higher fate. As for Kate, the heiress, the prize, such a thing
was not to be thought of. But Kate was only a child; she did not occur
to the mother, who even in her heiress-ship saw nothing which could
counterbalance the superior attractions of Ombra.
Miss Richardson took the pins out of her mouth, and turned Kate round
again, and nodded half a dozen times in succession her knowing head.
‘Never mind, ma’am,’ she said, ‘never mind--none the worse, say I. Them
young gentlemen ought to learn that they can’t have the first they
fancy. Does ’em good. Men are all a deal too confident
now-a-days--though I’ve seen the time! But just you ask him to tea,
ma’am, if you’d stand his friend, and leave it to the young ladies to
rouse him up. Better folks than him has had their hearts broken, and
done ’em good!’
It was not with these bloodthirsty intentions that Mrs. Anderson adopted
the dressmaker’s advice; but, notwithstanding, it came about that Mr.
Sugden was asked a great many times to tea. He began to grow familiar
about the house, as the Berties had been; to have his corner, where he
always sat; to escort them in their walks. And it cannot be denied that
this mild addition to the interests of life roused him much more than
the almshouses and the infant schools. He wrote home, to his paternal
house in the Fens, that he was beginning, now he knew it better, as his
mother had prophesied, to take a great deal more interest in the parish;
that there were some nice people in it, and that it was a privilege,
after all, to live in such a lovely spot! This was the greatest relief
to the mind of his mother, who was afraid, at the first, that the boy
was not happy. ‘Thank heaven, he has found out now that a life devoted
to the service of his Maker is a happy life!’ that pious woman said, in
the fulness of her heart; not knowing, alas! that it was devotion to
Ombra which had brightened his heavy existence.
He fell in love gradually, before the eyes of the older people, who
looked on with more amusement than any graver feeling; and, with a
natural malice, everybody urged it on--from Kate, who gave up her seat
by her cousin’s to the Curate, up to Mr. Eldridge himself, who would
praise Ombra’s beauty, and applaud her cleverness with a twinkle in his
eye, till the gratified young man felt ready to go through fire and
water for his chief. The only spectators who were serious in the
contemplation of this little tragi-comedy were Mrs. Anderson and Mrs.
Eldridge, of whom one was alarmed, and the other disapproving. Mrs.
Anderson uttered little words of warning from time to time, and did all
she could to keep the two apart; but then her anxiety was all for her
daughter, who perhaps was the sole person in the parish unaware of the
fact of Mr. Sugden’s devotion to her. When she had made quite sure of
this, I am afraid she was not very solicitous about the Curate’s
possible heartbreak. He was a natural victim; it was scarcely likely
that he could escape that heartbreak sooner or later, and in the
meantime he was happy.
‘What can I do?’ she said to the Rector’s wife. ‘I cannot forbid him my
house; and we have never given him any encouragement--in that way. What
can I do?’
‘If Ombra does not care for him, I think she is behaving very badly,’
said Mrs. Eldridge. ‘I should speak to her, if I were in your place. I
never would allow my Lucy to treat any man so. Of course, if she means
to accept him, it is a different matter; but I should certainly speak to
Ombra, if I were in your place.’
‘The child has not an idea of anything of the kind,’ said Mrs. Anderson,
faltering. ‘Why should I disturb her unconsciousness?’
‘Oh!’ said Mrs. Eldridge, ironically, ‘I am sure I beg your pardon. I
don’t, for my part, understand the unconsciousness of a girl of
nineteen!’
‘Not quite nineteen,’ said Ombra’s mother, with a certain humility.
‘A girl old enough to be married,’ said the other, vehemently. ‘I was
married myself at eighteen and a half. I don’t understand it, and I
don’t approve of it. If she doesn’t know, she ought to know; and unless
she means to accept him, I shall always say she has treated him very
badly. I would speak to her, if it were I, before another day had
passed.’
Mrs. Anderson was an impressionable woman, and though she resented her
neighbour’s interference, she acted upon her advice. She took Ombra into
her arms that evening, when they were alone, in the favourite hour of
talk which they enjoyed after Kate had gone to bed.
‘My darling!’ she said, ‘I want to speak to you. Mr. Sugden has taken to
coming very often--we are never free of him. Perhaps it would be better
not to let him come quite so much.’
‘I don’t see how we can help it,’ said Ombra, calmly; ‘he is dull, he
likes it; and I am sure he is very inoffensive. I do not mind him at
all, for my part.’
‘Yes, dear,’ said Mrs. Anderson, faltering; ‘but then, perhaps, he may
mind you.’
‘In that case he would stop away,’ said Ombra, with perfect unconcern.
‘You don’t understand me, dear. Perhaps he thinks of you too much;
perhaps he is coming too often, for his own good.’
‘Thinks of me--too much!’ said Ombra, with wide-opened eyes; and then a
passing blush came over her face, and she laughed. ‘He is very careful
not to show any signs of it, then,’ she said. ‘Mamma, this is not your
idea. Mrs. Eldridge has put it into your head.’
‘Well, my darling, but if it were true----’
‘Why, then, send him away,’ said Ombra, laughing. ‘But how very silly!
Should not I have found it out if he cared for me? If he is in love with
any one, it is with you.’
And after this what could the mother do?