Маргарет Олифант - Ombra

‘I don’t suppose we are among that number,’ said Ombra, with a momentary laugh. This was one of her pet perversities, said out of sheer opposition; for though she thrust the fact forward, she did not like it herself.

‘I think you are mistaken,’ said her mother, with a flush upon her face. ‘Your papa had very good connections in Scotland; and my father’s family, though it was not equal to the Courtenays, which my sister married into, was one of the most respectable in the county. You are not like Kate—you have not the pedigree which belongs to a house which has landed property; but you need not look down upon your forefathers for all that.’

‘I do not look down upon them. I only wish not to stand up upon them, mamma, for they are not strong enough to bear me, I fear,’ Ombra said, with a little forced laugh.

‘I don’t like joking on such subjects,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘But to return to Kate. She admires you very, very much, my darling—I don’t wonder at that–’

‘Silly child!’ said Ombra, in a much softened tone.

‘It shows her sense, I think; but it throws all the greater a responsibility on you. Oh! my dear love, could you and I, who are so happy together, dare to shut our hearts against that poor desolate child?’

Once more Ombra slightly, very slightly shrugged her shoulders; but she answered—

‘I am sure I have no wish to shut my heart against her, mamma.’

‘For my part,’ said Mrs. Anderson, ‘I feel I cannot pet her too much, or be too indulgent to her, to make up to her for fifteen years spent among strangers, with nobody to love.’

‘How odd that she should have found nobody to love!’ said Ombra, turning away. She herself was, as she believed, ‘not demonstrative,’ not ‘effusive.’ She was one of the many persons who think that people who do not express any feeling at all, must necessarily have more real feeling than those who disclose it—a curious idea, quite frequent in the world; and she rather prided herself upon her own reserve. Yet, reserved as she was, she, Ombra, had always found people to love her, and why not Kate? This was the thought that passed through her mind as she gave up the subject; but still she had grown reconciled to her cousin, had begun to like her, and to be gratified by her eager, girlish homage. Kate’s admiration spoke in every look and word, in her abject submission to Ombra’s opinion, her concurrence in all that Ombra said, her imitation of everything she did. Ombra was a good musician, and Kate, who had no great faculty that way, got up and practised every morning, waking the early echoes, and getting anything but blessings from her idol, whose bed was exactly above the piano on the next floor. Ombra was a great linguist, by dint of her many travels, and Kate sent unlimited orders for dictionaries and grammars to her uncle, and began to learn verbs with enthusiasm. She had all the masters who came from London to Miss Story’s quiet establishment, men whose hours were golden, and whom nobody but an heiress could have entertained in such profusion; and she applied herself with the greatest diligence to such branches of study as were favoured by Ombra, putting her own private tastes aside for them with an enthusiasm only possible to first love. Perhaps Kate’s enthusiasm was all the greater because of the slow and rather grudging approbation which her efforts to please elicited. Mrs. Anderson was always pleased, always ready to commend and admire; but Ombra was very difficult. She made little allowance for any weakness, and demanded absolute perfection, as mentors at the age of seventeen generally do; and Kate hung on her very breath. Thus she took instinctively the best way to please the only one in the house who had set up any resistance to her. Over the rest Kate had an easy victory. It was Ombra who, all unawares, and not by any virtue of hers, exercised the best control and influence possible over the head-strong, self-opinioned girl. She was head-strong enough herself, and very imperfect, but that did not affect her all-potent visionary sway.

And nothing could be more regular, nothing more quiet and monotonous, than the routine of life in the Cottage. The coming of the masters was the event in it; and that was a mild kind of event, causing little enthusiasm. They breakfasted, worked, walked, and dined, and then rose next morning to do the same thing over again. Notwithstanding Mrs. Anderson’s talk about her duty to society, there were very few claims made upon her. She was not much called upon to fulfil these duties. Sometimes the ladies went out to the Rectory to tea; sometimes, indeed, Mrs. Anderson and Ombra dined there; but on these occasions Kate was left at home, as too young for such an intoxicating pleasure. ‘And, besides, my darling, I promised your uncle,’ Mrs. Anderson would say. But Kate was always of the party when it was tea. There were other neighbours who gave similar entertainments; and before a year had passed, Kate had tasted the bread and butter of all the houses in the parish which Mrs. Anderson thought worthy of her friendship. But only to tea; ‘I made that condition with Mr. Courtenay, and I must hold by it, though my heart is broken to leave you behind. If you knew how trying it was, my dearest child!’ she would say with melancholy tones, as she stepped out, with a shawl over her evening toilet; but these were very rare occurrences indeed. And Kate went to the teas, and was happy.

How happy she was! When she was tired of the drawing-room (as happened sometimes), she would rush away to an odd little room under the leads, which was Francesca’s work-room and oratory, where the other maids were never permitted to enter, but which had been made free to Mees Katta. Francesca was not like English servants, holding jealously by one special metier . She was cook, and she was housekeeper, but, at the same time, she was Mrs. Anderson’s private milliner, making her dresses; and the personal attendant of both mother and daughter. Even Jane, the housemaid, scorned her for this versatility; but Francesca took no notice of the scorn. She was not born to confine herself within such narrow limits as an English kitchen afforded her; and she took compensation for her unusual labours. She lectured Ombra, as we have seen; she interfered in a great many things which were not her business; she gave her advice freely to her mistress; she was one of the household, not less interested than the mistress herself. And when Kate arrived, Francesca added another branch of occupation to the others; or, rather, she revived an art which she had once exercised with great applause, but which had fallen into disuse since Ombra ceased to be a child. She became the minstrel, the improvisatore, the ancient chronicler, the muse of the new-comer. When Kate felt the afternoon growing languid she snatched up a piece of work, and flew up the stairs to Francesca’s retreat. ‘Tell me something,’ she would say; and, sitting at the old woman’s feet, would forget her work, and her dulness, and everything in heaven and earth, in the entrancement of a tale. These were not fairy-tales, but bits of those stories, more strange than fairy-tales, which still haunt the old houses of Italy. Francesca’s tales were without end. She would begin upon a family pedigree, and work her way up or down through a few generations, without missing a stitch in her work, or dropping a thread in her story. She filled Kate’s head with counts and barons, and gloomy castles and great palaces. It was an amusement which combined the delight of gossip and the delight of novel-reading in one.

And thus Kate’s life ran on, as noiseless, as simple as the growth of a lily or a rose, with nothing but sunshine all about, warming her, ripening her, as her new guardian said, bringing slowly on, day by day, the moment of blossoming, the time of the perfect flower.