Ombra

by Mrs. Oliphant

‘You are a good soul,’ said Mrs. Anderson, holding out her hand; ‘you are a kind creature. I will always think better of you for this. But you must not say a word about Miss Ombra. He has never spoken to me; and till a man speaks, you know, a lady has no right to take such a thing for granted. But I will not forget what you have said; and I will speak to him, if I can find an opportunity—if he will give me the least excuse for doing it. He will miss us, I am sure.’

‘Oh! miss you, ma’am!’ cried Miss Richardson; ‘all the parish will miss you, and me among the first, as you’ve always been so good to; but as for my poor young gentleman, what I’m afraid of is as he’ll do himself some harm.’

‘Hush! my daughter is coming!’ said Mrs. Anderson; and she added, in a louder tone, ‘I will see that you have everything you want to-morrow; and you must try to give us two days more. I think two days will be enough, Ombra, with everybody helping a little. Good night. To-morrow, when you come, you must make us all work.’

‘Thank you very kindly, ma’am,’ said the dressmaker, with a curtsey; ‘and good night.’

‘What was she talking to you about, mamma?’ said Ombra’s languid voice, in the soft evening gloom; not that she cared to know—the words came mechanically to her lips.

‘About the trimming of your travelling dress, my dear,’ said her mother, calmly, with that virtuous composure which accompanies so many gentle fibs. (‘And so she was, though not just now,’ Mrs. Anderson added to herself, in self-exculpation.)

And then Kate joined them, and they went indoors and lit the lamp. Mr. Sugden had been taking a long walk, that night. Some one was sick at the other end of the parish, to whom the Rector had sent him; and he was glad. The invalid was six miles off, and he had walked there and back. But every piece of work, alas! comes to an end, and so did this; and he found himself in front of the Cottage, he could not tell how, just after this soft domestic light began to shine under the verandah, as under an eyelid. He stood and looked at it, poor fellow! with a sick and sore heart. A few nights more, and that lamp would be lit no longer; and the light of his life would be gone out. He stood and looked at it in a rapture of love and pain. There was no one to see him; but if there had been a hundred, he would not have known nor cared, so lost was he in this absorbing passion and anguish. He had not the heart to go in, though the times were so few that he would see her again. He went away, with his head bent on his breast, saying to himself that if she had been happy he could have borne it; but she was not happy; and he ground his teeth, and cursed the Berties, those two butterflies, those two fools, in his heart!

There was one, however, who saw him, and that was Francesca, who was cutting some salad in the corner of the kitchen-garden, in the faint light which preceded the rising of the moon. The old woman looked over the wall, and saw him, and was sorry. ‘The villains!’ she said to herself. But though she was sorry, she laughed softly as she went in, as people will, while the world lasts, laugh at such miseries. Francesca was sorry for the young man—so sorry, even, that she forgot that he was a priest, and, therefore, a terrible sinner in thinking such thoughts; but she was not displeased with Ombra this time. This was natural. ‘What is the good of being young and beautiful if one has not a few victims?’ she said to herself. ‘Time passes fast enough and then it is all over, and the man has it his own way. If nostra Ombra did no more harm than that!’ And, on the whole, Francesca went in with the salad for her ladies’ supper rather exhilarated than otherwise by the sight of the hopeless lover. It was the woman’s revenge upon man for a great deal that he makes her suffer; and in the abstract women are seldom sorry for such natural victims.

Next evening, however, Mr. Sugden took heart, and went to the Cottage, and there spent a few hours of very sweet wretchedness, Ombra being unusually good to him—and to the Curate she always was good. After the simple supper had been eaten, and Francesca’s salad, Mrs. Anderson contrived that both the girls should be called away to try on their travelling-dresses, at which Miss Richardson and Maryanne were working with passion. The window was open; the night was warm, and the moon had risen over the sea. Mrs. Anderson stepped out upon the verandah with the Curate, and they exchanged a few sentences on the beauty of the night, such as were consistent with the occasion; then she broke off the unreal, and took up the true. ‘Mr. Sugden,’ she said, ‘I wanted to speak to you. It seems vain to take such a thing for granted, but I am afraid you will miss us when we go away.’

‘Miss you!’ he cried; and then tears came into the poor fellow’s eyes, and into his voice, and he took her hand with despairing gratitude. ‘Thanks for giving me a chance to speak,’ he said—‘it is like yourself. Miss you!—I feel as if life would cease altogether after Monday—it won’t, I suppose, and most things will go on as usual; but I cannot think it—everything will be over for me.’