‘Suspects!’ cried Ombra—‘she knows there is something—not what it is, but that there is something. Do you think I don’t see her looks in the morning, when the letters come? Poor Kate! she will not look at them; she is full of honour—but to say she does not suspect!’
‘I don’t know what to say to satisfy you, Ombra,’ said her mother. ‘Did not I beg you on my knees to take her into your confidence? It would have made everything so much easier, and her so much happier.’
‘Oh! mamma, my life is hard enough of itself—don’t make it harder and harder!’ cried Ombra; and then she laid down her head upon her mother’s shoulder, and wept. Poor Mrs. Anderson bore it all heroically; she kissed and soothed her child, and persuaded her that it could not last long—that Bertie would bring good news—that everything would be explained and atoned for in the end. ‘There can be no permanent harm, dear—no permanent harm,’ she repeated, ‘and everybody will be sorry and forgive.’ And so, by degrees, Ombra was pacified, and put to bed, and forgot her troubles.
This was the kind of scene which took place night after night in the tranquil house, where all the three ladies seemed so quietly happy. Kate heard no echo of it through the thick walls and curtains, yet not without troubles of her own was the heiress. The intimation of Bertie’s coming disturbed her too. She thought she had got quite composed about the whole matter, willing to wait until the secret should be disclosed, and the connection between him and her cousin, whatever it was, made known. But to have him here again, with his wistful looks, and the whole mystery to be resumed, as if there had been no interruption of it—this was more than Kate felt she could bear.
CHAPTER LIV.
The news which had made so much commotion in the Hall came from the Rectory in a very simple way. Edith and Minnie had come up to call. Their mother rather wished them to do so frequently. She urged upon them that it might demand a little sacrifice of personal feeling, yet that personal feeling was always a thing that ought to be sacrificed—it was a good moral exercise, irrespective of everything else; and Miss Courtenay was older, and, no doubt, more sensible than when she went away—not likely to shock them as she did then—and that it would be good for her to see a good deal of them, and pleasant for people to know that they went a good deal to the Hall. All this mass of reasoning was scarcely required, yet Edith and Minnie, on the whole, were glad to know that it was their duty to visit Kate. They both felt deeply that a thing which you do as a duty takes a higher rank than a thing you do as a pleasure; and their visits might have taken that profane character had not all this been impressed upon them in time.
‘Oh! Miss Courtenay, we have such news,’ said Edith; and Minnie added, in a parenthesis (‘We are so happy!’) ‘Dear Bertie is coming home for a few days. He wrote that he was so busy, he could not possibly come; but papa insisted’ (‘I am so glad papa insisted,’ from Minnie, who was the accompaniment), ‘and so he is coming—just for two days. He is going to bring us the things he bought for us at Florence.’ (‘Oh! I do so want to see them!’) ‘You saw a great deal of him at Florence, did you not?’
‘Yes, we saw him—a great many times,’ said Kate, noticing, under her eyelids, how Ombra suddenly caught her breath.
‘He used to mention you in his letters at first—only at first. I suppose you made too many friends to see much of each other.’ (‘Bertie is such a fellow for society.’) ‘He is reading up now for the bar. Perhaps you don’t know that he has given up the church?’