‘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?
CHAPTER XIX.
Ombra was a young woman, as we have said, full of fancy, but without any sympathetic imagination. She had made a picture to herself—as was inevitable—of what the lover would be like when he first approached her. It was a fancy sketch entirely, not even founded upon observation of others. She had said to herself that love would speak in his eyes, as clearly as any tongue could reveal it; she had pictured to herself the kind of chivalrous devotion which belongs to the age of romance—or, at least, which is taken for granted as having belonged to it. And as she was a girl who did not talk very much, or enter into any exposition of her feelings, she had cherished the ideal very deeply in her mind, and thought over it a great deal. She could not understand any type of love but this one; and consequently poor Mr. Sugden, who did not possess expressive eyes, and could not have talked with them to save his life, was very far from coming up to her ideal. When her mother made this suggestion, Ombra thought over it seriously, and thought over him who was the subject of it, and laughed within herself at the want of perception which associated Mr. Sugden and love together. ‘Poor dear mamma,’ she said in her heart, ‘it is so long since she had anything to do with it, she has forgotten what it looks like.’ And all that day she kept laughing to herself over this strange mistake; for Ombra had this other peculiarity of self-contained people, that she did not care much for the opinion of others. What she made out for herself, she believed in, but not much else. Mr. Sugden was very good, she thought—kind to everybody, and kind to herself, always willing to be of service; but to speak of him and love in the same breath! He was at the Cottage that same evening, and she watched him with a little amused curiosity. Kate gave up the seat next to her to the Curate, and Ombra smiled secretly, saying to herself that Kate and her mother were in a conspiracy against her. And the Curate looked at her with dull, light blue eyes, which were dazzled and abashed, not made expressive and eloquent by feeling. He approached awkwardly, with a kind of terror. He directed his conversation chiefly to Mrs. Anderson; and did not address herself directly for a whole half hour at least. The thing seemed simply comical to Ombra. ‘Come here, Mr. Sugden,’ she said, when she changed her seat after tea, calling him after her, ‘and tell me all about yesterday, and what you saw and what you did.’ She did this with a little bravado, to show the spectators she did not care; but caught a meaning glance from Mrs. Eldridge, and blushed, in spite of herself. So, then, Mrs. Eldridge thought so too! How foolish people are! ‘Here is a seat for you, Mr. Sugden,’ said Ombra, in defiance. And the Curate, in a state of perfect bliss, went after her, to tell her of an expedition which she cared nothing in the world about. Heaven knows what more besides the poor young fellow might have told her, for he was deceived by her manner, as the others were, and believed in his soul that, if never before, she had given him actual ‘encouragement’ to-night. But the Rector’s wife came to the rescue, for she was a virtuous woman, who could not see harm done before her very eyes without an attempt to interfere.
‘I hope you see what you are doing,’ she whispered severely in Ombra’s ear before she sat down, and fixed her eyes upon her with all the solemnity of a judge.
‘Oh! surely, dear Mrs. Eldridge—I want to hear about this expedition to the fleet,’ said Ombra. ‘Pray, Mr. Sugden, begin.’
Poor fellow! the Curate was not eloquent, and to feel his Rectoress beside him, noting all his words, took away from him what little faculty he had. He began his stumbling, uncomfortable story, while Ombra sat sweetly in her corner, and smiled and knitted. He could look at her when she was not looking at him; and she, in defiance of all absurd theories, was kind to him, and listened, and encouraged him to go on.
‘Yes. I daresay nothing particular occurred,’ Mrs. Eldridge said at last, with some impatience. ‘You went over the Royal Sovereign, as everybody does. I don’t wonder you are at a loss for words to describe it. It is a fine sight, but dreadfully hackneyed. I wonder very much, Ombra, you never were there.’