Kate reflected very deeply that morning on the nature of the sentiment called love. She had means of judging, having looked on while Mr. Sugden made himself look very ridiculous; and now the Berties were repeating the process. Both of them? She asked herself the question as Mrs. Eldridge had done. It made them look foolish, and it made them selfish; careless of other people, and especially of herself. It was hard; it was an injury that her own old friend should be thus negligent, and thus apologise! Kate felt that if he had taken her into his confidence, if he had said, ‘I am in love with Ombra—I can’t think of anything else,’ she would have understood him, and all would have been well. But boys were such strange creatures, so wanting in perception; and she resolved that, if ever this sort of thing happened to her, she would make a difference. She would not permit this foolish absorption. She would say plainly, ‘If you neglect your other friends, if you make yourselves look foolish for me, I will have nothing to do with you. Behave as if you had some sense, and do me credit. Do you think I want fools to be in love with me?’ This was what Kate made up her mind she would say, when it came to be her turn.
This gay period, however, came to a strangely abrupt and mysterious end. The party had come home one evening, joyous as usual. They had gone round to Ryde in the morning to a regatta; the day had been perfect, the sea as calm as was compatible with the breeze they wanted, and all had gone well. Mrs. Eldridge herself had accompanied them, and on the whole, though certain tremors had crossed her at one critical moment, when the wind seemed to be rising, these tremors were happily quieted, and she had, ‘on the whole,’ as she cautiously stated, enjoyed the expedition. It was to be wound up, as most of these evenings had been, by a supper at the Rectory. Mrs. Anderson was in her own room, arranging her dress in order to join the sailors in this concluding feast. She had been watching a young moon rise into the twilight sky, and rejoicing in the beauty of the scene, for her children’s sake. Her heart was warm with the thought that Ombra was happy; that she was the queen of the party, deferred to, petted, admired, nay—or the mother’s instinct deceived her—worshipped by some. These thoughts diffused a soft glow of happiness over her mind. Ombra was happy, she was thought of as she ought to be, honoured as she deserved, loved; there was the brightest prospect opening up before her, and her mother, though she had spent the long day alone, felt a soft radiance of reflected light about her, which was to her what the moon was in the sky. It was a warm, soft, balmy Summer evening; the world seemed almost to hold its breath in the mere happiness of being, as if a movement, a sigh, would have broken the spell. Mrs. Anderson put up her hair (which was still pretty hair, and worth the trouble), and arranged her ribbons, and was about to draw round her the light shawl which Francesca had dropped on her shoulders, when all at once she saw Ombra coming through the garden alone. Ombra alone! with her head drooped, and a haze of something sad and mysterious about her, which perhaps the mother’s eyes, perhaps the mere alarm of fancy, discerned at once. Mrs. Anderson gave a little cry. She dropped the shawl from her, and flew downstairs. The child was ill, or something had happened. A hundred wild ideas ran through her head in half a second. Kate had been drowned—Ombra had escaped from a wreck—the Berties! She was almost surprised to see that her daughter was not drenched with sea-water, when she rushed to her, and took her in her arms.
‘What is the matter, Ombra? Something has happened. But you are safe, my darling child!’
‘Don’t,’ said Ombra, withdrawing herself almost pettishly from her mother’s arms. ‘Nothing has happened. I—only was—tired; and I came home.’
She sat down on one of the rustic seats under the verandah, and turned away her head. The moon shone upon her, on the pretty outline of her arm, on which she leant, and the averted head. She had not escaped from a shipwreck. Had she anything to say which she dared not tell? Was it about Kate?
‘Ombra, dear, what is it? I know there is something. Kate?’
‘Kate? Kate is well enough. What should Kate have to do with it?’ cried the girl, with impatient scorn; and then she suddenly turned and hid her face on her mother’s arm. ‘Oh! I am so unhappy!—my heart is like to break! I want to see no one—no one but you again!’
‘What is it, my darling? Tell me what it is.’ Mrs. Anderson knelt down beside her child. She drew her into her arms. She put her soft hand on Ombra’s cheek, drawing it close to her own, and concealing it by the fond artifice. ‘Tell me,’ she whispered.
But Ombra did not say anything. She lay still and sobbed softly, as it were under her breath. And there her mother knelt supporting her, her own eyes full of tears, and her heart of wonder. Ombra, who had been this morning the happiest of all the happy! Dark, impossible shadows crept through Mrs. Anderson’s mind. She grew sick with suspense.
‘I cannot tell you here,’ said Ombra, recovering a little. ‘Come in. Take me upstairs, mamma. Nobody has done it; it is my own fault.’