Ombra. Маргарет Олифант
depends on the yes or the no. Look here, Kate, I am willing to let you go—oh! pray don’t clap your hands too soon!—I am willing to let you go, on conditions, and the conditions are rather serious. You had better not decide until you hear–’
‘I am sure I shall not mind them,’ said impetuous Kate, before whose eyes there instantly rose up a prospect of a new world, all full of freshness, and novelty, and interest. Mind!—she would not have minded fire and water to get at an existence which should be altogether new.
‘Listen, however,’ said Mr. Courtenay. ‘My conditions are very grave. If you go to Mrs. Anderson, Kate–’
‘Of course I shall go, if you will let me, Uncle Courtenay.’
‘If you go,’ said Mr. Courtenay, with a wave of his hand deprecating interruption, ‘it must not be for a visit only—you must go to stay.’
‘To stay!’
Kate’s eyes, which grew round with the strain of wonder, interest, and excitement, and which kindled, and brightened, and shone, reflecting like a mirror the shades of feeling that passed through her mind, were a sight to see.
‘If you go,’ he continued, ‘and if Mrs. Anderson is content to receive you, it must be for the remainder of your minority. I have had a great deal of trouble with your education, and now it is just that your mother’s family should take their share. Hear me out, Kate. Your aunt, of course, should have an allowance for your maintenance, and you could have as many masters and governesses, and all the rest, as were necessary; but if you go out of my hands, you go not for six weeks, but for six years, Kate.’
Kate had been going to speak half a dozen times, but now, having controlled herself so long, she paused with a certain mixture of feelings. Her delight was certainly toned down. To go and come—to be now Queen of Langton, and now her aunt’s amused and petted guest, had been her own dream of felicity. This was a different matter, there could be no doubt. It would be the old story—if not the monotony of Langton, which she knew, the monotony of Shanklin, which she did not know. Various clouds passed over the firmament which had looked so smiling. Perhaps it was possible her Aunt Anderson and Ombra might not turn out desirable companions for six years—perhaps she might regret her native place, her supremacy over the cottagers, whom she sometimes exasperated. The cloud thickened, dropped lower. ‘Should I never be allowed to come back?—not even to see Langton, Uncle Courtenay?’ she asked in a subdued voice.
‘Langton, in that case, ought to be let or shut up.’
‘Let!—to other people!—to strangers, Uncle Courtenay!—our house!’
‘Well, you foolish child, are we such very superior clay that we cannot let our house? Why, the best people in England do it. The Duke of Brentford does it. You have not quite his pretensions, and he does not mind.’
‘But I have quite his pretensions,’ cried Kate—‘more!—and so have you, uncle. What is he more than a gentleman? and we are gentlemen, I hope. Besides, a Duke has a vulgar sort of grandeur with his title—you know he has—and can do what he pleases; but we must act as gentlefolks. Oh! Uncle Courtenay, not that!’
‘Pshaw!’ was all that Mr. Courtenay replied. He was not open to sentimental considerations, especially when money was concerned; but, still, he had so much natural prejudice remaining in him for the race and honour of Langton-Courtenay, that he thought no worse of his troublesome ward for what she had said. He would of course pay no manner of attention to it; but still, on the whole, he liked her so to speak.
‘Let us waive the question,’ he resumed. ‘No, not to Langton-Courtenay—I don’t choose you should return here, if you quit it. But there might be change of air, once a year or so, to other places.’
‘Oh! might we go and travel?—might we go,’ cried Kate, looking up to him with shining eyes and eager looks, and lips apart, like an angelic petitioner, ‘abroad?’
She said this last word with such a fulness and roundness of sound, as it would be impossible, even in capitals, to convey through the medium of print.
‘Well,’ he said, with a smile, ‘probably that splendour and delight might be permitted to be—if you could afford it off your allowance, being always understood.’
‘Oh! of course we could afford it,’ said Kate. ‘Uncle, I consent at once—I will write to my Aunt Anderson at once. I wish she was not called Anderson—it sounds so common—like the groom in the village. Uncle Courtenay, when can I start? To-morrow? Now, why should you shake your head? I have very few things to pack; and to-morrow is just as good as any other day.’
‘Quite as good, I have no doubt; and so is to-morrow week,’ said Mr. Courtenay. ‘In the first place, you must take till to-morrow to decide.’
‘But when I have decided already!’ said Kate.
‘To-morrow at this time bring me your final answer. There, now run away—not another word.’
Kate went away, somewhat indignant; and for the next twenty-four hours did nothing but plan tours to all the beautiful places she had ever heard or read about. Her deliberations as to the scheme in general were all swallowed up in this. ‘I will take them to Switzerland; I will take them to Italy. We shall travel four or five months in every year; and see everything and hear everything, and enjoy everything,’ she said to herself, clapping her hands, as it were, under her breath. For she was generous in her way; she was quite clear on the point that it was she who must ‘take’ her aunt and cousin everywhere, and make everything agreeable for them. Perhaps there was in this a sense of superiority which satisfied that craving for power and influence which belonged to her nature; but still, notwithstanding her defective education, it was never in Kate’s mind to keep any enjoyment to herself.
CHAPTER IX
Before four-and-twenty hours had passed, a certain premonition of approaching change had stolen into the air at Langton-Courtenay. Miss Blank, too, had been received by Mr. Courtenay in a private audience, where he treated her with the courtesy due from one crowned head to another; but, nevertheless, gave her fully to understand that her reign was over. This took her all the more by surprise, that she had expected quite the reverse, from his words and looks in the morning; and it was perhaps an exclamation which burst from her as she withdrew, amazed and indignant, to her own room, which betrayed the possibilities of the future to the household. Miss Blank was not prone to exclamations, nor to betraying herself in any way; but to have your resignation blandly accepted, when you expected to be implored, almost with tears, to retain your post, is an experience likely to overcome the composure of any one. The exclamation itself was of the plainest character—it was, ‘Oh! I like his politeness—I like that!’ These words were heard by a passing housemaid; and not only were the words heard, but the flushed cheek, the indignant step, the air of injury were noted with all that keenness and intelligence which the domestic mind reserves for the study of the secrets of those above them. ‘She’s got the sack like the rest,’ was Jane’s remark to herself; and she spread it through the house. The intimation produced a mild interest, but no excitement. But when late in the afternoon Maryanne came rushing downstairs, open-mouthed, to report some unwary words which had dropped from her young mistress, the feelings of the household acquired immediate intensity. It was a suspecting place, and a poor sort of place, where there never were any great doings; but still Langton-Courtenay was a comfortable place, and when Maryanne, with that perverted keenness of apprehension already noticed, which made her so much more clever in divining her mistress’s schemes than doing her mistress’s work, had put Kate’s broken words together, a universal alarm took possession of the house. The housemaid, and the kitchenmaid, and the individual who served in the capacity of man-of-all-work, shook in their shoes. Mrs. Cook, however, who was housekeeper as well, shook out her ample skirts, and declared that she did not mind. ‘A house can’t take care of itself,’ she said, with noble confidence; ‘and they ain’t that clever to know now to get on without me.’ The gardener, also, was easy in his mind, secure in the fact that ‘the “place,” must be kep’ up;’ but a thrill of tremulous expectation ran through all those who were liable to be sent away.
These fears were