Kitabı oku: «Ombra», sayfa 4

CHAPTER VII

Mr. Courtenay was in the library at Langton, tranquilly pursuing some part of the business which had brought him thither, when Miss Blank and her charge returned from their walk. His chief object, it is true, in this visit to the house of his fathers, had been to look after his ward; but there had been other business to do—leases to renew, timber to cut down, cottages to build; a multiplicity of small matters, which required his personal attention. These were straightforward, and did not trouble him as the others did; and the fact was that he felt much relieved by the absence of the young feminine problem, which it was so hard upon him, at his age, and with his habits, to be burdened with. He had dismissed her even out of his mind, and was getting through the less difficult matters steadily, with a grateful sense that here at least he had nothing in hand that was beyond his power. It was shady in the Langton library, cool, and very quiet; whereas outside there was one blaze of sunshine, and the day was hot. Mr. Courtenay was comfortable—perhaps for the first time since his arrival. He was satisfied with his present occupation, and for the moment had dismissed his other cares.

This was the pleasant position of affairs when Miss Blank rushed in upon him, with indignation in her countenance. There was something more than indignation—there was the flush of heat produced by her walk, and her unusual outburst of temper, and the dust, and a little dishevelment inseparable from wrath. She scarcely took time to knock at the door. She was a person who had been recommended to him as imperturbable in temper and languid in disposition—the last in the world to make any fuss; consequently he stared upon her now with absolute consternation, and even a little alarm.

‘Compose yourself, Miss Blank—take time to speak. Has anything happened to Kate?’

He was quite capable of hearing with composure anything that might have happened to Kate—anything short of positive injury, indeed, which would have freed him of her, would have been tidings of joy.

‘I have come to say, sir,’ said Miss Blank, ‘that there are some things a lady cannot be expected to put up with. I have always felt the time must come when I could not put up with Miss Courtenay. I am not an ill-tempered person, I hope–’

‘Quite the reverse, I have always heard,’ said Mr. Courtenay, politely, but with a sigh.

‘Thank you, sir. I believe I have always been considered to have a good temper; but I have said to myself, since ever I came here, “Miss Courtenay is bad enough now—she is trial enough to any lady’s feelings now.” I am sorry to have to say it if it hurts your feelings, Mr. Courtenay, but your niece s—she is—it is really almost impossible for a lady who has a respect for herself, and does not wish to be hurried into exhibitions of temper, to say what Miss Kate is.’

‘Pray compose yourself, Miss Blank. Take a seat. From my own observation,’ said Mr. Courtenay, ‘I am aware my niece must be troublesome at times.’

‘Troublesome!’ said Miss Blank—‘at times! That shows, sir, how little you know. About her troublesomeness I can’t trust myself to speak; nor is it necessary at the present moment. But I have always said to myself, “When that time comes, I will go at once.” And it appears to me, Mr. Courtenay, that though premature, that time has come.’

‘What time, for Heaven’s sake?’ said the perplexed guardian.

‘Mr. Courtenay, you know what she is as well as I do. It is not for any personal reason, though I am aware many people think her pretty; but it is not that. She is an heiress, she will have a nice property, and a great deal of money, therefore it is quite natural that it should be premature.’

‘Miss Blank, you would do me an infinite favour if you would speak plainly. What is it that is premature?’

Miss Blank had taken a seat, and she had loosed the strings of her bonnet. Her ideas of decorum had indeed been so far overcome by her excitement, that even under Mr. Courtenay’s eye she had begun to fan herself with her handkerchief. She made a pause in this occupation, and pressed her handkerchief to her face, as expressive of confusion; and from the other side of this shield she answered, ‘Oh! that I should have to speak to a gentleman of such things! If you demand a distinct answer, I must tell you. It is lovers, Mr. Courtenay.’

‘Lovers!’ he said, involuntarily, with a laugh of relief.

‘You may laugh, but it is no laughing matter,’ said Miss Blank. ‘Oh! if you had known, as I do by experience, what it is to manage girls! Do you know what a girl is, Mr. Courtenay?—the most aggravating, trying, unmanageable, untamable–’

‘My dear Miss Blank,’ said, Mr. Courtenay, seriously, ‘I presume that you were once one of these untamable creatures yourself.’

‘Ah!’ said the governess, with a long-drawn breath. It had not occurred to her, and, curiously enough, now that it was suggested, the idea seemed rather to flatter her than otherwise. She shook her head; but she was softened. ‘Perhaps I should not have said all girls,’ she resumed. ‘I was very strictly brought up, and never allowed to take such folly into my head. But to return to our subject, Mr. Courtenay. I must beg your attention to this—it has been my principle through life, I have never departed from it yet, and I cannot now—When lovers appear, I have always made it known among my friends—I go.’

‘I have no doubt it is an admirable principle,’ said Mr. Courtenay. ‘But in the present case let us come to particulars. Who are the lovers?’

‘One of the young gentlemen at the Rectory,’ answered Miss Blank, promptly; and then for the first time she felt that she had produced an effect.

Mr. Courtenay made no reply—he put down his pen, which he had been holding all this time in his hand; his face clouded over; he pushed his paper away from him and puckered his lips and his forehead. This time, without doubt, she had produced an effect.

‘I must beg you accordingly, Mr. Courtenay, to accept my resignation,’ said Miss Blank. ‘I have always kept up a good connection, and never suffered myself to be compromised, and I don’t mean to begin now. This day month, sir, if you please—if in the meantime you are suited with another lady in my place–’

‘Miss Blank, don’t you think this is something like forsaking your post? Is it not ungenerous to desert my niece when she has so much need of your protection? Do you not feel–’ Mr. Courtenay had commenced unawares.

‘Sir,’ said Miss Blank, with dignity, ‘when I was engaged, it was specially agreed that this was to be no matter of feelings. I have specially watched over my feelings, that they might not get any way involved. I am sure you must recollect the terms of my engagement as well as I.’

Mr. Courtenay did recollect them, and felt he had made a false step; and then the difficulties of his position rushed upon his bewildered sight. He did not know girls as Miss Blank did, who had spent many a weary year in wrestling with them; but he knew enough to understand that, if a girl in her natural state was hard to manage, a girl with a lover must be worse. And what was he to do if left alone, and unaided, to rule and quiet such an appalling creature? He drew in his lips, and contracted his forehead, until his face was about half its usual size. It gave him a little relief when the idea suddenly struck him that Miss Blank’s hypothesis might not be built on sufficient foundation. Women were always thinking of lovers—or, at least, not knowing anything precisely about women, so Mr. Courtenay had heard.

‘Let us hope, at least,’ he said, ‘that your alarming suggestion has been hastily made. Will you tell me what foundation you have for connecting Kate’s name with—with anything of the kind? She is only fifteen—she is not old enough.’

‘I thought I had said distinctly, Mr. Courtenay, that I considered it to be premature?’

‘Yes, yes, certainly—you said so—but– Perhaps, Miss Blank, you will kindly favour me with the facts–’

At this point another hurried knock came to the door. And once more, without waiting for an answer, Kate, all tears and trouble, her face flushed like Miss Blank’s, her hair astray, and an open letter in her hand, came rushing into the room. Two agitated female creatures in one hour, rushing into the private sanctuary of the most particular of bachelors! Mr. Courtenay commended her, though she was his nearest relation, to all the infernal gods.

‘What is the matter now?’ he cried, sharply. ‘Why do you burst in uninvited when I am busy? Kate, you seem to be trying every way to irritate and annoy me. What is it now?’

‘Uncle,’ cried Kate, breathlessly, ‘I have just got a letter, and I want to ask you—never mind her!—may I go to my Aunt Anderson’s? She is willing to have me, and it will save you heaps of trouble! Oh! please, Uncle Courtenay, please never mind anything else! May I go?’

‘May you go—to your Aunt Anderson? Why, here is certainly a new arrangement of the board!’ said Mr. Courtenay. He said the last words mockingly, and he fixed his eyes on Kate as if she had been a natural curiosity—which, indeed, in a great degree, she was to him.

‘Yes—to my Aunt Anderson. You spoke of her yourself—you know you did. You said she must not come here! and she does not want to come here. I don’t think she would come if she was asked! but she says I am to go to her. Uncle Courtenay, in a little while I shall be able to do what I like, and go where I like–’

‘Not for six years, my dear,’ said Mr. Courtenay, with a smile.

Kate stamped her foot in her passion.

‘If I were to write to the Lord Chancellor, I am sure he would let me!’ she cried.

‘But you are not a ward in Chancery—you are my ward,’ said Mr. Courtenay, blandly.

‘Then I will run away!’ cried Kate, once more stamping her foot. ‘I will not stay here. I hate Langton-Courtenay, and everybody that is unkind, and the people who hate me. I tell you I hate them, Uncle Courtenay! I will run away!’

‘I don’t doubt it, for one,’ said Miss Blank, quietly; ‘but with whom, Miss Kate, I should like to know? I daresay your plans are all laid.’

Mr. Courtenay did not see the blank stare of surprise with which Kate, all innocent of the meaning which was conveyed to his ear by these words, surveyed her adversary. His own better-instructed mind was moved by it to positive excitement. Even if Miss Blank had been premature in her suggestion, still there could be little doubt that lovers were a danger from which Kate could not be kept absolutely safe. And there were sons at the Rectory, one of whom, a good-looking young fellow of twenty, he had himself seen coming forward with a look of delighted recognition. Danger! Why, it was almost more than danger; it seemed a certainty of evil—if not now, why, then, next year, or the year after! Mr. Courtenay, like most old men of the world, felt an instinctive distrust of, and repugnance to, parsons. And a young parson was proverbially on the outlook for heiresses, and almost considered it a duty to provide for himself by marriage. All this ran through his disturbed mind as these two troublesome feminine personages before him waited each for her answer. ‘Confound women! They are more trouble than they are worth, a hundred times over!’ the old bachelor said to himself.

CHAPTER VIII

Mr. Courtenay was much too true to his instincts, however, to satisfy these two applicants, or to commit himself by any decision on the spot. He dismissed Miss Blank with the formal courtesy which he employed towards his inferiors, begging her to wait until to-morrow, when he should have reflected upon the problem she had laid before him. And he sent away Kate with much less ceremony, bidding her hold her tongue, and leave the room and leave things alone which she did not understand. He would not listen to the angry response which rose to her lips; and Kate had a melancholy night in consequence, aggravated by the miserable sensation that she had been snubbed in presence of Miss Blank, who was quite ready to take advantage of her discomfiture. When Kate’s guardian, however, was left alone to think, it is probable that his own reflections were not delightful. He was not a man apt to take himself to task, nor give way to self-examination, but still it was sufficiently apparent to him that his plan had not succeeded as he had hoped in Kate’s case. What he had hoped for had been to produce a quiet, calm girl, who would do what she was told, whose expectations and wishes would be on a subdued scale, and who would be reasonable enough to feel that his judgment was supreme in all matters. Almost all men at one time or another of their lives entertain the idea of ‘moulding’ a model woman. Mr. Courtenay’s ideal was not high—all he wanted was submissiveness, manageableness, quiet manners, and a total absence of the sentimental and emotional. The girl might have been permitted to be clever, to be a good musician, or a good artist, or a great student, if she chose, though such peculiarities always detract more or less from the air of good society which ought to distinguish a lady; but still Mr. Courtenay prided himself upon being tolerant, and he would not have interfered in such a case. But that this ward of his, this representative of his family, should choose to be an individual being with a very strong will and marked characteristics of her own, exasperated the old man of the world. ‘Most women have no character at all,’ he repeated to himself, raising his eyebrows in wondering appeal to Providence. Had the happy period when that aphorism was true, departed along with all the other manifestations of the age of Gold?—or was it still true, and was it the fault of Providence, to punish him for his sins, that his share of womankind should be so perverse? This was a question which it was difficult to make out; but he was rather inclined to chafe at Providence, which really does interfere so unjustifiably often, when things would go very well if they were left to themselves. The longer he thought of it, the more disgusted did he become—at once with Miss Blank and with her charge. What a cold-hearted wretch the woman must be! How strange that she should not at least ‘take an interest’ in the girl! To be sure he had made it a special point in her engagement that she should not take an interest. He was right in doing so, he felt sure; but, still, here was an unforeseen crisis, at which it would have been very important to have lighted on some one who would not be bound by a mere bargain. The girl was an unmanageable little fool, determined to have her own way at all risks; and the law would not permit him to shut her up, and keep her in the absolute subjection of a prison. She must have every advantage, forsooth—freedom and society, and Heaven knows what besides; education as much as if she were going to earn her living as a governess; and even that crowning horror, Lovers, when the time came. Yes, there was no law in the realm forbidding an heiress to have lovers. Miss Blank might resign, not wishing to compromise herself: but he, the unhappy guardian, could not resign. It was not illegal for a young man to speak to Kate—any idle fellow, with an introduction, might chatter to her, and drive her protectors frantic, and yet could not be put into prison for it. And there could be little doubt that, simply to spite her guardian, after she had worried him to death in every other way, she would fall in love. She would do it, as sure as fate; and even if she met with opposition she was a girl quite capable of eloping with her lover, giving unbounded trouble, and probably throwing some lasting stigma on herself and her name. It was premature, as Miss Blank said; but Miss Blank was a person of experience, learned in the ways of girls, and doubtless knew what she was saying. She had declined to have anything further to do with Kate; she had declared her own sway and ‘lovers’ to be quite incompatible. But Mr. Courtenay could not give a month’s warning, and what was he to do?

If there was but anybody to be found who would ‘take an interest’ in the girl! This idea flashed unconsciously through his mind, and he did not even realise that in wishing for this, in perceiving its necessity, he was stultifying all the previous exertions of his guardianship. Theories are all very well, but it is astonishing how ready men are to drop them in an emergency. Mr. Courtenay was in a dreadful emergency at present, and he prayed to his gods for some one to ‘take an interest’ in this girl. Her Aunt Anderson! The suggestion was so very convenient, it was so delightfully ready a way of escape out of his troubles, that he felt it necessary to pull himself up, and look at it fully. It is not to be supposed that it was a pleasant or grateful suggestion in itself. Had he been in no trouble about Kate, he would have at once, and sternly, declined all invitations (he would have said interference) on the part of her mother’s family. The late Mr. Courtenay had made a very foolish marriage, a marriage quite beneath his position; and the sister of the late Mrs. Courtenay had been discouraged in all her many attempts to see anything of the orphan Kate. Fortunately she had not been much in England, and, until the present, these attempts had all been made when Kate was a baby. Had the young lady of Langton-Courtenay been at all manageable, they would have been equally discouraged now. But the very name of Mrs. Anderson, at this crisis, breathed across Mr. Courtenay’s tribulations like the sweet south across a bed of violets. It was such a temptation to him as he did not know how to withstand. Her mother’s family! They had no right, certainly, to any share of the good things, which were entirely on the Courtenay side; but certainly they had a right to their share of the trouble. This trouble he had borne for fifteen years, and had not murmured. Of course, in the very nature of things, it was their turn now.

Mr. Courtenay reflected very deeply on this subject, looking at it in all its details. Fortunately there were but few remnants of her mother’s family. Mrs. Anderson was the widow of a Consul, who had spent almost all his life abroad. She had a pension, a little property, and an only daughter, a little older than Kate. There were but two of them. If they turned out to be of that locust tribe which Mr. Courtenay so feared and hated, they could at least be bought off cheaply, when they had served their purpose. The daughter, no doubt, would marry, and the mother could be bought off. Mr. Courtenay did not enter into any discussion with himself as to the probabilities of carrying out this scheme of buying off. At this moment he did not care to dwell upon any difficulties. In the meantime, he had the one great difficulty, Kate herself, to get settled somehow; and anything which might happen six years hence was so much less pressing. By that time a great many things unforeseen might have happened; and Mr. Courtenay did not choose to make so long an excursion into the unknown. What was he to do with her now? Was he to be compelled to stay in the country, to give up all his pleasures and comforts, and the habits of his life, in order to guard and watch over this girl?—or should she be given over, for the time, to the guardianship of her mother’s family? This was the real question he had to decide.

And by degrees he came to think more and more cordially of Mrs. Anderson—more cordially, and, at the same time, contemptuously. What a fool she must be, to offer voluntarily to take all this trouble! No doubt she expected to make her own advantage out of it; but Mr. Courtenay, with a grim smile upon his countenance, felt that he himself was quite capable of taking care of that. He might employ her, but he would take care that her devotion should be disinterested. She would be better than a governess at this crisis of Kate’s history! She would be a natural duenna and inspectress of morals, as well as the superintendent of education; and it should, of course, be fully impressed upon her that it was for her interest to discourage lovers, and keep the external world at arm’s length. The very place of her residence was favourable. She had settled in the Isle of Wight, a long way from Langton-Courtenay, and happily so far from town that it would not be possible to run up and down and appeal to him at any moment. He thought of this all night, and it was the first subject that returned to his thoughts in the morning. Mrs. Anderson, or unlimited worry, trouble, and annoyance—banishment to the country, severance from all delights. Then let it be Mrs. Anderson! he said to himself, with a sigh. It was hard upon him to have such a decision to make, and yet it was satisfactory to feel that he had decided for the best. He went down to breakfast with a certain solemn composure, as of a man who was doing right and making a sacrifice. It would be the salvation of his personal comfort, and to secure that, at all costs, was fundamentally and eternally right; but it was a sacrifice at once of pride and of principle, and he felt that he had a right to the honours of martyrdom on that score.

After breakfast he called his ward into the library, with a polite little speech of apology to Miss Blank. ‘If you will permit me the pleasure of a few words with you at twelve o’clock, I think we may settle that little matter,’ he said, with the greatest suavity; leaving upon that lady’s mind the impression that Kate was to be bound hand and foot, and delivered over into her hands—which, as Miss Blank had no desire, could she avoid it, to leave the comfort of Langton-Courtenay, was very satisfactory to her; and then he withdrew into the library with the victim.

‘Now, Kate,’ he said, sitting down, ‘I am going to speak to you very seriously.’

‘You have been doing nothing but speak to me seriously ever since you came,’ said Kate, pouting. ‘I wish you would not give yourself so much trouble, Uncle Courtenay. All I want is just yes or no.’

‘But a great deal 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.