WILL had seen his mother arrive. He was coming downstairs at the moment, and he heard her voice, and could hear her say, “Tell him it is his mother,” and fright had seized him. If only three days could have been abrogated, and he could have gone to her in his old careless way, to demand an account of why she had come!—but there stood up before him a ghost of what he had been doing—a ghost of uncomprehended harm and mischief, which now for the first time showed to him, not in its real light, but still with an importance it had never taken before. If it had been hard to tell her of the discovery he had made before he left the Cottage, it was twenty times harder now, when he had discussed it with other people, and taken practical steps about it. He went out hurriedly, and with a sense of stealth and panic. And thepanic and the stealth were signs to him of something wrong. He had not seen it, and did not see it yet, as regarded the original question. He knew in his heart that there was no favouritism in Mrs. Ochterlony’s mind, and that he was just the same to her as Hugh—and what could it matter which of her sons had Earlston?—But still, nature was stronger in him than reason, and he was ashamed and afraid to meet her, though he did not know why. He hurried out, and said to himself that she was “angry,” and that he could not stay in all day long to be scolded. He would go back to luncheon, and that would be time enough. And then he began to imagine what she would say to him. But that was not so easy. What could she say? After all, he had done no harm. He had but intimated to Hugh, in the quietest way, that he had no right to the position he was occupying. He had made no disturbance about it, nor upbraided his brother for what was not his brother’s fault. And so far from blaming his mother, it had not occurred to him to consider her in the matter, except in the most secondary way. What could it matter to her? If Will had it, or if Hugh had it, it was still in the family. And the simple transfer was nothing to make any fuss about. This was how he reasoned; but Nature held a different opinion upon the subject. She had not a word to say, nor any distinct suggestion even, of guiltiness or wrong-doing to present to his mind. She only carried him away out of the house, made him shrink aside till Mary had passed, and made him walk at the top of his speed out of the very district in which Mr. Penrose’s house was situated. Because his mother would be “angry”—because she might find fault with him for going away or insist upon his return, or infringe his liberty. Was that why he fled from her?—But Will could not tell—he fled because he was driven by an internal consciousness which could not find expression so much as in thought. He went away and wandered about the streets, thinking that now he was almost a man, and ought to be left to direct his own actions; that to come after him like this was an injury to him which he had a right to resent. It was treating him as Hugh and Islay had never been treated. When he laid himself out for these ideas they came to him one by one, and at last he succeeded in feeling himself a little ill-used; but in his heart he knew that he did not mean that, and that Mrs. Ochterlony did not mean it, and that there was something else which stood between them, though he could not tell what it was.
All this time he contemplated going in facing his mother, and being surprised to see her, and putting up with her angeras he best could. But when midday came, he felt less willing than ever. His reluctance grew upon him. If it had all come simply, if he had rushed into her presence unawares, then he could have borne it; but to go back on purpose, to be ushered in to her solemnly, and to meet her when her wrath had accumulated and she had prepared what to say—this was an ordeal which Will felt he could not bear. She had grown terrible to him, appalling, like the angel with the flaming sword. His conscience arrayed her in such effulgence of wrath and scorn, that his very soul shrank. She would be angry beyond measure. It was impossible to fancy what she might say or do; and he could not go in and face her in cold blood. Therefore, instead of going home, Will went down hastily to his uncle’s office, and explained to him the position of affairs. “You go and speak to her,” said Will, with a feeling that it was his accomplice he was addressing, and yet a pang to think that he had himself gone over to the enemy, and was not on his natural side; “I am not up to seeing her to-night.”
“Poor Mary,” said Uncle Penrose, “I should not be surprised to find her in a sad way; but you ought to mind your own business, and it is not I who am to be blamed, but you.”
“She will not blame you,” said Will; “she will be civil to you. She will not look at you as she would look at me. When she is vexed she gives a fellow such a look. And I’m tired, and I can’t face her to-day.”
“It is mail-day, and I shall be late, and she will have a nice time of it all by herself,” said Mr. Penrose; but he consented at the end. And as for Will, he wandered down to the quays, and got into a steam-boat, and went off in the midst of a holiday party up the busy river. He used to remember the airs that were played on the occasion by the blind fiddler in the boat, and could never listen to them afterwards without the strangest sensations. He felt somehow as if he were in hiding, and the people were pointing him out to each other, and had a sort of vague wonder in his mind as to what they could think he had done—robbed or killed, or something—when the fact was he was only killing the time, and keeping out of the way because his mother was angry, and he did not feel able to face her and return home. And very forlorn the poor boy was; he had not eaten anything, and he did not know what to get for himself to eat, and the host of holiday people filled up all the vacant spaces in the inn they were all bound for, where there were pretty gardens looking on the river. Will was young and alone, and not much in the way of thrusting himself forward, and it was hard to get any one to attend to him,or a seat to sit upon, or anything to eat; and his forlorn sense of discomfort and solitude pressed as hard upon him as remorse could have done. And he knew that he must manage to make the time pass on somehow, and that he could not return until he could feel himself justified in hoping that his mother, tired with her journey, had gone to rest. Not till he felt confident of getting in unobserved, could he venture to go home.
This was how it happened that Mr. Penrose went in alone, and that all the mists suddenly cleared up for Mary, and she saw that she had harder work before her than anything that had yet entered into her mind. He drew a chair beside her, and shook hands, and said he was very glad to see her, and then a pause ensued so serious and significant, that Mary felt herself judged and condemned; and felt, in spite of herself, that the hot blood was rushing to her face. It seemed to her as she sat there, as if all the solid ground had suddenly been cut away from under her, that her plea was utterly ignored and the whole affair decided upon; and only to see Uncle Penrose’s meekly averted face made her head swim and her heart beat with a kind of half-delirious rage and resentment. He believed it then—knew all about it, and believed it, and recognised that it was a fallen woman by whose side he sat. All this Mrs. Ochterlony perceived in an instant by the downcast, conscious glance of Mr. Penrose’s eye.
“Will has been out all day, has he?” he said. “Gone sight-seeing, I suppose. He ought to be in to dinner. I hope you had a comfortable luncheon, and have been taken care of. It is mail-day, that is why I am so late.”
“But I am anxious, very anxious, about Will,” said Mary. “I thought you would know where he was. He is only a country boy, and something may happen to him in these dreadful streets.”
“Oh no, nothing has happened to him,” said Uncle Penrose, “you shall see him later. I am very glad you have come, for I wanted to have a little talk with you. You will always be quite welcome here, whatever may happen. If the girls had been at home, indeed, it might have been different—but whenever you like to come you know—— I am very glad that we can talk it all over. It is so much the most satisfactory way.”
“Talk what over?” said Mary. “Thank you, uncle, but it was Will I was anxious to see.”
“Yes, to be sure—naturally,” said Mr. Penrose; “but don’t let us go into anything exciting before dinner. The gong will sound in ten minutes, and I must put myself in order. We can talk in the evening, and that will be much the best.”
With this he went and left her, to make the very small amount of toilette he considered necessary. And then came the dinner, during which Mr. Penrose was very particular, as he said, to omit all allusion to disagreeable subjects. Mary had to take her place at table, and to look across at the vacant chair that had been placed for Will, and to feel the whole weight of her uncle’s changed opinion, without any opportunity of rising up against it. She could not say a word in self-defence, for she was in no way assailed; but she never raised her eyes to him, nor listened to half-a-dozen words, without feeling that Mr. Penrose had in his own consciousness found her out. He was not going to shut his doors against her, or to recommend any cruel step. But her character was changed in his eyes. A sense that he was no longer particular as to what he said or did before her, no longer influenced by her presence, or elevated ever so little by her companionship as he had always been of old, came with terrible effect upon Mary’s mind. He was careless of what he said, and of her feelings, and of his own manners. She was a woman who had compromised herself, who had no longer much claim to respect, in Uncle Penrose’s opinion. This feeling, which was, as it were, in the air, affected Mary in the strangest way. It made her feel nearly mad in her extreme suppression and quietness. She could not stand on her own defence, for she was not assailed. And Will who should have stood by her, had gone over to the enemy’s side, and deserted her, and kept away. Where was he? where could he have gone? Her boy—her baby—the last one, who had always been the most tenderly tended; and he was avoiding—avoidinghis mother. Mary realized all this as she sat at the table; and at the same time she had to respect the presence of the butler and Mr. Penrose’s servants, and make no sign. When she did not eat Mr. Penrose took particular notice of it, and hoped that she was not allowing herself to be upset; and he talked, in an elaborate way, of subjects that could interest nobody, keeping with too evident caution from the one subject which was in his mind all the while.
This lasted until the servants had gone away, and Mr. Penrose had poured out his first glass of port, for he was an old-fashioned man. He sat and sipped his wine with the quietness of preparation, and Mary, too, buckled on her armour, and made a rapid inspection of all its joints and fastenings. She was sitting at the table which had been so luxuriously served, and where the purple fruit and wine were making a picture still; but she was as truly at the bar as ever culprit was.There was an interval of silence, which was very dreadful to her, and then, being unable to bear it any longer, it was Mary herself who spoke.
“I perceive that something has been passing here in which we are all interested,” she said. “My poor boy has told you something he had heard—and I don’t know, except in the most general way, what he has heard. Can you tell, uncle? It is necessary I should know.”
“My dear Mary, these are very unpleasant affairs to talk about,” said Mr. Penrose. “You should have had a female friend to support you—though, indeed, I don’t know how you may feel about that. Will has told meall. There was nobody he could ask advice from under the circumstances, and I think it was very sensible of him to come to me.”
“I want to know what he wanted advice for,” said Mary, “and what it is you callall; and why Will has avoided me? I cannot think it is chance that has kept him out so long. Whatever he has heard, he must have known that it would be best to talk it over with me.”
“He thought you would be angry,” said Mr. Penrose, between the sips of his wine.
“Angry!” said Mary, and then her heart melted at the childish fear. “Oh, uncle, you should have advised him better,” she said, “he is only a boy; and you know that whatever happened, he had better have consulted his own mother first. How should I be angry? This is not like a childish freak, that one could be angry about.”
“No,” said Mr. Penrose; “it is not like a childish freak; but still I think it was the wisest thing he could do to come to me. It is impossible you could be his best counsellor where you are yourself so much concerned, and where such important interests are at stake.”
“Let me know at once what you mean,” said Mary faintly. “What important interests are at stake?”
She made a rapid calculation in her mind at the moment, and her heart grew sicker and sicker. Will had been, when she came to think of it, more than a week away from home, and many things might have happened in that time—things which she could not realize nor put in any shape, but which made her spirit faint out of her and all her strength ooze away.
“My dear Mary,” said Mr. Penrose, mildly, “why should you keep any pretence with me? Will has told meall. You cannot expect that a young man like him, at the beginning of his life, would relinquish his rights and give up such a fine succession merely out of consideration to your feelings. I am verysorry for you, and he is very sorry. Nothing shall be done on our part to compromise you beyond what is absolutely necessary; but your unfortunate circumstances are not his fault, and it is only reasonable that he should claim his rights.”
“What are his rights?” said Mary; “what do you suppose my unfortunate circumstances to be? Speak plainly—or, stop; I will tell you what he has heard. He has heard that my husband and I were married in India before he was born. That is quite true; and I suppose he and you think——” said Mary, coming to a sudden gasp for breath, and making a pause against her will. “Then I will tell you the facts,” she said, with a labouring, long-drawn breath, when she was able to resume. “We were married in Scotland, as you and everybody know; it was not a thing done in secret. Everybody about Kirtell—everybody in the county knew of it. We went to Earlston afterwards, where Hugh’s mother was, and to Aunt Agatha. There was no shame or concealment anywhere, and you know that. We went out to India after, but not till we had gone to see all our friends; and everybody knew——”
“My wife even asked you here,” said Mr. Penrose, reflectively. “It is very extraordinary; I mentioned all that to Will: but, my dear Mary, what is the use of going over it in this way, when there is this fact, which you don’t deny, which proves that Hugh Ochterlony thought it necessary to do you justice at the last?”
Mary was too much excited to feel either anger or shame. The colour scarcely deepened on her cheek. “I will tell you about that,” she said. “I resisted it as long as it was possible to resist. The man at Gretna died, and his house and all his records were burnt, and the people were all dead who had been present, and I had lost the lines. I did not think them of any consequence. And then my poor Hugh was seized with a panic—you remember him, uncle,” said Mary, in her excitement, with the tears coming to her eyes. “My poor Hugh! how much he felt everything, how hard it was for him to be calm and reasonable when he thought our interests concerned. I have thought since, he had some presentiment of what was going to happen. He begged me for his sake to consent that he might be sure there would be no difficulty about the pension or anything. It was like dragging my heart out of my breast,” said Mary, with the tears dropping on her hands, “but I yielded to pleasehim.”
And then there was a pause, inevitable on her part, for her heart was full, and she had lost the faculty of speech. As for Mr. Penrose, he gave quiet attention to all she was saying, andmade mental notes of it while he filled himself another glass of wine. He was not an impartial listener, for he had taken his side, and had the conducting of the other case in his hands. When Mary came to herself, and could see and hear again—when her heart was not beating so wildly in her ears, and her wet eyes had shed their moisture, she gave a look at him with a kind of wonder, marvelling that he said nothing. The idea of not being believed when she spoke was one which had never entered into her mind.
“You expect me to say something,” said Mr. Penrose, when he caught her eye. “But I don’t see what I can say. All that you have told me just amounts to this, that your first marriage rests upon your simple assertion; you have no documentary or any other kind of evidence. My dear Mary, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but if you consider how strong is your interest in it, what a powerful motive you have to keep up that story, and that you confess it rests on your word alone, you will see that, as Wilfrid’s adviser, I am not justified in departing from the course we have taken. It is too important to be decided by mere feeling. I am very sorry for you, but I have Wilfrid’s interests to think of,” said Mr. Penrose, slowly swallowing his glass of wine.
Mary looked at him aghast; she did not understand him. It seemed to her as if some delusion had taken possession of her mind, and that the words conveyed a meaning which no human words could bear. “I do not understand you,” she said; “I suppose there is some mistake. What course is it you have taken? I want to know what you mean.”
“It is not a matter to be discussed with you,” said Mr. Penrose. “Whatever happens I would not be forgetful of a lady’s feelings. From the first I have said that it must be a matter of private arrangement; and I have no doubt Hugh will see it in the same light. I have written to him, but I have not yet received a satisfactory answer. Under all the circumstances I feel we are justified in asserting Wilfrid to be Major Ochterlony’s only lawful son——”
An involuntary cry came out of Mary’s breast. She pushed her chair away from the table, and sat bending forward, looking at him. The pang was partly physical, as if some one had thrust a spear into her heart; and beyond that convulsive motion she could neither move nor speak.
“—and of course he must be served heir to his uncle,” said Mr. Penrose. “Where things so important are concerned, you cannot expect that feeling can be allowed to bear undue sway. It is in this light that Wilfrid sees it. He is ready to do anything for you, anything for his brother; but he cannot be expected to sacrifice his legal rights. I hope Hugh will see how reasonable this is, and I think for your own sake you should use your influence with him. If he makes a stand, you know it will ruin your character, and make everybody aware of the unhappy position of affairs; and it cannot do any good to him.”
Mary heard all this and a great deal more, and sat stupified with a dull look of wonder on her face, making no reply. She thought she had formed some conception of what was coming to her, but in reality she had no conception of it; and she sat listening, coming to an understanding, taking it painfully into her mind, learning to see that it had passed out of the region of what might be—that the one great, fanciful, possible danger of her life had developed into a real danger, more dreadful, more appalling than anything she had ever conceived of. She sat thus, with her chair thrust back, looking in Mr. Penrose’s face, following with her eyes all his unconcerned movements, feeling his words beat upon her ears like a stinging rain. And this was all true; love, honour, pride, or faith had nothing to do with it. Whether she was a wretched woman, devising a lie to cover her shame, or a pure wife telling her tale with lofty truth and indignation, mattered nothing. It was in this merciless man’s hand, and nothing but merciless evidence and proof would be of any use. She sat and listened to him, hearing the same words over and over; that her feelings were to be considered; that nothing was to be done to expose her; that Will had consented to that, and was anxious for that; that it must be matter of private arrangement, and that her character must be spared. It was this iteration that roused Mary, and brought her back, as it were, out of her stupefaction into life.
“I do not understand all you are saying,” she said, at last; “it sounds like a horrible dream; I feel as if you could not mean it: but one thing—do you mean that Hugh is to be made to give up his rights, by way of sparing me?”
“By way of sparing a public trial and exposure—which is what it must come to otherwise,” said Mr. Penrose. “I don’t know, poor boy, how you can talk about his rights.”
“Then listen to me,” said Mary, rising up, and holding by her chair to support herself; “I may be weak, but I am not like that. My boy shall not give up his rights. I know what I am saying; if there should be twenty trials, I am ready to bear them. It shall be proved whether in England a true woman cannot tell her true story, and be believed. Neitherlie nor shame has ever attached to me. If I have to see my own child brought against me—God forgive you!—I will try to bear it. My poor Will! my poor Will!—but Hugh’s boy shall not be sacrificed. What! my husband, my son, my own honour—a woman’s honour involves all belonging to her—— Do you thinkI, for the sake of pain or exposure, would give them all up? It must be that you have gone out of your senses, and don’t know what to say.I, to save myself at my son’s expense!”
“But Wilfrid is your son too,” said Mr. Penrose, shrinking somewhat into himself.
“Oh, my poor Will! my poor Will!” said Mary, moaning in her heart; and after that she went away, and left the supporter of Will’s cause startled, but not moved from his intention, by himself. As for Mrs. Ochterlony, she went up into her room, and sank down into the first chair that offered, and clasped her hands over her heart lest it should break forth from the aching flesh. She thought no more of seeing Will, or of telling him her story, or delivering him from his delusion. What she thought of was, to take him into her arms in an infinite pity, when the poor boy, who did not know what he was doing, should come to himself. And Hugh—Hugh her husband, who was thought capable of such wrong and baseness—Hugh her boy, whose name and fame were to be taken from him,—and they thought she would yield to it, to save herself a pang! When she came to remember that the night was passing, and to feel the chill that had crept over her, and to recall to herself that she must not exhaust her strength, Mary paused in her thoughts, and fell upon her knees instead. Even that was not enough; she fell prostrate, as one who would have fallen upon the Deliverer’s feet; but she could say no prayer. Her heart itself seemed at last to break forth, and soar up out of her, in a speechless supplication—“Let this cup pass!” Did He not say it once Who had a heavier burden to bear?
SO very late it was when Will came in, that he crept up to his room with a silent stealth which felt more like ill-doing to him than any other sin he had been guilty of. He crept to his room, though he would have been glad to have lingered, and warmed himself and been revived withfood. But, at the end of this long, wretched day, he was more than ever unfit to face his mother, who he felt sure must be watching for him, watchful and unwearied as she always had been. It did not occur to him that Mrs. Ochterlony, insensible for the moment to all sounds, was lying enveloped in darkness, with her eyes open, and all her faculties at work, and nothing but pain, pain, ever, for ever, in her mind. That she could be wound up to a pitch of emotion so great that she would not have heard whatever noise he might have made, that she would not have heeded him, that he was safe to go and come as he liked, so far as Mary was concerned, was an idea that never entered Will’s mind. He stole in, and went softly up the stairs, and swallowed the glass of wine the butler compassionately brought him, without even saying a word of thanks. He was chilled to his bones, and his head ached, and a sense of confused misery was in all his frame. He crept into his bed like a savage, in the dark, seeking warmth, seeking forgetfulness, and hiding; so long as he could be hid, it did not matter. His mother could not come in with the light in her hand to stand by his bedside, and drive all ghosts and terrors away, for he had locked the door in his panic. No deliverance could come to him, as it seemed, any way. If she was “angry” before, what must she be now when he had fled and avoided her? and poor Will lay breathing hard in the dark, wondering within himself why it was he dared not face his mother. What had he done? Instead of having spent the day in his usual fashion, why was he weary, and footsore, and exhausted, and sick in body and in mind? He had meant her no harm, he had done no wrong he knew of. It was only a confused, unintelligible weight on his conscience, or rather on his consciousness, that bowed him down, and made him do things which he did not understand. He went to sleep at last, for he was young and weary, and nothing could have kept him from sleeping; but he had a bad night. He dreamed dreadful dreams, and in the midst of them all saw Mary, always Mary, threatening him, turning away from him, leaving him to fall over precipices and into perils. He started up a dozen times in the course of that troubled night, waking to a confused sense of solitude, and pain, and abandonment, which in the dark and the silence were very terrible to bear. He was still only a boy, and he had done wrong, dreadful wrong, and he did not know what it was.
In the morning when Will woke things were not much better. He was utterly unrefreshed by his night’s rest—if the partial unconsciousness of his sleep could be called rest; and the thought he woke to was, that however she might receive him,to-day he must see his mother. She might be, probably was, “angry,” beyond anything he could conceive; but however that might be, he must see her and meet her wrath. It was not until he had fully realized that thought, that a letter was brought to Will, which increased his excitement. It was a very unusual thing for him to get letters, and he was startled accordingly. He turned it over and over before he opened it, and thought it must be from Hugh. Hugh, too, must have adopted the plan of pouring out his wrath against his brother for want of any better defence to make. But then he perceived that the writing was not Hugh’s. When he opened it Will grew pale, and then he grew red. It was a letter which Nelly Askell had written before she wrote the one to Hugh, which had roused him out of his despondency. Something had inspired the little girl that day. She had written this too, like the other, without very much minding what she meant. This is what Will read upon the morning of the day which he already felt to be in every description a day of fate:—
“Will!—I don’t think I can ever call you dear Will again, or think of you as I used to do—oh, Will, what are you doing? If I had been you I would have been tied to the stake, torn with wild horses, done anything that used to be done to people, rather than turn against my mother.Iwould have done that formymother, and if I had had yours! Oh, Will, say you don’t mean it? I think sometimes you can’t mean it, but have got deluded somehow, for you know you have a bad temper. How could you ever believe it; She is not my mother, but I know she never did any wrong. She may have sinned perhaps, as people say everybody sins, but she never could have done anywrong; look in her face, and just try whether you can believe it. It is one comfort to me that if you mean to be so wicked (which I cannot believe of you), and were to win (which is not possible), you would never more have a day’s happiness again. Ihopeyou would never have a day’s happiness. You would break her heart, for she is a woman, and though you would not breakhisheart, you would put his life all wrong, and it would haunt you, and you would pray to be poor, or a beggar, or anything rather than in a place that does not belong to you. You may think I don’t know, but I do know. I am a woman, and understand things better than a boy like you. Oh, Will! we used to be put in the same cradle, and dear Mrs. Ochterlony used to nurse us both when we were babies. Sometimes I think I should have been your sister. If you will come back and put away all this which is so dreadful to think of, I will never more bring it upagainst you. I for one will forget it, as if it had never been. Nobody shall put it into your mind again. We will forgive you, and love you the same as ever; and when you are a man, and understand and see what it is you have been saved from, you will go down on your knees and thank God.
“If I had been old enough to travel by myself, or to be allowed to do what I like, I should have gone to Liverpool too, to have given you no excuse. It is not so easy to write; but oh, Will, you know what I mean. Come back, and let us forget that you were ever so foolish and so wicked. I could cry when I think of you all by yourself, and nobody to tell you what is right. Come back, and nobody shall ever bring it up against you. Dear Will! don’t you love us all too well to make us unhappy?—Still your affectionateNelly.”
This letter startled the poor boy, and affected him in a strange way. It brought the tears to his eyes. It touched him somehow, not by its reproaches, but by the thought that Nelly cared. She had gone over to Hugh’s side like all the rest—and yet she cared and took upon her that right of reproach and accusation which is more tender than praise. And it made Will’s heart ache in a dull way to see that they all thought him wicked. What had he done that was wicked? He ached, poor boy, not only in his heart but in his head, and all over him. He did not get up even to read his letter, but lay in a kind of sad stupor all the morning, wondering if his mother was still in the house—wondering if she would come to him—wondering if she was so angry that she no longer desired to see him. The house was more quiet than usual, he thought—there was no stir in it of voices or footsteps. Perhaps Mrs. Ochterlony had gone away again—perhaps he was to be left here, having got Uncle Penrose on his side, to his sole company—excommunicated and cast off by his own. Wilfrid lay pondering all these thoughts till he could bear it no longer; instead of his pain and shrinking a kind of dogged resistance came into his mind; at least he would go and face it, and see what was to happen to him. He would go downstairs and find out, to begin with, what this silence meant.
Perhaps it was just because it was so much later than usual that he felt as if he had been ill when he got up—felt his limbs trembling under him, and shivered, and grew hot and cold—or perhaps it was the fatigue and mental commotion of yesterday. By this time he felt sure that his mother must be gone. Had she been in the house she would have come to see him. She would have seized the opportunity when he could not escape from her. No doubt she was gone, after waiting all yesterdayfor him,—gone either hating him or scorning him, casting him off from her; and he felt that he had not deserved that. Perhaps he might have deserved that Hugh should turn his enemy—notwithstanding that, even for Hugh he felt himself ready to do anything—but to his mother he had done no harm. He had meditated nothing but good to her.Hewould not have thought of marrying, or giving to any one but her the supreme place in his house. He would never have asked her or made any doubt about it, but taken her at once to Earlston, and showed her everything there arranged according to her liking. This was what Will had always intended and settled upon. And his mother, for whom he would have done all this, had gone away again, offended and angry, abandoning him to his own devices. Bitterness took possession of his soul as he thought of it. He meant it only for their good—for justice and right, and to have his own; and this was the cruel way in which they received it, as if he had done it out of unkind feelings—even Nelly! A sense that he was wronged came into Wilfrid’s mind as he dressed himself, and looked at his pale face in the glass, and smoothed his long brown hair. And yet he stepped out of his room with the feelings of one who ventures upon an undiscovered country, a new region, in which he does not know whether he is to meet with good or evil. He had to support himself by the rail as he went downstairs. He hesitated and trembled at the drawing-room door, which was a room Mr. Penrose never occupied. Breakfast must be over long ago. If there was any lady in the house, no doubt she would be found there.
He put his hand on the door, but it was a minute or more before he could open it, and he heard no sound within. No doubt she had gone away. He had walked miles yesterday to avoid her, but yet his heart was sore and bled, and he felt deserted and miserable to think that she was gone. But when Will had opened the door, the sight he saw was more wonderful to him than if she had been gone. Mary was seated at the table writing: she was pale, but there was something in her face which told of unusual energy and resolution, a kind of inspiration which gave character to every movement she made. And she was so much preoccupied, that she showed no special excitement at sight of her boy; she stopped and put away her pen, and rose up looking at him with pitiful eyes. “My poor boy!” she said, and kissed him in her tender way. And then she sat down at the table, and went back to her letters again.
It was not simple consternation which struck Will; it was a mingled pang of wonder and humiliation and sharp disappointment.Only her poor boy!—only the youngest, the child as he had always been, not the young revolutionary to whom Nelly had written that letter, whom Mrs. Ochterlony had come anxious and in haste to seek. She was more anxious now about her letters apparently than about him, and there was nothing but tenderness and sorrow in her eyes; and when she did raise her head again, it was to remark his paleness and ask if he was tired. “Go and get some breakfast, Will,” she said; but he did not care for breakfast. He had not the heart to move—he sat in the depths of boyish mortification and looked at her writing her letters. Was that all that it mattered? or was she only making a pretence at indifference? But Mary was too much occupied evidently for any pretence. Her whole figure and attitude were full of resolution. Notwithstanding the pity of her voice as she addressed him, and the longing look in her eyes, there was something in her which Wilfrid had never seen before, which revealed to him in a kind of dull way that his mother was wound up to some great emergency, that she had taken a great resolution, and was occupied by matters of life and death.
“You are very busy, it seems,” he said, peevishly, when he had sat for some time watching her, wondering when she would speak to him. To find that she was not angry, that she had something else to think about, was not half so great a relief as it appeared.
“Yes, I am busy,” said Mary. “I am writing to your brother, Will, and to some people who know all about me, and I have no time to lose. Your Uncle Penrose is a hard man, and I am afraid he will be hard on Hugh.”
“No, mother,” said Will, feeling his heart beat quick; “he shall not be hard upon Hugh. I want to tell you that. I want to have justice; but for anything else—Hugh shall have whatever he wishes; and as for you——”
“Oh, Will,” said Mrs. Ochterlony; and somehow it seemed to poor Will’s disordered imagination that she and his letter were speaking together—— “I had almost forgotten that you had anything to do with it. If you had but come first and spoken to me——”
“Why should I have come and spoken to you?” said Will, growing into gradual excitement; “it will not do you any harm. I am your son as well as Hugh—if it is his or if it is mine, what does it matter? I knew you would be angry if I stood up for myself; but a man must stand up for himself when he knows what are his rights.”
“Will, you must listen to me,” said Mary, putting away herpapers, and turning round to him. “It is Mr. Penrose who has put all this in your head: it could not be my boy that had such thoughts. Oh, Will! my poor child! And now we are in his pitiless hands,” said Mary, with a kind of cry, “and it matters nothing what you say or what I say. You have put yourself in his hands.”
“Stop, mother,” said Will; “don’t make such a disturbance about it. Uncle Penrose has nothing to do with it. It is my doing. I will do anything in the world for you, whatever you like to tell me; but I won’t let a fellow be there who has no right to be there. I am the heir, and I will have my rights.”
“You are not the heir,” said Mrs. Ochterlony, frightened for the moment by the tone and his vehemence, and his strange looks.
“I heard it from two people that were boththere,” said Will, with a gloomy composure. “It was not without asking about it. I am not blaming you, mother—you might have some reason;—but it was I that was born after that thing that happened in India. What is the use of struggling against it? And if it is I that am the heir, why should you try to keep me out of my rights?”
“Will,” said Mary, suddenly driven back into regions of personal emotion, which she thought she had escaped from, and falling by instinct into those wild weaknesses of personal argument to which women resort when they are thus suddenly stung. “Will, look me in the face and tell me. Can you believe your dear father, who was true as—as heaven itself; can you believe me, who never told you a lie, to have been such wretched deceivers? Can you think we were so wicked? Will, look me in the face!”
“Mother,” said Will, whose mind was too little imaginative to be moved by this kind of argument, except to a kind of impatience. “What does it matter my looking you in the face? what does it matter about my father being true? You might have some reason for it. I am not blaming you; but so long as it was a fact what doesthatmatter? I don’t want to injure any one—I only want my rights.”
It was Mary’s turn now to be struck dumb. She had thought he was afraid of her, and had fled from her out of shame for what he had done; but he looked in her face as she told him with unhesitating frankness, and even that touch of impatience as of one whose common sense was proof to all such appeals. For her own part, when she was brought back to it, she felt the effect of the dreadful shock she had received; and she could not discuss this matter reasonably with her boy. Hermind fell off into a mingled anguish and horror and agonized sense of his sin and pity for him. “Oh, Will, your rights,” she cried; “your rights! Your rights are to be forgiven and taken back, and loved and pitied, though you do not understand what love is. These are all the rights you have. You are young, and you do not know what you are doing. You have still a right to be forgiven.”
“I was not asking to be forgiven,” said Will, doggedly. “I have done no harm. I never said a word against you. I will give Hugh whatever he likes to get himself comfortably out in the world. I don’t want to make any fuss or hurry. It can be quietly managed, if he will; but it’s me that Earlston ought to come to; and I am not going to be driven out of it by talk. I should just like to know what Hugh would do if he was in my place.”
“Hugh could never have been in your place,” cried Mary, in her anguish and indignation. “I ought to have seen this is what it would come to. I ought to have known when I saw your jealous temper, even when you were a baby. Oh, my little Will! How will you ever bear it when you come to your senses, and know what it is you have been doing? Slandering your dear father’s name and mine, though all the world knows different—and trying to supplant your brother, your elder brother, who has always been good to you. God forgive them that have brought my boy to this,” said Mary, with tears. She kept gazing at him, even with her eyes full. It did not seem possible that he could be insensible to her look, even if he was insensible to her words.
Wilfrid, for his part, got up and began to walk about the room. Itwashard, very hard to meet his mother’s eyes. “When she is vexed, she gives a fellow such a look.” He remembered those words which he had said to Uncle Penrose only yesterday with a vague sort of recollection. But when he got up his own bodily sensations somehow gave him enough to do. He half forgot about his mother in the strange feeling he had in his physical frame, as if his limbs did not belong to him, nor his head either for that part, which seemed to be floating about in the air, without any particular connexion with the rest of him. It must be that he was so very tired, for when he sat down and clutched at the arms of his chair, he seemed to come out of his confusion and see Mrs. Ochterlony again, and know what she had been talking about. He said, with something that looked like sullenness: “Nobody brought me to this—I brought myself,” in answer to what she had said, and fell, as it were, into a moody reverie, leaning uponthe arms of his chair. Mary saw it, and thought it was that attitude of obstinate and immovable resolve into which she had before seen him fall; and she dried her eyes with a little flash of indignation, and turned again to the half-finished letter which trembled in her hands, and which she could not force her mind back to. She said to herself in a kind of despair, that the bitter cup must be drunk—that there was nothing for it but to do battle for her son’s rights, and lose no time in vain outcries, but forgive the unhappy boy when he came to his right mind and returned to her again. She turned away, with her heart throbbing and bleeding, and made an effort to recover her composure and finish her letter. It was a very important letter, and required all her thoughts. But if it had been hard to do it before, it was twenty times harder now.
Just at that moment there was a commotion at the door, and a sound of some one entering below. It might be only Mr. Penrose coming back, as he sometimes did, to luncheon. But every sound tingled through Mrs. Ochterlony in the excitement of her nerves. Then there came something that made her spring to her feet—a single tone of a voice struck on her ear, which she thought could only be her own fancy. But it was not her fancy. Some one came rushing up the stairs, and dashed into the room. Mary gave a great cry, and ran into his arms, and Will, startled and roused up from a sudden oblivion which he did not understand, drew his hand across his heavy eyes, and looked up doubting, and saw Hugh—Hugh standing in the middle of the room holding his mother, glowing with fresh air, and health, and gladness.—Hugh! How did he come there? Poor Will tried to rise from his chair, but with a feeling that he was fixed in it for ever, like the lady in the fable. Had he been asleep? and where was he? Had it been but a bad dream, and was this the Cottage, and Hugh come home to see them all? These were the questions that rose in Will’s darkened mind, as he woke up and drew his hand across his heavy eyes, and sat as if glued in Mr. Penrose’s chair.
MRS. OCHTERLONY was almost as much confused and as uncertain of her own feelings as Will was. Her heart gave a leap towards her son; but yet there was that between them which put pain into even a meeting withHugh. When she had seen him last, she had been all that a spotless mother is to a youth—his highest standard, his most perfect type of woman. Now, though he would believe no harm of her, yet there had been a breath across her perfection; there was something to explain; and Mary in her heart felt a pang of momentary anguish as acute as if the accusation had been true. To have to defend herself; to clear up her character to her boy! She took him into her arms almost that she might not have to look him in the face, and held to him, feeling giddy and faint. Will was younger, and he himself had gone wrong, but Hugh was old enough to understand it all, and had no consciousness on his own side to blunt his perceptions; and to have to tell him how it all was, and explain to him that she was not guilty was almost as hard as if she had been obliged to confess that she was guilty. She could not encounter him face to face, nor meet frankly the wonder and dismay which were no doubt in his honest eyes. Mary thought that to look into them and see that wondering troubled question in them, “Is it so—have you done me this wrong?” would be worse than being killed once for all by a straightforward blow.
But there was no such thought in Hugh’s mind. He came up to his mother open-hearted, with no hesitation in his looks. He saw Will was there, but he did not even look at him; he took her into his arms, holding her fast with perhaps a sense that she clung to him, and held on by him as by a support. “Mother, don’t be distressed,” he said, all at once, “I have found a way to clear it all up.” He spoke out loud, with his cheery voice which it was exhilarating to hear, and as if he meant it, and felt the full significance of what he said. He had to put his mother down very gently on the sofa after, and to make her lie back and prop her up with cushions; her high-strung nerves for an instant gave way. It was if her natural protector had come back, whose coming would clear away the mists. Her own fears melted away from her when she felt the warm clasp of Hugh’s arms, and the confident tone of his voice, not asking any questions, but giving her assurance, a pledge of sudden safety as it were. It was this that made Mary drop back, faint though not fainting, upon the friendly pillows, and made the room and everything swim in her eyes.
“What is it, Hugh?” she said faintly, as soon as she could speak.
“It is all right, mother,” said Hugh; “take my word, and don’t bother yourself any more about it. I came on at once to see Uncle Penrose, and get him out of this mess he has lethimself into. I could be angry, but it is no good being angry. On the whole, perhaps showing him his folly and making a decided end to it, is the best.”
“Oh, Hugh, never mind Uncle Penrose. Will, my poor Will! look, your brother is there,” said Mary, rousing up. As for Hugh, he took no notice; he did not turn round, though his mother put her hand on his arm; perhaps because his mind was full of other things.
“We must have it settled at once,” he said. “I hope you will not object, mother; it can be done very quietly. I found them last night, without the least preparation or even knowing they were in existence. It was like a dream to me. Don’t perplex yourself about it, mother dear. It’s all right—trust to me.”
“Whom, did you find?” said Mary eagerly; “or was it the lines—my lines?”
“It was old Sommerville’s daughter,” said Hugh with an unsteady laugh, “who wasthere. I don’t believe you know who old Sommerville or his daughter are. Never mind; I know all about it. I am not so simple as you were when you were eighteen and ran away and thought of nobody. And she says I am like my father,” said Hugh, “the Captain, they called him—but not such a bonnie lad; and that there was nobody to be seen like him for happiness and brightness on his wedding-day. You see I know it all, mother—every word; and I am like him, but not such a bonnie lad.”
“No,” said Mary, with a sob. Her resolution had gone from her with her misery. She had suddenly grown weak and happy, and ready to weep like a child, “No,” she said, with the tears dropping out of her eyes, “you are not such a bonnie lad; you are none of you so handsome as your father. Oh, Hugh, my dear, I don’t know what you mean—I don’t understand what you say.”
And she did not understand it, but that did not matter—she could not have understood it at that moment, though he had given her the clearest explanation. She knew nothing, but that there must be deliverance somehow, somewhere, in the air, and that her firstborn was standing by her with light and comfort in his eyes, and that behind, out of her sight, his brother taking no notice of him, was her other boy.
“Will is there,” she said, hurriedly. “You have not spoken to him—tell me about this after. Oh, Hugh, Will is there!”
She put her hand on his arm and tried to turn him round; but Hugh’s countenance darkened, and became as his mother had never seen it before. He took no notice of what she said, heonly bent over her, and began to arrange the cushions, of which Mary now seemed to feel no more need.
“I do not like to see you here,” he said; “you must come out of this house. I came that it might be all settled out of hand, for it is too serious to leave in vain suspense. But after this, mother, neither you nor I, with my will, shall cross this threshold more.”
“But oh, Hugh! Will!—speak to Will. Do not leave him unnoticed;” said Mary, in a passionate whisper, grasping his hand and reaching up to his ear.
Hugh’s look did not relent. His face darkened while she looked at him.
“He is a traitor!” he said, from out his closed lips. And he turned his back upon his brother, who sat at the other side of the room, straining all his faculties to keep awake, and to keep the room steady, which was going round and round him, and to know something of what it all meant.
“He is your brother,” said Mary; and then she rose, though she was still weak. “I must go to my poor boy, if you will not,” she said. “Will!”
When Will heard the sound of her voice, which came strange to him, as if it came from another world, he too stumbled up on his feet, though in the effort ceiling and floor and walls got all confused to him and floated about, coming down on his brain as if to crush him.
“Yes, mamma,” he said; and came straight forward, dimly guiding himself, as it were, towards her. He came against the furniture without knowing it, and struck himself sharply against the great round table, which he walked straight to as if he could have passed through it. The blow made him pause and open his heavy eyes, and then he sank into the nearest chair, with a weary sigh; and at that crisis of fate—at that moment when vengeance was overtaking him—when his cruel hopes had come to nothing, and his punishment was beginning—dropped asleep before their eyes. Even Hugh turned to look at the strange spectacle. Will was ghastly pale. His long brown hair hung disordered about his face; his hands clung in a desolate way to the arms of the chair he had got into; and he had dropped asleep.
At this moment Mrs. Ochterlony forgot her eldest son, upon whom till now her thoughts had been centred. She went to her boy who needed her most, and who lay there in his forlorn youth helpless and half unconscious, deserted as it were by all consolation. She went to him and put her hand on his hot forehead, and called him by his name. Once more Will halfopened his eyelids; he said “yes, mamma,” drearily, with a confused attempt to look up; and then he slept again. He slept, and yet he did not sleep; her voice went into his mind as in the midst of a dream—something weighed upon his nerves and his soul. He heard the cry she gave, even vaguely felt her opening his collar, putting back his hair, putting water to his lips—but he had not fainted, which was what she thought in her panic. He was only asleep.
“He is ill,” said Hugh, who, notwithstanding his just indignation, was moved by the pitiful sight; “I will go for the doctor. Mother, don’t be alarmed, he is only asleep.”
“Oh, my poor boy!” cried Mary, “he was wandering about all yesterday, not to see me, and I was hard upon him. Oh, Hugh, my poor boy! And in this house.”
This was the scene upon which Mr. Penrose came in to luncheon with his usual cheerful composure. He met Hugh at the door going for a doctor, and stopped him; “You here, Hugh,” he said, “this is very singular. I am glad you are showing so much good sense; now we can come to some satisfactory arrangement. I hardly hoped so soon to assemble all the parties here.”
“Good morning, I will see you later,” said Hugh, passing him quickly and hurrying out. Then it struck Mr. Penrose that all was not well. “Mary, what is the matter?” he said; “is it possible that you are so weak as to encourage your son in standing out?”
Mary had no leisure, no intelligence for what he said. She looked at him for a moment vaguely, and then turned her eyes once more upon her boy. She had drawn his head on to her shoulder, and stood supporting him, holding his hands, gazing down in anxiety beyond all words upon the colourless face, with its heavy eyelids closed, and lips a little apart, and quick irregular breath. She was speaking to him softly without knowing it, saying, “Will, my darling—Will, my poor boy—Oh, Will, speak to me;” while he lay back unconscious now, no longer able to struggle against the weight that oppressed him, sleeping heavily on her breast. Mr. Penrose drew near and looked wonderingly, with his hand in his pocket and a sense that it was time for luncheon, upon this unexpected scene.
“What is the matter?” he said, “is he asleep? What are you making a fuss about, Mary? You women always like a fuss; he is tired, I daresay, after yesterday; let him sleep and he’ll be all right. But don’t stand there and tire yourself. Hallo, Will, wake up and lie down on the sofa. There goes the gong.”
“Let us alone, uncle,” said Mary piteously; “never mindus. Go and get your luncheon. My poor boy is going to be ill; but Hugh is coming back, and we will have him removed before he gets worse.”
“Nonsense!” said Mr. Penrose; but still he looked curiously at the pale sleeping face, and drew a step further off—“not cholera, do you think?” he asked with a little anxiety—“collapse, eh?—it can’t be that?”
“Oh, uncle, go away and get your luncheon, and leave us alone,” said Mary, whose heart fainted within her at the question, even though she was aware of its absurdity. “Do not be afraid, for we will take him away.”
Mr. Penrose gave a “humph,” partly indignant, partly satisfied, and walked about the room for a minute, making it shake with his portly form. And then he gave a low, short, whistle, and went downstairs, as he was told. Quite a different train of speculation had entered into his mind when he uttered that sound. If Wilfrid should die, the chances were that some distant set of Ochterlonys, altogether unconnected with himself, would come in for the estate, supposing Will’s claim in the meantime to be substantiated. Perhaps even yet it could be hushed up; for to see a good thing go out of the family was more than he could bear. This was what Mr. Penrose was thinking of as he went downstairs.
It seemed to Mary a long time before Hugh came back with the doctor, but yet it was not long: and Will still lay asleep, with his head upon her shoulder, but moving uneasily at times, and opening his eyes now and then. There could be no doubt that he was going to be ill, but what the illness was to be, whether serious and malignant, or the mere result of over-fatigue, over-tension and agitation of mind, even the doctor could not tell. But at least it was possible to remove him, which was a relief to all. Mary did not know how the afternoon passed. She saw Hugh coming and going as she sat by her sick boy, whom they had laid upon the sofa, and heard him downstairs talking to uncle Penrose, and then she was aware by the sound of carriage-wheels at the door that he had come to fetch them; but all her faculties were hushed and quieted as by the influence of poor Will’s sleep. She did not feel as if she had interest enough left in the great question that had occupied her so profoundly on the previous night as to ask what new light it was which Hugh had seemed to her for one moment to throw on it. A momentary wonder thrilled through her mind once or twice while she sat and waited; but then Will would stir, or his heavy eyelids would lift unconsciously and she would be recalled to the present calamity, which seemed nearer and more appallingthan any other. She sat in the quiet, which, for Will’s sake, had to be unbroken, and in her anxiety and worn-out condition, herself by times slept “for sorrow,” like those disciples among the olive-trees. And all other affairs fell back in her mind, as into a kind of twilight—a secondary place. It did not seem to matter what happened, or how things came to be decided. She had had no serious illness to deal with for many, many years—almost never before in her life since those days when she lost her baby in India; and her startled mind leapt forward to all tragic possibilities—to calamity and death. It was a dull day, which, no doubt, deepened every shadow. The grey twilight seemed to close in over her before the day was half spent, and the blinds were drawn down over the great staring windows, as it was best they should be for Will, though the sight of them gave Mary a pang. All these conjoined circumstances drove every feeling out of her mind but anxiety for her boy’s life, and hushed her faculties, and made her life beat low, and stilled all other interests and emotions in her breast.
Then there came the bustle in the house which was attendant upon Will’s removal. Mr. Penrose stood by, and made no objection to it. He was satisfied, on the whole, that whatever it might be—fever, cholera, or decline, or any thing fatal, it should not be in his house; and his thoughts were full of that speculation about the results if Will should die. He shook hands with Mary when she followed her boy into the carriage, and said a word to comfort her:
“Don’t worry yourself about what we were talking of,” he said; “perhaps, after all, in case anything were to happen, it might still be hushed up.”
“What were we talking of?” asked Mary, vaguely, not knowing whether it was the old subject or the new one which he meant; and she made him no further answer, and went away to the lodging Hugh had found for her, to nurse her son. Uncle Penrose went back discomfited into his commodious house. It appeared, on the whole, that it did not matter much to them, though they had made so great a fuss about it. Hugh was the eldest son, even though, perhaps, he might not be the heir; and Will, poor boy, was the youngest, the one to be guarded and taken care of; and whatever the truth might be about Mary’s marriage, she was their mother; and even at this very moment, when they might have been thought to be torn asunder, and separated from each other, nature had stepped in and they were all one. It was strange, but so it was. Mr. Penrose had even spoken to Hugh, but had drawn nothing from him but anxiety about the sick boy, to findthe best doctor, and the best possible place to remove him to; not a word about the private arrangement he had, no doubt, come to make, or the transfer of Earlston; and if Will should die, perhaps, it could yet be hushed up. This was the last idea in Mr. Penrose’s mind, as he went in and shut behind him the resounding door.
THE illness of Will took a bad turn. Instead of being a mere accumulation of cold and fatigue, it developed into fever, and of the most dangerous kind. Perhaps he had been bringing it on for a long time by his careless ways, by his long vigils and over thought; and that day of wretched wandering, and all the confused agitation of his mind had brought it to a climax. This at least was all that could be said. He was very ill; he lay for six weeks between life and death; and Mrs. Ochterlony, in his sick-room, had no mind nor understanding for anything but the care of him. Aunt Agatha would have come to help her, but she wanted no help. She lived as women do live at such times, without knowing how—without sleep, without food, without air, without rest to her mind or comfort to her heart. Except, indeed, in Hugh’s face, which was as anxious as her own, but looked in upon her watching, from time to time like a face out of heaven. She had been made to understand all about it—how her prayer had been granted, and the cup had passed from her, and her honour and her children’s had been vindicated for ever. She had been made to understand this, and had given God thanks, and felt one weight the less upon her soul; but yet she did not understand it any more than Will did, who in his wanderings talked without cease of the looks his mother gave him; and what had been done? He would murmur by the hour such broken unreason as he had talked to Mary the morning before he was taken ill—that he meant to injure nobody—that all he wanted was his rights—that he would do anything for Hugh or for his mother—only he must have his rights; and why did they all look at him so, and what did Nelly mean, and what had been done? Mrs. Ochterlony sitting by the bedside with tears on her pale cheeks came to a knowledge of his mind which she had never possessed before—as clear a knowledge as was possible to a creature of so different a nature. And she gave God thanks in her heart that the danger had been averted,and remembered, in a confused way, the name of old Sommerville, which had been engraved on her memory years before, when her husband forced her into the act which had cost her so much misery. Mary could not have explained to any one how it was that old Sommerville’s name came back with the sense of deliverance. For the moment she would scarcely have been surprised to know that he had come to life again to remedy the wrongs his death had brought about. All that she knew was that his name was involved in it, and that Hugh was satisfied, and the danger over. She said it to herself sometimes in an apologetic way as if to account to herself for the suddenness with which all interest on the subject had passed out of her thoughts. The danger was over. Two dangers so appalling could not exist together. The chances are that Will’s immediate and present peril would have engrossed her all the same, even had all not been well for Hugh.
When he had placed his mother and brother in the rooms he had taken for them, and had seen poor Will laid down on the bed he was not to quit for long, Hugh went back to see Mr. Penrose. He was agitated and excited, and much melted in his heart by his brother’s illness; but still, though he might forgive Will, he had no thought of forgiving the elder man, who ought to have given the boy better counsel: but he was very cool and collected, keeping his indignation to himself, and going very fully into detail. Old Sommerville’s daughter had been married, and lived with her husband at the border village where Mary’s marriage had taken place. It was she who had waited on the bride, with all the natural excitement and interest belonging to the occasion; and her husband and she, young themselves, and full of sympathy with the handsome young couple, had stolen in after them into the homely room where the marriage ceremony, such as it was, was performed. The woman who told Hugh this story had not the faintest idea that suspicion of any kind rested upon the facts she was narrating, neither did her hearer tell her of it. He had listened with what eagerness, with what wonder and delight may be imagined, while she went into all the details. “She mayn’t mind me, but I mind her,” the anxious historian had said, her thoughts dwelling not on the runaway marriage she was talking of, as if that could be of importance, but on the unbuilt lodge, and the chances of getting it if she could but awake the interest of the young squire. “She had on but a cotton gown, as was not for the likes of her on her wedding-day, and a bit of a straw-bonnet; and it was me as took off her shawl, her hands being trembly a bit, as was to be expected; I took her shawl off aforeshe came into the room, and I slipped in after her, and made Rob come, though he was shy. Bless your heart, sir, the Captain and the young lady never noticed him nor me.”
Hugh had received all these details into his mind with a distinctness which only the emergency could have made possible. It seemed to himself that he saw the scene—more clearly, far more clearly, than that dim vision of the other scene in India, which now he ventured in his heart to believe that he recollected too. He told everything to Mr. Penrose, who sat with glum countenance, and listened. “And now, uncle,” he said, “I will tell you what my mother is ready to do. I don’t think she understands what I have told her about my evidence; but I found this letter she had been writing when Will was taken ill. You can read it if you please. It will show you at least how wrong you were in thinking she would ever desert and abandon me.”
“I never thought she would desert and abandon you,” said Mr. Penrose; “of course every one must see that so long as you had the property it was her interest to stick to you—as well as for her own sake. I don’t see why I should read the letter; I daresay it is some bombastical appeal to somebody—she appealed to me last night—to believe her; as if personal credibility was to be built upon in the absence of all proofs.”
“But read it all the same,” said Hugh, whose face was flushed with excitement.
Mr. Penrose put on his spectacles, and took the half-finished letter reluctantly into his hand. He turned it round and all over to see who it was addressed to; but there was no address; and when he began to read it, he saw it was a letter to a lawyer, stating her case distinctly, and asking for advice. Was there not a way of getting it tried and settled, Mary had written; was there not some court that could be appealed to at once, to examine all the evidence, and make a decision that would be good and stand, and could not be re-opened? “I am ready to appear and be examined, to do anything or everything that is necessary,” were the last words Mrs. Ochterlony had written; and then she had forgotten her letter, forgotten her resolution and her fear, and everything else in the world but her boy who was ill. Her other boy, after he had set her heart free to devote itself to the one who now wanted her most, had found the letter; and he, too, had been set free in his turn. Up to that very last moment he had feared and doubted what Mr. Penrose called the “exposure” for his mother; he had been afraid of wounding her, afraid of making any suggestion that could imply publicity. And upon the letter which Mr.Penrose turned thus about in his hand was at least one large round blister of a tear—a big drop of compunction, and admiration, and love, which had dropped upon it out of Hugh’s proud and joyful eyes.
“Ah,” said Uncle Penrose, who was evidently staggered: and he took off his spectacles and put them back in their case. “If she were to make up her mind tothat,” he continued slowly, “I would not say that you might not have a chance. It would have the look of being confident in her case. I’ll tell you what, Hugh,” he went on, changing his tone. “Does the doctor give much hope of Will?”
“Much hope!” cried Hugh, faltering. “Good heavens! uncle, what do you mean? Has he told you anything? Why, there is every chance—every hope.”
“Don’t get excited,” said Mr. Penrose. “I hope so I am sure. But what I have to say is this: if anything were to happen to Will, it would be some distant Ochterlonys, I suppose, that would come in after him—supposing you were put aside, you know. I don’t mind working for Will, but I’d have nothing to do with that.Icould not be the means of sending the property out of the family. And I don’t see now, in the turn things have taken, that there would be any particular difficulty between ourselves in hushing it all up.”
“In hushing it up?” said Hugh, with an astonished look.
“Yes, if we hold our tongues. I daresay that is all that would be necessary,” said Mr. Penrose. “If you only would have the good sense all of you to hold your tongues and keep your counsel, it might be easily hushed up.”
But Uncle Penrose was not prepared for the shower of indignation that fell upon him. Hugh got up and made him an oration, which the young man poured forth out of the fulness of his heart; and said, God forgive him for the harm he had done to one of them, for the harm he had tried to do to all—in a tone very little in harmony with the prayer; and shook off, as it were, the dust off his feet against him, and rushed from the house, carrying, folded up carefully in his pocket-book, his mother’s letter. It was she who had found out what to do—she whose reluctance, whose hesitation, or shame, was the only thing that Hugh would have feared. And it was not only that he was touched to the heart by his mother’s readiness to do all and everything for him; he was proud, too, with that sweetest of exultation which recognises the absolutebestin its best beloved. So he went through the suburban streets carrying his head high, with moisture in his eyes, but the smile of hope and a satisfied heart upon his lips. Hush it up! when it wasall to her glory from the first to the last of it. Rather write it up in letters of gold, that all the world might see it. This was how Hugh, being still so young, in the pride and emotion of the moment, thought in his heart.
And Mrs. Ochterlony, by her boy’s sick-bed, knew nothing of it all. She remembered to ask for her blotting-book with the letters in it which she had been writing, but was satisfied when she heard Hugh had it; and she accepted the intervention of old Sommerville, dead or living, without demanding too many explanations. She had now something else more absorbing, more engrossing, to occupy her, and two supreme emotions cannot hold place in the mind at the same time. Will required constant care, an attention that never slumbered, and she would not have any one to share her watch with her. She found time to write to Aunt Agatha, who wanted to come, giving the cheerfullest view of matters that was possible, and declaring that she was quite able for what she had to do. And Mary had another offer of assistance which touched her, and yet brought a smile to her face. It was from Mrs. Kirkman, offering to come to her assistance at once, to leave all her responsibilities for the satisfaction of being with her friend and sustaining her strength and being “useful” to the poor sufferer. It was a most anxious letter, full of the warmest entreaties to be allowed to come, and Mary was moved by it, though she gave it to Hugh to read with a faint smile on her lip.
“I always told you she was a good woman,” said Mrs. Ochterlony. “If I were to let her come, I know she would make a slave of herself to serve us both.”
“But you will not let her come,” said Hugh, with a little alarm; “I don’t know about your good woman. She would do it, and then tell everybody how glad she was that she had been of so much use.”
“But she is a good woman in spite of her talk,” said Mary; and she wrote to Mrs. Kirkman a letter which filled the soul of the colonel’s wife with many thoughts. Mrs. Ochterlony wrote to her that it would be vain for her to have any help, for she could not leave her boy—could not be apart from him while he was so ill, was what Mary said—but that her friend knew how strong she was, and that it would not hurt her, if God would but spare her boy. “Oh, my poor Will! don’t forget to think of him,” Mary said, and the heart which was in Mrs. Kirkman’s wordy bosom knew what was meant. And then partly, perhaps, it was her fault; she might have been wise, she might have held her peace when Will came to ask that fatal information.And yet, perhaps, it might be for his good, or perhaps—perhaps, God help him, he might die. And then Mrs. Kirkman’s heart sank within her, and she was softer to all the people in her district, and did not feel so sure of taking upon her the part of Providence. She could not but remember how she had prayed that Mary should not be let alone, and how Major Ochterlony had died after it, and she felt that that was not what she meant, and that God, so to speak, had gone too far. If the same thing were to happen again! She was humbled and softened to all her people that day, and she spent hours of it upon her knees, praying with tears streaming down her cheeks for Will. And it was not till full twenty-four hours after that she could take any real comfort from the thought that it must be for all their good; which shows that Mrs. Ochterlony’s idea of her after all was right.
These were but momentary breaks in the long stretch of pain, and terror, and lingering and sickening hope. Day after day went and came, and Mary took no note of them, and knew nothing more of them than as they grew light and dark upon the pale face of her boy. Hugh had to leave her by times, but there was no break to her in the long-continued vigil. His affairs had to go on, his work to be resumed, and his life to proceed again as if it had never come to that full stop. But as for Mary, it began to appear to her as if she had lived all her life in that sick-room. Then Islay came, always steady and trustworthy. This was towards the end, when it was certain that the crisis must be approaching for good or for evil. And poor Aunt Agatha in her anxiety and her loneliness had fallen ill too, and wrote plaintive, suffering letters, which moved Mary’s heart even in the great stupor of her own anxiety. It was then that Hugh went, much against his will, to the Cottage, at his mother’s entreaty, to carry comfort to the poor old lady. He had to go to Earlston to see after his own business, and from thence to Aunt Agatha, whose anxiety was no less great at a distance than theirs was at hand; and Hugh was to be telegraphed for at once if there was “any change.” Any change!—that was the way they had got to speak, saying it in a whisper, as if afraid to trust the very air with words which implied so much. Hugh stole into the sick room before he went away, and saw poor Will, or at least a long white outline of a face, with two big startling eyes, black and shining, which must be Will’s, lying back on the pillows; and he heard a babble of weary words about his mother and Nelly, and what had he done? and withdrew as noiselessly as he entered, with the tears in his eyes, and that poignant and intolerable anguishin his heart with which the young receive the first intimation that one near to them must go away. It seemed an offence to Hugh, as he left the house to see so many lads in the streets, who were of Will’s age, and so many children encumbering the place everywhere, unthought of, uncared for, unloved, to whom almost it would be a benefit to die. But it was not one of them who was to be taken, but Will, poor Will, the youngest, who had been led astray, and had still upon his mind a sense of guilt. Hugh was glad to go to work at Earlston to get the thought out of his mind, glad to occupy himself about the museum, and to try to forget that his brother was slowly approaching the crisis, after which perhaps there might be no hope; and his heart beat loud in his ears every time he heard a sound, dreading that it might be the promised summons, and that “some change”—dreadful intimation—had occurred; and it was in the same state of mind that he went on to the Cottage, looking into the railway people’s faces at every station to see if, perhaps, they had heard something. He was not much like carrying comfort to anybody. He had never been within reach of the shadow of death before, except in the case of his uncle; and his uncle was old, and it was natural he should die—but Will! Whenever he said, or heard, or even thought the name his heart seemed to swell, and grow “grit,” as the Cumberland folks said, and climb into his throat.