“Pretty!” said Will, “you have only to look and see what they are—or to hear their names would be enough. And to think of all those asses downstairs turned in among them, that probably would like a few stupid busts much better,—whereas there are plenty of other people that would give their ears——”
“Oh, Will!” cried Nelly, “you are always harping on the old string!”
“I am not harping on any string,” said Will. “All I want is, that people should stick to what they understand. Hugh might know how much money it was all worth, but I don’t know what else he could know about it. If my uncle was in his senses and left things in shares as they do in France and everywhere where they have any understanding——”
“And then what would become of the house and the family?” cried Nelly,—“if you had six sons and Hugh had six sons—and then your other brother. They would all come down to have cottages and be a sort of clan—instead of going and making a fortune like a man, and leaving Earlston to be the head——” Probably Nelly had somewhere heard the argument which she stated in this bewildering way, or picked it out of a novel, which was the only kind of literature she knew much about—for it would be vain to assert that the principles of primogeniture had ever been profoundly considered in her own thoughts—“and if you were the eldest,” she added, forsaking her argumentation, “I don’t think you would care so much for everybody going shares.”
“If I were the eldest it would be quite different,” said Will. And then he devoted himself to the cameos, and would enterinto no further explanation. Nelly sat down beside him in a resigned way, and looked at the cameos too, without feeling very much interest in them, and wondered what the children were doing, and whether mamma’s head was bad; and her own astonishing selfishness in leaving mamma’s headache and the children to take care of themselves, struck her vividly as she sat there in the twilight and saw the Psyche and Venus, whom she did not approve of, gleaming white in the grey gloaming, and heard the loud voices of the ladies at the other end of the room. Then it began to come into her head how vain pleasures are, and how to do one’s duty is all one ought to care for in the world. Mrs. Ochterlony was at the other end of the drawing-room, talking to the other ladies, and “Mr. Hugh” was downstairs with a quantity of stupid men, and Will was in one of his “states of mind.” And the chances were that something had gone wrong at home; that Charley had fallen downstairs, or baby’s bath had been too hot for her, or something—a judgment upon Nelly for going away. At one moment she got so anxious thinking of it all, that she felt disposed to get up and run home all the way, to make sure that nothing had happened. Only that just then Aunt Agatha came to join them in looking over the cameos, and began to tell Nelly, as she often did, little stories about Mrs. Percival, and to call her “my dear love,” and to tell her her dress looked very nice, and that nothing was so pretty as a sweet natural rose in a girl’s hair. “I don’t care for artificial flowers at your age, my dear,” Aunt Agatha was saying, when the gentlemen came in and Hugh made his appearance; and gradually the children’s possible mischances and her mamma’s headache faded out of Nelly’s thoughts.
It was the pleasantest two days that had been spent at Earlston in the memory of man. Mrs. Ochterlony went over all the house with very different feelings from those she had felt when she was an inmate of the place, and smiled at her own troubles and found her misery very comical; and little Nelly, who never in all her life before had known what it was to have two days to herself, was so happy that she was perfectly wretched about it when she went to bed. For it had never yet occurred to Nelly, as it does to so many young ladies, that she had a right to everything that was delightful and pleasant, and that the people who kept her out of her rights were ogres and tyrants. She was frightened and rather ashamed of herself for being so happy; and then she made it up by resolving to be doubly good and make twice as much a slave of herself as ever as soon as she got home. This curious and unusualdevelopment of feeling probably arose from the fact that Nelly had never been brought up at all, so to speak, but had simply grown; and had too much to do to have any time for thinking of herself—which is the best of all possible bringings up for some natures. As for Aunt Agatha, she went and came about this house, which could never be otherwise than interesting to her, with a wistful look and a flickering unsteady colour that would not have shamed even Nelly’s sixteen-year old cheek. Miss Seton saw ghosts of what might have been in every corner; she saw the unborn faces shine beside the never-lighted fire. She saw herself as she might have been, rising up to receive her guests, sitting at the head of the long, full, cheerful table. It was a curious sensation, and made her stop to think now and then which was the reality and which the shadow; and yet there could be no doubt that there was in it a certain charm.
And there could be no doubt, either, that a certain sadness fell upon Mr. Ochterlony when they were all gone. He had a fire lighted in his study that night, though it was warm, “to make it look a little more cheerful,” he said; and made Hugh sit with him long after the usual time. He sat buried in his great chair, with his thin, long limbs looking longer and thinner than ever, and his head a little sunk upon his breast. And then he began to moralize and give his nephew good advice.
“I hope you’ll marry, Hugh,” he said. “I don’t think it’s good to shut one’s self out from the society of women; they’re very unscientific, but still—— And it makes a great difference in a house. When I was a young fellow like you—— But, indeed, it is not necessary to go back so far. A man has it in his power to amuse himself for a long time, but it doesn’t last for ever—— And there are always things that might have been better otherwise——” Here Mr. Ochterlony made a long pause and stared into the fire, and after a while resumed without any preface: “When I’m gone, Hugh, you’ll pack up all that Henri Deux ware and send it over to—to your Aunt Agatha. I never thought she cared for china. John will pack it for you—he is a very careful fellow for that sort of thing. I put it all into the Louis Quinze cabinet; now mind you don’t forget.”
“Time enough for that, sir,” said Hugh, cheerfully, and not without a suppressed laugh; for the loves of Aunt Agatha and Francis Ochterlony were slightly comical to Hugh.
“That is all you know about it,” said his uncle. “But I shall expect you altogether to be of more use in the world thanI have been, Hugh; and you’ll have more to do. Your father, you know, married when he was a boy, and went out of my reach; but you’ll have all your people to look after. Don’t play the generous prince and spoil the boys—mind you don’t take any stupid notions into your head of being a sort of Providence to them. It’s a great deal better for them to make their own way; but you’ll be always here, and you’ll lend a helping hand. Stand by them—that’s the great thing; and as for your mother, I needn’t recommend her to your kindest care. She has done a great deal for you.”
“Uncle, I wish you would not talk like this,” said Hugh; “there’s nothing the matter with you? What’s the good of making a fellow uneasy and sending him uncomfortable to bed? Leave those sort of things till you’re old and ill, and then I’ll attend to what you say.”
Mr. Ochterlony softly shook his head. “You won’t forget about the Henri Deux,” he said; and then he paused again and laughed as it were under his breath, with a kind of laugh that was pathetic and full of quaint tenderness. “If it had ever come to that, I don’t think you would have been any the worse,” he added; “we were not the sort of people to have heirs,” and the laugh faded into a lingering, wistful smile, half sad, half amused, with which on his face, he sat for a long time and gazed into the fading fire. It was, perhaps, simply that the presence of such visitors had stirred up the old recollections in his heart—perhaps that it felt strange to him to look back on his own past life in the light thrown upon it by the presence of his heir, and to feel that it was ending, while yet, in one sense, it had never begun. As for Hugh, to tell the truth, he was chiefly amused by his uncle’s reflective mood. He thought, which no doubt was to some extent true, that the old man was thinking of an old story which had come to nothing, and of which old Aunt Agatha was the heroine. There was something touching in it he could not but allow, but still he gave a laugh within himself at the superannuated romance. And all that immediately came of it, was the injunction not to forget about the Henri Deux.
OF the visit to Earlston, this was all that came immediately; but yet, if anybody had been there with clear-sighted eyes, there might have been other results perceptible and other symptoms of a great change at hand. Such little shadows of an event might have been traced from day to day if that once possible lady of the house, whose ghost Aunt Agatha had met with in all the rooms, had been there to watch over its master. There being nobody but Hugh, everything was supposed to go on in its usual way. Hugh had come to be fond of his uncle, and to look up to him in many ways; but he was young, and nothing had ever occurred to him to put insight into his eyes. He thought Mr. Ochterlony was just as usual—and so he was; and yet there were some things that were not as usual, and which might have aroused an experienced observer. And in the meantime something happened at the Cottage, where things did not happen often, which absorbed everybody’s thoughts for the moment, and threw Earlston and Mr. Ochterlony entirely into the shade.
It happened on the very evening after their return home. Aunt Agatha had been troubled with a headache on the previous night—she said, from the fatigue of the journey, though possibly the emotions excited at Earlston had something to do with it—and had been keeping very quiet all day; Nelly Askell had gone home, eager to get back to her little flock, and to her mother, who was the greatest baby of all; Mary had gone out upon some village business; and Aunt Agatha sat alone, slightly drowsy and gently thoughtful, in the summer afternoon. She was thinking, with a soft sigh, that perhaps everything was for the best. There are a great many cases in which it is very difficult to say so—especially when it seems the mistake or blindness of man, instead of the direct act of God, that has brought the result about. Miss Seton had a meek and quiet spirit; and yet it seemed strange to her to make out how it could be for the best that her own life and her old lover’s should thus end, as it were, unfulfilled, and all through his foolishness. Looking at it in an abstract point of view, she almost felt as if she could have told him of it, had he been near enough to hear. Such a different life it might have been to both; and now the moment for doing anything had long past, and the two barren existences were alike coming to an end. This was what Miss Seton could not help thinking; and feelingas she did that it was from beginning to end a kind of flying in the face of Providence, it was difficult to see how it could be for the best. If it had been her own fault, no doubt she would have felt as Mr. Ochterlony did, a kind of tender and not unpleasant remorse; but one is naturally less tolerant and more impatient when one feels that it is not one’s own, but another’s fault. The subject so occupied her mind, and her activity was so lulled to rest by the soft fatigue and languor consequent upon the ending of the excitement, that she did not take particular notice how the afternoon glided away. Mary was out, and Will was out, and no visitor came to disturb the calm. Miss Seton had cares of more immediate force even at that moment—anxieties and apprehensions about Winnie, which had brought of late many a sickening thrill to her heart; but these had all died away for the time before the force of recollections and the interest of her own personal story thus revived without any will of her own; and the soft afternoon atmosphere, and the murmuring of the bees, and the roses at the open windows, and the Kirtell flowing audible but unseen, lulled Aunt Agatha, and made her forget the passage of time. Then all at once she roused herself with a start. Perhaps—though she did not like to entertain such an idea—she had been asleep, and heard it in a dream; or perhaps it was Mary, whose voice had a family resemblance. Miss Seton sat upright in her chair after that first start and listened very intently, and said to herself that of course it must be Mary. It was she who was a fantastical old woman to think she heard voices which in the course of nature could not be within hearing. Then she observed how late it was, and that the sunshine slanted in at the west window and lay along the lawn outside almost in a level line. Mary was late, later than usual; and Aunt Agatha blushed to confess, even to herself, that she must have, as she expressed it, “just closed her eyes,” and had a little dream in her solitude. She got up now briskly to throw this drowsiness off, and went out to look if Mary was coming, or Will in sight, and to tell Peggy about the tea—for nothing so much revives one as a cup of tea when one is drowsy in the afternoon. Miss Seton went across the little lawn, and the sun shone so strongly in her eyes as she reached the gate that she had to put up her hand to shade them, and for the moment could see nothing. Was that Mary so near the gate? The figure was dark against the sunshine, which shone right into Aunt Agatha’s eyes, and made everything black between her and the light. It came drifting as it were between her and the sun, like the phantom ship in the mariner’s vision. Shegazed and did not see, and felt as if a kind of insanity was taking possession of her. “Is it Mary?” she said, in a trembling voice, and at the same momentfeltby something in the air that it was not Mary. And then Aunt Agatha gave such a cry as brought Peggy, and indeed all the household, in alarm to the door.
It was a woman who looked as old as Mary, and did not seem ever to have been half so fair. She had a shawl drawn tightly round her shoulders, as if she were cold, and a veil over her face. She was of a very thin meagre form, with a kind of forlorn grace about her, as if she might have been splendid under better conditions. Her eyes were hollow and large, her cheek-bones prominent, her face worn out of all freshness, and possessing only what looked like a scornful recollection of beauty. The noble form had missed its development, the fine capabilities had been checked or turned in a false direction. When Aunt Agatha uttered that great cry which brought Peggy from the utmost depths of the house, the new-comer showed no corresponding emotion. She said, “No; it is I,” with a kind of bitter rather than affectionate meaning, and stood stock-still before the gate, and not even made a movement to lift her veil. Miss Seton made a tremulous rush forward to her, but she did not advance to meet it; and when Aunt Agatha faltered and was likely to fall, it was not the stranger’s arm that interposed to save her. She stood still, neither advancing nor going back. She read the shock, the painful recognition, the reluctant certainty in Miss Seton’s eye. She was like the returning prodigal so far, but she was not content with his position. It was no happiness for her to go home, and yet it ought to have been; and she could not forgive her aunt for feeling the shock of recognition. When she roused herself, after a moment, it was not because she was pleased to come home, but because it occurred to her that it was absurd to stand still and be stared at, and make a scene.
And when Peggy caught her mistress in her arms, to keep her from falling, the stranger made a step forward and gave a hurried kiss, and said, “It is I, Aunt Agatha. I thought you would have known me better. I will follow you directly;” and then turned to take out her purse, and give a shilling to the porter, who had carried her bag from the station—which was a proceeding which they all watched in consternation, as if it had been something remarkable. Winnie was still Winnie, though it was difficult to realize that Mrs. Percival was she. She was coming back wounded, resentful, remorseful to her old home; and she did not mean to give in, nor show thefeelings of a prodigal, nor gush forth into affectionateness. To see her give the man the shilling brought Aunt Agatha to herself. She raised her head upon Peggy’s shoulder, and stood upright, trembling, but self-restrained. “I am a silly old woman to be so surprised,” she said; “but you did not write to say what day we were to expect you, my dear love.”
“I did not write anything about it,” said Winnie, “for I did not know. But let me go in, please; don’t let us stay here.”
“Come in, my darling,” said Aunt Agatha. “Oh, how glad, how thankful, how happy I am, Winnie, my dear love, to see you again!”
“I think you are more shocked than glad,” said Winnie; and that was all she said, until they had entered the room where Miss Seton had just left her maiden dreams. Then the wanderer, instead of throwing herself into Aunt Agatha’s kind longing arms, looked all round her with a strange passionate mournfulness and spitefulness. “I don’t wonder you were shocked,” she said, going up to the glass, and looking at herself in it. “You, all just the same as ever, and such a change in me!”
“Oh, Winnie, my darling!” cried Aunt Agatha, throwing herself upon her child with a yearning which was no longer to be restrained; “do you think there can ever be any change in you to me? Oh, Winnie, my dear love! come and let me look at you; let me feel I have you in my arms at last, and that you have really come home.”
“Yes, I have come home,” said Winnie, suffering herself to be kissed. “I am sure I am very glad that you are pleased. Of course Mary is still here, and her children? Is she going to marry again? Are her boys as tiresome as ever? Yes, thank you, I will take my things off—and I should like something to eat. But you must not make too much of me, Aunt Agatha, for I have not come only for a day.”
“Winnie, dear, don’t you know if it was for your good I would like to have you for ever?” cried poor Aunt Agatha, trembling so that she could scarcely form the words.
And then for a moment, the strange woman, who was Winnie, looked as if she too was moved. Something like a tear came into the corner of her eye. Her breast heaved with one profound, unnatural, convulsive swell. “Ah, you don’t know me now,” she said, with a certain sharpness of anguish and rage in her voice. Aunt Agatha did not understand it, and trembled all the more; but her good genius led her, instead of asking questions as she was burning to do, to take off Winnie’s bonnet and her shawl, moving softly about her with her soft old hands, which shook yet did their office. Aunt Agatha did not understand it, but yet it was not so very difficult to understand. Winnie was abashed and dismayed to find herself there among all the innocent recollections of her youth—and she was full of rage and misery at the remembrance of all her injuries, and to think of the explanation which she would have to give. She was even angry with Aunt Agatha because she did not know what manner of woman her Winnie had grown—but beneath all this impatience and irritation was such a gulf of wretchedness and wrong that even the unreasonableness took a kind of miserable reason. She did well to be angry with herself, and all the world. Her friends ought to understand the difference, and see what a changed creature she was, without exacting the humiliation of an explanation; and yet at the same time the poor soul in her misery was angry to perceive that Aunt Agatha did see a difference. She suffered her bonnet and shawl to be taken off, but started when she felt Miss Seton’s soft caressing hand upon her hair. She started partly because it was a caress she was unused to, and partly that her hair had grown thin and even had some grey threads in it, and she did not likethatchange to be observed; for she had been proud of her pretty hair, and taken pleasure in it as so many women do. She rose up as she felt that touch, and took the shawl which had been laid upon a chair.
“I suppose I can have my old room,” she said. “Never mind coming with me as if I was a visitor. I should like to go upstairs, and I ought to know the way, and be at home here.”
“It is not for that, my darling,” said Aunt Agatha, with hesitation; “but you must have the best room, Winnie. Not that I mean to make a stranger of you. But the truth is one of the boys—— and then it is too small for what you ought to have now.”
“One of the boys—which of the boys?” said Winnie. “I thought you would have kept my old room—I did not think you would have let your house be overrun with boys. I don’t mind where it is, but let me go and put my things somewhere and make myself respectable. Is it Hugh that has my room?”
“No,—Will,” said Aunt Agatha, faltering; “I could change him, if you like, but the best room is far the best. My dear love, it is just as it was when you went away. Will! Here is Will. This is the little one that was the baby—I don’t think that you can say he is not changed.”
“Not so much as I am,” said Mrs. Percival, under her breath, as turning round she saw the long-limbed, curious boy, with his pale face and inquiring eyes, standing in the open window. Will was not excited, but he was curious; and as he looked at the stranger, though he had never seen her before, his quick mind set to work on the subject, and he put two and two together and divined who it was. He was not like her in external appearance—at least he had never been a handsome boy, and Winnie had still her remains of wasted beauty—but yet perhaps they were like each other in a more subtle, invisible way. Winnie looked at him, and she gave her shoulders a shrug and turned impatiently away. “It must be a dreadful nuisance to be interrupted like that, whatever you may be talking about,” she said. “It does not matter what room I am to have, but I suppose I may go upstairs?”
“My dear love, I am waiting for you,” said poor Aunt Agatha, anxiously. “Run, Will, and tell your mother that my dear Winnie has come home. Run as fast as ever you can, and tell her to make haste. Winnie, my darling, let me carry your shawl. You will feel more like yourself when you have had a good rest; and Mary will be back directly, and I know how glad she will be.”
“Will she?” said Winnie; and she looked at the boy and heard him receive his instructions, and felt his quick eyes go through and through her. “He will go and tell his mother the wreck I am,” she said to herself, with bitterness; and felt as if she hated Wilfrid. She had no children to defend and surround her, or even to take messages. No one could say, referring to her, “Go and tell your mother.” It was Mary that was well off, always the fortunate one, and for the moment poor Winnie felt as if she hated the keen-eyed boy.
Will, for his part, went off to seek his mother, leaving Aunt Agatha to conduct her dear and welcome, but embarrassing and difficult, guest upstairs. He did not run, nor show any symptoms of unnecessary haste, but went along at a very steady, leisurely way. He was so far like Winnie that he did not see any occasion for disturbing himself much on account of other people. He went to seek Mrs. Ochterlony with his hands in his pockets, and his mind working steadily on the new position of affairs. Why this new-comer should have arrived so unexpectedly? why Aunt Agatha should look so anxious, and helpless, and confused, as if, notwithstanding her love, she did not know what to do with her visitor? were questions which exercised all Will’s faculties. He walked up to his mother, who was coming quietly along the road from thevillage, and joined her without disturbing himself. “Aunt Agatha sent me to look for you,” he said, and turned with her towards the Cottage in the calmest way.
“I am afraid she thought I was late,” said Mary.
“It was not that,” said Will. “Mrs. Percival has just come, so far as I could understand, and she sent me to tell you.”
“Mrs. Percival?” cried Mary, stopping short. “Whom do you mean? Not Winnie? Not my sister? You must have made some mistake.”
“I think it was. It looked like her,” said Will, in his calm way.
Mary stood still, and her breath seemed to fail her for the moment; she had what the French call aserrement du cœur. It felt as if some invisible hand had seized upon her heart and compressed it tightly; and her breathing failed, and a chill went through her veins. The next moment her face flushed with shame and self-reproach. Could she be thinking of herself and any possible consequences, and grudging her sister the only natural refuge which remained to her? She was incapable for the moment of asking any further questions, but went on with a sudden hasty impulse, feeling her head swim, and her whole intelligence confused. It seemed to Mary, for the moment, though she could not have told how, as if there was an end of her peaceful life, of her comfort, and all the good things that remained to her; a chill presentiment, confounding and inexplicable, went to her heart; and at the same time she felt utterly ashamed and horrified to be thinking of herself at all, and not of poor Winnie, the returned wanderer. Her thoughts were so busy and full of occupation that she had gone a long way before it occurred to her to say anything to her boy.
“You say it looked like her, Will,” she began at last, taking up the conversation where she had left off; “tell me, what did she look like?”
“She looked just like other women,” said Will; “I didn’t remark any difference. As tall as you, and a sort of a long nose. Why I thought it looked like her, was because Aunt Agatha was in an awful way.”
“What sort of a way?” cried Mary.
“Oh, well, I don’t know. Like a hen, or something—walking round her, and looking at her, and cluck-clucking; and yet all the same as if she’d like to cry.”
“And Winnie,” said Mrs. Ochterlony, “how did she look?—that is what I want most to know.”
“Awfully bored,” said Will. He was so sometimes himself, when Aunt Agatha paid any special attentions to him, and he said it with feeling. This was almost all the conversation that passed between them as Mrs. Ochterlony hurried home. Poor Winnie! Mary knew better than Miss Seton did what a dimness had fallen upon her sister’s bright prospects—how the lustre of her innocent name had been tarnished, and all the freshness and beauty gone out of her life; and Mrs. Ochterlony’s heart smote her for the momentary reference to herself, which she had made without meaning it, when she heard of Winnie’s return. Poor Winnie! if the home of her youth was not open to her, where could she find refuge? if her aunt and her sister did not stand by her, who would? and yet—— The sensation was altogether involuntary, and Mary resisted it with all her might; but she could not help a sort of instinctive sense that her peace was over, and that the storms and darkness of life were about to begin again.
When she went in hurriedly to the drawing-room, not expecting to see anybody, she found, to her surprise, that Winnie was there, reclining in an easy chair, with Aunt Agatha in wistful and anxious attendance upon her. The poor old lady was hovering about her guest, full of wonder, and pain, and anxious curiosity. Winnie as yet had given no explanation of her sudden appearance. She had given no satisfaction to her perplexed and fond companion. When she found that Aunt Agatha did not leave her, she had come downstairs again, and dropped listlessly into the easy chair. She wanted to have been left alone for a little, to have realized all that had befallen her, and to feel that she was not dreaming, but was actually in her own home. But Miss Seton would have thought it the greatest unkindness, the most signal want of love and sympathy, and all that a wounded heart required, to leave Winnie alone. And she was glad when Mary came to help her to rejoice over, and overwhelm with kindness, her child who had been lost and was found.
“It is your dear sister, thank God!” she cried, with tears. “Oh, Mary! to think we should have her again; to think she should be here after so many changes! And our own Winnie through it all. She did not write to tell us, for she did not quite know the day——”
“I did not know things would go further than I could bear,” said Winnie, hurriedly. “Now Mary is here, I know you must have some explanation. I have not come to see you; I have come to escape, and hide myself. Now, if you have any kindness, you won’t ask me any more just now. I came offlast night because he went too far. There! that is why I did not write. I thought you would take me in, whatever my circumstances might be.”
“Oh, Winnie, my darling! then you have not been happy?” said Aunt Agatha, tearfully clasping Winnie’s hands in her own, and gazing wistfully into her face.
“Happy!” she said, with something like a laugh, and then drew her hand away. “Please, let us have tea or something, and don’t question me any more.”
It was then only that Mary interposed. Her love for her sister was not the absorbing love of Aunt Agatha; but it was a wiser affection. And she managed to draw the old lady away, and leave the new-comer to herself for the moment. “I must not leave Winnie,” Aunt Agatha said; “I cannot go away from my poor child; don’t you see how unhappy and suffering she is? You can see after everything yourself, Mary, there is nothing to do; and tell Peggy——”
“But I have something to say to you,” said Mary, drawing her reluctant companion away, to Aunt Agatha’s great impatience and distress. As for Winnie, she was grateful for the moment’s quiet, and yet she was not grateful to her sister. She wanted to be alone and undisturbed, and yet she rather wanted Aunt Agatha’s suffering looks and tearful eyes to be in the same room with her. She wanted to resume the sovereignty, and be queen and potentate the moment after her return; and it did not please her to see another authority, which prevailed over the fascination of her presence. But yet she was glad to be alone. When they left her, she lay back in her chair, in a settled calm of passion which was at once twenty times more calm than their peacefulness, and twenty times more passionate than their excitement. She knew whence she came, and why she came, which they did not. She knew the last step which had been too far, and was still tingling with the sense of outrage. She had in her mind the very different scene she had left, and which stood out in flaming outlines against the dim background of this place, which seemed to have stopped still just where she left it, and in all these years to have grown no older; and her head began to steady a little out of the whirl. If he ventured to seek her here, she would turn to bay and defy him. She was too much absorbed by active enmity, and rage, and indignation, to be moved by the recollections of her youth, the romance that had been enacted within these walls. On the contrary, the last exasperation which had filled her cup to overflowing was so much more real than anything that followed, that Aunt Agatha was but a pale ghost toWinnie, flitting dimly across the fiery surface of her own thoughts; and this calm scene in which she found herself, almost without knowing how, felt somehow like a pasteboard cottage in a theatre, suddenly let down upon her for the moment. She had come to escape and hide herself, she said, and that was in reality what she intended to do; but at the same time the thought of living there, and making the change real, had never occurred to her. It was a sudden expedient, adopted in the heat of battle; it was not a flight for her life.
“She has come back to take refuge with us, the poor darling,” said Aunt Agatha. “Oh, Mary, my dear love, don’t let us be hard upon her! She has not been happy, you heard her say so, and she has come home; let me go back to Winnie, my dear. She will think that we are not glad to see her, that we don’t sympathize—— And oh, Mary, her poor dear wounded heart! when she looks upon all the things that surrounded her, when she was so happy!—--”
And Mary could not succeed in keeping the tender old lady away, nor stilling the thousand questions that bubbled from her kind lips. All she could do was to provide for Winnie’s comfort, and in her own person to leave her undisturbed. And the night fell over a strangely disquieted household. Aunt Agatha could not tell whether to cry for joy or distress, whether to be most glad that Winnie had come home, or most concerned and anxious how to account for her sudden arrival, and keep up appearances, and prevent the parish from thinking that anything unpleasant had happened. In Winnie’s room there was such a silent tumult of fury, and injury, and active conflict, as had never existed before near Kirtell-side. Winnie was not thinking, nor caring where she was; she was going over the last battle from which she had fled, and anticipating the next, and instead of making herself wretched by the contrast of her former happiness, felt herself only, as it were, in a painted retirement, no more real than a dream. What was real was her own feelings, and nothing else on earth. As for Mary, she too was strangely, and she thought ridiculously affected by her sister’s return. She tried to explain to herself that except for her natural sympathy for Winnie, it affected her in no other way, and was indignant, with herself for dwelling upon a possible derangement of domestic peace, as if that could not be guarded against, or even endured if it came about. But nature was too strong for her. It was not any fear for the domestic peace that moved her; it was an indescribable conviction that this unlooked-for return was the onslaught signal for a something lying in wait—that it was the touch ofrevolution, the opening of the flood-gates—and that henceforward her life of tranquil confidence was over, and that some mysterious trouble which she could not at present identify, had been let loose upon her, let it come sooner or later, from that day.
AFTER that first bewildered night, and when the morning came, the recollection that Winnie was in the house had a curious effect upon the thoughts of the entire household. Even Aunt Agatha’s uneasy joy was mingled with many feelings that were not joyful. She had never had anything to do before with wives who “were not happy.” Any such cases which might have come to her knowledge among her acquaintance she had been in the way of avoiding and tacitly condemning. “A man may be bad,” she had been in the habit of saying, “but still if his wife had right feelings”—and she was in the way of thinking that it was to a woman’s credit to endure all things, and to make no sign. Such had been the pride and the principles of Aunt Agatha’s generation. But now, as in so many cases, principle and theory came right in the face of fact, and gave way. Winnie must be right at whatever cost. Poor Winnie! to think what she had been, to remember her as she left Kirtell splendid in her bridal beauty, and to look at her now! Such arguments made an end of all Aunt Agatha’s old maiden sentiments about a wife’s duty; but nevertheless her heart still ached. She knew how she would herself have looked upon a runaway wife, and she could not endure to think that other people would so look upon Winnie; and she dried an indignant tear, and made a vow to herself to carry matters with a high hand, and to maintain her child’s discretion, and wisdom, and perfect propriety of action, in the face of all comers. “My dear child has come to pay me a visit, the very first chance she has had,” she said to herself, rehearsing her part; “I have been begging and begging her to come, and at last she has found an opportunity. And to give me a delightful surprise, she never named the day. It was so like Winnie.” This was what, omitting all notice of the feelings which made the surprise far from delightful, Aunt Agatha made up her mind to say.
As for Winnie, when she woke up in the sunshine and stillness, and heard nothing but the birds singing, and Kirtell in the distance murmuring below her window, her heart stood still for a moment and wondered; and then a few hot salt tears came scalding to her eyes; and then she began over again in her own mind the recapitulation of her wrongs. She thought very little indeed of Aunt Agatha, or of her present surroundings. What she thought of was the late scenes of exciting strife she had gone through, and future scenes which might still be before her, and what he would say to her, and what she would say to him; for matters had gone so far between them that the constantly progressing duel was as absorbing as the first dream of love, and swallowed up every thought. It cost her an effort to be patient with all the morning greetings, with Aunt Agatha’s anxious talk at the breakfast-table, and discussion of the old neighbours, whom, doubtless, Winnie, she thought, would like to hear of. Winnie did not care a great deal for the old neighbours, nor did she take much interest in hearing of the boys. Indeed she did not know the boys. They had been but babies when she went away, and she had no acquaintance with the new creatures who bore their names. It gave her a little pang when she looked at Mary and saw the results of peace and tranquillity in her face, which seemed to have grown little older—but that was almost the sole thing that drew Winnie from her own thoughts. There was a subtle sort of connection between it and the wrongs which were rankling at her heart.
“There used to be twelve years between us,” she said, abruptly. “I was eighteen when Mary was thirty. I think anybody that saw us would ask which was the eldest now.”
“My darling, you are thin,” said poor Aunt Agatha, anxiously; “but a few weeks of quiet and your native air will soon round out your dear cheeks——”
“Well,” said Winnie, paying no attention, “I suppose it’s because I have been living all the time, and Mary hasn’t. It is I that have the wrinkles—but then I have not been like the Sleeping Beauty. I have been working hard at life all this time.”
“Yes,” said Mary, with a smile, “it makes a difference:—and of the two I think I would rather live. It is harder work, but there is more satisfaction in it.”
“Satisfaction!” Winnie said, bitterly. There had been no satisfaction in it to her, and she felt fierce and angry at the word—and then her eye fell upon Will, who had been listeningas usual. “I wonder you keep that great boy there,” she said; “why isn’t he doing something? You ought to send him to the army, or put him to go through some examinations. What does he want at his mother’s lap? You should mind you don’t spoil them, Mary. Home is the ruin of boys. I have always heard so wherever I have been.”
“My dear love,” cried Aunt Agatha, fearful that Mary might be moved to reply, “it is very interesting to hear you; but I want you to tell me a little about yourself. Tell me about yourself, my darling—if you are fixedtherenow, you know; and all where you have been.”
“Before that boy?” said Winnie, with a kind of smile, looking Wilfrid in the face with her great sunken eyes.
“Now, Will, be quiet, and don’t say anything impertinent,” cried Aunt Agatha. “Oh, my darling, never mind him. He is strange, but he is a good boy at the bottom. I should like to hear about all my dearest child has been doing. Letters never tell all. Oh, Winnie, what a pleasure it is, my love, to see your dear face again.”
“I am glad you think so, aunt—nobody else does, that I know of; and you are likely to have enough of it,” said Winnie, with a certain look of defiance at her sister and her sister’s son.
“Thank you, my dear love,” said Aunt Agatha, trembling; for the maid was in the room, and Miss Seton’s heart quailed with fear lest the sharp eyes of such a domestic critic should be opened to something strange in the conversation. “I am so glad to hear you are going to pay me a long visit; I did not like to ask you just the first morning, and I was dreadfully frightened you might soon be going again; you owe me something, Winnie, for staying away all these long years.”
Aunt Agatha in her fright and agitation continued this speech until she had talked the maid safely out of the room, and then, being excited, she fell, without knowing it, into tears.
Winnie leant back in her chair and folded a light shawl she wore round her, and looked at Miss Seton. In her heart she was wondering what Aunt Agatha could possibly have to cry about; what could ever happen toher, that made it worth her while to cry? But she did not put this sentiment into words.
“You will be tired of me before I go,” she said, and that was all; not a word, as Aunt Agatha afterwards explained to Mary, about her husband, or about how she had been living, or anything about herself. And to take her by the throat, as it were, and demand that she should account for herself, wasnot to be thought of. The end was that they all dispersed to their various occupations, and that the day went on almost as if Winnie was not there. But yet the fact that Winnie was there tinged every one’s thoughts, and made a difference in every corner of the house. They had all their occupations to betake themselves to, but she had nothing to do, and unconsciously every individual in the place took to observing the new-comer, with that curious kind of feminine observation which goes so little way, and yet goes so far. She had brought only a portmanteau with her, a gentleman’s box, not a lady’s, and yet she made no move towards unpacking, but let her things remain in it, notwithstanding that the wardrobe was empty and open, and her dresses, if she had brought any, must have been crushed up like rags in that tight enclosure. And she sat in the drawing-room with the open windows, through which every one in the house now and then got a glimpse of her, doing nothing, not even reading; she had her thin shawl round her shoulders, though it was so warm, and she sat there with nothing to occupy her, like a figure carved out of stone. Such an attitude, in a woman’s eyes, is the embodiment of everything that is saddest, and most listless, and forlorn. Doing nothing, not trying to take an interest in anything, careless about the books, indifferent to the garden, with no curiosity about anybody or anything. The sight of her listless figure filled Aunt Agatha with despair.
And then, to make things worse, Sir Edward made his appearance the very next day to inquire into it all. It was hard to make out how he knew, but he did know, and no doubt all the parish knew, and were aware that there was something strange about it. Sir Edward was an old man, about eighty now, feeble but irreproachable, and lean limbs that now and then were slightly unsteady, but a toilette which was always everything it ought to be. He came in, cool and fresh in his summer morning dress, but his brow was puckered with anxiety, and there was about him that indescribable air of coming to see about it, which has so painful an effect in general upon the nerves of the persons whose affairs are to be put under investigation. When Sir Edward made his appearance at the open window, Aunt Agatha instinctively rose up and put herself before Winnie, who, however, did not show any signs of disturbance in her own person, but only wound herself up more closely in her shawl.
“So Winnie has come to see us at last,” said Sir Edward, and he came up to her and took both her hands, and kissed her forehead in a fatherly way. He did so almost withoutlooking at her, and then he gave an unaffected start; but he had too much delicacy to utter the words that came to his lips. He did not say how much changed she was, but he gave Aunt Agatha a pitiful look of dismay and astonishment as he sat down, and this Winnie did not fail to see.
“Yes, at last,” cried Aunt Agatha, eagerly. “I have begged and begged of her to come, and was wondering what answer I should get, when she was all the while planning me such a delightful surprise; but how did you know?”
“News travels fast,” said Sir Edward, and then he turned to the stranger. “You will find us much changed, Winnie. We are getting old people now, and the boys whom you left babies—you must see a great deal of difference.”
“Not so much difference,” said Winnie, “as you see in me.”
“It was to be expected there should be a difference,” said Sir Edward. “You were but a girl when you went away. I hope you are going to make a good long stay. You will find us just as quiet as ever, and as humdrum, but very delighted to see you.”
To this Winnie made no reply. She neither answered his question, nor gave any response to his expression of kindness, and the old man sat and looked at her with a deeper wrinkle than ever across his brow.
“Shemustpay me a long visit,” said poor Aunt Agatha, “since she has been so long of coming. Now that I have her she shall not go away.”
“And Percival?” said Sir Edward. He had cast about in his own mind for the best means of approaching this difficult subject, but had ended by feeling there was nothing for it but plain speaking. And then, though there were reports that they did not “get on,” still there was nothing as yet to justify suspicions of a final rupture. “I hope you left him quite well; I hope we are to see him, too.”
“He was very well when I left him, thank you,” said Winnie, with steady formality; and then the conversation once more came to a dead stop.
Sir Edward was disconcerted. He had come to examine, to reprove, and to exhort, but he was not prepared to be met with this steady front of unconsciousness. He thought the wanderer had most likely come home full of complaints and outcries, and that it might be in his power to set her right. He hemmed and cleared his throat a little, and cast about what he should say, but he had no better inspiration than to turn to Aunt Agatha and disturb her gentle mind withanother topic, and for this moment let the original subject rest.
“Ah—have you heard lately from Earlston?” he said, turning to Miss Seton. “I have just been hearing a report about Francis Ochterlony. I hope it is not true.”
“What kind of report?” said Aunt Agatha, breathlessly. A few minutes before she could not have believed that any consideration whatever would have disturbed her from the one subject which was for the moment dearest to her heart—but Sir Edward with his usual felicity had found out another chord which vibrated almost as painfully. Her old delusion recurred to Aunt Agatha with the swiftness of lightning. He might be going to marry, and divert the inheritance from Hugh, and she did her best to persuade her lips to a kind of smile.
“They say he is ill,” said Sir Edward; “but of course ifyouhave not heard—I thought he did not look like himself when we were there. Very poorly I heard—not anything violent you know, but a sort of breaking up. Perhaps it is not true.”
Aunt Agatha’s heart had been getting hard usage for some time back. It had jumped to her mouth, and sunk into depths as deep as heart can sink to, time after time in these eventful days. Now she only felt it contract as it were, as if somebody had seized it violently, and she gave a little cry, for it hurt her.
“Oh, Sir Edward, it cannot be true,” she said. “We had a letter from Hugh on Monday, and he does not say a word. It cannot be true.”
“Hugh is very young,” said Sir Edward, who did not like to be supposed wrong in a point of fact. “A boy with no experience might see a man all but dying, and as long as he did not complain would never know.”
“But he looked very well when we were there,” said Aunt Agatha, faltering. If she had been alone she would have shed silent tears, and her thoughts would have been both sad and bitter; but this was not a moment to think of her own feelings—nor above all to cry.
Sir Edward shook his head. “I always mistrust those sort of looks for my part,” he said. “A big man has always an appearance of strength, and that carries it off.”
“Is it Mr. Ochterlony?” said Winnie, interposing for the first time. “What luck Mary has and her boys! And so Hugh will come into the property without any waiting. It may be very sad of course, Aunt Agatha, but it is great luck for him at his age.”
“Oh, Winnie, my dear love!” cried Aunt Agatha, feebly. It was a speech that went to her heart, but she was dumb between the two people who did not care for Francis Ochterlony, and could find nothing to say.
“I hope that is not the way in which any of us look at it,” said Sir Edward with gentle severity; and then he added, “I always thought if you had been left a little more to yourselves when we were at Earlston that still you might have made it up.”
“Oh no, no!” said Aunt Agatha, “now that we are both old people—and he was always far too sensible. But it was not anything of that sort. Francis Ochterlony and I were—were always dear friends.”
“Well, you must let me know next time when Hugh writes,” said Sir Edward, “and I hope we shall have better news.” When he said this he turned again quite abruptly to Winnie, who had dropped once more into her own thoughts, and expected no new assault.
“Percival is coming to fetch you, I suppose?” he said. “I think I can offer him some good shooting in a month or two. This may overcloud us all a little if—if anything should happen to Francis Ochterlony. But after what your Aunt Agatha says, I feel disposed to hope the best.”
“Yes, I hope so,” said Winnie; which was a very unsatisfactory reply.
“Of course you are citizens of the world, and we are very quiet people,” said Sir Edward. “I suppose promotion comes slow in these times of peace. I should have thought he was entitled to another step by this time; but we civilians know so little about military affairs.”
“I thought everybody knew that steps were bought,” said Winnie; and once more the conversation broke off dead.
It was a relief to them all when Mary came into the room, and had to be told about Mr. Ochterlony’s supposed illness, and to take a reasonable place between Aunt Agatha’s panic-stricken assurance that it was not true, and Sir Edward’s calmly indifferent belief that it was. Mary for the first time suggested that a man might be ill, and yet not at the point of death, which was a conclusion to which the others had leapt. And then they all made a little effort at ordinary talk.
“You will have everybody coming to call,” said Sir Edward, “now that Winnie is known to have come home; and I daresay Percival will find Mary’s military friends a great resource when he comes. Love-making being over, he will want some substitute——”
“Who are Mary’s military friends?” said Winnie, suddenly breaking in.
“Only some people in our old regiment,” said Mary. “It is stationed at Carlisle, strangely enough. You know the Askells, I think, and——”
“The Askells!” said Winnie, and her face grew dark. “Are they here, all that wretched set of people?—Mary’s friends. Ah, I might have known——”
“My dear love, she is a very silly little woman; but Nelly is delightful, and he is very nice, poor man,” cried Aunt Agatha, eager to interfere.
“Yes, poor man, he is very nice,” said Winnie, with contempt; “his wife is an idiot, and he doesn’t beat her; I am sure I should, if I were he. Who’s Nelly? and that horrid Methodist of a woman, and the old maid that reads novels? Why didn’t you tell me of them? If I had known, I should never have come here.”
“Oh, Winnie, my darling!” cried Aunt Agatha; “but I did mention them; and so did Mary, I feel sure.”
“They are Mary’s friends,” said Winnie, with bitterness, and then she stopped herself abruptly. The others were like an army of observation round a beleaguered city, which was not guided by the most perfect wisdom, but lost its temper now and then, and made injudicious sallies. Now Winnie shut up her gates, and drew in her garrison once more; and her companions looked at each other doubtfully, seeing a world of sore and wounded feeling, distrust, and resistance, and mystery to which they had no clue. She had gone away a girl, full of youthful bravado, and fearing nothing. She had come back a stranger, with a long history unknown to them, and with no inclination to make it clear. Her aunt and sister were anxious and uneasy, and did not venture on direct assault; but Sir Edward, who was a man of resolution, sat down before the fortress, and was determined to fight it out.
“You should have sent us word you were coming,” he said; “and your husband should have been with you, Winnie. It was he who took you away, and he ought to have come back to give an account of his stewardship. I shall tell him so when he comes.”
Again Winnie made no answer; her face contracted slightly; but soon settled back again into its blank look of self-concentration, and no response came.
“He has no appointment, I suppose; no adjutantship, or anything to keep him from getting away?”
“No,” said Winnie.
“Perhaps he has gone to see his mother?” said Sir Edward, brightening up. “She is getting quite an old woman, and longs to see him; and you, my pretty Winnie, too. I suppose you will pay her your long-deferred visit, now you have returned to this country? Percival is there?”
“No—I think not,” said Winnie, winding herself up in her shawl, as she had done before.
“Then you have left him at——, where he is stationed now,” said Sir Edward, becoming more and more point-blank in his attack.
“Look here, Sir Edward,” said Winnie; “we are citizens of the world, as you say, and we have not lived such a tranquil life as you have. I did not come here to give an account of my husband; he can take care of himself. I came to have a little quiet and rest, and not to be asked questions. If one could be let alone anywhere, it surely should be in one’s own home.”
“No, indeed,” said Sir Edward, who was embarrassed, and yet more arbitrary than ever; “for in your own home people have a right to know all about you. Though I am not exactly a relative, I have known you all your life; I may say I brought you up, like a child of my own; and to see you come home like this, all alone, without baggage or attendant, as if you had dropped from the skies, and nobody knowing where you come from, or anything about it,—I think, Winnie, my dear, when you consider of it, you will see it is precisely your own friends who ought to know.”
Then Aunt Agatha rushed into themêlée, feeling in her own person a little irritated by her old friend’s lecture and inquisition.
“Sir Edward is making a mistake, my dear love,” she said; “he does not know. Dear Winnie has been telling me everything. It is so nice to know all about her. Those little details that can never go into letters; and when—when Major Percival comes——”
“It is very good of you, Aunt Agatha,” said Winnie, with a certain quiet disdain; “but I did not mean to deceive anybody—Major Percival is not coming that I know of. I am old enough to manage for myself: Mary came home from India when she was not quite my age.”
“Oh, my dear love, poor Mary was a widow,” cried Aunt Agatha; “you must not speak of that.”
“Yes, I know Mary has always had the best of it,” said Winnie, under her breath; “you never made a set against her as you do against me. If there is an inquisition at Kirtell, Iwill go somewhere else. I came to have a little quiet; that is all I want in this world.”
It was well for Winnie that she turned away abruptly at that moment, and did not see Sir Edward’s look, which he turned first upon Mary and then on Aunt Agatha. She did not see it, and it was well for her. When he went away soon after, Miss Seton went out into the garden with him, in obedience to his signals, and then he unburdened his mind.
“It seems to me that she must have run away from him,” said Sir Edward. “It is very well she has come here; but still it is unpleasant, to make the best of it. I am sure he has behaved very badly; but I must say I am a little disappointed in Winnie. I was, as you may remember, at the very first when she made up her mind so soon.”
“There is no reason for thinking she has run away,” said Aunt Agatha. “Why should she have run away? I hope a lady may come to her aunt and her sister without compromising herself in any way.”
Sir Edward shook his head. “A married woman’s place is with her husband,” he said, sententiously. He was old, and he was more moral, and perhaps less sentimental, in his remarks than formerly. “And how she is changed! There must have been a great deal of excitement and late hours, and bills and all that sort of thing, before she came to look like that.”
“You are very hard upon my poor Winnie,” said Aunt Agatha, with a long-restrained sob.
“I am not hard upon her. On the contrary, I would save her if I could,” said Sir Edward, solemnly. “My dear Agatha, I am sorry for you. What with poor Francis Ochterlony’s illness, and this heavy burden——”
Miss Seton was seized with one of those passions of impatience and indignation to which a man’s heavy way of blundering over sore subjects sometimes moves a woman. “It was all Francis Ochterlony’s fault,” she said, lifting her little tremulous white hands. “It was his fault, and not mine. He might have had some one that could have taken care of him all these years, and he chose his marble images instead—and I will not take the blame; it was no fault of mine. And then my poor darling child——”
But here Miss Seton’s strength, being the strength of excitement solely, gave way, and her voice broke, and she had to take both her hands to dry her fast-coming tears.
“Well, well, well!” said Sir Edward. “Dear me, I never meant to excite you so. What I was saying was with thekindest intention. Let us hope Ochterlony is better, and that all will turn out pleasantly for Winnie. If you find yourself unequal to the emergency, you know—and want a man’s assistance——”
“Thank you,” said Aunt Agatha, with dignity; “but I do not think so much of a man’s assistance as I used to do. Mary is so very sensible, and if one does the very best one can——”
“Oh, of course I am not a person to interfere,” said Sir Edward; and he walked away with an air still more dignified than that which Aunt Agatha had put on, but very shaky, poor old gentleman, about his knees, which slightly diminished the effect. As for Aunt Agatha, she turned her back upon him steadily, and walked back to the Cottage with all the stateliness of a woman aggrieved. But nevertheless the pins and needles were in her heart, and her mind was full of anxiety and distress. She had felt very strongly the great mistake made by Francis Ochterlony, and how he had spoiled both their lives—but that was not to say that she could hear of his illness with philosophy. And then Winnie, who was not ill, but whose reputation and position might be in deadly danger for anything Miss Seton knew. Aunt Agatha knew nothing better to do than to call Mary privately out of the room and pour forth her troubles. It did no good, but it relieved her mind. Why was Sir Edward so suspicious and disagreeable—why had he ceased “to understand people;”—and why was Hugh so young and inexperienced, and incapable of judging whether his uncle was or was not seriously ill;—and why did not “they” write? Aunt Agatha did not know whom she meant by “they,” nor why she blamed poor Hugh. But it relieved her mind. And when she had pushed her burden off on to Mary’s shoulders, the weight was naturally much lightened on her own.
HUGH, however, it is quite true, was very inexperienced. He did not even notice that his uncle was very ill. He sat with him at dinner and saw that he did not eat anything, and yet never saw it; and he went with him sometimes when he tottered about the garden in the morning, and never found out that he tottered; and sat with him at night, and was very kind and attentive, and was very fond of hisuncle, and never remarked anything the matter with his breathing. He was very young, and he knew no better, and it never seemed to him that short breathing and unequal steps and a small appetite were anything remarkable at Mr. Ochterlony’s age. If there had been a lady in the house it might have made a wonderful difference; but to be sure it was Francis Ochterlony’s own doing that there was not a lady in the house. And he was not himself so shortsighted as Hugh. His own growing weakness was something of which he was perfectly well aware, and he knew, too, how his breath caught of nights, and looking forward into the future saw the shadow drawing nearer to his door, and was not afraid of it. Probably the first thought went chill to his heart, the thought that he was mortal like other people, and might have to die. But his life had been such a life as to make him very much composed about it, and not disinclined to think that a change might be for the better. He was not very clear about the unseen world—for one thing, he had nobody there in particular belonging to him except the father and mother who were gone ages ago; and it did not seem very important to himself personally whether he was going to a long sleep, or going to another probation, or into pure blessedness, which of all the three was, possibly, the hypothesis which he understood least. Perhaps, on the whole, if he had been to come to an end altogether he would not have much minded; but his state of feeling was, that God certainly knew all about it, and that He would arrange it all right. It was a kind of pagan state of mind; and yet there was in it something of the faith of the little child which was once set up as the highest model of faith by the highest authority. No doubt Mr. Ochterlony had a great many thoughts on the subject, as he sat buried in the deep chair in his study, and gazed into the little red spark of fire which was lighted for him all that summer through, though the weather was so genial. His were not bright thoughts, but very calm ones; and perhaps his perfect composure about it all was one reason why Hugh took it as a matter of course, and went on quite cheerily and lightly, and never found out there was anything the matter with him until the very last.
It was one morning when Mr. Ochterlony had been later than usual of coming downstairs. When he did make his appearance it was nearly noon, and he was in his dressing-gown, which was an unheard-of thing for him. Instead of going out to the garden, he called Hugh, and asked him to give him his arm while he made a littletourof the house. They went from the library to the dining-room, and then upstairs to the great drawing-room where the Venus and the Psyche were. When they had got that length Mr. Ochterlony dropped into a chair, and gasped for breath, and looked round upon his treasures. And then Hugh, who was looking on, began to feel very uneasy and anxious for the first time.
“One can’t take them with one,” said Mr. Ochterlony, with a sigh and a smile; “and you will not care for them much, Hugh. I don’t mean to put any burden upon you: they are worth a good deal of money; but I’d rather you did not sell them, if you could make up your mind to the sacrifice.”
“If they were mine I certainly should not sell them,” said Hugh; “but as they are yours, uncle, I don’t see that it matters what I would do.”
Mr. Ochterlony smiled, and looked kindly at him, but he did not give him any direct answer. “If they were yours,” he said—“suppose the case—then what would you do with them?”
“I would collect them in a museum somewhere, and call them by your name,” said Hugh, on the spur of the moment. “You almost ought to do that yourself, uncle, there are so few people to see them here.”
Mr. Ochterlony’s languid eyes brightened a little. “They are worth a good deal of money,” he said.
“If they were worth a mint of money, I don’t see what that matters,” said Hugh, with youthful extravagance.
His uncle looked at him again, and once more the languid eye lighted up, and a tinge of colour came to the grey cheek.
“I think you mean it, Hugh,” he said, “and it is pleasant to think you do mean it now, even if—— I have been an economical man, in every way but this, and I think you would not miss it. But I won’t put any bondage upon you. By the way, they would belong to the personalty. Perhaps there’s a will wanted for that. It was stupid of me not to think of it before. I ought to see about it this very day.”
“Uncle,” said Hugh, who had been sitting on the arm of a chair looking at him, and seeing, as by a sudden revelation, all the gradual changes which he had not noticed when they began: the shortened breath, the emaciated form, and the deep large circle round the eyes,—“Uncle, will you tell me seriously what you mean when you speak to me like this?”
“On second thoughts, it will be best to do it at once,” said Mr. Ochterlony. “Hugh, ring the bell—— What do I speak like this, for, my boy? For a very plain reason; because my course is going to end, and yours is only going to begin.”
“But, uncle!” cried Hugh.
“Hush—the one ought to be a kind of continuation of the other,” said Mr. Ochterlony, “since you will take up where I leave off; but I hope you will do better than that. If you should feel yourself justified in thinking of the museum afterward—— But I would not like to leave any burden upon you. John, let some one ride into Dalken directly, and ask Mr. Preston, the attorney, to come to me—or his son will do. I should like to see him to-day—— And stop,” said Mr. Ochterlony, reluctantly, “he may fetch the doctor, too.”
“Uncle, do you feel ill?” said Hugh. He had come up to his uncle’s side, and he had taken fright, and was looking at him wistfully as a woman might have done—for his very inexperience which had prevented him from observing gave him a tender anguish now, and filled him full of awe and compunction, and made him in his wistfulness almost like a woman.
“No,” said Mr. Ochterlony, holding out his hand. “Not ill, my boy, only dying—that’s all. Nothing to make a fuss about—but sit down and compose yourself, for I have a good deal to say.”
“Do you mean it, uncle?” asked Hugh, searching into the grey countenance before him with his suddenly awakened eyes.
Mr. Ochterlony gave a warm grasp to the young hand which held his closely yet trembling. “Sit down,” he said. “I’m glad you are sorry. A few years ago there would have been nobody to mind—except the servants, perhaps. I never took the steps I might have done, you know,” he added, with a certain sadness, and yet a sense of humour which was curious to see, “to have an heir of my own—— And speaking of that, you will be sure to remember what I said to you about the Henri Deux. I put it away in the cabinet yonder, the very last day they were here.”
Then Mr. Ochterlony talked a great deal, and about many things. About there being no particular occasion for making a will—since Earlston was settled by his father’s will upon his own heirs male, or those of his brother—how he had bethought himself all at once, though he did not know exactly how the law stood, that there was some difference between real and personal property, and how, on the whole, perhaps, it was better to send for Preston. “As for the doctor, I daren’t take it upon me to die without him, I suppose,” Mr. Ochterlony said. He had never been so playful before, as long as Hugh had knownhim. He had been reserved—a little shy, even with his nephew. Now his own sense of failure seemed to have disappeared. He was going to make a change, to get rid of all his old disabilities, and incumbrances, and antecedents, and no doubt it would be a change for the better. This was about the substance of Mr. Ochterlony’s thoughts.
“But one can’t take Psyche, you know,” he said. “One must go alone to look into the face of the Immortals. And I don’t think your mother, perhaps, would care to have her here—so if you should feel yourself justified in thinking of the museum—— But you will have a great deal to do. In the first place your mother—I doubt if she’ll be so happy at the Cottage, now Mrs. Percival has come back. I think you ought to ask her to come here. And I shouldn’t wonder if Will gave you some trouble. He’s an odd boy. I would not say he had not a sense of honour, but—— And he has a jealous, dissatisfied temper. As for Islay, he’s all safe, I suppose. Always be kind to them, Hugh, and give Will his education. I think he has abilities; but don’t be too liberal. Don’t take them upon your shoulders. You have your own life to think of first of all.”
All this Mr. Ochterlony uttered, with many little breaks and pauses, but with very little aid from his companion, who was too much moved to do more than listen. He was not suffering in any acute way, and yet, somehow, the sense of his approaching end seemed to have loosened his tongue, which had been to some extent bound all his life.
“For you must marry, you know,” he said. “I considerthata bargain between us. Don’t trust to your younger brother, as I did—not but what it was the best thing for you. Some little bright thing likethat—that was with your mother. You may laugh, but I can remember when Agatha Seton was as pretty a creature——”
“I think she is pretty now,” said Hugh, half because he did think so, and half because he was anxious to find something he could say.
Then Mr. Ochterlony brightened up in the strangest pathetic way, laughing a little, with a kind of tender consciousness that he was laughing at himself. He was so nearly separated from himself now that he was tender as if it was the weakness of a dear old familiar friend at which he was laughing. “Sheisvery pretty,” he said. “I am glad you have the sense to see it,—and good; and she’ll go now and make a slave of herself to that girl. I suppose that is my fault, too. But be sure you don’t forget about the Henri Deux.”
And then all of a sudden, while his nephew was sitting watching him, Mr. Ochterlony fell asleep. When he was sleeping he looked so grey, and worn, and emaciated, that Hugh’s heart smote him. He could not explain to himself why it was that he had never noticed it before; and he was very doubtful and uncertain what he ought to do. If he sent for his mother, which seemed the most natural idea, Mr. Ochterlony might not like it, and he had himself already sent for the doctor. Hugh had the good sense finally to conclude upon doing the one thing that was most difficult—to do nothing. But it was not an enlivening occupation. He went off and got some wraps and cushions, and propped his uncle up in the deep chair he was reclining in, and then he sat down and watched him, feeling a thrill run through him every time there was a little drag in the breathing or change in his patient’s face. He might die like that, with the Psyche and the Venus gleaming whitely over him, and nobody by who understood what to do. It was the most serious moment that had ever occurred in Hugh’s life; and it seemed to him that days, and not minutes, were passing. When the doctor arrived, it was a very great relief. And then Mr. Ochterlony was taken to bed and made comfortable, as they said; and a consciousness crept through the house, no one could tell how, that the old life and the old times were coming to a conclusion—that sad change and revolution hung over the house, and that Earlston would soon be no more as it had been.
On the second day Hugh wrote to his mother, but that letter had not been received at the time of Sir Edward’s visit. And he made a very faithful devoted nurse, and tended his uncle like a son. Mr. Ochterlony did not die all at once, as probably he had himself expected and intended—he had his spell of illness to go through like other people, and he bore it very cheerfully, as he was not suffering much. He was indeed a great deal more playful and at his ease than either the doctor or the attorney, or Mrs. Gilsland, the housekeeper, thought quite right.