THE breakfast-table in the Cottage was as cheerful as usual next morning, and showed no premonitory shadow. Winnie did not come downstairs early; and perhaps it was all the more cheerful for her absence. And there were flowers on the table, and everything looked bright. Will was absent, it is true, but nobody took much notice of that as yet. He might be late, or he might have gone out; and he was not a boy to be long negligent of the necessities of nature. Aunt Agatha even thought it necessary to order something additional to be kept hot for him. “He has gone out, I suppose,” Miss Seton said; “and it is rather cold this morning, and a long walk in this air will make the boy as hungry as a hunter. Tell Peggy not to cook that trout till she hears him come in.”
The maid looked perturbed and breathless; but she said, “Yes, ma’am,” humbly—as if it was she who was in the wrong; and the conversation and the meal were resumed. A minute or two after, however, she appeared once more: “If you please, there’s somebody asking for Mr. Hugh,” said the frightened girl, standing, nervous and panting, with her hand upon the door.
“Somebody for me?” said Hugh. “The gamekeeper, I suppose; he need not have been in such a hurry. Let him come in and wait a little. I’ll be ready presently.”
“But, my dear boy,” said Aunt Agatha, “you must not waste the man’s time. It is Sir Edward’s time, you know; and he may have quantities of things to do. Go and see what he wants: and your mother will not fill out your coffee till you come back.”
And Hugh went out, half laughing, half grumbling—but he laughed no more, when he saw Peggy standing severe and pale at the kitchen door, waiting for him. “Mr. Hugh,” said Peggy, with the aspect of a chief justice, “tell me this moment, on your conscience, is there any quarrel or disagreement between your brother and you?”
“My brother and me? Do you mean Will?” said Hugh, in amazement. “Not the slightest. What do you mean? We were never better friends in our life.”
“God be thanked!” said Peggy; and then she took him by the arm, and led the astonished young man upstairs to Will’s room. “He’s never sleepit in that bed this night. His little bag’s gone, with a change in’t. He’s putten on another pair of boots. Where is the laddie gone? And me that’ll have to face his mother, and tell her she’s lost her bairn!”
“Lost her bairn! Nonsense,” cried Hugh, aghast; “he’s only gone out for a walk.”
“When a boy like that goes out for a walk, he does not take a change with him,” said Peggy. “He may be lying in Kirtell deeps for anything we can tell. And me that will have to break it to his mother——”
Hugh stood still in consternation for a moment, and then he burst into an agitated laugh. “He would not have taken a change with him, as you say, into Kirtell deeps,” he said. “Nonsense, Peggy! Are you sure he has not been in bed? Don’t you go and frighten my mother. And, indeed, I daresay he does not always go to bed. I see his light burning all the night through, sometimes. Peggy, don’t go and put such ridiculous ideas into people’s heads. Will has gone out to walk, as usual. There he is, downstairs. I hear him coming in: make haste, and cook his trout.”
Hugh, however, was so frightened himself by all the terrors of inexperience, that he precipitated himself downstairs, to see if it was really Will who had entered. It was not Will, however, but a boy from the railway, with a note, in Will’s handwriting, addressed to his mother, which took all the colour outof Hugh’s cheeks—for he was still a boy, and new to life, and did not think of any such easy demonstration of discontent as that of going to visit Uncle Penrose. He went into the breakfast-room with so pale a face, that both the ladies got up in dismay, and made a rush at him to know what it was.
“It is nothing,” said Hugh, breathless, waving them off, “nothing—only a note—I have not read it yet—wait a little. Mother, don’t be afraid.”
“What is there to be afraid of?” asked Mary, in amazement and dismay.
And then Hugh again burst into an unsteady and tremulous laugh. He had read the note, and threw it at his mother with an immense load lifted off his heart, and feeling wildly gay in the revulsion. “There’s nothing to be frightened about,” said Hugh. “By Jove! to think the fellow has no more taste—gone off to see Uncle Penrose. I wish them joy!”
“Who is it that has gone to visit Mr. Penrose?” said Aunt Agatha; and Hugh burst into an explanation, while Mary, not by any means so much relieved, read her boy’s letter.
“I confess I got a fright,” said Hugh. “Peggy dragged me upstairs to show me that he had not slept in his bed, and said his carpet-bag was gone, and insinuated—I don’t know what—that we had quarrelled, and all sorts of horrors. But he’s gone to see Uncle Penrose. It’s all right, mother; I always thought it was all right.”
“And had you quarrelled?” asked Aunt Agatha, in consternation.
“I am not sure it is all right,” said Mary; “why has he gone to see Uncle Penrose? and what has he heard? and without saying a word to me.”
Mary was angry with her boy, and it made her heart sore—it was the first time any of them had taken a sudden step out of her knowledge—and then what had he heard? Something worse than any simple offence or discontent might be lurking behind.
But Hugh, of course, knew nothing at all about that. He sat down again to his interrupted breakfast, and laughed and talked, and made merry. “I wonder what Uncle Penrose will say to him?” said Hugh. “I suppose he has gone and spent all his money getting to Liverpool; and what could his motive be, odd fellow as he is? The girls are all married——”
“My dear boy, Will is not thinking of girls as you are,” said Mary, beguiled into a smile.
Hugh laughed and grew red, and shook his abundant youthful locks. “We are not talking of what I think,” he said; “and I suppose a man may do worse than think about girls—a little: but the question is, what was Will thinking about? Uncle Penrose cannot have ensnared him with his odious talk about money? By-the-way, I must send him some. We can’t let an Ochterlony be worried about a few miserable shillings there.”
“I don’t think we can let an Ochterlony, at least so young a one as Will, stay uninvited,” said Mary. “I feel much disposed to go after him and bring him home, or at least find out what he means.”
“No, you shall do nothing of the kind,” said Hugh, hastily. “I suppose our mother can trust her sons out of her sight. Nobody must go after him. Why, he is seventeen—almost grown up. He must not feel any want of confidence——”
“Want of confidence!” said Aunt Agatha. “Hugh, you are only a boy yourself. What do you know about it? I think Mary would be very wrong if she let Will throw himself into temptation; and one knows there is every kind of temptation in those large, wicked towns,” said Miss Seton, shuddering. It was she who knew nothing about it, no more than a baby, and still less did she know or guess the kind of temptation that was acting upon the truant’s mind.
“If that were all,” said Mary, slowly, and then she sighed. She was not afraid of the temptations of a great town. She did not even know what she feared. She wanted to bring back her boy, to hear from his own lips what his motive was. It did not seem possible that there could be any harm meant by his boyish secrecy. It was even hard for his mother to persuade herself that Will could think of any harm; but still it was strange. When she thought of Percival’s visit and Will’s expedition to Carlisle, her heart fluttered within her, though she scarcely knew why. Will was not like other boys of his age; and then it was “something he had heard.” “I think,” she said, with hesitation, “that one of us should go—either you or I——”
“No,” said Hugh. “No, mother, no; don’t think of it; as if he were a girl or a Frenchman! Why it’s Will! What harm can he do? If he likes to visit Uncle Penrose, let him; it will not be such a wonderful delight. I’ll send him some money to-day.”
This, of course, was how it was settled; for Mary’s terrors were not strong enough to contend with her natural English prejudices againstsurveillanceand restraint, backed by Hugh’s energetic remonstrances. When Winnie heard of it, she dashedimmediately at the idea that her husband’s influence had something to do with Will’s strange flight, and was rather pleased and flattered by the thought. “I said he would strike me through my friends,” she said to Aunt Agatha, who was bewildered, and did not know what this could mean.
“My dear love, what good could it do him to interfere with Will?” said Miss Seton. “A mere boy, and who has not a penny. If he had wanted to injure us, it would have been Hugh that he would have tried to lead away.”
“To lead away?” said Winnie scornfully. “What does he care for leading away? He wants to do harm, real harm. He thinks he can strike me through my friends.”
When Aunt Agatha heard this she turned round to Mary, who had just come into the room, and gave a little deprecating shake of her head, and a pathetic look. Poor Winnie! She could think of nothing but her husband and his intentions; and how could he do this quiet household real harm? Mary said nothing, but her uneasiness increased more and more. She could not sit down to her work, or take up any of her ordinary occupations. She went to Will’s room and examined it throughout, and looked through his wardrobe to see what he had taken with him, and searched vainly for any evidence of his meaning; and then she wrote him a long letter of questions and appeals, which would have been full of pathetic eloquence to anybody who knew what was in her mind, but would have appeared simply amazing and unintelligible to anybody ignorant of her history, as she herself perceived, and burnt it, and wrote a second, in which there was still a certain mystery. She reminded him that he might have gone away comfortably with everybody’s knowledge, instead of making the household uneasy about him; and she could not but let a little wonder creep through, that of all people in the world it was Uncle Penrose whom he had elected to visit; and then she made an appeal to him: “What have I done to forfeit my boy’s confidence? what can you have heard, oh Will, my dear boy, that you could not tell to your mother?” Her mind was relieved by writing, but still she was uneasy and disquieted. If he had been severely kept in, or had any reason to fear a refusal;—but to steal away when he might have full leave and every facility; this was one of the things which appeared the most strange.
The servants, for their part, set it down to a quarrel with his brother, and jealousy about Nelly, and took Hugh’s part, who was always the favourite. And as for Hugh himself, he sent his brother a cheque (his privilege of drawing chequesbeing still new, and very agreeable), and asked why he was such an ass as to run away, and bade him enjoy himself. The house was startled—but after all, it was no such great matter; and nobody except Mary wasted much consideration upon Will’s escapade after that first morning. He was but a boy; and it was natural, everybody thought, that boys should do something foolish now and then.
IN a curious state of mind, Will was flying along towards Liverpool, while this commotion arose in the Cottage. Not even now had the matter taken any moral aspect to him. He did not feel that he had gone skulking off to deliver a cowardly blow. All that he was conscious of was the fact, that having something to tell which he could not somehow persuade himself to tell, he was going to make the communication from a distance under Uncle Penrose’s advice. And yet the boy was not comfortable. It had become apparent to him vaguely, that after this communication was made, the relations existing between himself and his family must be changed. That his mother might be “angry,” which was his boyish term for any or every displeasure that might cloud Mrs. Ochterlony’s mind; that Hugh might take it badly—and that after all it was a troublesome business, and he would be pleased to get it over. He was travelling in the cheapest way, for his money was scanty; but he was not the kind of boy to be beguiled from his own thoughts by the curious third-class society into which he was thus brought, or even by the country, which gradually widened and expanded under his eyes from the few beaten paths he knew so well, into that wide unknown stretch of hill and plain which was the world. A vague excitement, it is true, came into his mind as he felt himself to have passed out of the reach of everything he knew, and to have entered upon the undiscovered; but this excitement did not draw him out of his own thoughts. It did but mingle with them, and put a quickening thrill of life into the strange maze. The confused country people at the stations, who did not know which carriage to take, and wandered, hurried and disconsolate, on the platforms, looking into all—the long swift moment of passage over the silent country, in which the train,enveloped in its own noise, made for itself a distinct atmosphere—and then again a shriek, a pause, and another procession of faces looking in at the window—this was Will’s idea of the long journey. He was not imaginative; but still everybody appeared to him hurried, and downcast, and pre-occupied. Even the harmless country folks had the air of having something on their minds. And through all he kept on pondering what his mother and what Hugh would say. Poor boy! his discovery had given him no advantage as yet; but it had put a cross upon his shoulders—it had bound him so hard and fast that he could not escape from it. It had brought, if not guilt, yet the punishment of guilt into all his thoughts.
Mr. Penrose had a handsome house at some distance from Liverpool, as was usual. And Will found it a very tedious and troublesome business to get there, not to speak of the calls for sixpences from omnibuses and porters, and everybody (he thought) who looked at him, which was very severe on his slender purse. And when he arrived, his uncle’s servants looked upon him with manifest suspicion; he had never been there before, and Mr. Penrose was now living alone, his wife being dead, and all his children married, so that there was nobody in the house who could identify the unknown nephew. The Cottage was not much bigger than Mr. Penrose’s porter’s lodge, and yet that small tenement had looked down upon the great mansion all its life, and been partly ashamed of it, which sentiment gave Will an unconscious sense that he was doing Uncle Penrose an honour in going to visit him. But when he was met at the door by the semi-polite suspicion of the butler, who proposed that he should call again, with an evident reference in his mind to the spoons, it gave the boy the forlornest feeling that can be conceived. He was alone, and they thought him an impostor, and nobody here knew or cared whether he was shut out from the house or not. His heart went back to his home with that revulsion which everybody knows. There, everybody would have rushed to open the door to him, and welcome him back; and though his errand here was simply to do that home as much injury as possible, his heart swelled at the contrast. While he stood, however, insisting upon admittance in his dogged way, without showing any feelings, it happened that Mr. Penrose drove up to the door, and hailed his nephew with much surprise. “You here, Will?” Mr. Penrose said. “I hope nothing has gone wrong at the Cottage?” and his man’s hand instantly, and as by magic, relaxed from the door.
“There is nothing wrong, sir,” said Will, “but I wanted tospeak to you;” and he entered triumphantly, not without a sense of victory, as the subdued servant took his bag out of his hand. Mr. Penrose was, as we have said, alone. He had shed, as it were, all incumbrances, and was ready, unfettered by any ties or prejudices, to grow richer and wiser and more enlightened every day. His children were all married, and his wife having fulfilled all natural offices of this life, and married all her daughters, had quietly taken her dismissal when her duties were over, and had a very handsome tombstone, which he looked at on Sunday. It occurred to very few people, however, to lament over Mr. Penrose’s loneliness. He seemed to have been freed from all impediments, and left at liberty to grow rich, to get fat, and to believe in his own greatness and wisdom. Nor did it occur to himself to feel his great house lonely. He liked eating a luxurious dinner by himself, and knowing how much it had cost, all for his single lordly appetite—the total would have been less grand if wife and children had shared it. And then he had other things to think of—substantial things, about interest and investments, and not mere visionary reflections about the absence of other chairs or other faces at his table. But he had a natural interest in Wilfrid, as in a youth who had evidently come to ask his advice, which was an article he was not disinclined to give away. And then “the Setons,” as he called his sister’s family and descendants, had generally shut their ears to his advice, and shown an active absence of all political qualities, so that Will’s visit was a compliment of the highest character, something like an unexpected act of homage from Mordecai in the gate.
But even Mr. Penrose was struck dumb by Will’s communication. He put up his hand to his cravat and gasped, and thumped himself on the breast, staring at the boy with round, scared, apoplectic eyes—like the eyes of a boiled fish. He stared at Will,—who told the story calmly enough, with a matter-of-fact conciseness—and looked as if he was disposed to ring the bell and send for a doctor, and get out of the difficulty by concluding his nephew to be mad. But there was no withstanding the evidence of plain good faith and sincerity in Will’s narration. Mr. Penrose remained silent longer than anybody had ever known him to remain silent before, and he was not even very coherent when he had regained the faculty of speech.
“That woman was present, was she?” he said, “and Winnie’s husband—good Lord! And so you mean to tell me Mary has been all this time—When I asked her to my house, and my wife intended to make a party for her, and all that—and whenshe preferred to visit at Earlston, and that old fool, Sir Edward, who never had a penny—except what he settled on Winnie—and all that time, you know, Mary was—good Lord!”
“I don’t see what difference it makes to my mother,” said Will. “She is just what she always was—the difference it makes is to me—and of course to Hugh.”
But this was not a view that Mr. Penrose could take, who knew more about the world than Will could be supposed to know—though his thoughts were usually so preoccupied by what he called the practical aspect of everything. Yet he was disturbed in this case by reflections which were almost imaginative, and which utterly amazed Will. He got up, though he was still in the middle of dessert, and walking about the room, making exclamations. “That’s what she has been, you know, all this time—Mary, of all people in the world! Good Lord! That’s what she was, when we asked her here.” These were the exclamations that kept bursting from Uncle Penrose’s amazed lips—and Will at last grew angry and impatient, and hurried into the practical matter on his own initiative.
“When you have made up your mind about it, Uncle, I should be glad to know what you think best to be done,” said Will, in his steady way, and he looked at his adviser with those sceptical, clear-sighted eyes, which, more than anything else, make a practical man ashamed of having indulged in any momentary aberration.
Mr. Penrose came back to his chair and sat down, and looked with respect, and something that was almost awe, in Will’s face. Then the boy continued, seeing his advantage: “You must see what an important thing it is between Hugh and me,” he said. “It is a matter of business, of course, and it would be far better to settle it at once. If I am the right heir, you know, Earlston ought to be mine. I have heard you say, feelings had nothing to do with the right and wrong.”
“No,” said Mr. Penrose, with a slight gasp; “that is quite true; but it is all so sudden, you know—and Mary—I don’t know what you want me to do——”
“I want you to write and tell them about it,” said Will.
Mr. Penrose put his lips into the shape they would naturally have taken had he been whistling as usual; but he was not capable of a whistle. “It is all very easy to talk,” he said, “and naturally business is business, and I am not a man to think too much about feelings. But Mary—the fact is, it must be a matter of arrangement, Will. There can’t be any trial, you know, or publicity to expose her——”
“I don’t see that it would matter much to her,” said Will.“She would not mind; it would only be one of her sons instead of the other, and I suppose she likes me the same as Hugh.”
“I was not thinking of Hugh, or you either. I was thinking of your mother,” said Mr. Penrose, thrusting his hands into the depths of his pockets, and staring with vacant eyes into the air before him. He was matter-of-fact himself, but he could not comprehend the obtuseness of ignorance and self-occupation and youth.
“Well?” said Will.
“Well,” cried the uncle, turning upon him, “are you blind, or stupid, or what? Don’t you see it never can come to publicity, or she will be disgraced? I don’t say you are to give up your rights, if they are your rights, for that. I daresay you’ll take a deal better care of everything than that fellow Hugh, and won’t be so confounded saucy. But if you go and make a row about it in public, she can never hold up her head again, you know. I don’t mind talk myself in a general way; but talk about a woman’s marriage,—good Lord! There must be no public row, whatever you do.”
“I don’t see why there should be any public row,” said Will; “all that has to be done is to let them know.”
“I suppose you think Hugh will take it quite comfortable,” said Mr. Penrose, “and lay down everything like a lamb. He’s not a business man, nor good for much; but he will never be such an idiot as that; and then you would need to have your witnesses very distinct, if it was to come to anything. He has possession in his favour, and that is a good deal, and it is you who would have to prove everything. Are you quite sure that your witnesses would be forthcoming, and that you could make the case clear?”
“I don’t know about making the case clear,” said Will, who began to get confused; “all I know is what I have told you. Percival was there, and Mrs. Kirkman—they saw it, you know—and she says Hugh himself was there. Of course he was only a child. But she said no doubt he would remember, if it was brought to his mind.”
“Hugh himself!” said Mr. Penrose—again a little startled, though he was not a person of fine feelings. The idea of appealing to the recollections of the child for evidence against the man’s rights, struck him as curious at least. He was staggered, though he felt that he ought to have been above that. Of course it was all perfectly just and correct, and nobody could have been more clear than he, that any sort of fantastic delicacy coming between a man and his rights would be tooabsurd to be thought of. And yet it cannot be denied that he was staggered in spite of himself.
“I think if you told him distinctly, and recalled it to his recollection, and he knew everything that was involved,” said Will, with calm distinctness, “that Hugh would give in. It is the only thing he could do; and I should not say anything to him about a younger brother’s portion, or two thousand pounds,” the lad added, kindling up. “He should have everything that the money or the estate could do for him—whatever was best for him, if it cost half or double what Earlston was worth.”
“Then why on earth don’t you leave him Earlston, if you are so generous?” said Mr. Penrose. “If you are to spend it all upon him, what good would it do you having the dreary old place?”
“I should have my rights,” said Will with solemnity. It was as if he had been a disinherited prince whom some usurper had deprived of his kingdom; and this strange assumption was so honest in its way, and had such an appearance of sincerity, that Mr. Penrose was struck dumb, and gazed at the boy with a consternation which he could not express. His rights! Mary’s youngest son, whom everybody, up to this moment, had thought of only as a clever, not very amiable boy, of no particular account anywhere. The merchant began to wake up to the consciousness that he had a phenomenon before him—a new development of man. As he recovered from his surprise, he began to appreciate Will—to do justice to the straightforward ardour of his determination that business was business, and that feelings had nothing to do with it; and to admire his calm impassibility to every other view of the case but that which concerned himself. Mr. Penrose thought it was the result of a great preconcerted plan, and began to awake into admiration and respect. He thought the solemnity, and the calm, and that beautiful confidence in his rights, were features of a subtle and precocious scheme which Will had made for himself; and his thoughts, which had been dwelling for the moment on Mary, with a kind of unreflective sympathy, turned towards the nobler object thus presented before him. Here was a true apotheosis of interest over nature. Here was such a man of business, heaven-born, as had never been seen before. Mr. Penrose warmed and kindled into admiration, and he made a secret vow that such a genius should not be lost.
As for Will, he never dreamt of speculating as to what were his uncle’s thoughts. He was quite content that he had told his own tale, and so got over the first preliminary difficulty ofgetting it told to those whom it most concerned; and he was very sleepy—dreadfully tired, and more anxious to curl up his poor, young, weary head under his wing, and get to bed, than for anything else in the world. Yet, notwithstanding, when he lay down, and had put out his light, and had begun to doze, the thought came over him that he saw the glow of his mother’s candle shining in under his door, and heard her step on the stairs, which had been such a comfort to him many a night when he was a child, and woke up in the dark and heard her pass, and knew her to be awake and watching, and was not even without a hope that she might come in and stand for a moment, driving away all ghosts and terrors of the night, by his bed. He thought he saw the light under his door, and heard the foot coming up the stairs. And so probably he did: but the poor boy woke right up under this fancy, and remembered with a compunction that he was far away from his mother, and that probably she was “angry,” and perhaps anxious about his sudden departure; and he was very sorry in his heart to have come away so, and never to have told her. But he was not sorry nor much troubled anyhow about the much more important thing he was about to do.
And Uncle Penrose, under the strange stimulus of his visitor’s earnestness, addressed himself to the task required of him, and wrote to Hugh. He, too, thought first of writing to Mrs. Ochterlony; but, excellent business man as he was, he could not do it; it went against his heart, if he had a heart,—or, if not his heart, against some digestive organ which served him instead of that useful but not indispensable part of the human frame. But he did write to Hugh—that was easier; and then Hugh had been “confounded saucy,” and had rejected his advice, not about the Museum only, but in other respects. Mr. Penrose wrote the letter that very night while Will was dreaming about his mother’s light; and so the great wheel was set a-going, which none of them could then stop for ever.
HUGH had left the Cottage the day after Will’s departure. He had gone to Earlston, where a good deal of business about the Museum and the estate awaited him; and he had gone off without any particularburden on his mind. As for Will’s flight from home, it was odd, no doubt; but then Will himself was odd, and out-of-the-way acts were to be expected from him. When Hugh, with careless liberality, had sent him the cheque, he dismissed the subject from his mind—at least, he thought of his younger brother only with amusement, wondering what he could find to attract him in Uncle Penrose’s prosaic house,—trying to form an imagination of Will wandering about the great Liverpool docks, looking at the big ships, and all the noisy traffic; and Hugh laughed within himself to think how very much all that was out of Will’s way. No doubt he would come home in a day or two bored to death, and would loathe the very name of Liverpool all his life thereafter. As for Mr. Ochterlony of Earlston himself, he had a great deal to do. The mayor and corporation of Dalken had come to a final decision about the Museum, and all that had to be done was to prepare the rooms which were to receive Mr. Francis Ochterlony’s treasures, and to transfer with due tenderness and solemnity the Venus and the Psyche, and all the delicate wealth which had been so dear to the heart of “the old Squire.” The young Squire went round and looked at them all, with a great tenderness in his own, remembering his uncle’s last progress among them, and where he sat down to rest, and the wistful looks he gave to those marble white creations which stood to him in the place of wife and children; and the pathetic humour with which he had said, “It is all the better foryou.” It was the better for Hugh; but still the young man in the fulness of his hopes had a tender compunction for the old man who had died without getting the good of his life, and with no treasures but marble and bronze and gold and silver to leave behind him. “My poor uncle!” Hugh said; and yet the chances were that Francis Ochterlony was not, either in living or dying, sorry for himself. Hugh had a kind of reluctance to change the aspect of everything, and make the house his own house, and not Francis Ochterlony’s. It seemed almost impious to take from it the character it had borne so long, and at the same time it was his uncle’s wish. These were Hugh’s thoughts at night, but in the fresh light of the morning it would be wrong to deny that another set of ideas took possession of his mind. Then he began to think of the new aspect, and the changes he could make. It was not bright enough for a home for—well, for any lady that might happen to come on a visit or otherwise; and, to be sure, Hugh had no intention of accepting as final his mother’s determination not to leave the Cottage. He made up his mind that she would come, and that people—variouspeople, ladies and others—would come to visit her; that there should be flowers and music and smiles about the place, and perhaps some one as fair and as sweet as Psyche to change the marble moonlight into sacred living sunshine. Now the fact was, that Nelly was not by any means so fair as Psyche—that she was not indeed what you would call a regular beauty at all, but only a fresh, faulty, sweet little human creature, with warm blood in her veins, and a great many thoughts in her little head. And when Hugh thought of some fair presence coming into these rooms and making a Paradise of them, either it was not Nelly Askell he was thinking of, or else he was thinking like a poet—though he was not poetical, to speak of. However, he did not himself give any name to his imaginations—he could afford to be vague. He went all over the house in the morning, not with the regretful, affectionate eye with which he made the same survey the night before, but in a practical spirit. At his age, and in his position, the practical was only a pleasanter variation of the romantic aspect of affairs. As he thought of new furniture, scores of little pictures flashed into his mind—though in ordinary cases he was not distinguished by a powerful imagination. He had no sooner devised the kind of chair that should stand in a particular corner, than straightway a little figure jumped into it, a whisper of talk came out of it, with a host of imaginary circumstances which had nothing to do with upholstery. Even the famous rococo chair which Islay had broken was taken possession of by that vague, sweet phantom. And he went about the rooms with an unconscious smile on his face, devising and planning. He did not know he was smiling; it was notatanything or about anything. It was but the natural expression of the fresh morning fancies and sweet stir of everything hopeful, and bright, and uncertain, which was in his heart.
And when he went out of doors he still smiled. Earlston was a grey limestone house, as has been described in the earlier part of this history. A house which chilled Mrs. Ochterlony to the heart when she first went there with her little children in the first forlornness of her widowhood. What Hugh had to do now was to plan a flower-garden for—his mother; yes, it was truly for his mother. He meant that she should come all the same. Nothing could make any difference so far as she was concerned. But at the same time, to be sure, he did not mean that his house should make the same impression on any other stranger as that house had made upon Mary. He planned how the great hedges should be cut down, and the trees thinned, and the little moorland burn should be taken in within theenclosure, and followed to its very edge by the gay lawn with its flower-beds. He planned a different approach—where there might be openings in the dark shrubberies, and views over the hills. All this he did in the morning, with a smile on his face, though the tears had been in his eyes at the thought of any change only the previous night. If Francis Ochterlony had been by, as perhaps he was, no doubt he would have smiled at that tender inconsistency—and there would not have been any bitterness in the smile.
And then Hugh went in to breakfast. He had already some new leases to sign and other business matters to do, and he was quite pleased to do it—as pleased as he had been to draw his first cheques. He sat down at his breakfast-table, before the little pile of letters that awaited him, and felt the importance of his new position. Even his loneliness made him feel its importance the more. Here were questions of all sorts submitted to him, and it was he who had to answer, without reference to anybody—he whose advice a little while ago nobody would have taken the trouble to ask. It was not that he cared to exercise his privilege—for Hugh, on the whole, had an inclination to be advised—but still the sense of his independence was sweet. He meant to ask Mr. Preston, the attorney, about various things, and he meant to consult his mother, and to lay some special affairs before Sir Edward—but still, at the time, it was he who had everything to do, and Mr. Ochterlony of Earlston sat down before his letters with a sense of satisfaction which does not always attend the mature mind in that moment of trial. One of the uppermost was from Uncle Penrose, redirected from the Cottage, but it did not cause any thrill of interest to Hugh’s mind, who put it aside calmly, knowing of no thunderbolts that might be in it. No doubt it was some nonsense about the Museum, he thought, as if he himself was not a much better judge about the Museum than a stranger and business-man could be. There was, however, a letter from Mary, which directed her son’s attention to this epistle. “I send you a letter directed in Uncle Penrose’s hand,” wrote Mrs. Ochterlony, “which I have had the greatest inclination to open, to see what he says about Will. I daresay you would not have minded; but I conclude, on the whole, that Mr. Ochterlony of Earlston should have his letters to himself; so I send it on to you uninvaded. Let me know what he says about your brother.” Hugh could not but laugh when he read this, half with pleasure, half with amusement. His mother’s estimate of his importance entertained him greatly, and the idea of anything private being in UnclePenrose’s letter tickled him still more. Then he drew it towards him lightly, and began to read it with eyes running over with laughter. He was all alone, and there was nobody to see any change of sentiment in his face.
He was all alone—but yet presently Hugh raised his eyes from the letter which he had taken up so gaily, and cast a scared look round him, as if to make sure that nobody was there. The smile had gone off his face, and the laughter out of his eyes,—and not only that, but every particle of colour had left his face. And yet he did not see the meaning of what he had read. “Will!” he said to himself. “Will!” He was horror-stricken and bewildered, but that was the sole idea it conveyed to him—a sense of treachery—the awful feeling of unreality and darkness round about, with which the young soul for the first time sees itself injured and betrayed. He laid down the letter half read, and paused, and put up his hands to his head as if to convince himself that he was not dreaming. Will! Good God! Will! Was it possible? Hugh had to make a convulsive effort to grasp this unnatural horror. Will, one of themselves, to have gone off, and put himself into the hands of Uncle Penrose, and set himself against his mother and her sons! The ground seemed to fail under his feet, the solid world to fall off round him into bewildering mystery. Will! And yet he did not apprehend what it was. His mind could not take in more than one discovery at a time. A minute before, and he was ready to have risked everything on the good faith of any and every human creature he knew. Now, was there anybody to be trusted? His brother had stolen from his side, and was striking at him by another and an unfriendly hand. Will! Good heavens, Will!
It would be difficult to tell how long it was before the full meaning of the letter he had thus received entered into Hugh’s mind. He sat with the breakfast things still on the table so long, that the housekeeper herself came at last with natural inquisitiveness to see if anything was the matter, and found Hugh with a face as grey and colourless as that of the old Squire, sitting over his untasted coffee, unaware, apparently, what he was about. He started when she came in, and bundled up his letters into his pocket, and gave an odd laugh, and said he had been busy, and had forgotten. And then he sprang up and left the room, paying no attention to her outcry that he had eaten nothing. Hugh was not aware he had eaten nothing, or probably in the first horror of his discovery of the treachery in the world, he too would have taken to false pretences and saved appearances,and made believe to have breakfasted. But the poor boy was unaware, and rushed off to the library, where nobody could have any pretext for disturbing him, and shut himself up with this first secret—the new, horrible discovery which had changed the face of the world. This was the letter which he had crushed up in his hand as he might have crushed a snake or deadly reptile, but which nothing could crush out of his heart, where the sting had entered and gone deep:—
“My dear Nephew,—It is with pain that I write to you, though it is my clear duty to do so in the interests of your brother, who has just put his case into my hands—and I don’t doubt that the intelligence I am about to convey will be a great blow, not only to your future prospects but to your pride and sense of importance, which so fine a position at your age had naturally elevated considerably higher than a plain man like myself could approve of. Your brother arrived here to-day, and has lost no time in informing me of the singular circumstances under which he left home, and of which, so far as I understand him, you and your mother are still in ignorance. Wilfrid’s perception of the fact that feelings, however creditable to him as an individual, ought not to stand in the way of what is, strictly speaking, a matter of business, is very clear and uncompromising; but still he does not deny that he felt it difficult to make this communication either to you or his mother. Accident, the nature of which I do not at present, before knowing your probable course of action, feel myself at liberty to indicate more plainly, has put him in possession of certain facts, which would change altogether the relations between him and yourself, as well as your (apparent) position as head of the family. These facts, which, for your mother’s sake, I should be deeply grieved to make known out of the family, are as follows: your father, Major Ochterlony, and my niece, instead of being married privately in Scotland, as we all believed, in the year 1830, or thereabouts—I forget the exact date—were in reality only married in India in the year 1837, by the chaplain, the Rev.—— Churchill, then officiating at the station where your father’s regiment was. This, as you are aware, was shortly before Wilfrid’s birth, and not long before Major Ochterlony died. It is subject of thankfulness that your father did my niece this tardy justice before he was cut off, as may be said, in the flower of his days, but you will see at a glance that it entirely reverses your respective positions—and that in fact Wilfrid is Major Ochterlony’s only lawful son.
“I am as anxious as you can be that this should be made a matter of family arrangement, and should never come to the public ears. To satisfy your own mind, however, of the perfect truth of the assertion I have made, I beg to refer you to the Rev. Mr. Churchill, who performed the ceremony, and whose present address, which Wilfrid had the good sense to secure, you will find below—and to Mrs. Kirkman, who was present. Indeed, I am informed that you yourself were present—though probably too young to understand what it meant. It is possible that on examining your memory you may find some trace of the occurrence, which though not dependable upon by itself, will help to confirm the intelligence to your mind. We are in no hurry, and will leave you the fullest time to satisfy yourself, as well as second you in every effort to prevent any painful consequence from falling upon your mother, who has (though falsely) enjoyed the confidence and esteem of her friends so long.
“For yourself you may reckon upon Wilfrid’s anxious endeavours to further your prospects by every means in his power. Of course I do not expect you to take a fact involving so much, either upon his word or mine. Examine it fully for yourself, and the more entirely the matter is cleared up, the more will it be for our satisfaction, as well as your own. The only thing I have to desire for my own part is that you will spare your mother—as your brother is most anxious to do. Hoping for an early reply, I am, your affectionate uncle and sincere friend,—J. P. Penrose.”
Hugh sat in Francis Ochterlony’s chair, at his table, with his head supported on his hands, looking straight before him, seeing nothing, not even thinking, feeling only this letter spread out upon the table, and the intelligence conveyed in it, and holding his head, which ached and throbbed with the blow, in his hands. He was still, and his head throbbed and his heart and soul ached, tingling through him to every joint and every vein. He could not even wonder, nor doubt, nor question in any way, for the first terrible interval. All he could do was to look at the fact and take it fully into his mind, and turn it over and over, seeing it all round on every side, looking at it this way and that way, and feeling as if somehow heaven and earth were filled with it, though he had never dreamt of such a ghost until that hour. Not his, after all—nor Earlston, nor his name, nor the position he had been so proud of; nothing his—alas, not even his mother, his spotless mother, the woman whom it had been an honour and glory to come from and belong to. When a groan came from the poor boy’s white lips itwas that he was thinking of. Madonna Mary! that was the name they had called her by—and this was how it really was. He groaned aloud, and made an unconscious outcry of his pain when it came to that. “Oh, my God, if it had only been ruin, loss of everything—anything in the world but that!” This was the first stage of stupefaction and yet of vivid consciousness, before the indignation came. He sat and looked at it, and realized it, and took it into his mind, staring at it until every drop of blood ebbed away from his face. This was how it was before the anger came. After a while his countenance and his mood changed—the colour and heat came rushing back to his cheeks and lips, and a flood of rage and resentment swept over him like a sudden storm. Will! could it be Will? Liar! coward! traitor! to call her mother, and to tax her with shame even had it been true—to frame such a lying, cursed, devilish accusation against her! Then it was that Hugh flashed into a fiery, burning shame to think that he had given credence to it for one sole moment. He turned his eyes upon her, as it were, and looked into her face and glowed with a bitter indignation and fury. His mother’s face! only to think of it and dare to fancy that shame could ever have been there. And then the boy wept, in spite of his manhood—wept a few, hot, stinging tears, that dried up the moment they fell, half for rage, half for tenderness.—And, oh, my God, was it Will? Then as his mind roused more and more to the dread emergency, Hugh got up and went to the window and gazed out, as if that would help him; and his eye lighted on the tangled thicket which he had meant to make into his mother’s flower-garden, and upon the sweep of trees through which he had planned his new approach, and once more he groaned aloud. Only this morning so sure about it all, so confidently and carelessly happy—now with not one clear step before him to take, with no future, no past that he could dare look back upon—no name, nor rights of any kind—if this were true. And could it be otherwise than true? Could any imagination frame so monstrous and inconceivable a falsehood?—such a horrible impossibility might be fact, but it was beyond all the bounds of fancy;—and then the blackness of darkness descended again upon Hugh’s soul. Poor Mary, poor mother! It came into the young man’s mind to go to her and take her in his arms, and carry her away somewhere out of sight of men and sound of their voices—and again there came to his eyes those stinging tears. Fault of hers it could not be; she might have been deceived; and then poor Hugh’s lips, unaccustomed to curses, quivered and stopped short as they were about to cursethe father whom he never knew. Here was the point at which the tide turned again. Could it be Hugh Ochterlony who had deceived his wife? he whose sword hung in Mary’s room, whose very name made a certain music in her voice when she pronounced it, and whom she had trained her children to reverence with that surpassing honour which belongs to the dead alone. Again a storm of rage and bitter indignation swept in his despair and bewilderment over the young man’s mind; an accursed scheme, a devilish, hateful lie—that was how it was: and oh, horror! that it should be Will.
Through all these changes it was one confused tempest of misery and dismay that was in Hugh’s mind. Now and then there would be wild breaks in the clouds—now they would be whirled over the sky in gusts—now settled down into a blackness beyond all reckoning. Lives change from joy to misery often enough in this world; but seldom thus in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. His careless boat had been taking its sweet course over waters rippled with a favourable breeze, and without a moment’s interval he was among the breakers; and he knew so little how to manage it, he was so inexperienced to cope with wind and waves. And he had nobody to ask counsel from. He was, as Will had been, separated from his natural adviser, the one friend to whom hitherto he had confided all his difficulties. But Hugh was older than Will, and his mind had come to a higher development, though perhaps he was not so clever as his brother. He had no Uncle Penrose to go to; no living soul would hear from him this terrible tale; he could consult nobody. Not for a hundred Earlstons, not for all the world, would he have discussed with any man in existence his mother’s good name.
Yet with that, too, there came another complication into Hugh’s mind. Even while he actually thought in his despair of going to his mother, and telling her any tender lie that might occur to him, and carrying her away to Australia, or any end of the world where he could work for her, and remove her for ever from shame and pain, a sense of outraged justice and rights assailed was in his mind. He was not one of those who can throw down their arms. Earlston was his, and he could not relinquish it and his position as head of the house without a struggle. And the thought of Mr. Penrose stung him. He even tried to heal one of his deeper wounds by persuading himself that Uncle Penrose was at the bottom of it, and that poor Will was but his tool. Poor Will! Poor miserable boy! And if he ever woke and came to himself, and knew what he had been doing, how terrible would hisposition be! Thus Hugh tried to think till, wearied out with thinking, he said to himself that he would put it aside and think no more of it, and attend to his business; which vain imagination the poor boy tried to carry out with hands that shook and brain that refused to obey his guidance. And all this change was made in one little moment. His life came to a climax, and passed through a secret revolution in that one day; and yet he had begun it as if it had been an ordinary day—a calm summer morning in the summer of his days.
This was what Hugh said to his mother of Mr. Penrose’s letter:—“The letter you forwarded to me from Uncle Penrose was in his usual business strain—good advice, and that sort of thing. He does not say much about Will; but he has arrived all safe, and I suppose is enjoying himself—as well as he can, there.”
And when he had written and despatched that note he sat down to think again. He decided at last that he would not go on with the flower-garden and the other works—till he saw; but that he would settle about the Museum without delay. “If it came to the worst they would not recall the gift,” he said to himself, brushing his hand across his eyes. It was his uncle’s wish; and it was he, Hugh, and not any other, whom Francis Ochterlony wished for his heir. Hugh’s hand was wet when he took it from his eyes, and his heart was full, and he could have wept like a child. But he was a man, and weeping could do no good; and he had nobody in the world to take his trouble to—nobody in the world. Love and pride made a fence round him, and isolated him. He had to make his way out of it as best he could, and alone. He made a great cry to God in his trouble; but from nobody in the world could he have either help or hope. And he read the letter over and over, and tried to recollect and to go back into his dim baby-memory of India, and gather out of the thick mists that scene which they said he had been present at. Was there really some kind of vague image of it, all broken and indistinct and effaced, on his mind?
WHILE all this was going on at Earlston, there were other people in whose minds, though the matter was not of importance so overwhelming, pain and excitement and a trembling dread of the consequences had beenawakened. Mary, to whom it would be even more momentous than to Hugh, knew nothing of it as yet. She had taken Mr. Penrose’s letter into her hand and looked at it, and hesitated, and then had smiled at her boy’s new position in the world, and redirected it to him, passing on as it were a living shell just ready to explode without so much as scorching her own delicate fingers. But Mrs. Kirkman felt herself in the position of a woman who had seen the shell fired and had even touched the fatal trigger, and did not know where it had fallen, nor what death and destruction it might have scattered around. She was not like herself for these two or three days. She gave a divided attention to her evangelical efforts, and her mind wandered from the reports of her Bible readers. She seemed to see the great mass of fire and flame striking the ground, and the dead and wounded lying around it in all directions; and it might be that she too was to blame. She bore it as long as she could, trying to persuade herself that she, like Providence, had done it “for the best,” and that it might be for Mary’s good or Hugh’s good, even if it should happen to kill them. This was how she attempted to support and fortify herself; but while she was doing so Wilfrid’s steady, matter of fact countenance would come before her, and she would perceive by the instinct of guilt, that he would neither hesitate nor spare, but was clothed in the double armour of egotism and ignorance; that he did not know what horrible harm he could do, and yet that he was sensible of his power and would certainly exercise it. She was like the other people involved—afraid to ask any one’s advice, or betray the share she had taken in the business; even her husband, had she spoken to him about it, would probably have asked, what the deuce she had to do interfering? For Colonel Kirkman though a man of very orthodox views, still was liable in a moment of excitement to forget himself, and give force to his sentiments by a mild oath. Mrs. Kirkman could not bear thus to descend in the opinion of any one, and yet she could not satisfy her conscience about it, nor be content with what she had done. She stood out bravely for a few days, telling herself she had only done her duty; but the composure she attained by this means was forced and unnatural. And at last she could bear it no longer; she seemed to have heard the dreadful report, and then to have seen everything relapse into the most deadly silence; no cry coming out of the distance, nor indications if everybody was perishing, or any one had escaped. If she had but heard one outcry—if Hugh, poor fellow, had come storming to her to know the truth of it, or Mary had come with her fresh wounds, crying out againsther, Mrs. Kirkman could have borne it; but the silence was more than she could bear. Something within compelled her to get up out of her quiet and go forth and ask who had been killed, even though she might bring herself within the circle of responsibility thereby.
This was why, after she had put up with her anxiety as long as she could, she went out at last by herself in a very disturbed and uneasy state to the Cottage, where all was still peaceful, and no storm had yet darkened the skies. Mary had received Hugh’s letter that morning, which he had written in the midst of his first misery, and it had never occurred to her to think anything more about Uncle Penrose after the calm mention her boy made of his letter. She had not heard from Will, it is true, and was vexed by his silence; but yet it was a light vexation. Mrs. Ochterlony, however, was not at home when Mrs. Kirkman arrived; and, if anything could have increased her uneasiness and embarrassment it would have been to be ushered into the drawing-room, and to find Winnie seated there all by herself. Mrs. Percival rose in resentful grandeur when she saw who the visitor was. Now was Winnie’s chance to repay that little demonstration of disapproval which the Colonel’s wife had made on her last visit to the Cottage. The two ladies made very stately salutations to each other, and the stranger sat down, and then there was a dead pause. “Let Mrs. Ochterlony know when she comes in,” Winnie had said to the maid; and that was all she thought necessary to say. Even Aunt Agatha was not near to break the violence of the encounter. Mrs. Kirkman sat down in a very uncomfortable condition, full of genuine anxiety; but it was not to be expected that her natural impulses should entirely yield even to compunction and fright, and a sense of guilt. When a few minutes of silence had elapsed, and Mary did not appear, and Winnie sat opposite to her, wrapt up and gloomy, in her shawl, and her haughtiest air of preoccupation, Mrs. Kirkman began to come to herself. Here was a perishing sinner before her, to whom advice, and reproof, and admonition, might be all important, and such a favourable moment might never come again. The very sense of being rather faulty in her own person gave her a certain stimulus to warn the culpable creature, whose errors were so different, and so much more flagrant than hers. And if in doing her duty, she had perhaps done something that might harm one of the family, was it not all the more desirable to do good to another? Mrs. Kirkman cleared her throat, and looked at the culprit. And as she perceived Winnie’s look of defiance, and absorbed self-occupation, anddetermined opposition to anything that might be advanced, a soft sense of superiority and pity stole into her mind. Poor thing, that did not know the things that belonged to her peace!—was it not a Christian act to bring them before her ere they might be for ever hid from her eyes?
Once more Mrs. Kirkman cleared her throat. She did it with an intention; and Winnie heard, and was roused, and fixed on her one corner of her eye. But she only made a very mild commencement—employing in so important a matter the wisdom of the serpent, conjoined, as it always ought to be, with the sweetness of the dove.
“Mrs. Ochterlony is probably visiting among the poor,” said Mrs. Kirkman, but with a sceptical tone in her voice, as if that, at least, was what Mary ought to be doing, though it was doubtful whether she was so well employed.
“Probably,” said Winnie, curtly; and then there was a pause.
“To one who occupies herself so much as she does with her family, there must be much to do for three boys,” continued Mrs. Kirkman, still with a certain pathos in her voice. “Ah, if we did but give ourselves as much trouble about our spiritual state!”
She waited for a reply, but Winnie gave no reply. She even gave a slight, scarcely perceptible, shrug of her shoulders, and turned a little aside.
“Which is, after all, the only thing that is of any importance,” said Mrs. Kirkman. “My dear Mrs. Percival, I do trust that you agree with me?”
“I don’t see why I should be your dear Mrs. Percival,” said Winnie. “I was not aware that we knew each other. I think you must be making a mistake.”
“All my fellow-creatures are dear to me,” said Mrs. Kirkman, “especially when I can hope that their hearts are open to grace. I can be making no mistake so long as I am addressing a fellow-sinner. We have all so much reason to abase ourselves, and repent in dust and ashes! Even when we have been preserved more than others from active sin, we must know that the root of all evil is in our hearts.”
Winnie gave another very slight shrug of her shoulders, and turned away, as far as a mingled impulse of defiance and politeness would let her. She would neither be rude nor would she permit her assailant to think that she was running away.
“If I venture to seize this moment, and speak to you more plainly than I would speak to all, oh, my dear Mrs. Percival,” cried Mrs. Kirkman, “my dear fellow sinner! don’t think it is because I am insensible to the existence of the same evil tendency in my own heart.”
“What do you mean by talking to me of evil tendencies?” cried Winnie, flushing high. “I don’t want to hear you speak. You may be a sinner if you like, but I don’t think there is any particular fellowship between you and me.”
“There is the fellowship of corrupt hearts,” said Mrs. Kirkman. “I hope, for your own sake, you will not refuse to listen for a moment. I may never have been tempted in the same way, but I know too well the deceitfulness of the natural heart to take any credit to myself. You have been exposed to many temptations——”
“You know nothing about me, that I am aware,” cried Winnie, with restrained fury. “I do not know how you can venture to take such liberty with me.”
“Ah, my dear Mrs. Percival, I know a great deal about you,” said Mrs. Kirkman. “There is nothing I would not do to make a favourable impression on your mind. If you would but treat me as a friend, and let me be of some use to you: I know you must have had many temptations; but we know also that it is never too late to turn away from evil, and that with true repentance——”
“I suppose what you want is to drive me out of the room,” said Winnie, looking at her fiercely, with crimson cheeks. “What right have you to lecture me? My sister’s friends have a right to visit her, of course, but not to make themselves disagreeable—and I don’t mean my private affairs to be discussed by Mary’s friends. You have nothing to do with me.”
“I was not speaking as Mary’s friend,” said Mrs. Kirkman, with a passing twinge of conscience. “I was speaking only as a fellow-sinner. Dear Mrs. Percival, surely you recollect who it was that objected to be his brother’s keeper. It was Cain; it was not a loving Christian heart. Oh, don’t sin against opportunity, and refuse to hear me. The message I have is one of mercy and love. Even if it were too late to redeem character with the world, it is never too late to come to——”
Winnie started to her feet, goaded beyond bearing.
“How dare you! how dare you!” she said, clenching her hands,—but Mrs. Kirkman’s benevolent purpose was far too lofty and earnest to be put down by any such demonstration of womanish fury.
“If it were to win you to think in time, to withdraw fromthe evil and seek good, to come while it is called to-day,” said the Evangelist, with much stedfastness, “I would not mind even making you angry. I can dare anything in my Master’s service—oh, do not refuse the gracious message! Oh, do not turn a deaf ear. You may have forfeited this world, but, oh think of the next; as a Christian and a fellow-sinner——”
“Aunt Agatha!” cried Winnie, breathless with rage and shame, “do you mean to let me be insulted in your house?”
Poor Aunt Agatha had just come in, and knew nothing about Mrs. Kirkman and her visit. She stood at the door surprised, looking at Winnie’s excited face, and at the stranger’s authoritative calm. She had been out in the village, with a little basket in her hand, which never went empty, and she also had been dropping words of admonition out of her soft and tender lips.
“Insulted! My dear love, it must be some mistake,” said Aunt Agatha. “We are always very glad to see Mrs. Kirkman, as Mary’s friend; but the house is Mrs. Percival’s house, being mine,” Miss Seton added, with a little dignified curtsey, thinking the visitor had been uncivil, as on a former occasion. And then there was a pause, and Winnie sat down, fortifying herself by the presence of the mild little woman who was her protector. It was a strange reversal of positions, but yet that was how it was. The passionate creature had now no other protector but Aunt Agatha, and even while she felt herself assured and strengthened by her presence, it gave her a pang to think it was so. Nobody but Aunt Agatha to stand between her and impertinent intrusion—nobody to take her part before the world. That was the moment when Winnie’s heart melted, if it ever did melt, for one pulsation and no more, towards her enemy, her antagonist, her husband, who was not there to take advantage of the momentary thaw.
“I am Mary’s friend,” said Mrs. Kirkman, sweetly; “and I am all your friends. It was not only as Mary’s friend I was speaking—it was out of love for souls. Oh, my dear Miss Seton, I hope you are one of those who think seriously of life. Help me to talk to your dear niece; help me to tell her that there is still time. She has gone astray; perhaps she never can retrieve herself for this world,—but this world is not all,—and she is still in the land of the living, and in the place of hope. Oh, if she would but give up her evil ways and flee! Oh, if she would but remember that there is mercy for the vilest!”
Speaker and hearers were by this time wound up to such apitch of excitement, that it was impossible to go on. Mrs. Kirkman had tears in her eyes—tears of real feeling; for she thought she was doing what she ought to do; while Winnie blazed upon her with rage and defiance, and poor Aunt Agatha stood up in horror and consternation between them, horrified by the entire breach of all ordinary rules, and yet driven to bay and roused to that natural defence of her own which makes the weakest creature brave.
“My dear love, be composed,” she said, trembling a little. “Mrs. Kirkman, perhaps you don’t know that you are speaking in a very extraordinary way. We are all great sinners; but as for my dear niece, Winnie—— My darling, perhaps if you were to go upstairs to your own room, that would be best——”
“I have no intention of going to my own room,” said Winnie. “The question is, whether you will suffer me to be insulted here?”
“Oh, that there should be any thought of insult!” said Mrs. Kirkman, shaking her head, and waving her long curls solemnly. “If anyone is to leave the room, perhaps it should be me. If my warning is rejected, I will shake off the dust of my feet, and go away, as commanded. But I did hope better things. What motive have I but love of her poor soul? Oh, if she would think while it is called to-day—while there is still a place of repentance——”
“Winnie, my dear love,” said Aunt Agatha, trembling more and more, “go to your own room.”
But Winnie did not move. It was not in her to run away. Now that she had an audience to fortify her, she could sit and face her assailant, and defy all attacks;—though at the same time her eyes and cheeks blazed, and the thought that it was only Aunt Agatha whom she had to stand up for her, filled her with furious contempt and bitterness. At length it was Mrs. Kirkman who rose up with sad solemnity, and drew her silk robe about her, and shook the dust, if there was any dust, not from her feet, but from the fringes of her handsome shawl.
“I will ask the maid to show me up to Mary’s room,” she said, with pathetic resignation. “I suppose I may wait for her there; and I hope it may never be recorded against you that you have rejected a word of Christian warning. Good-by, Miss Seton; I hope you will be faithful to your poor dear niece yourself, though you will not permit me.”
“We know our own affairs best,” said Aunt Agatha, whose nerves were so affected that she could scarcely keep up to what she considered a correct standard of polite calm.
“Alas, I hope it may not prove to be just our own best interests that we are most ignorant of,” said Mrs. Kirkman, with a heavy sigh—and she swept out of the room following the maid, who looked amazed and aghast at the strange request. “Show me to Mrs. Ochterlony’s room, and kindly let her know when she comes in that I am there.”
As for Winnie, she burst into an abrupt laugh when her monitress was gone—a laugh which wounded Aunt Agatha, and jarred upon her excited nerves. But there was little mirth in it. It was, in its way, a cry of pain, and it was followed by a tempest of hot tears, which Miss Seton took for hysterics. Poor Winnie! she was not penitent, nor moved by anything that had been said to her, except to rage and a sharper sense of pain. But yet, such an attack made her feel her position, as she did not do when left to herself. She had no protector but Aunt Agatha. She was open to all the assaults of well-meaning friends, and social critics of every description. She was not placed above comment as a woman is who keeps her troubles to herself—for she had taken the world in general into her confidence, as it were, and opened their mouths, and subjected herself voluntarily to their criticism. Winnie’s heart seemed to close up as she pondered this—and her life rose up before her, wilful and warlike—and all at once it came into her head what her sister had said to her long ago, and her own decision: were it for misery, were it for ruin, rather to choose ruin and misery withhim, than peace without him? How strange it was to think of the change that time had made in everything. She had been fighting him, and making him her chief antagonist, almost ever since. And yet, down in the depths of her heart poor Winnie remembered Mary’s words, and felt with a curious pang, made up of misery and sweetness, that even yet, even yet, under some impossible combination of circumstances—this was what made her laugh, and made her cry so bitterly—but Aunt Agatha, poor soul, could not enter into her heart and see what she meant.
They were in this state of agitation when Mary came in, all unconscious of any disturbance. And a further change arose in Winnie at sight of her sister. Her tears dried up, but her eyes continued to blaze. “It is your friend, Mrs. Kirkman, who has been paying us a visit,” she said, in answer to Mary’s question; and it seemed to Mrs. Ochterlony that the blame was transferred to her own shoulders, and that it was she who had been doing something, and showing herself the general enemy.
“She is a horrid woman,” said Aunt Agatha, hotly. “Mary, I wish you would explain to her, that after what hashappened it cannot give me any pleasure to see her here. This is twice that she has insulted us. You will mention that we are not—not used to it. It may do for the soldiers’ wives, poor things! but she has no right to come here.”
“She must mean to call Mary to repentance, too,” said Winnie. She had been thinking, with a certain melting of heart, of what Mary had once said to her; yet she could not refrain from flinging a dart at her sister ere she returned to think about herself.
At this time, Mrs. Kirkman was seated in Mary’s room, waiting. Her little encounter had restored her to herself. She had come back to her lofty position of superiority and goodness. She would have said herself that she had carried the Gospel message to that poor sinner, and that it had been rejected; and there was a certain satisfaction of woe in her heart. It was necessary that she should do her duty to Mary also, about whom, when she started, she had been rather compunctious. There is nothing more strange than the processes of thought by which a limited understanding comes to grow into content with itself, and approval of its own actions. It seemed to this good woman’s straitened soul that she had been right, almost more than right, in seizing upon the opportunity presented to her, and making an appeal to a sinner’s perverse heart. And she thought it would be right to point out to Mary, how any trouble that might be about to overwhelm her was for her good, and that she herself had, like Providence, acted for the best. She looked about the room with actual curiosity, and shook her head at the sight of the Major’s sword, hanging over the mantel-piece, and the portraits of the three boys underneath. She shook her head, and thought of creature-worship, and how some stroke was needed to wean Mrs. Ochterlony’s heart from its inordinate affections. “It will keep her from trusting to a creature,” she said to herself, and by degrees came to look complacently on her own position, and to settle how she should tell the tale to be also for the best. It never occurred to her to think what poor hands hers were to meddle with the threads of fate, or to decide which or what calamity was “for the best.” Nor did any consideration of the mystery of pain disturb her mind. She saw no complications in it. Your dearest ties—your highest assurances of good—were but “blessings lent us for a day,” and it seemed only natural to Mrs. Kirkman that such blessings should be yielded up in a reasonable way. She herself had neither had nor relinquished any particular blessings. Colonel Kirkman was very good in a general way, and very correctin his theological sentiments; but he was a very steady and substantial possession, and did not suggest any idea of being lent for a day—and his wife felt that she herself was fortunately beyond that necessity, but that it would be for Mary’s good if she had another lesson on the vanity of earthly endowments. And thus she sat, feeling rather comfortable about it, and too sadly superior to be offended by her agitation downstairs, in Mrs. Ochterlony’s room.
Mary went in with her face brightened by her walk, a little soft anxiety (perhaps) in her eyes, or at least curiosity,—a little indignation, and yet the faintest touch of amusement about her mouth. She went in and shut the door, leaving her sister Aunt Agatha below, moved by what they supposed to be a much deeper emotion. Nobody in the house so much as dreamt that anything of any importance was going on there. There was not a sound as of a raised voice or agitated utterance as there had been when Mrs. Kirkman made her appeal to Winnie. But when the door of Mrs. Ochterlony’s room opened again, and Mary appeared, showing her visitor out, her countenance was changed, as if by half-a-dozen years. She followed her visitor downstairs, and opened the door for her, and looked after her as she went away, but not the ghost of a smile came upon Mary’s face. She did not offer her hand, nor say a word at parting that any one could hear. Her lips were compressed, without smile or syllable to move them, and closed as if they never would open again, and every drop of blood seemed to be gone from her face. When Mrs. Kirkman went away from the door, Mary closed it, and went back again to her own room. She did not say a word, nor look as if she had anything to say. She went to her wardrobe and took out a bag, and put some things into it, and then she tied on her bonnet, everything being done as if she had planned it all for years. When she was quite ready, she went downstairs and went to the drawing-room, where Winnie, agitated and disturbed, sat talking, saying a hundred wild things, of which Aunt Agatha knew but half the meaning. When Mary looked in at the door, the two who were there, started, and stared at her with amazed eyes. “What has happened, Mary?” cried Aunt Agatha; and though she was beginning to resume her lost tranquillity, she was so scared by Mrs. Ochterlony’s face that she had a palpitation which took away her breath, and made her sink down panting and lay her hands upon her heart. Mary, for her part, was perfectly composed and in possession of her senses. She made no fuss at all, nor complaint,—but nothing could conceal the change, nor alter the wonderful look in her eyes.