this was the kind of crisis in the family history at which uncle penrose was sure to make his appearance. he was the only man among them, he sometimes said—or, at least, the only man who knew anything about money; and he came into the midst of the ochterlonys in their mourning, as large and important as he had been when winnie was married, looking as if he had never taken his left hand out of his pocket all the time. he had not been asked to the funeral, and he marked his consciousness of that fact by making his appearance in buff waistcoats and apparel which altogether displayed light-heartedness if not levity—and which was very wounding to aunt agatha’s feelings. time, somehow, did not seem to have touched him. if he was not so offensively and demonstratively a man, in the sweet-scented feminine house, as he used to be, it was no reticence of his, but because the boys were men, or nearly so, and the character of the household changed. and hugh was mr. ochterlony of earlston; which, perhaps, was the fact that made the greatest difference of all.
he came the day after hugh’s return, and in the evening there had been a very affecting scene in the cottage. in faithful discharge of his promise, hugh had carried the henri deux, carefully packed, as became its value and fragile character, to aunt agatha; and she had received it from him with a throbbing heart and many tears. “it was almost the last thing he said to me,” hugh had said. “he put it all aside with his own hand, the day you admired it so much; and he told me over and over again, to be sure not to forget.” aunt agatha had been sitting with her hands clasped upon the arm of his chair, and her eyes fixed upon him, not to lose a word; but when he said this, she covered her face with those soft old hands, and was silent and did not even weep. it was the truest grief that was in her heart, and yet with that, there was an exquisite pang of delight, such as goes through and through a girl when first she perceives that she is loved, and sees her power! she was as a widow, and yet she was an innocent maiden, full of experience and inexperience, feeling the heaviness of the evening shadows, and yet still in the age of splendour in the grass and glory in the flower. the sense of that last tenderness went through her with a thrill of joy and grief beyond description. it gave him back to her for ever and ever, but not with that sober appropriation which might have seemed natural to her age. she could no more look them in the face while it was being told, than had he been a living lover and she a girl. it was a supreme conjunction and blending of the two extremes of life, a fusion of youth and of age.
“i never thought he noticed what i said,” she answered at last with a soft sob—and uncovered the eyes that were full of tears, and yet dazzled as with a sudden light; and she would let no one touch the precious legacy, but unpacked it herself, shedding tears that were bitter and yet sweet, over its many wrappings. though he was a man, and vaguely buoyed up, without knowing it, by the strange new sense of his own importance, hugh could have found it in his heart to shed tears, too, over the precious bits of porcelain, that had now acquired an interest so much more near and touching than anything connected with henri deux; and so could his mother. but there were two who looked on with dry eyes: the one was winnie, who would have liked to break it all into bits, as she swept past it with her long dress, and could not put up with aunt agatha’s nonsense; the other was will, who watched the exhibition curiously with close observation, wondering how it was that people were such fools, and feeling the shadow of his brother weigh upon him with a crushing weight. but these two malcontents were not in sympathy with each other, and never dreamt of making common cause.
and it was when the house was in this condition, that uncle penrose arrived. he arrived, as usual, just in time to make a fuss necessary about a late dinner, and to put peggy out of temper, which was a fact that soon made itself felt through the house; and he began immediately to speak to hugh about earlston, and about “your late uncle,” without the smallest regard for aunt agatha’s feelings. “i know there was something between him and miss agatha once,” he said, with a kind of smile at her, “but of course that was all over long ago.” and this was said when poor miss seton, who felt that the bond had never before been so sweet and so close, was seated at the head of her own table, and had to bear it and make no sign.
“probably there will be a great deal to be done on the estate,” mr. penrose said; “these studious men always let things go to ruin out of doors; but there’s a collection of curiosities or antiquities, or something. if that’s good, it will bring in money. when a man is known, such things sell.”
“but it is not to be sold,” said hugh quickly. “i have settled all about that.”
“not to be sold?—nonsense!” said mr. penrose; “you don’t mean to say you are a collector—at your age? no, no, my boy; they’re no good to him where he is now; he could not take them into his vault with him. feelings are all very well, but you can’t be allowed to lose a lot of money for a prejudice. what kind of things are they—pictures and that sort? or——”
“i have made all the necessary arrangements,” said hugh with youthful dignity. “i want you to go with me to dalken, mother, to see some rooms the mayor has offered for them—nice rooms belonging to the town hall. they could have ‘ochterlony museum’ put up over the doors, and do better than a separate building, besides saving the expense.”
mr. penrose gave a long whistle, which under any circumstances would have been very indecorous at a lady’s table. “so that is how it’s to be!” he said; “but we’ll talk that over first, with your permission, mr. ochterlony of earlston. you are too young to know what you’re doing. i suppose the ladies are at the bottom of it; they never know the value of money. and yet we know what it costs to get it when it is wanted, miss agatha,” said the insolent man of money, who never would forget that miss seton herself had once been in difficulties. she looked at him with a kind of smile, as politeness ordained, but tears of pain stood in aunt agatha’s eyes. if ever she hated anybody in her gentle life, it was mr. penrose; and somehow he made himself hateful in her presence to everybody concerned.
“it costs more to get it than it is ever worth,” said winnie, indignant, and moved for the first time, to make a diversion, and come to aunt agatha’s aid.
“ah, i have no doubt you know all about it,” said mr. penrose, turning his arms upon her. “you should have taken my advice. if you had come to liverpool, as i wanted you, and married some steady-going fellow with plenty of money, and gone at a more reasonable pace, you would not have changed so much at your age. look at mary, how well preserved she is: i don’t know what you can have been doing with yourself to look so changed.”
“i am sorry you think me a fright,” said winnie, with an angry sparkle in her eye.
“you are not a fright,” said uncle penrose; “one can see that you’ve been a very handsome woman, but you are not what you were when i saw you last, winnie. the fault of your family is that you are extravagant,—i am sure you did not get it from your mother’s side;—extravagant of your money and your hospitality, and your looks and everything. i am sure mary has nothing to spare, and yet i’ve found people living here for weeks together. i can’t afford visitors like that—i have my family to consider, and people that have real claims upon me—no more than i could afford to set up a museum. if i had a lot of curiosities thrown on my hands, i should make them into money. it is not everybody that can appreciate pictures, but everybody understands five per cent. and then he might have done something worth while for his brothers: not that i approve of a man impoverishing himself for the sake of his friends, but still two thousand pounds isn’t much. and he might have done something for his mother, or looked after will’s education. it’s family pride, i suppose; but i’d rather give my mother a house of her own than set up an ochterlony museum. tastes differ, you know.”
“his mother agrees with him entirely in everything he is doing,” said mary, with natural resentment. “i wish all mothers had sons as good as mine.”
“hush,” said hugh, who was crimson with indignation and anger: “i decline to discuss these matters with uncle penrose. because he is your uncle, mother, he shall inquire into the estates as much as he likes; but i am the head of the house, and i am responsible only to god and to those who are dead—and, mother, to you,” said hugh, with his eyes glistening and his face glowing.
uncle penrose gave another contemptuous prolonged whistle at this speech, but the others looked at the young man with admiration and love; even winnie, whose heart could still be touched, regarded the young paladin with a kind of tender envy and admiration. she was too young to be his mother, but she did not feel herself young; and her heart yearned to have some one who would stand by her and defend her as such a youth could. a world of softer possibilities than anything she would permit herself to think of now, came into her mind, and she looked at him. if she too had but been the mother of children like her sister! but it appeared that mary was to have the best of it, always and in every way.
as for will, he looked at the eldest son with very different feelings. hugh was not particularly clever, and his brother had long entertained a certain contempt for him. he thought what he would have done had he been the head of the house. he was disposed to sneer, like mr. penrose, at the ochterlony museum. was it not a confession of a mean mind, an acknowledgment of weakness, to consent to send away all the lovely things that made will’s vision of earlston like a vision of heaven? if it had been will he would not have thought of five per cent., but neither would he have thought of making a collection of them at dalken, where the country bumpkins might come and stare. he would have kept them all to himself, and they would have made his life beautiful. and he scorned hugh for dispossessing himself of them, and reducing the earlston rooms into rooms of ordinary habitation. had they but been his—had he but been the eldest, the head of the house—then the world and the family and uncle penrose would have seen very different things.
but yet hugh had character enough to stand firm. he made his mother get her bonnet and go out with him after dinner; and everybody in the house looked after the two as they went away—the mother and her firstborn—he, with his young head towering above her, though mary was tall, and she putting her arm within his so proudly—not without a tender elation in his new importance, a sense of his superior place and independent rank, which was strangely sweet. winnie looked after them, envying her sister, and yet with an envy which was not bitter; and will stood and looked fiercely on this brother who, by no virtue of his own, had been born before him. as for aunt agatha, who was fond of them all, she went to her own room to heal her wounds; and mr. penrose, who was fond of none of them, went up to the hall to talk things over with sir edward, whom he had once talked over to such purpose. and the only two who could stray down to the soft-flowing kirtell, and listen to the melody of the woods and waters, and talk in concert of what they had wished and planned, were mary and hugh.
“the great thing to be settled is about will,” the head of the house was saying. “you shall see, mother, when he is in the world and knows better, all that will blow away. his two thousand pounds is not much, as uncle penrose says; but it was all my father had: and when he wants it, and when islay wants it, there can always be something added. it is my business to see to that.”
“it was all your father had,” said mary, “and all your uncle intended; and i see no reason why you should add to it, hugh. there will be a little more when i am gone; and in the meantime, if we only knew what will would like to do——”
“why, they’ll make him a fellow of his college,” said hugh. “he’ll go in for all sorts of honours. he’s awfully clever, mother; there’s no fear of will. the best thing i can see is to send him to read with somebody—somebody with no end of a reputation, that he would have a sort of an awe for—and then the university. it would be no use doing it if he was just like other people; but there’s everything to be made of will.”
“i hope so,” said mary, with a little sigh. and then she added, “so i shall be left quite alone?”
“no; you are coming to earlston with me,” said hugh; “that is quite understood. there will be a great deal to do; and i don’t think things are quite comfortable at the cottage, with mrs. percival here.”
“poor winnie!” said mrs. ochterlony. “i don’t think i ought to leave aunt agatha—at least, while she is so much in the dark about my sister. and then you told me you had promised to marry, hugh?”
“yes,” said the young man; and straightway the colour came to his cheek, and dimples to the corners of his mouth; “but she is too y—— i mean, there is plenty of time to think of that.”
“she is too young?” said mary, startled. “do i know her, i wonder? i did not imagine you had settled on the person as well as the fact. well; and then, you know, i should have to come back again. i will come to visit you at earlston: but i must keep my head-quarters here.”
“i don’t see why you should have to come back again,” said hugh, somewhat affronted. “earlston is big enough, and you would be sure to be fond of her. no, i don’t know that the person is settled upon. perhaps she wouldn’t have me; perhaps—— but, anyhow, you are coming to earlston, mother dear. and, after a while, we could have some visitor perhaps—your friends: you know i am very fond of your friends, mamma.”
“all my friends, hugh?” said his mother, with a smile.
this was the kind of talk they were having while mr. penrose was laying the details of hugh’s extravagance before sir edward, and doing all he could to incite him to a solemn cross-examination of winnie. whether she had run away from her husband, or if not exactly that, what were the circumstances under which she had left him; and whether a reconciliation could be brought about;—all this was as interesting to sir edward as it was to uncle penrose; but what the latter gentleman was particularly anxious about was, what they had done with their money, and if the unlucky couple were very deeply in debt. “i suspect that is at the bottom of it,” he said. and they were both concerned about winnie, in their way—anxious to keep her from being talked about, and to preserve to her a place of repentance. mrs. percival, however, was not so simple as to subject herself to this ordeal. when sir edward called in an accidental way next morning, and uncle penrose drew a solemn chair to her side, winnie sprang up and went away. she went off, and shut herself up in her own room, and declined to go back, or give any further account of herself. “if they want to drive me away, i will go away,” she said to aunt agatha, who came up tremulously to her door, and begged her to go downstairs.
“my darling, they can’t drive you away; you have come to see me,” said aunt agatha. “it would be strange if any one wanted to drive you from my house.”
winnie was excited, and driven out of her usual self-restraint. perhaps she had begun to soften a little. she gave way to momentary tears, and kissed aunt agatha, whose heart in a moment forsook all other pre-occupations, and returned for ever and ever to her child.
“yes, i have come to see you,” she cried; “and don’t let them come and hunt me to death. i have done nothing to them. i have injured nobody; and i will not be put upon my trial for anybody in the wide world.”
“my dear love! my poor darling child!” was all that aunt agatha said.
and then winnie dried her eyes. “i may as well say it now,” she said. “i will give an account of myself to nobody but you; and if he should come after me here——”
“yes, winnie darling?” said aunt agatha, in great suspense, as mrs. percival stopped to take breath.
“nothing in the world will make me see him—nothing in the world!” cried winnie. “it is best you should know. it is no good asking me—nothing in the world!”
“oh, winnie, my dear child!” cried aunt agatha in anxious remonstrance, but she was not permitted to say any more. winnie kissed her again in a peremptory way, and led her to the door, and closed it softly upon her. she had given forth her ultimatum, and now it was for her defender to carry on the fight.
but within a few days another crisis arose of a less manageable kind. uncle penrose made everybody highly uncomfortable, and left stings in each individual mind, but fortunately business called him back after two days to his natural sphere. and sir edward was affronted, and did not return to the charge; and mrs. percival, with a natural yearning, had begun to make friends with her nephew, and draw him to her side to support her if need should be. and mary was preparing to go with her boy after a while to earlston; and hugh himself found frequent business at carlisle, and went and came continually; when it happened one day that her friends came to pay mrs. ochterlony a visit, to offer their condolences and congratulations upon hugh’s succession and his uncle’s death.
they came into the drawing-room before any one was aware; and winnie was there, with her shawl round her as usual. all the ladies of the cottage were there: aunt agatha seated within sight of her legacy, the precious henri deux, which was all arranged in a tiny little cupboard, shut in with glass, which hugh had found for her; and mary working as usual for her boys. winnie was the one who never had anything to do; instead of doing anything, poor soul, she wound her arms closer and closer into her shawl. it was not a common visit that was about to be paid. there was mrs. kirkman, and mrs. askell, and the doctor’s sister, and the wife of a new captain, who had come with them; and they all swept in and kissed mary, and took possession of the place. they kissed mary, and shook hands with aunt agatha; and then mrs. kirkman stopped short, and looked at winnie, and made her a most stately curtsey. the others would have done the same, had their courage been as good; but both mrs. askell and miss sorbette were doubtful how mary would take it, and compromised, and made some sign of recognition in a distant way. then they all subsided into chairs, and did their best to talk.
“it is a coincidence that brings us all here together to-day,” said mrs. kirkman; “i hope it is not too much for you, my dear mary. how affecting was poor mr. ochterlony’s death! i hope you have that evidence of his spiritual state which is the only consolation in such a case.”
“he was a good man,” said mary; “very kind, and generous, and just. hugh, who knew him best, was very fond of him——”
“ah, fond of him; we are all fond of our friends,” said mrs. kirkman; “but the only real comfort is to know what was their spiritual state. do you know i am very anxious about your parish here. if you would but take up the work, it would be a great thing. and i would like to have a talk with hugh: he is in an important position now; he may influence for good so many people. dear miss seton, i am sure you will help me all you can to lead him in the right way.”
“he is such a dear!” said emma askell. “he has been to see us four or five times: it was so good of him. i didn’t know mr. ochterlony, madonna dear; so you need not be vexed if i say right out that i am so glad. hugh will make a perfect squire; and he is such a dear. oh, miss seton, i know you will agree with me—isn’t he a dear?”
“he’s a very fine young fellow,” said miss sorbette. “i remember him when he was only that height, so i think i may speak. it seems like yesterday when he was at that queer marriage, you know—such a funny, wistful little soul. i daresay you recollect, mary, for it was rather hard upon you.”
“we all recollect,” said mrs. kirkman; “don’t speak of it. thank heaven, it has done those dear children no harm.”
there was something ringing in mary’s ears, but she could not say a word. her voice seemed to die on her lips, and her heart in her breast. if her boys were to hear, and demand an explanation! something almost as bad happened. winnie, who was looking on, whom nobody had spoken to, now took it upon herself to interpose.
“what marriage?” she said. “it must have been something of consequence, and i should like to know.”
this question fluttered the visitors in the strangest way; none of them looked at winnie, but they looked at each other, with a sudden movement of skirts and consultation of glances. mrs. kirkman put her bonnet-strings straight, slowly, and sighed; and miss sorbette bent down her head with great concern, and exclaimed that she had lost the button of her glove; and emma askell shrank behind backs, and made a great rustling with her dress. “oh, it was nothing at all,” she said; being by nature the least hard-hearted of the three. that was all the answer they gave to winnie, who was the woman who had been talked about. and the next moment all three rushed at mary, and spoke to her in the same breath, in their agitation; for at least they were agitated by the bold coup they had made. it was a stroke which winnie felt. she turned very red and then very pale, but she did not flinch: she sat there in the foreground, close to them all, till they had said everything they had to say; and held her head high, ready to meet the eye of anybody who dared to look at her. as for the other members of the party, mary had been driven hors du combat, and for the first moment was too much occupied with her own feelings to perceive the insult that had been directed at her sister; and aunt agatha was too much amazed to take any part. thus they sat, the visitors in a rustle of talk and silk and agitation and uneasiness, frightened at the step they had taken, with winnie immovable and unflinching in the midst of them, until the other ladies of the house recovered their self-possession. then an unquestionable chill fell upon the party. when such visitors came to kirtell on ordinary occasions, they were received with pleasant hospitality. it was not a ceremonious call, it was a frank familiar visit, prolonged for an hour or two; and though five o’clock tea had not then been invented, it was extemporized for the occasion, and fruit was gathered, and flowers, and all the pleasant country details that please visitors from a town. and when it was time to go, everybody knew how many minutes were necessary for the walk to the station, and the cottage people escorted their visitors, and waved their hands to them as the train started. such had been the usual routine of a visit to kirtell. but matters were changed now. after that uneasy rustle and flutter, a silence equally uneasy fell upon the assembly. the new captain’s wife, who had never been there before, could not make it out. mrs. percival sat silent, the centre of the group, and nobody addressed a word to her; and aunt agatha leaned back in her chair and never opened her lips; and even mary gave the coldest, briefest answers to the talk which everybody poured upon her at once. it was all quite mysterious and unexplicable to the captain’s wife.
“i am afraid we must not stay,” mrs. kirkman said at last, who was the superior officer. “i hope we have not been too much for you, my dear mary. i want so much to have a long talk with you about the parish and the work that is to be done in it. if i could only see you take it up! but i see you are not able for it now.”
“i am not the clergyman,” said mary, whose temper was slightly touched. “you know that never was my rôle.”
“ah, my dear friend!” said mrs. kirkman, and she bent her head forward pathetically to mrs. ochterlony’s, and shook it in her face, and kissed her, “if one could always feel ones’ self justified in leaving it in the hands of the clergyman! but you are suffering, and i will say no more to-day.”
and miss sorbette, too, made a pretence of having something very absorbing to say to mrs. ochterlony; and the exit of the visitors was made in a kind of scuffle very different from their dignified entrance. they had to walk back to the station in the heat of the afternoon, and to sit there in the dusty waiting-room an hour and a half waiting for the train. seldom is justice so promptly or poetically executed. and they took to upbraiding each other, as was natural, and emma askell cried, and said it was not her fault. and the new captain’s wife asked audibly, if that was the madonna mary the gentlemen talked about, and the house that was so pleasant? perhaps the three ladies in the cottage did not feel much happier; aunt agatha rose up tremblingly when they were gone, and went to winnie and kissed her. “oh, what does it all mean?” miss seton cried. it was the first time she had seen any one belonging to her pointed at by the finger of scorn.
“it means that mary’s friends don’t approve of me,” said winnie; but her lip quivered as she spoke. she did not care! but yet she was a woman, and she did care, whatever she might say.
and then mary, too, came and kissed her sister. “my poor winnie!” she said, tenderly. she could not be her sister’s partizan out and out, like aunt agatha. her heart was sore for what she knew, and for what she did not know; but she could not forsake her own flesh and blood. the inquisition of uncle penrose and sir edward was a very small matter indeed in comparison with this woman’s insult, but yet it drew winnie imperceptibly closer to her only remaining friends.
