Madonna Mary

It was this process of reasoning, or rather of feeling, that made Mrs. Ochterlony so entirely satisfied with her brother-in-law when she returned (still alone, for Miss Seton was not equal to the exertion all at once, and naturally there was something extra to be ordered for dinner), and began to talk to their uncle about the children.

“There has been no difficulty about Islay,” she said: “he always knew what he wanted, and set his heart at once on his profession; but Hugh had no such decided turn. It was very kind what you said when you wrote – but I – don’t think it is good for the boy to be idle. Whatever you might think it right to arrange afterwards, I think he should have something to do – ”

“I did not think he had been so old,” said Mr. Ochterlony, almost apologetically. “Time does not leave much mark of its progress at Earlston. Something to do? I thought what a young fellow of his age enjoyed most was amusing himself. What would he like to do?”

“He does not know,” said Mary, a little abashed; “that is why I wanted so much to consult you. I suppose people have talked to him of – of what you might do for him; but he cannot bear the thought of hanging, as it were, on your charity – ”

“Charity!” said Mr. Ochterlony, “it is not charity, it is right and nature. I hope he is not one of those touchy sort of boys that think kindness an injury. My poor brother Hugh was always fidgety – ”

“Oh no, it is not that,” said the anxious mother, “only he is afraid that you might think he was calculating upon you; as if you were obliged to provide for him – ”

“And so I am obliged to provide for him,” said Mr. Ochterlony, “as much as I should be obliged to provide for my own son, if I had one. We must find him something to do. Perhaps I ought to have thought of it sooner. What has been done about his education? What school has he been at? Is he fit for the University? Earlston will be a better property in his days than it was when I was young,” added the uncle with a natural sigh. If he had but provided himself with an heir of his own, perhaps it would have been less troublesome on the whole. “I would send him to Oxford, which would be the best way of employing him; but is he fit for it? Where has he been to school?”

Upon which Mary, with some confusion, murmured something about the curate, and felt for the first time as if she had been indifferent to the education of her boy.

“The curate!” said Mr. Ochterlony; and he gave a little shrug of his shoulders, as if that was a very poor security for Hugh’s scholarship.

“He has done very well with all his pupils,” said Mary, “and Mr. Cramer, to whom Islay is going, was very much satisfied – ”

“I forgot where Islay was going?” said Mr. Ochterlony, inquiringly.

“Mr. Cramer lives near Kendal,” said Mary; “he was very highly recommended; and we thought the boy could come home for Sunday – ”

Mr. Ochterlony shook his head, though still in a patronizing and friendly way. “I am not sure that it is good to choose a tutor because the boy can come home on Sunday,” he said, “nor send them to the curate that you may keep them with yourself. I know it is the way with ladies; but it would have been better, I think, to have sent them to school.”

Mrs. Ochterlony was confounded by this verdict against her. All at once her eyes seemed to be opened, and she saw herself a selfish mother keeping her boys at her own apron-strings. She had not time to think of such poor arguments in her favour as want of means, or her own perfectly good intentions. She was silent, struck dumb by this unthought-of condemnation; but just then a champion she had not thought of appeared in her defence.

“Mr. Small did very well for Hugh,” said a voice at the window; “he is a very good tutor so far as he goes. He did very well for Hugh – and Islay too,” said the new-comer, who came in at the window as he spoke with a bundle of books under his arm. The interruption was so unexpected that Mr. Ochterlony, being quite unused to the easy entrance of strangers at the window, and into the conversation, started up alarmed and a little angry. But, after all, there was nothing to be angry about.

“It is only Will,” said Mary. “Wilfrid, it is your uncle, whom you have not seen for so long. This was my baby,” she added, turning to her brother-in-law, with an anxious smile – for Wilfrid was a boy who puzzled strangers, and was not by any means so sure to make a good impression as the others were. Mr. Ochterlony shook hands with the new-comer, but he surveyed him a little doubtfully. He was about thirteen, a long boy, with big wrists and ankles visible, and signs of rapid growth. His face did not speak of country air and fare and outdoor life and healthful occupation like his brother’s, but was pale and full of fancies and notions which he did not reveal to everybody. He came in and put down his books and threw himself into a chair with none of his elder brother’s shamefacedness. Will, for his part, was not given to blushing. He knew nothing of his uncle’s visit, but he took it quietly as a thing of course, and prepared to take part in the conversation, whatever its subject might be.

“Mr. Small has done very well for them all,” said Mary, taking heart again; “he has always done very well with his pupils. Mr. Cramer was very much satisfied with the progress Islay had made; and as for Hugh – ”

“He is quite clever enough for Hugh,” said Will, with the same steady voice.

Mr. Ochterlony, though he was generally so grave, was amused. “My young friend, are you sure you are a judge?” he said. “Perhaps he is not clever enough for Wilfrid – is that what you meant to say?”

“It is not so much the being clever,” said the boy. “I think he has taught me as much as he knows, so it is not his fault. I wish we had been sent to school; but Hugh is all right. He knows as much as he wants to know, I suppose; and as for Islay, his is technical,” the young critic added with a certain quiet superiority. Will, poor fellow, was the clever one of the family, and somehow he had found it out.

Mr. Ochterlony looked at this new representative of his race with a little alarm. Perhaps he was thinking that, on the whole, it was as well not to have boys; and then, as much from inability to carry on the conversation as from interest in his own particular subject, he returned to Hugh.

“The best plan, perhaps, will be for Hugh to go back with me to Earlston; that is, if it is not disagreeable to you,” he said, in his old-fashioned, polite way. “I have been too long thinking about it, and his position must be made distinct. Oxford would be the best; that would be good for him in every way. And I think afterwards he might pay a little attention to the estate. I never could have believed that babies grew into boys, and boys to men, so quickly. Why, it can barely be a few years since – Ah!” Mr. Ochterlony got up very precipitately from his chair. It was Aunt Agatha who had come into the room, with her white hair smoothed under her white cap, and her pretty Shetland shawl over her shoulders. Then he perceived that it was more than a few years since he had last seen her. The difference was more to him than the difference in the boys, who were creatures that sprang up nobody knew how, and were never to be relied upon. That summer morning when she came to Earlston to claim her niece, Miss Seton had been old; but it was a different kind of age from that which sat upon her soft countenance now. Francis Ochterlony had not for many a year asked himself in his seclusion whether he was old or young. His occupations were all tranquil, and he had not felt himself unable for them; but if Agatha Seton was like this, surely then it must indeed be time to think of an heir.

The day passed with a curious speed and yet tardiness, such as is peculiar to days of excitement. When they were not talking of the boys, nobody could tell what to talk about. Once or twice, indeed, Mr. Ochterlony began to speak of the Numismatic Society, or the excavations at Nineveh, or some other cognate subject; but he always came to a standstill when he caught Aunt Agatha’s soft eyes wondering over him. They had not talked about excavations, nor numismatics either, the last time he had been here; and there was no human link between that time and this, except the boys, of whom they could all talk; and to this theme accordingly everybody returned. Hugh came in audibly, leaving his basket at the kitchen door as he passed, and Islay, with his long head and his deep eyes, came down from his room where he was working, and Will kept his seat in the big Indian chair in the corner, where he dangled his long legs, and listened. Everybody felt the importance of the moment, and was dreadfully serious, even when lighter conversation was attempted. To show the boys in their best light, each of the three, and not so to show them as if anybody calculated upon, or was eager about the uncle’s patronage; to give him an idea of their different characters, without any suspicion of “showing off,” which the lads could not have tolerated; all this was very difficult to the two anxious women, and required such an amount of mental effort as made it hard to be anything but serious. Fortunately, the boys themselves were a little excited by the novelty of such a visitor, and curious about their uncle, not knowing what his appearance might mean. Hugh flushed into a singular mixture of exaltation, and suspicion, and surprise, when Mr. Ochterlony invited him to Earlston; and looked at his mother with momentary distrust, to see if by any means she had sought the invitation; and Wilfrid sat and dangled his long legs, and listened, with an odd appreciation of the fact that the visit was to Hugh, and not to himself, or any more important member of the family. As for Islay, he was always a good fellow, and like himself; and his way was clear before him, and admitted of no hopes or fears except as to whether or not he should succeed at his examination, which was a matter about which he had himself no very serious doubts, though he said little about it; and perhaps on the whole it was Islay, who was quite indifferent, whom Mr. Ochterlony would have fixed his choice upon, had he been at liberty to choose.

When the visitor departed, which he did the same evening, the household drew a long breath; everybody was relieved, from Peggy in the kitchen, whose idea was that the man was “looking after our Miss Agatha again,” down to Will, who had now leisure and occasion to express his sentiments on the subject. Islay went back to his work, to make up for the lost day, having only a moderate and temporary interest in his uncle. It was the elder and the younger who alone felt themselves concerned. As for Hugh, the world seemed to have altered in these few hours; Mr. Ochterlony had not said a great deal to him; but what he said had been said as a man speaks who means and has the power to carry out his words; and the vague heirship had become all of a sudden the realest fact in existence, and a thing which could not be, and never could have been, otherwise. And he was slightly giddy, and his head swam with the sudden elevation. But as for Wilfrid, what had he to do with it, any more than any other member of the family? though he was always a strange boy, and there never was any reckoning what he might do or say.

CHAPTER XXIV

WILL’S room was a small room opening from his mother’s, which would have been her dressing-room had she wanted such a luxury; and when Mrs. Ochterlony went upstairs late that night, after a long talk with Aunt Agatha, she found the light still burning in the little room, and her boy seated, with his jacket and his shoes off, on the floor, in a brown study. He was sitting with his knees drawn up to his chin in a patch of moonlight that shone in from the window. The moonlight made him look ghastly, and his candle had burnt down, and was flickering unsteadily in the socket, and Mary was alarmed. She did not think of any moral cause for the first moment, but only that something was the matter with him, and went in with a sudden maternal panic to see what it was. Will took no immediate notice of her anxious questions, but he condescended to raise his head and prop up his chin with his hands, and stare up into her face.

“Mother,” he said, “you always go on as if a fellow was ill. Can’t one be thinking a little without anything being the matter? I should have put out my light had I known you were coming upstairs.”

“You know, Will, that I cannot have you sit here and think, as you say. It is not thinking – it is brooding, and does you harm,” said Mrs. Ochterlony. “Jump up, and go to bed.”

“Presently,” said the boy. “Is it true that Hugh will go to Oxford, mamma?”

“Very likely,” said Mary, with some pride. “Your uncle will see how he has got on with his studies, and after that I think he will go.”

“What for?” said Will. “What is the good? He knows as much as he wants to know, and Mr. Small is quite good enough for him.”

“What for?” said Mary, with displeasure. “For his education, like other gentlemen, and that he may take his right position. But you are too young to understand all that. Get up, and go to bed.”

“I am not too young to understand,” said Wilfrid; “what is the good of throwing money and time away? You may tell my uncle, Hugh will never do any good at Oxford; and I don’t see, for my part, why he should be the one to go.”

“He is the eldest son, and he is your uncle’s heir,” said Mary, with a conscious swelling of her motherly heart.

“I don’t see what difference being the eldest makes,” said Will, embracing his knees. “I have been thinking over it this long time. Why should he be sent to Oxford, and the rest of us stay at home? What does it matter about the eldest? A fellow is not any better than me because he was born before me. You might as well send Peggy to Oxford,” said Will, with vehemence, “as send Hugh.”

Mrs. Ochterlony, whose mind just then was specially occupied by Hugh, was naturally disturbed by this speech. She put out the flickering candle, and set down her own light, and closed the door. “I cannot let you speak so about your brother, Will,” she said. “He may not be so quick as you are for your age, but I wish you were as modest and as kind as Hugh is. Why should you grudge his advancement? I used to think you would get the better of this feeling when you ceased to be a child.”

“Of what feeling?” cried Will, lifting his pale face from his knees.

“My dear boy, you ought to know,” said Mary; “this grudge that any one should have a pleasure or an advantage which you have not. A child may be excused, but no man who thinks so continually of himself – ”

“I was not thinking of myself,” said Will, springing up from the floor with a flush on his face. “You will always make a moral affair of it, mother. As if one could not discuss a thing. But I know that Hugh is not clever, though he is the eldest. Let him have Earlston if he likes, but why should he have Oxford? And why should it always be supposed that he is better, and a different kind of clay?”

“I wonder where you learned all that, Will,” said Mary, with a smile. “One would think you had picked up some Radical or other. I might be vexed to see Lady Balderston walk out of the room before me, if it was because she pretended to be a better woman; but when it is only because she is Lady Balderston, what does it matter? Hugh can’t help being the eldest: if you had been the eldest – ”

“Ah!” said Will, with a long breath; “if I had been the eldest – ” And then he stopped short.

“What would you have done?” said Mrs. Ochterlony, smiling still.

“I would have done what Hugh will never do,” cried the boy. “I would have taken care of everybody. I would have found out what they were fit for, and put them in the right way. The one that had brains should have been cultivated – done something else. There should have been no such mistake as – But that is always how it is in the world – everybody says so,” said Wilfrid; “stupid people who know nothing about it are set at the head, and those who could manage – ”

“Will,” said his mother, “do you know you are very presumptuous, and think a great deal too well of yourself? If you were not such a child, I should be angry. It is very well to be clever at your lessons, but that is no proof that you are able to manage, as you say. Let Hugh and his prospects alone for to-night, and go to bed.”

“Yes, I can let him alone,” said Will. “I suppose it is not worth one’s while to mind – he will do no good at Oxford, you know, that is one thing; – whereas other people – ”

“Always yourself, Will,” said Mary, with a sigh.

“Myself – or even Islay,” said the boy, in the most composed way; “though Islay is very technical. Still, he could do some good. But Hugh is an out-of-door sort of fellow. He would do for a farmer or gamekeeper, or to go to Australia, as he says. A man should always follow his natural bent. If, instead of going by eldest sons and that sort of rubbish, they were to try for the right man in the right place. And then you might be sure to be done the best for, mother, and that he would take care of you.”

“Will, you are very conceited and very unjust,” said Mary; but she was his mother, and she relented as she looked into his weary young face: “but I hope you have your heart in the right place, for all your talk,” she said, kissing him before she went away. She went back to her room disturbed, as she had often been before, but still smiling at Will’s “way.” It was all boyish folly and talk, and he did not mean it; and as he grew older he would learn better. Mary did not care to speculate upon the volcanic elements which, for anything she could tell, might be lying under her very hand. She could not think of different developments of character, and hostile individualities, as people might to whom the three boys were but boys in the abstract, and not Hugh, Islay, and Will – the one as near and dear to her as the other. Mrs. Ochterlony was not philosophical, neither could she follow out to their natural results the tendencies which she could not but see. She preferred to think of it, as Will himself said, as a moral affair – a fault which would mend; and so laid her head on her pillow with a heart uneasy – but no more uneasy than was consistent with the full awakening of anxious yet hopeful life.

As for Will, he was asleep ten minutes after, and had forgotten all about it. His heart was in its right place, though he was plagued with a very arrogant, troublesome, restless little head, and a greater amount of “notions” than are good for his age. He wanted to be at the helm of affairs, to direct everything – a task for which he felt himself singularly competent; but, after all, it was for the benefit of other people that he wanted to rule. It seemed to him that he could arrange for everybody so much better than they could for themselves; and he would have been liberal to Hugh, though he had a certain contempt for his abilities. He would have given him occupation suited to him, and all the indulgences which he was most fitted to appreciate: and he would have made a kind of beneficent empress of his mother, and put her at the head of all manner of benevolences, as other wise despots have been known to do. But Will was the youngest, and nobody so much as asked his advice, or took him into consideration; and the poor boy was thus thrown back upon his own superiority, and got to brood upon it, and scorn the weaker expedients with which other people sought to fill up the place which he alone was truly qualified to fill. Fortunately, however, he forgot all this as soon as he had fallen asleep.

Hugh had no such legislative views for his part. He was not given to speculation. He meant to do his duty, and be a credit to everybody belonging to him; but he was a great deal “younger” than his boy-brother, and it did not occur to him to separate himself in idea – even to do them good – from his own people. The future danced and glimmered before him, but it was a brightness without any theory in it – a thing full of spontaneous good-fortune and well-doing, with which his own cleverness had nothing to do. Islay, for his part, thought very little about it. He was pleased for Hugh’s sake, but as he had always looked upon Hugh’s good fortune as a certainty, the fact did not excite him, and he was more interested about a tough problem he was working at, and which his uncle’s visit had interrupted. It was a more agitated household than it had been a few months before – ere the doors of the future had opened suddenly upon the lads; but there was still no agitation under the Cottage roof which was inconsistent with sweet rest and quiet sleep.