Madonna Mary

“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.

CHAPTER XXXII

IT was not likely that Will, who had speculated so much on the family history, should remain unmoved by all these changes. His intellect was very lively, and well developed, and his conscience was to a great extent dormant. If he had been in the way of seeing, or being tempted into actual vices, no doubt the lad’s education would have served him in better stead, and his moral sense would have been awakened. But he had been injured in his finer moral perceptions by a very common and very unsuspected agency. He had been in the way of hearing very small offences indeed made into sins. Aunt Agatha had been almost as hard upon him forgetting a text as if he had told a lie – and his tutor, the curate, had treated a false quantity, or a failure of memory, as a moral offence. That was in days long past, and it was Wilfrid now who found out his curate in false quantities, and scorned him accordingly; and who had discovered that Aunt Agatha herself, if she remembered the text, knew very little about it. This system of making sins out of trifles had passed quite harmlessly over Hugh and Islay; but Wilfrid’s was the exceptional mind to which it did serious harm. And the more he discovered that the sins of his childhood were not sins, the more confused did his mind become, and the more dull his conscience, as to those sins of thought and feeling, which were the only ones at present into which he was tempted. What had any one to do with the complexion of his thoughts? If he felt one way or another, what matter was it to any one but himself? Other people might dissemble and take credit for the emotions approved of by public opinion, but he would be true and genuine. And accordingly he did not see why he should pretend to be pleased at Hugh’s advancement. He was not pleased. He said to himself that it went against all the rules of natural justice. Hugh was no better than he; on the contrary, he was less clever, less capable of mental exertion, which, so far as Will knew, was the only standard of superiority; and yet he was Mr. Ochterlony of Earlston, with a house and estate, with affairs to manage, and tenants to influence, and the Psyche and the Venus to do what he liked with: whereas Will was nobody, and was to have two thousand pounds for all his inheritance. He had been talking, too, a great deal to Mr. Penrose, and that had not done him any good; for Uncle Penrose’s view was that nothing should stand in the way of acquiring money or other wealth – nothing but the actual law. To do anything dishonest, that could be punished, was of course pure insanity – not to say crime; but to let any sort of false honour, or pride, or delicacy stand between you and the acquisition of money was almost as great insanity, according to his ideas. “Go into business and keep at it, and you may buy him up – him and his beggarly estate” – had been Uncle Penrose’s generous suggestion; and it was a good deal in Wilfrid’s mind. To be sure it was quite opposed to the intellectual tendency which led him to quite a different class of pursuits. But what was chiefly before him in the meantime was Hugh, preferred to so much distinction, and honour, and glory; and yet if the truth were known, a very stupid fellow in comparison with himself – Will. And it was not only that he was Mr. Ochterlony of Earlston. He was first with everybody. Sir Edward, who took but little notice of Will, actually consulted Hugh, and he was the first to be thought of in any question that occurred in the Cottage; and, what went deepest of all, Nelly – Nelly Askell whom Will had appropriated, not as his love, for his mind had not as yet opened to that idea, but as his sympathizer-in-chief – the listener to all his complaints and speculations – his audience whom nobody had any right to take from him – Nelly had gone over to his brother’s side. And the idea of going into business, even at the cost of abandoning all his favourite studies, and sticking close to it, and buying him up – him and his beggarly estate – was a good deal at this moment in Wilfrid’s thoughts. Even the new-comer, Winnie, who might if she pleased have won him to herself, had preferred Hugh. So that he was alone on his side, and everybody was on his brother’s – a position which often confuses right and wrong, even to minds least set upon their own will and way.

He was sauntering on Kirtell banks a few days after the visit above recorded, in an unusually uncomfortable state of mind. Mrs. Askell had felt great compunction about her share in that event, and she had sent Nelly, who was known to be a favourite at the cottage, with a very anxious letter, assuring her dear Madonna that it was not her fault. Mary had not received the letter with much favour, but she had welcomed Nelly warmly; and Hugh had found means to occupy her attention; and Will, who saw no place for him, had wandered out, slightly sulky, to Kirtell-side. He was free to come and go as he liked. Nobody there had any particular need of him; and a solitary walk is not a particularly enlivening performance when one has left an entire household occupied and animated behind. As he wound his way down the bank he saw another passenger on the road before him, who was not of a description of man much known on Kirtell-side. It seemed to Will that he had seen this figure somewhere before. It must be one of the regiment, one of the gentlemen of whom the Cottage was a little jealous, and who were thought to seek occasions of visiting Kirtell oftener than politeness required. As Will went on, however, he saw that the stranger was somebody whom he had never seen before, and curiosity was a lively faculty in him, and readily awakened. Neither was the unknown indifferent to Will’s appearance or approach; on the contrary, he turned round at the sound of the youth’s step and scrutinized him closely, and lingered that he might be overtaken. He was tall, and a handsome man, still young, and with an air which only much traffic with the world confers. No man could have got that look and aspect who had lived all his life on Kirtell; and even Will, inexperienced as he was, could recognise this. It did not occur to him, quick as his intellect was at putting things together, who it was; but a little expectation awoke in his mind as he quickened his steps to overtake the stranger, who was clearly waiting to be overtaken.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, as soon as Wilfrid had come up to him; “are you young Ochterlony? I mean, one of the young Ochterlonys?”

“No,” said Will, “and yet yes; I am not young Ochterlony, but I am one of the young Ochterlonys, as you say.”

Upon this his new companion gave a keen look at him, as if discerning some meaning under the words.

“I thought so,” he said; “and I am Major Percival, whom you may have heard of. It is a queer question, but I suppose there is no doubt that my wife is up there?”

He gave a little jerk with his hand as he spoke in the direction of the Cottage. He was standing on the very same spot where he had seen Winnie coming to him the day they first pledged their troth; and though he was far from being a good man, he remembered it, having still a certain love for his wife, and the thought gave bitterness to his tone.

“Yes, she is there,” said Will.

“Then I will thank you to come back with me,” said Percival. “I don’t want to go and send in my name, like a stranger. Take me in by the garden, where you enter by the window. I suppose nobody can have any objection to my seeing my wife: your aunt, perhaps, or your mother?”

“Perhaps she does not wish to see you,” said Will.

The stranger laughed.

“It is a pleasant suggestion,” he said; “but at least you cannot object to admit me, and let me try.”

Wilfrid might have hesitated if he had been more fully contented with everybody belonging to him; but, to tell the truth, he knew no reason why Winnie’s husband should not see her. He had not been sufficiently interested to wish to fathom the secret, and he had accepted, not caring much about it, Aunt Agatha’s oft-repeated declaration, that their visitor had arrived so suddenly to give her “a delightful surprise.” Wilfrid did not care much about the matter, and he made no inquiries into it. He turned accordingly with the new-comer, not displeased to be the first of the house to make acquaintance with him. Percival had all a man’s advantage over his wife in respect to wear and tear. She had lost her youth, her freshness, and all that gave its chief charm to her beauty, but he had lost very little in outward appearance. Poor Winnie’s dissipations were the mildest pleasures in comparison with his, and yet he had kept even his youth, while hers was gone for ever. And he had not the air of a bad man – perhaps he was not actually a bad man. He did whatever he liked without acknowledging any particular restraint of duty, or truth, or even honour, except the limited standard of honour current among men of his class – but he had no distinct intention of being wicked; and he was, beyond dispute, a little touched by seeing, as he had just done, the scene of that meeting which had decided Winnie’s fate. He went up the bank considerably softened, and disposed to be very kind. It was he who had been in the wrong in their last desperate struggle, and he found it easy to forgive himself; and Aunt Agatha’s garden, and the paths, and flower-pots he remembered so well, softened him more and more. If he had gone straight in, and nothing had happened, he would have kissed his wife in the most amiable way, and forgiven her, and been in perfect amity with everybody – but this was not how it was to be.

Winnie was sitting as usual, unoccupied, indoors. As she was not doing anything her eyes were free to wander further than if they had been more particularly engaged, and at that moment, as it happened, they were turned in the direction of the window from which she had so often watched Sir Edward’s light. All at once she started to her feet. It was what she had looked for from the first; what, perhaps, in the stagnation of the household quiet here she had longed for. High among the roses and waving honeysuckles she caught a momentary glimpse of a head which she could have recognised at any distance. At that sight all the excitement of the interrupted struggle rushed back into her heart. A pang of fierce joy, and hatred, and opposition moved her. There he stood who had done her so much wrong; who had trampled on all her feelings and insulted her, and yet pretended to love her, and dared to seek her. Winnie did not say anything to her companions; indeed she was too much engrossed at the moment to remember that she had any companions. She turned and fled without a word, disappearing swiftly, noiselessly, in an instant, as people have a gift of doing when much excited. She was shut up in her room, with her door locked, before any one knew she had stirred. It is true he was not likely to come upstairs and assail her by force; but she did not think of that. She locked her door and sat down, with her heart beating, and her breath coming quick, expecting, hoping – she would herself have said fearing – an attack.

Winnie thought it was a long time before Aunt Agatha came, softly, tremulously, to her door, but in reality it was but a few minutes. He had come in, and had taken matters with a high hand, and had demanded to see his wife. “He will think it is we who are keeping you away from him. He will not believe you do not want to come,” said poor Aunt Agatha, at the door.

“Nothing shall induce me to see him,” said Winnie, admitting her. “I told you so: nothing in the world – not if he were to go down on his knees – not if he were – ”

“My dear love, I don’t think he means to go down on his knees,” said Aunt Agatha, anxiously. “He does not think he is in the wrong. Oh, Winnie, my darling! – if it was only for the sake of other people – to keep them from talking, you know – ”

“Aunt Agatha, you are mistaken if you think I care,” said Winnie. “As for Mary’s friends, they are old-fashioned idiots. They think a woman should shut herself up like an Eastern slave when her husband is not there. I have done nothing to be ashamed of. And he – Oh, if you knew how he had insulted me! – Oh, if you only knew! I tell you I will not consent to see him, for nothing in this world.”

Winnie was a different woman as she spoke. She was no longer the worn and faded creature she had been. Her eyes were sparkling, her cheeks glowing. It was a clouded and worn magnificence, but still it was a return to her old splendour.

“Oh, Winnie, my dear love, you are fond of him in spite of all,” said Aunt Agatha. “It will all come right, my darling, yet. You are fond of each other in spite of all.”

“You don’t know what you say,” said Winnie, in a blaze of indignation. – “Fond of him! – if you could but know! Tell him to think of how we parted. Tell him I will never more trust myself near him again.”

It was with this decision, immovable and often repeated, that Miss Seton at last returned to her undesired guest. But she sent for Mary to come and speak to her before she went into the drawing-room. Aunt Agatha was full of schemes and anxious desires. She could not make people do what was right, but if she could so plot and manage appearances as that they should seem to do what was right, surely that was better than nothing. She sent for Mrs. Ochterlony into the dining-room, and she began to take out the best silver, and arrange the green finger-glasses, to lose no time.