Madonna Mary

These were but momentary breaks in the long stretch of pain, and terror, and lingering and sickening hope. Day after day went and came, and Mary took no note of them, and knew nothing more of them than as they grew light and dark upon the pale face of her boy. Hugh had to leave her by times, but there was no break to her in the long-continued vigil. His affairs had to go on, his work to be resumed, and his life to proceed again as if it had never come to that full stop. But as for Mary, it began to appear to her as if she had lived all her life in that sick-room. Then Islay came, always steady and trustworthy. This was towards the end, when it was certain that the crisis must be approaching for good or for evil. And poor Aunt Agatha in her anxiety and her loneliness had fallen ill too, and wrote plaintive, suffering letters, which moved Mary’s heart even in the great stupor of her own anxiety. It was then that Hugh went, much against his will, to the Cottage, at his mother’s entreaty, to carry comfort to the poor old lady. He had to go to Earlston to see after his own business, and from thence to Aunt Agatha, whose anxiety was no less great at a distance than theirs was at hand; and Hugh was to be telegraphed for at once if there was “any change.” Any change! – that was the way they had got to speak, saying it in a whisper, as if afraid to trust the very air with words which implied so much. Hugh stole into the sick room before he went away, and saw poor Will, or at least a long white outline of a face, with two big startling eyes, black and shining, which must be Will’s, lying back on the pillows; and he heard a babble of weary words about his mother and Nelly, and what had he done? and withdrew as noiselessly as he entered, with the tears in his eyes, and that poignant and intolerable anguish in his heart with which the young receive the first intimation that one near to them must go away. It seemed an offence to Hugh, as he left the house to see so many lads in the streets, who were of Will’s age, and so many children encumbering the place everywhere, unthought of, uncared for, unloved, to whom almost it would be a benefit to die. But it was not one of them who was to be taken, but Will, poor Will, the youngest, who had been led astray, and had still upon his mind a sense of guilt. Hugh was glad to go to work at Earlston to get the thought out of his mind, glad to occupy himself about the museum, and to try to forget that his brother was slowly approaching the crisis, after which perhaps there might be no hope; and his heart beat loud in his ears every time he heard a sound, dreading that it might be the promised summons, and that “some change” – dreadful intimation – had occurred; and it was in the same state of mind that he went on to the Cottage, looking into the railway people’s faces at every station to see if, perhaps, they had heard something. He was not much like carrying comfort to anybody. He had never been within reach of the shadow of death before, except in the case of his uncle; and his uncle was old, and it was natural he should die – but Will! Whenever he said, or heard, or even thought the name his heart seemed to swell, and grow “grit,” as the Cumberland folks said, and climb into his throat.

But yet there was consolation to Hugh even at such a moment. When he arrived at the Cottage he found Nelly there in attendance upon Aunt Agatha; and Nelly was full of wistful anxiety, and had a world of silent questions in her eyes. He had not written to her in answer to her letter, though it had done so much for him. Nobody had written to the girl, who was obliged to stay quiet at home, and ask no questions, and occupy herself about other matters. And no doubt Nelly had suffered and might have made herself very unhappy, and felt herself deeply neglected and injured, had she been of that manner of nature. She had heard only the evident facts which everybody knew of – that Will had been taken ill, and that Hugh was in Liverpool, and even Islay had been sent for; but whether Will’s illness was anything more than ordinary disease, or how the family affairs, which lay underneath, were being settled, Nelly could not tell. Nobody knew; not Aunt Agatha, nor Mrs. Kirkman, though it was her hand which had helped to set everything in motion. Sometimes it occurred to Nelly that Mr. Hugh might have written to her; sometimes she was disposed to fear that he might be angry – might think she had no right to interfere. Men did not like people to interfere with their affairs, she said to herself sometimes, even when they meant – oh! the very kindest; and Nelly dried her eyes and would acknowledge to herself that it was just. But when Hugh came, and was in the same room with her, and sat by her side, and was just the same – nay, perhaps, if that could be, more than just the same – then it was more than Nelly’s strength of mind could do to keep from questioning him with her eyes. She gave little glances at him which asked – “Is all well?” – in language plainer than words; and Hugh’s eyes, overcast as they were by that shadow of death which was upon them, could not answer promptly – “All is well.” And Aunt Agatha knew nothing of this secret which lay between them; so far as Miss Seton had been informed as yet, Will’s running away was but a boyish freak, and his illness an ordinary fever. And yet somehow it made Hugh take a brighter view of everything – made him think less drearily of Will’s danger, and be less alarmed about the possible arrival of a telegram, when he read the question in Nelly Askell’s eyes.

But it was the morning after his arrival before he could make any response. Aunt Agatha, who was an invalid, did not come downstairs early, and the two young creatures were left to each other’s company. Then there ensued a little interval of repose to Hugh’s mind, which had been so much disturbed of late, which he did not feel willing to break even by entering upon matters which might produce a still greater confidence and rapprochement. All that had been passing lately had given a severe shock to his careless youth, which, before that, had never thought deeply of anything. And to feel himself thus separated as it were from the world of anxiety and care he had been living in, and floated in to this quiet nook, and seated here all tranquil in a nameless exquisite happiness, with Nelly by him, and nobody to interfere with him, did him good, poor fellow. He did not care to break the spell even to satisfy her, nor perhaps to produce a more exquisite delight for himself. The rest, and the sweet unexpressed sympathy, and the soft atmosphere that was about him, gave Hugh all the consolation of which at this moment he was capable; and he was only a man – and he was content to be thus consoled without inquiring much whether it was as satisfactory for her. It was only when the ordinary routine of the day began, and disturbed the tête-à-tête, that he bethought him of how much remained to be explained to Nelly; and then he asked her to go out with him to the garden. “Come and show me the roses we used to water,” said Hugh; “you remember?” And so they went out together, with perhaps, if that were possible, a more entire possession of each other’s society – a more complete separation from everybody else in the world.

They went to see the roses, and though they were fading and shabby, with the last flowers overblown and disconsolate, and the leaves dropping off the branches, that melancholy sight made little impression on Nelly and Hugh. The two indulged in certain reminiscences of what had been, “you remember?” – comings back of the sweet recent untroubled past, such as give to the pleasant present and fair future their greatest charm. And then all at once Hugh stopped short, and looked in his companion’s face. He said it without the least word of introduction, leaping at once into the heart of the subject, in a way which gave poor Nelly no warning, no time to prepare.

“Nelly,” he said all at once, “I never thanked you for your letter.”

“Oh, Mr. Hugh!” cried Nelly, and her heart gave a sudden thump, and the water sprang to her eyes. She was so much startled that she put her hand to her side to relieve the sudden panting of her breath. “I was going to ask you if you had been angry?” she added, after a pause.

“Angry! How could I be angry?” said Hugh.

“You might have thought it very impertinent of me talking of things I had no business with,” said Nelly, with downcast eyes.

“Impertinent! Perhaps you suppose I would think an angel impertinent if it came down from heaven for a moment, and showed a little interest in my concerns?” said Hugh. “And do you really think you have no business with me, Nelly? I did not think you were so indifferent to your friends.”

“To be sure we are very old friends,” said Nelly, with a blush and a smile; but she saw by instinct that such talk was dangerous. And then she put on her steady little face and looked up at him to put an end to all this nonsense. – “I want so much to hear about dear Mrs. Ochterlony,” she said.

“And I have never told you that it had come all right,” said Hugh. “I was so busy at first I had no time for writing letters; and last night there was Aunt Agatha, who knows nothing about it; and this morning – well this morning you know, I was thinking of nothing but you – ”

“Oh, thank you,” said Nelly, with a little confusion, “but tell me more, please. You said it was all right – ”

“Yes,” said Hugh, “but I don’t know if it ever would have come right but for your letter; I was down as low as ever a man could be; I had no heart for anything; I did not know what to think even about my – about anything. And then your dear little letter came. It was that that made me something of a man again. And I made up my mind to face it and not to give in. And then all at once the proof came – some people who lived at Gretna and had seen the marriage. Did you go there?”

“No,” said Nelly, with a tremulous voice; and now whatever might come of it, it would have been quite impossible for her to raise her eyes.

“Ah, I see,” said Hugh, “it was only to show me what to do – but all the same it was your doing. If you had not written to me like that, I was more likely to have gone and hanged myself, than to have minded my business and seen the people. Nelly, I will always say it was you.”

“No – no,” said Nelly, withdrawing, not without some difficulty, her hand out of his. “Never mind me; I am so glad – I am so very glad; but then I don’t know about dear Mrs. Ochterlony – and oh, poor Will!”

His brother’s name made Hugh fall back a little. He had very nearly forgotten everything just then except Nelly herself. But when he remembered that his brother, perhaps, might be dying —

“You know how ill he is,” he said, with a little shudder. “It must be selfish to be happy. I had almost forgotten about poor Will.”

“Oh, no, no,” cried Nelly; “we must not forget about him; he could never mean it – he would have come to himself one day. Oh, Mr. Hugh – ”

“Don’t call me that,” cried the young man; “you say Will – why should I be different. Nelly? If I thought you cared for him more than for me – ”

“Oh, hush!” said Nelly, “how can you think of such things when he is so ill, and Mrs. Ochterlony in such trouble. And besides, you are different,” she added hastily; and Hugh saw the quick crimson going up to her hair, over her white brow and her pretty neck, and again forgot Will, and everything else in the world.

“Nelly,” he said, “you must care for me most. I don’t mind about anything without that. I had rather be in poor Will’s place if you think of somebody else just the same as of me. Nelly, look here – there is nobody on earth that I can ever feel for as I feel for you.”

“Oh, Mr. Hugh!” cried Nelly. She had only one hand to do anything with, for he held the other fast, and she put that up to her eyes, to which the tears had come, though she did not very well know why.

“It is quite true,” cried the eager young man. “You may think I should not say it now; but Nelly, if there are ill news shall I not want you to comfort me? and if there are good news you will be as glad as I am. Oh, Nelly, don’t keep silent like that, and turn your head away – you know there is nobody in the world that loves you like me.”

“Oh, please don’t say any more just now,” said Nelly, through her tears. “When I think of poor Will who is perhaps – And he and I were babies together; it is not right to be so happy when poor Will – Yes, oh yes – another time I will not mind.”

And even then poor Nelly did not mind. They were both so young, and the sick boy was far away from them, not under their eyes as it were; and even whatever might happen, it could not be utter despair for Hugh and Nelly. They were selfish so far as they could not help being selfish – they had their moment of delight standing there under the faded roses, with the dead leaves dropping at their feet. Neither autumn nor any other chill – neither anxiety nor suspense, nor even the shadow of death could keep them asunder. Had not they the more need of each other if trouble was coming? That was Hugh’s philosophy, and Nelly’s heart could not say him nay.

But when that moment was over Aunt Agatha’s voice was heard calling from an upper window. “Hugh, Hugh!” the old lady called. “I see a man leaving the station with a letter in his hand – It is the man who brings the telegraph – Oh, Hugh, my dear boy!”

Hugh did not stop to hear any more. He woke up in a moment out of himself, and rushed forth upon the road to meet the messenger, leaving Nelly and his joy behind him. He felt as if he had been guilty then, but as he flew along the road he had no time to think. As for poor Nelly, she took to walking up and down the lawn, keeping him in sight, with limbs that trembled under her, and eyes half blind with tears and terror. Nelly had suffered to some extent from the influence of Mrs. Kirkman’s training. She could not feel sure that to be very happy, nay blessed, to feel one’s self full of joy and unmingled content, was not something of an offence to God. Perhaps it was selfish and wicked at that moment, and now the punishment might be coming. If it should be so, would it not be her fault. She who had let herself be persuaded, who ought to have known better. Aunt Agatha sat at her window, sobbing, and saying little prayers aloud without knowing it. “God help my Mary! Oh God, help my poor Mary: give her strength to bear it!” was what Aunt Agatha said. And poor Nelly for her part put up another prayer, speechless, in an agony – “God forgive us,” she said, in her innocent heart.

But all at once both of them stopped praying, stopped weeping, and gave one simultaneous cry, that thrilled through the whole grey landscape. And this was why it was; – Hugh, a distant figure on the road, had met the messenger, had torn open the precious despatch. It was too far off to tell them in words, or make any other intelligible sign. What he did was to fling his hat into the air and give a wild shout, which they saw rather than heard. Was it all well? Nelly went to the gate to meet him, and held by it, and Aunt Agatha came tottering downstairs. And what he did next was to tear down the road like a racehorse, the few country folks about it staring at him as if he were mad, – and to seize Nelly in his arms in open day, on the open road, and kiss her publicly before Aunt Agatha, and Peggy, and all the world. “She said she would not mind,” cried Hugh, breathlessly, coming headlong into the garden, “as soon as we heard that Will was going to get well; and there’s the despatch, Aunt Agatha, and Nelly is to be my wife.”

This was how two joyful events in the Ochterlony family intimated themselves at the same moment to Bliss Seton and her astonished house.

CHAPTER XLVIII

AND this was how it all ended, so far as any end can be said to have come to any episode in human history. While Will was still only recovering – putting his recollections slowly together – and not very certain about them, what they were, Hugh and his mother went through the preliminaries necessary to have Mrs. Ochterlony’s early marriage proved before the proper court – a proceeding which Mary did not shrink from when the time came that she could look calmly over the whole matter, and decide upon the best course. She was surprised to see her own unfinished letter preserved so carefully in Hugh’s pocket-book. “Put it in the fire,” she said to him, “it will only put us in mind of painful things if you keep it;” and it did not occur to Mary why it was that her son smiled and put it back in its place, and kissed her hand, which had grown thin and white in her long seclusion. And then he told her of Nelly, and Mrs. Ochterlony was glad – glad to the bottom of her heart, and yet touched with a momentary pang for which she was angry with herself. He had stood by her so in all this time of trial, and now he was about to remove himself a little, ever so little further off from her, though he was her first-born and her pride; but then she despised herself, who could grudge, even for half a moment, his reward to Hugh, and made haste to make amends for it, even though he was unconscious of the offence.

“I always thought she should have been my child,” Mary said, “the very first time I saw her. I had once one like her; and I hungered and thirsted for Nelly when I saw her first. I did not think of getting her like this. I will love her as if she were my own, Hugh.”

“And so she will be your own,” said Hugh, not knowing the difference. And he was so happy that the sight of him made his mother happy, though she had care enough in the meantime for her individual share.

For it may be supposed that Will, such a youth as he was, did not come out of his fever changed and like a child. Such changes are few in this world, and a great sickness is not of necessity a moral agent. When the first languor and comfort of his convalescence was over, his mind began to revive and to join things together, as was natural – and he did not know where or how he had broken off in the confused and darkling story that returned to his brain as he pondered. He had forgotten, or never understood about all that happened on the day he was taken ill, but yet a dreamy impression that some break had come to his plans, that there was some obstacle, something that made an end of his rights, as he still called them in his mind, hovered about his recollections. He was as frank and open as it was natural to his character to be, for the first few days after he began to recover, before he had made much progress with his recollections; and then he became moody and thoughtful and perplexed, not knowing how to piece the story out. This was perhaps, next to death itself, the thing which Mary had most dreaded, and she saw that though his sickness had been all but death, it had not changed the character or identity of the pale boy absorbed in his own thoughts, uncommunicating and unyielding, whose weakness compelled him to obey her like an infant in everything external, yet whose heart gave her no such obedience. It was as unlike Hugh’s frank exuberance of mind, and Islay’s steady but open soul, as could be conceived. But yet he was her boy as much as either; as dear, perhaps even more bound to her by the evil he had tried to do, and by the suffering he himself had borne. And now she had to think not only how to remedy the wrong he had attempted, and to put such harm out of his and everybody’s power, but to set the discord in himself at rest, and to reconcile the jangled chords. It was this that gave her a preoccupied look even while Hugh spoke to her of all his plans. It was more difficult than appearing before the court, harder work perhaps than anything she had yet had in her hands to do – and hard as it was, it was she who had to seek the occasion and begin.

She had been sitting with her boy, one winterly afternoon, when all was quiet in the house – they were still in the lodging in Liverpool, not far from Mr. Penrose’s, to which Will had been removed when his illness began; he was not well enough yet to be removed, and the doctors were afraid of cold, and very reluctant to send him, in this weak state, still further to the north. She had been reading to him, but he was evidently paying no attention to the reading, and she had left off and began to talk, but he had been impatient of the talk. He lay on the sofa by the fire, with his pale head against the pillow, looking thin, spectral, and shadowy, and yet with a weight of weary thought upon his overhanging brow, and in his close compressed lips, which grieved his mother’s heart.

“Will,” she said suddenly, “I should like to speak to you frankly about what you have on your mind. You are thinking of what happened before you were taken ill?”

“Yes,” he said, turning quickly upon her his great hollow eyes, shining with interest and surprise; and then he stopped short, and compressed his upper lip again, and looked at her with a watchful eye, conscious of the imperfection of his own memory, and unwilling to commit himself.

“I will go over it all, that we may understand each other,” said Mary, though the effort made her own cheek pale. “You were told that I had been married in India just before you were born, and you were led to believe that your brothers were – were – illegitimate, and that you were your father’s heir. I don’t know if they ever told you, my poor boy, that I had been married in Scotland long before; at all events, they made you believe – ”

“Made me believe!” said Will, with feverish haste; “do people generally marry each other more than once? I don’t see how you can say ‘made me believe.’”

“Well, Will, perhaps it seemed very clear as it was told to you,” said Mary, with a sigh; “and you have even so much warrant for your mistake, that your father too took fright, and thought because everybody was dead that saw us married that we ought to be married again; and I yielded to his wish, though I knew it was wrong. But it appears everybody was not dead; two people who were present have come to light very unexpectedly, and we have applied to that Court – that new Court, you know, where they treat such things – to have my marriage proved, and Hugh’s legitimacy declared. It will cost some money, and it will not be pleasant to me; but better that than such a mistake should ever be possible again.”

Will looked in his mother’s face, and knew and saw beyond all question that she told him was absolute fact; not even truth, but fact; the sort of thing that can be proved by witnesses and established in law. His mouth which had been compressed so close, relaxed; his underlip drooped, his eyes hid themselves, as it were, under their lids. A sudden blank of mortification and humbled pride came over his soul. A mistake, simply a mistake, such a blunder as any fool might make, an error about simple facts which he might have set right if he had tried. And now for ever and ever he was nothing but the youngest son; doubly indebted to everybody belonging to him; indebted to them for forgiveness, forbearance, tenderness, and services of every kind. He saw it all, and his heart rose up against it; he had tried to wrong them, and it was his punishment that they forgave him. It all seemed so hopeless and useless to struggle against, that he turned his face from the light, and felt as if it would be a relief if he could be able to be ill again, or if he had wounds that he could have secretly unbound; so that he might get to die, and be covered over and abandoned, and have no more to bear. Such thoughts were about as foreign to Mrs. Ochterlony’s mind as any human cogitations could be, and yet she divined them, as it were, in the greatness of her pity and love.

“Will,” she said, speaking softly in the silence which had been unbroken for long, “I want you to think if this had been otherwise, what it would have been for me. I would have been a woman shut out from all good women. I would have been only all the more wicked and wretched that I had succeeded in concealing my sin. You would have blushed for your mother whenever you had to name her name. You could not have kept me near you, because my presence would have shut against you every honest house. You would have been obliged to conceal me and my shame in the darkness – to cover me over in some grave with no name on it – to banish me to the ends of the earth – ”

“Mother!” said Will, rising up in his gaunt length and paleness on the sofa. He did not understand it. He saw her figure expanding, as it were, her eyes shining in the twilight like two great mournful stars, the hot colour rising to her face, her voice labouring with an excitement which had been long pent up and found no channel; and the thrill and jar in it of suppressed passion, made a thrill in his heart.

“And your father!” she went on, always with growing emotion, “whom you are all proud of, who died for his duty and left his name without a blot; – he would have been an impostor like me, a man who had taken base advantage of a woman, and deceived all his friends, and done the last wrong to his children, – we two that never wronged man nor woman, that would have given our lives any day for any one of you, – that is what you would have made us out.”

“Mother!” said Will. He could not bear it any longer. His heart was up at last, and spoke. He came to her, crept to her in his weakness, and laid his long feeble arms round her as she sat hiding her face. “Mother! don’t say that. I must have been mad. Not what I would have made you out – ”

“Oh, my poor Will, my boy, my darling!” said Mary, “not you – I never meant you!”

And she clasped her boy close, and held him to her, not knowing what she meant. And then she roused herself to sudden recollection of his feebleness, and took him back to his sofa, and brooded over him like a bird over her nest. And after awhile Islay came in, bringing fresh air and news, and a breath from the outer world. And poor Will’s heart being still so young, and having at last touched the depths, took a rebound and came up, not like, and yet not unlike the heart of a little child. From that time his moodiness, his heavy brow, his compressed lip, grew less apparent, and out of his long ponderings with himself there came sweeter fruits. He had been on the edge of a precipice, and he had not known it: and now that after the danger was over he had discovered that danger, such a thrill came over him as comes sometimes upon those who are the most foolhardy in the moment of peril. He had not seen the blackness of the pit nor the terror of it until he had escaped.

But probably it was a relief to all, as it was a great relief to poor Will, when his doctor proposed a complete change for him, and a winter in the South. Mary had moved about very little since she brought her children home from India, and her spirit sank before the thought of travel in foreign parts, and among unknown tongues. But she was content when she saw the light come back to her boy’s eye. And when he was well enough to move, they went away[A] (#n__2_17) together, Will and his mother, Mary and her boy. He was the one who needed her most.

[A] (#n__2_17) They went to San Remo, if any one would like to know, for no particular reason that I can tell, except that the beloved physician, Dr. Antonio, has thrown the shield of his protection over that picturesque little place, with its golden orange groves and its delicious sea.