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“Oh how deliciously comfortable you are here,” cried Emma, throwing herself down on the grass. “I came out to have a little fresh air and see after those tiresome children. I am sure they have been teasing you all day long; Nelly is not half severe enough, and nurse spoils them; and after a day in the open air like this, they make my head like to split when they come home at night.”
“They have not been teasing me,” said Aunt Agatha; “they have been very good, and I have been sitting here for a long time talking to Nelly. I wanted her to tell me something about my dear child, Mary’s own sister – Mrs. Percival, you know.”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Askell, making a troubled pause, – “and I hope to goodness you did not tell Miss Seton anything that was unpleasant,” she said sharply, turning to Nelly. “You must not mind anything she said,” the foolish little woman added; “she was only a child and she did not know. You should have asked me.”
“What could there be that was not pleasant?” cried Aunt Agatha. “If there is anything unpleasant that can be said about my Winnie, that is precisely what I ought to hear.”
“Mamma!” cried Nelly, in what was intended to be a whisper of warning, though her anxiety made it shrill and audible. But Emma was not a woman to be kept back.
“Goodness, child, you have pulled my dress out of the gathers,” she said. “Do you think I don’t know what I am talking about? When I say unpleasant, I am sure I don’t mean anything serious; I mean only, you know, that – and then her husband is such a man – I am sure I don’t wonder at it, for my part.”
“What is it your mamma does not wonder at, Nelly?” said Aunt Agatha, who had turned white and cold, and leaned back all feeble and broken upon the old tree.
“Her husband neglected her shamefully,” said Emma; “it was a great sin for her friends to let her marry him; I am sure Mrs. Ochterlony knew what a dreadful character he had. And, poor thing, when she found herself so deserted – Askell would never let me see much of her, and I had always such wretched health; but I always stood up for Mrs. Percival. She was young, and she had nobody to stand by her – ”
“Oh, mamma,” cried Nelly, “don’t you see what you are doing? I think she is going to faint – and it will be all our fault.”
“Oh, no; I am not going to faint,” said Aunt Agatha, feebly; but when she laid back her head upon Nelly’s shoulder, who had come to support her, and closed her eyes, she was like death, so pale did she look and ghastly; and then Mrs. Askell in her turn took fright.
“Goodness gracious! run and get some water, Will,” she cried to Wilfrid, who had rejoined them. “I am sure there was nothing in what I said to make anybody faint. She was talked about a little, that was all – there was no harm in it. We have all been talked about, sometime or other. Why, fancy what a talk there was about our Madonna, her very self.”
“About my mother?” said Wilfrid, standing bolt upright between Aunt Agatha, in her half swoon, and silly little Emma, who sat, a heap of muslin and ribbons, upon the grass. He had managed to hear more about Mrs. Percival than anybody knew, and was very indifferent on the subject. And he was not alarmed about Aunt Agatha; but he was jealous of his mother, and could not bear even the smallest whisper in which there was any allusion to her.
“Goodness, boy, run and get some water!” cried Mrs. Askell, jumping up from the grass in her fright. “I did not mean anything; there was nothing to be put out about – indeed there was not, Miss Seton. It was only a little silly talk; what happens to us all, you know: not half, nor quarter so bad as – Oh, goodness gracious, Nelly, don’t make those ridiculous signs, as if it was you that was my mother, and I did not know what to say.”
“Will!” said Nelly. Her voice was perfectly quiet and steady, but it made him start as he stood there jealous, and curious, and careless of everybody else. When he met her eye, he grew red and frowned, and made a momentary stand against her; but the next moment turned resolutely and went away. If it was for water, Aunt Agatha did not need it. She came to herself without any restorative; and she kissed Nelly, who had been whispering in her ear. “Yes, my dear, I know you are right – it could have been nothing,” she said faintly, with a wan sort of smile; “but I am not very strong, and the heat, you know – ” And when she got up, she took the girl’s arm, to steady her. Thus they went back to the house, Mrs. Askell following, holding up her hands in amazement and self-justification. “Could I tell that she was so weak?” Emma said to herself. “Goodness gracious, how could anybody say it was my fault?” As for Nelly, she said nothing; but supported her trembling companion, and held the soft old hand firm on her arm. And when they approached the house, Nelly, carried away by her feelings, did, what in full possession of herself she never would have done. She bent down to Aunt Agatha’s ear – for though she was not tall, she was a little taller at that moment than the poor old lady who was bowed down with weakness and the blow she had just received. “Mamma says things without meaning them,” said Nelly, with an undutiful frankness, which it is to be hoped was forgiven her. “She does not mean any harm, and sometimes she says whatever comes into her head.”
“Yes, my dear, your mamma is a very silly little woman,” said Aunt Agatha, with a little of her old spirit; and she gave Nelly, who was naturally much startled by this unexpected vivacity, a kiss as she reached the door of her room and left her. The door closed, and the girl had no pretext nor right to follow. She turned away feeling as if she had received a sudden prick which had stimulated all the blood in her veins, but yet yearning in her good little heart over Aunt Agatha who was alone. Miss Seton’s room, to which she had retired, was on the ground floor, as were all the sitting-rooms in the house, and Nelly, as she turned away, suddenly met Wilfrid, and came to a stand-still before him looking him severely in the face.
“I say, Nell!” said Will.
“And I say, Will!” said Nelly. “I will never like you nor care for you any more. You are a shocking, selfish, disagreeable prig. To stand there and never mind when poor Aunt Agatha was fainting – all for the sake of a piece of gossip. I don’t want ever to speak to you again.”
“It was not a piece of gossip, – it was something about my mother,” said Will, in self-defence.
“And what if it were fifty times about your mother?” cried Nelly, – “what right had you to stand and listen when there was something to do? Oh, I am so ashamed! and after talking to you so much and thinking you were not so bad – ”
“Nelly,” said Wilfrid, “when there is anything said about my mother, I have always a right to listen what it is – ”
“Well, then, go and listen,” said Nelly, with indignation, “at the keyhole if you like; but don’t come afterwards and talk to me. There, good-bye, I am going to the children. Mamma is in the drawing-room, and if you like to go there I dare say you will hear a great many things; I don’t care for gossip myself, so I may as well bid you good-bye.”
And she went out by the open door with fine youthful majesty, leaving poor Will in a very doubtful state of mind behind her. He knew that in this particular Nelly did not understand him, and perhaps was not capable of sympathizing in the jealous watch he kept over his mother. But still Nelly was pleasant to look at and pleasant to talk to, and he did not want to be cast off by her. He stood and hesitated for a moment – but he could see the sun shining at the open door, and hear the river, and the birds, and the sound of Nelly’s step – and the end was that he went after her, there being nothing in the present crisis, as far as he could see, to justify a stern adoption of duty rather than pleasure; and there was nobody in the world but Nelly, as he had often explained to himself, by whom, when he talked, he stood the least chance of being understood.
This was how the new generation settled the matter. As for Aunt Agatha she cried over it in the solitude of her chamber, but by-and-by recovered too, thinking that after all it was only that silly woman. And she wrote an anxious note to Mrs. Percival, begging her now she was in England to come and see them at the Cottage. “I am getting old, my dear love, and I may not be long for this world, and you must let me see you before I die,” Aunt Agatha said. She thought she felt weaker than usual after her agitation, and regarded this sentence, which was in a high degree effective and sensational, with some pride. She felt sure that such a thought would go to her Winnie’s heart.
And so the Cottage lapsed once more into tranquillity, and into that sense that everything must go well which comes natural to the mind after a long interval of peace.
CHAPTER XXVII
“I like all your people, mamma,” said Hugh, “and I like little Nelly best of all. She is a little jewel, and as fresh as a little rose.”
“And such a thing might happen as that she might make you a nice little wife one of these days,” said Aunt Agatha, who was always a match-maker in her heart.
Upon which Hugh nodded and laughed and grew slightly red, as became his years. “I had always the greatest confidence in your good sense, my dear Aunt,” he said in his laughing way, and never so much as thought of Wilfrid in the big Indian chair, who had been Nelly’s constant companion for at least one long year.
“I should like to know what business he has with Nelly,” said Will between his teeth. “A great hulking fellow, old enough to be her father.”
“She would never have you, Will,” said Hugh, laughing; “girls always despise a fellow of their own age. So you need not look sulky, old boy. For that matter I doubt very much if she’d have me.”
“You are presumptuous boys,” said Mrs. Ochterlony, “to think she would have either of you. She has too much to do at home, and too many things to think of. I should like to have her all to myself,” said Mary, with a sigh. She sighed, but she smiled; for though her boys could not be with her as Nelly might have been, still all was well with them, and the heart of their mother was content.
“My uncle wants you all to come over to Earlston,” said Hugh. “I think the poor old boy is beginning to give in. He looks very shaky in the morning when he comes downstairs. I’d like to know what you think of him, mamma; I don’t think his wanting to see you all is a good sign. He’s awfully good when you come to know him,” said Hugh, clearing his throat.
“Do you mean that Francis Ochterlony is ill?” said Aunt Agatha, with sudden interest. “Your mother must go and see him, but you must not ask me; I am an old woman, and I have old-fashioned notions, you know – but a married lady can go anywhere. Besides he would not care for seeing me,” Aunt Agatha added, with a slightly-wistful look, “it is so very – very many years since we used to – ”
“I know he wants to see you,” said Hugh, who could not help laughing a little; “and with so many people in the house I think you might risk it, Aunt Agatha. He stands awfully in awe of you, I can tell you. And there are to be a lot of people. It’s a kind of coming of age affair,” said Hugh. “I am to be set up on Psyche’s pedestal, and everybody is to look at me and sing out, ‘Behold the heir!’ That’s the sort of thing it’s to be. You can bring anybody you like, you two ladies – little Nelly Askell, and all that sort of thing,” he added, with a conscious laugh; and grew red again, not at thought of Nelly Askell, but with the thrill which “all that sort of thing” naturally brought into the young man’s veins.
The face of Wilfrid grew darker and darker as he sat and listened. It was not a precocious passion for Nelly Askell that moved him. If Nelly had been his sister, his heart might still have swelled with a very similar sentiment. “He’ll have her too,” was what the boy said to himself. There was no sort of justice or distribution in it; Hugh was the lucky fellow who had everything, while no personal appropriation whatever was to be permitted to Wilfrid. He could not engross his mother as he would have liked to do, for she loved Hugh and Islay just as well as she loved himself, and had friends and acquaintances, and people who came and talked, and occupied her time, and even one who was supposed to have the audacity to admire her. And there was no one else to supply the imperious necessity which existed in Will’s mind, to be the chief object of somebody’s thoughts. His curate had a certain awe of him, which was satisfactory enough in its way; but nobody watched and worshipped poor Will, or did anything more than love him in a reasonable unadoring way; and he had no sister whom he could make his slave, nor humble friend to whom he could be the centre of interest. Nelly’s coming had been a God-send to the boy. She had found out his discontent, and taken to comforting him instinctively, and had been introduced into a world new to her by means of his fancies: and the budding woman had regarded the budding man with that curiosity, and wonder, and respect, and interest, which exists by nature between the two representatives of humanity. And now here was Hugh, who, not content with being an Oxford scholar, and the heir of Earlston, and his mother’s eldest son, and Sir Edward’s favourite, and the most interesting member of the family to the parish in general, was about to seize on Nelly too. Will, though he was perhaps of a jealous temper, was not mean or envious, nor did he grudge his brother his elevation. But he thought it hard that all should go to one, and that there should be no shares: if he had had the arranging of it, it would have been otherwise arranged; Hugh should still have had Earlston, and any other advantages suited to his capacity – but as for Oxford and Nelly – It was unfair – that was the sting; all to one, and nothing to the other. This sentiment made Wilfrid very unwilling to accompany the rest of the family to Earlston. He did not want to go and survey all the particulars of Hugh’s good-fortune, and to make sure once again, as he had already so often decided, that Hugh’s capacities were inferior to his luck, and that it was really of little advantage to him to be so well off. But Will’s inclinations, as it happened, were not consulted on the subject; the expedition was all settled without any room being left for his protest. Aunt Agatha was to go, though she had very little desire to do so, being coy about Mr. Ochterlony’s house, and even not too well pleased to think that coyness was absurd in her case, and that she was old enough to go to anybody’s house, and indeed do what she pleased. And Sir Edward was going, who was older than any of them, and was still inclined to believe that Francis Ochterlony and Agatha Seton might make it up; and then, though Mrs. Askell objected greatly, and could not tell what she was to do with the children, and limited the expedition absolutely to two days, Nelly was going too. Thus Will had to give in, and withdraw his opposition. It was, as Hugh said, “a coming of age sort of affair,” but it was not precisely a coming of age, for that important event had taken place some time before, when Hugh, whose ambition was literary, had been working like a coal-heaver to take his degree, and had managed to take it and please his uncle. But there was to be a great dinner to introduce the heir of Earlston to his country neighbours, and everything was to be conducted with as much solemnity as if it had been the heir-apparent’s birthday. It was so great an occasion, that Mrs. Ochterlony got a new dress, and Aunt Agatha brought forth among the sprigs of lavender her silver-grey which she wore at Winnie’s marriage. It was not Hugh’s marriage, but it was an event almost as important; and if his own people did not try to do him credit, what was to be expected of the rest of the world?
And for Nelly Askell it was a very important crisis. She was sixteen, but up to this moment she had never had a dress “made long,” and the excitement of coming to this grandeur, and of finding Hugh Ochterlony by her side, full of unspeakable politeness, was almost too much for Nelly; the latter complication was something she did not quite understand. Will, for his part, carried things with a high hand, and behaved to her as a brother behaves to the sister whom he tyrannizes over. It is true that she sometimes tyrannized over him in her turn, as has been seen, but they did not think it necessary to be civil, nor did either of them restrain their personal sentiments in case anything occurred they disapproved of. But Hugh was altogether different – Hugh was one of “the gentlemen;” he was grown up, he had been to the University, he rode, and shot, and hunted, and did everything that the gentlemen are expected to do – and he lowered his voice when he spoke to Nelly, and schemed to get near her, and took bouquets from the Cottage garden which were not intended for Mrs. Askell. Altogether, he was like the hero of a story to Nelly, and he made her feel as if she, just that very moment as it were, translated into a long dress, was a young lady in a story too. Will was her friend and companion, but this was something quite different from Will; and to be taken to see his castle, and his guardian, and his future domains, and assist at the recognition of the young prince, was but the natural continuation of the romance. Nelly’s new long dresses were only muslin, but they helped out the force of the situation, and intensified that vague thrill of commencing womanhood and power undreamed of, which Hugh’s presence had helped to produce. Could it be possible that she could forget the children, and her mamma’s head which was always so bad, and go off for two whole days from her duty? Mrs. Askell could scarcely believe it, and Nelly felt guilty when she realized the dreadful thought, but still she wanted to go; and she had no patience with Will’s objections, but treated them with summary incivility. “Why shouldn’t you like to go?” said Nelly, “you would like it very much if you were your brother. And I would not be jealous like you, not for all the world;” and then Nelly added, “it is not because it is a party that I care for it, but because it is such a pleasure to dear Mrs. Ochterlony, and to – Mr. Hugh – ”
“Ah, yes, I knew you would go over to Hugh’s side,” said Will; “I said so the very day he came here.”
“Why should I go over to his side?” cried Nelly, indignantly; “but I am pleased to see people happy; and I am Mr. Hugh’s friend, just as I am your friend,” added the little woman, with dignity; “it is all for dear Mrs. Ochterlony’s sake.”
Thus it was that the new generation stepped in and took up all the foreground of the stage, just as Winnie and her love affairs had done, who was of the intermediate generation – thrusting the people whose play was played out, and their personal story over, into the background. Mary, perhaps, had not seen how natural it was, when her sister was the heroine; but when she began to suspect that the everlasting romance might, perhaps, begin again under her very eyes, with her children for the actors, it gave her a sweet shock of surprise and amusement. She had been in the shade for a long time, and yet she had still been the central figure, and had everything in her hands. What if, now, perhaps, Aunt Agatha’s prophecy should come true, and Hugh, whose future was now secure, should find the little waif all ready for him at the very outset of his career? Such a possibility gave his mother, who had not yet arrived at the age which can consent to be passive and superannuated, a curious thrill – but still it might be a desirable event. When Mary saw her son hanging over the fair young creature, whom she had coveted to be her daughter, a true perception of what her own future must be came over her. The boys must go away, and would probably marry and set up households, and the mother who had given up the best part of her life to them must remain alone. She was glad, and yet it went with a curious penetrating pang to her heart. Some women might have been jealous of the girl who had first revealed this possibility to them; but Mary, for her part, knew better, and saw that it was Nature and not Nelly that was to blame; and she was not a woman to go in the face of Nature. “Hugh will marry early,” she said to Aunt Agatha, with a smile; but her heart gave a little flutter in her breast as she said it, and saw how natural it was. Islay was gone already, and very soon Will would have to go; and there would be no more for their mother to do but to live on, with her occupation over, and her personal history at an end. The best thing to do was to make up her mind to it. There was a little moisture in her eyes as she smiled upon Nelly the night before they set out for Earlston. The girl had to spend the previous night at the Cottage, to be ready for their start next day; and Mrs. Ochterlony smiled upon and kissed her, with a mingled yearning and revulsion. Ah, if she had but been her own – that woman-child! and yet it required a little effort to accept her for her own, at the cost, as it were, of her boy – for women are inconsistent, especially when they are women who have children. But one thing, at least, Mary was sure about, and that was, that her own share of the world would henceforward be very slight. Nothing would ever happen to her individually. Perhaps she regretted the agitations and commotions of life, and felt as if she would prefer still to endure them, and feel herself something in the world; but that was all over; Will must go. Islay was gone. Hugh would marry; and Mary’s remaining years would flow on by necessity like the Kirtell, until some day they would come to a noiseless end. She said to herself that she ought to accept, and make up her mind to it; that boys must go out into the world, and quit the parent nest; and that she ought to be very thankful for the calm and secure provision which had been made for the rest of her life.
And next morning they started for Earlston, on the whole a very cheerful party. Nelly was so happy, that it did every one’s heart good to see her; and she had given Will what she called “such a talking to,” that he was as good as gold, and made no unpleasant remarks. And Sir Edward was very suave and benign, though full of recollections which confused and embarrassed Aunt Agatha. “I remember travelling along this same road when we still thought it could be all arranged,” he said; “and thinking what a long way it would be to have to go to Earlston to see you; but there was no railroad then, and everything is very much changed.”
“Yes, everything,” said Aunt Agatha; and then she talked about the weather in a tremulous way. Sir Edward would not have spoken as he did, if he had not thought that even yet the two old lovers might make it up, which naturally made it very confusing for Aunt Agatha to be the one to go to Earlston, and make, as it were, the first advances. She felt just the same heart thumping a little against her breast, and her white hair and soft faded cheek could not be supposed to be so constantly visible to her as they were to everybody else; and if Francis Ochterlony were to take it into his head to imagine – For Miss Seton, though nothing would have induced her to marry at her age, was not so certainly secure as her niece was that nothing now would ever happen in her individual life.
Nothing did happen, however, when they arrived at Earlston, where the master of the house received them, not with open arms, which was not his nature, but with all the enthusiasm he was capable of. He took them to see all his collections, everything he had that was most costly and rare. To go back to the house in this way, and see the scene of her former tortures; tortures which looked so light to look back upon, and were so amusing to think of, but which had been all but unbearable at the time, was strange to Mary. She told the story of her miseries, and they all laughed; but Mr. Ochterlony was still seen to change colour, when she pointed out the Etruscan vase which Hugh had taken into his hand, and the rococo chair which Islay had mounted. “This is the chair,” the master of Earlston said; and he did not laugh so frankly as the rest, but turned aside to show Miss Seton his Henri II. porcelain. “It was nothing to laugh at, at the time,” he said, confidentially, in a voice which sank into Aunt Agatha’s heart; and, to restore her composure, she paid great attention to the Henri Deux ware. She said she remembered longing very much to have a set like that when she was a girl. “I never knew you were fond of china,” said Mr. Ochterlony. “Oh, yes,” Aunt Agatha replied; but she did not explain that the china she had longed for was a toy service for her doll’s and little companions’ tea. Mr. Ochterlony put the costly cups away into a little cabinet, and locked it, after this; and he offered Aunt Agatha his arm, to lead her to the library, to see his collection there. She took it, but she trembled a little, the tender-hearted old woman. They looked such an old couple as they walked out of the room together, and yet there was something virginal and poetic about them, which they owed to their lonely lives. It was as if the roses that Hugh had just gathered for Nelly had been put away for half a century, and brought out again all dried and faded, but still roses, and with a lingering pensive perfume. And Sir Edward sat and smiled in a corner, and whispered to Mary to leave them to themselves a little: such things had been as that they might make it up.