Mrs. Ochterlony sat and worked and listened, and her husband read the
papers to her, picking out by instinct all those little bits of news
that are grateful to people who are so far away from their own country.
And he went through the births and marriages, to see "if there is
anybody we know,"--notwithstanding that he was aware that corner of the
paper is one which a woman does not leave to any reader, but makes it a
principle to examine herself. And Mary sat still and went on with her
work, and not another syllable was said about old Sommerville, or the
marriage lines, or anything that had to do with the previous
conversation. This tranquillity was all in perfect good faith on Major
Ochterlony's side, who had given up the subject with the intention of
waiting until a more convenient season, and who had relieved his mind by
talking of it, and could put off his anxiety. But as for Mary, it was
not in good faith that she put on this expression of outward calm. She
knew her husband, and she knew that he was pertinacious and insisting,
and that a question which he had once started was not to be made an end
of, and finally settled, in so short a time. She sat with her head a
little bent, hearing the bits of news run on like an accompaniment to
the quick-flowing current of her own thoughts. Her heart was beating
quick, and her blood coursing through her veins as if it had been a
sudden access of fever which had come upon her. She was a tall, fair,
serene woman, with no paltry passion about her; but at the same time,
when the occasion required it, Mary was capable of a vast suppressed
fire of feeling which it gave her infinite trouble to keep down. This
was a side of her character which was not suspected by the world in
general--meaning of course the regiment, and the ladies at the station,
who were all, more or less, military. Mrs. Ochterlony was the kind of
woman to whom by instinct any stranger would have appropriated the name
of Mary; and naturally all her intimates (and the regiment was very
"nice," and lived in great harmony, and they were all intimate) called
her by her Christian--most Christian name. And there were people who put
the word Madonna before it,--"as if the two did not mean the same
thing!" said little Mrs. Askell, the ensign's baby-wife, whose education
had been neglected, but whom Mrs. Ochterlony had been very kind to. It
was difficult to know how the title had originated, though people did
say it was young Stafford who had been brought up in Italy, and who had
such a strange adoration for Mrs. Ochterlony, and who died, poor
fellow--which was perhaps the best thing he could have done under the
circumstances. "It was a special providence," Mrs. Kirkman said, who was
the Colonel's wife: for, to be sure, to be romantically adored by a
foolish young subaltern, was embarrassing for a woman, however perfect
her mind and temper and fairest fame might be. It was he who originated
the name, perhaps with some faint foolish thought of Petrarch and his
Madonna Laura: and then he died and did no more harm; and a great many
people adopted it, and Mary herself did not object to be addressed by
that sweetest of titles.
And yet she was not meek enough for the name. Her complexion was very
fair, but she had only a very faint rose-tint on her cheeks, so faint
that people called her pale--which with her fairness, was a drawback to
her. Her hair was light-brown, with a golden reflection that went and
came, as if it somehow depended upon the state of her mind and spirits;
and her eyes were dark, large, and lambent,--not sparkling, but
concentrating within themselves a soft, full depth of light. It was a
question whether they were grey or brown; but at all events they were
dark and deep. And she was, perhaps, a little too large and full and
matronly in her proportions to please a youthful critic. Naturally such
a woman had a mass of hair which she scarcely knew what to do with, and
which at this moment seemed to betray the disturbed state of her mind by
unusual gleams of the golden reflection which sometimes lay quite
tranquil and hidden among the great silky coils. She was very happily
married, and Major Ochterlony was the model husband of the regiment.
They had married very young, and made a runaway love-match which was one
of the few which everybody allowed had succeeded to perfection. But
yet---- There are so few things in this world which succeed quite to
perfection. It was Mrs. Kirkman's opinion that nobody else in the
regiment could have supported the Major's fidgety temper. "It would be a
great trial for the most experienced Christian," she said; "and dear
Mary is still among the babes who have to be fed with milk; but
Providence is kind, and I don't think she feels it as you or I would."
This was the opinion of the Colonel's wife; but as for Mary, as she sat
and worked and listened to her husband reading the papers, perhaps she
could have given a different version of her own composure and calm.
They had been married about ten years, and it was the first time he had
taken _this_ idea into his head. It is true that Mrs. Ochterlony looked
at it solely as one of his ideas, and gave no weight whatever to the
death of old Sommerville, or the loss of the marriage lines. She had
been very young at the time of her marriage, and she was motherless, and
had not those pangs of wounded delicacy to encounter, which a young
woman ought to have who abandons her home in such a way. This perhaps
arose from a defect in Mary's girlish undeveloped character; but the
truth was, that she too belonged to an Indian family, and had no home to
speak of, nor any of the sweeter ties to break. And after that, she had
thought nothing more about it. She was married, and there was an end of
it; and the young people had gone to India immediately, and had been
very poor, and very happy, and very miserable, like other young people
who begin the world in an inconsiderate way. But in spite of a hundred
drawbacks, the happiness had always been pertinacious, lasted longest,
and held out most stedfastly, and lived everything down. For one thing,
Mrs. Ochterlony had a great deal to do, not being rich, and that happily
quite preserved her from the danger of brooding over the Major's
fidgets, and making something serious out of them. And then they had
married so young that neither of them could ever identify himself or
herself, or make the distinction that more reasonable couples can
between "me" and "you." This time, however, the Major's restlessness had
taken an uncomfortable form. Mary felt herself offended and insulted
without knowing why. She, a matron of ten years' standing, the mother of
children! She could not believe that she had really heard true, that a
repetition of her marriage could have been suggested to her--and at the
same time she knew that it was perfectly true. It never occurred to her
as a thing that possibly might have to be done, but still the suggestion
itself was a wound. Major Ochterlony, for his part, thought of it as a
precaution, and good for his peace of mind, as he had said; but to Mary
it was scarcely less offensive than if somebody else had ventured to
make love to her, or offer her his allegiance. It seemed to her an
insult of the same description, an outrage which surely could not have
occurred without some unwitting folly on her part to make such a
proposal possible. She went away, searching back into the far, far
distant years, as she sat at work and he read the papers. Had she anyhow
failed in womanly restraint or delicacy at that moment when she was
eighteen, and knew of nothing but honour, and love, and purity in the
world? To be sure, she had not occupied herself very much about the
matter--she had taken no pains for her own safety, and had not an idea
what registrars meant, nor marriage laws, nor "lines." All that she knew
was that a great many people were married at Gretna Green, and that she
was married, and that there was an end of it. All these things came up
and passed before her mind in a somewhat hurrying crowd; but Mary's
mature judgment did not disapprove of the young bride who believed what
was said to her, and was content, and had unbounded faith in the
blacksmith and in her bridegroom. If that young woman had been occupying
herself about the register, Mrs. Ochterlony probably, looking back,
would have entertained but a mean opinion of her. It was not anything
_she_ had done. It was not anything special, so far as she could see, in
the circumstances: for hosts of people before and after had been married
on the Scottish border. The only conclusion, accordingly, that she could
come to, was the natural conclusion, that it was one of the Major's
notions. But there was little comfort in that, for Mrs. Ochterlony was
aware that his notions were persistent, that they lived and lasted and
took new developments, and were sometimes very hard to get rid of. And
she sighed in the midst of the newspaper reading, and betrayed that she
had not been listening. Not that she expected her husband's new whim to
come to anything; but because she foresaw in it endless repetitions of
the scene which had just ended, and endless exasperation and weariness
to herself.
Major Ochterlony stopped short when he heard his wife sigh--for he was
not a man to leave anything alone, or to practise a discreet
neglect--and laid down his paper and looked with anxiety in her face.
"You have a headache," he said, tenderly; "I saw it the moment I entered
the room. Go and lie down, my dear, and take care of yourself. You take
care of everybody else," said the Major. "Why did you let me go on
reading the paper like an ass, when your head aches?"
"My head does not ache. I was only thinking," said Mrs. Ochterlony: for
she thought on the whole it would be best to resume the subject and
endeavour to make an end of it. But this was not the Major's way. He
had in the meantime emptied his reservoir, and it had to be filled again
before he would find himself in the vein for speech.
"But I don't want you to think," said Major Ochterlony with tender
patronage: "that ought to be my part of the business. Have you got a
novel?--if not, I'll go over and ask Miss Sorbette for one of hers. Lie
down and rest, Mary; I can see that is all you are good for to-day."
Whether such a speech was aggravating or not to a woman who knew that it
was her brain which had all the real weight of the family affairs to
bear, may be conjectured by wives in general who know the sort of thing.
But as for Mary, she was so used to it, that she took very little
notice. She said, "Thank you, Hugh; I have got my letters here, which I
have not read, and Aunt Agatha is as good as a novel." If this was not a
very clear indication to the Major that his best policy was to take
himself off for a little, and leave her in peace, it would be hard to
say what could have taught him. But then Major Ochterlony was a man of a
lively mind, and above being taught.
"Ah, Aunt Agatha," he said. "My dear, I know it is a painful subject,
but we must, you know, begin to think where we are to send Hugh."
Mary shuddered; her nerves--for she had nerves, though she was so fair
and serene--began to get excited. She said, "For pity's sake, not any
more to-day. I am worn out. I cannot bear it. He is only six, and he is
quite well."
The Major shook his head. "He is very well, but I have seen when a few
hours changed all that," he said. "We cannot keep him much longer. At
his age, you know; all the little Heskeths go at four--I think----"
"Ah," said Mary, "the Heskeths have nothing to do with it; they have
floods and floods of children,--they don't know what it is; they can do
without their little things; but I--Hugh, I am tired--I am not able for
any more. Let me off for to-day."
Major Ochterlony regarded his wife with calm indulgence, and smoothed
her hair off her hot forehead as he stooped to kiss her. "If you only
would call things by the same names as other people, and say you have a
headache, my dear," he said, in his caressing way. And then he was so
good as to leave her, saying to himself as he went away that his Mary
too had a little temper, though nobody gave her credit for it. Instead
of annoying him, this little temper on Mary's part rather pleased her
husband. When it came on he could be indulgent to her and pet her,
which he liked to do; and then he could feel the advantage on his own
side, which was not always the case. His heart quite swelled over her as
he went away; so good, and so wise, and so fair, and yet not without
that womanly weakness which it was sweet for a man to protect and pardon
and put up with. Perhaps all men are not of the same way of thinking;
but then Major Ochterlony reasoned only in his own way.
Mary stayed behind, and found it very difficult to occupy herself with
anything. It was not temper, according to the ordinary meaning of the
word. She was vexed, disturbed, disquieted, rather than angry. When she
took up the pleasant letter in which the English breezes were blowing,
and the leaves rustling, she could no longer keep her attention from
wandering. She began it a dozen times, and as often gave it up again,
driven by the importunate thoughts which took her mind by storm, and
thrust everything else away. As if it were not enough to have one great
annoyance suddenly overwhelming her, she had the standing terror of her
life, the certainty that she would have to send her children away,
thrown in to make up. She could have cried, had that been of any use;
but Mrs. Ochterlony had had good occasion to cry many times in her life,
which takes away the inclination at less important moments. The worst of
all was that her husband's oft-repeated suggestion struck at the very
roots of her existence, and seemed to throw everything of which she had
been most sure into sudden ruin. She would put no faith in it--pay no
attention to it, she said to herself; and then, in spite of herself, she
found that she paid great attention, and could not get it out of her
mind. The only character in which she knew herself--in which she had
ever been known--was that of a wife. There are some women--nay, many
women--who have felt their own independent standing before they made the
first great step in a woman's life, and who are able to realize their
own identity without associating it for ever with that of any other. But
as for Mary, she had married, as it were, out of the nursery, and except
as Hugh Ochterlony's wife, and his son's mother, she did not know
herself. In such circumstances, it may be imagined what a bewildering
effect any doubt about her marriage would have upon her. For the first
time she began to think of herself, and to see that she had been hardly
dealt with. She began to resent her guardian's carelessness, and to
blame even kind Aunt Agatha, who in those days was taken up with some
faint love-affairs of her own, which never came to anything. Why did
they not see that everything was right? Why did not Hugh make sure,
whose duty it was? After she had vexed herself with such thoughts, she
returned with natural inconsistency to the conclusion that it was all
one of the Major's notions. This was the easiest way of getting rid of
it, and yet it was aggravating enough that the Major should permit his
restless fancy to enter such sacred grounds, and to play with the very
foundations of their life and honour. And as if that was not enough, to
talk at the end of it all of sending Hugh away!
Perhaps it would have been good for Mary if she had taken her husband's
advice and lain down, and sent over to Miss Sorbette for a novel. But
she was rebellious and excited, and would not do it. It was true that
they were engaged out to dinner that night, and that when the hour came
Mrs. Ochterlony entered Mrs. Hesketh's drawing-room with her usual
composure, and without any betrayal of the agitation that was still
smouldering within. But that did not make it any easier for her. There
was nobody more respected, as people say, in the station than she
was--and to think that it was possible that such a thing might be, as
that she should be humiliated and pulled down from her fair elevation
among all those women! Neither the Major nor any man had a right to have
notions upon a matter of such importance. Mary tried hard to calm
herself down to her ordinary tranquillity, and to represent to herself
how good he was, and how small a drawback after all were those fidgets
of his, in comparison with the faults of most other men. Just as he
represented to himself, with more success, how trifling a disadvantage
was the "little temper" which gave him the privilege, now and then, of
feeling tenderly superior to his wife. But the attempt was not
successful that day in Mrs. Ochterlony's mind; for after all there are
some things too sacred for discussion, and with which the most fidgety
man in the world cannot be permitted to play. Such was the result of the
first conversation upon this startling subject. The Major found himself
very tolerably at his ease, having relieved his mind for the moment, and
enjoyed his dinner and spent a very pleasant evening; but as for Madonna
Mary, she might have prejudiced her serene character in the eyes of the
regiment had the veil been drawn aside only for a moment, and could
anybody have seen or guessed the whirl of thoughts that was passing
through her uneasy mind.