The present writer has already lamented her inability to convey to the
readers of this history any clear account of an Indian bungalow, or the
manner in which life goes on in that curious kind of English home: so
that it would be vain to attempt any detailed description of Mary
Ochterlony's life at this period of her career. She lived very much as
all the others lived, and gave a great deal of attention to her two
little boys, and wrote regularly by every mail to her friends in
England, and longed for the day when the mail came in, though the
interest of her correspondence was not absorbing. All this she did like
everybody else, though the other ladies at the station had perhaps more
people belonging to them, and a larger number of letters, and got more
good of the eagerly looked-for mail. And she read all the books she
could come by, even Miss Sorbette's novels, which were indeed the chief
literary nourishment of the station; and took her due share in society,
and was generally very popular, though not so superior as Miss Sorbette
for example, nor of remarkable piety like Mrs. Kirkman, nor nearly so
well off as Mrs. Hesketh. Perhaps these three ladies, who were the
natural leaders of society, liked Mary all the better because she did
not come in direct contact with their claims; though if it had ever
entered into Mrs. Ochterlony's head to set up a distinct standard, no
doubt the masses would have flocked to it, and the peace of the station
might have been put in jeopardy. But as no such ambitious project was in
her mind, Mary kept her popularity with everybody, and gained besides
that character of "She could an if she would," which goes a great deal
farther than the limited reputation of any actual achievement. She was
very good to the new people, the young people, the recent arrivals, and
managed to make them feel at home sooner than anybody else could, which
was a very useful gift in such society; and then a wife who bore her
husband's fidgets so serenely was naturally a model and example for all
the new wives.
"I am sure nobody else in the station could do so well," Mrs. Kirkman
said. "The most experienced Christian would find it a trying task. But
then some people are so mercifully fitted for their position in life. I
don't think she feels it as you or I should." This was said, not as
implying that little Mrs. Askell--to whom the words were ostensibly
addressed--had peculiarly sensitive feelings, or was in any way to be
associated with the Colonel's wife, but only because it was a favourite
way Mrs. Kirkman had of bringing herself down to her audience, and
uniting herself, as it were, to ordinary humanity; for if there was one
thing more than another for which she was distinguished, it was her
beautiful Christian humanity; and this was the sense in which she now
spoke.
"Please don't say so," cried the ensign's wife, who was an unmanageable,
eighteen-year-old, half-Irish creature. "I am sure she has twenty
thousand times more feeling than you and--than both of us put together.
It's because she is real good; and the Major is an old dear. He _is_ a
fidget and he's awfully aggravating, and he puts one in a passion; but
he's an old dear, and so you would say if you knew him as well as I."
Mrs. Kirkman regarded the creature by her side, as may be supposed, with
the calm contempt which her utterance merited. She looked at her, out of
those "down-dropt," half-veiled eyes, with that look which everybody in
the station knew so well, as if she were looking down from an infinite
distance with a serene surprise which was too far off and elevated to
partake of the nature of disgust. If _she_ knew him as well as this baby
did! But the Colonel's wife did not take any notice of the audacious
suggestion. It was her duty, instead of resenting the impertinence to
herself, to improve the occasion for the offender's own sake.
"My dear, there is nobody really good," said Mrs. Kirkman. "We have the
highest authority for that. I wish I could think dear Mary was possessed
of the true secret of a higher life; but she has so much of that natural
amiability, you know, which is, of all things, the most dangerous for
the soul. I would rather, for my part, she was not so 'good' as you say.
It is all filthy rags," said Mrs. Kirkman, with a sigh. "It might be for
the good of her soul to be brought low, and forced to abandon these
refuges of lies----"
Upon which the little Irish wild-Indian blazed up with natural fury.
"I don't believe she ever told a lie in her life. I'll swear to all the
lies she tells," cried the foolish little woman; "and as for rags--it's
horrible to talk so. If you only knew--if you only could think--how kind
she was to me!"
For this absurd little hapless child had had a baby, as might have been
expected, and would have been in rags indeed, and everything that is
miserable, but for Mary, who had taken her in hand; and being not much
more than a baby herself, and not strong yet, and having her heart in
her mouth, so to speak, she burst out crying, as might have been
expected too.
This was a result which her companion had not in the least calculated
upon, for Mrs. Kirkman, notwithstanding her belief in Mary's
insensibility, had not very lively feelings, and was not quick at
divining other people. But she was a good woman notwithstanding all her
talk. She came down off her mountain top, and soothed her little
visitor, and gave her a glass of wine, and even kissed her, to make
matters up.
"I know she has a way, when people are sick," said the Colonel's wife;
and then, after that confession, she sighed again. "If only she does not
put her trust in her own works," Mrs. Kirkman added.
For, to tell the truth, the Chaplain of the regiment was not (as she
thought) a spiritual-minded man, and the Colonel's wife was troubled by
an abiding consciousness that it was into her hands Providence had
committed the souls of the station. "Which was an awful responsibility
for a sinful creature," she said, in her letters home; "and one that
required constant watch over herself."
Perhaps, in a slightly different way, Mrs. Ochterlony would have been
similarly put down and defended in the other two centres of society at
the station. "She is intelligent," Miss Sorbette said; "I don't deny
that she is intelligent; but I would not say she was superior. She is
fond of reading, but then most people are fond of reading, when it's
amusing, you know. She is a little too like Amelia in 'Vanity Fair.' She
is one of the sweet women. In a general way, I can't bear sweet women;
but I must confess she is the very best specimen I ever saw."
As for Mrs. Hesketh, her opinion was not much worth stating in words. If
she had any fault to find with Mrs. Ochterlony, it was because Mary had
sometimes a good deal of trouble in making the two ends meet. "I cannot
endure people that are always having anxieties," said the rich woman of
the station, who had an idea that everybody could be comfortable if they
liked, and that it was an offence to all his neighbours when a man
insisted on being poor; but at the same time everybody knew that she was
very fond of Mary. This had been the general opinion of her for all
these years, and naturally Mrs. Ochterlony was used to it, and, without
being at all vain on the subject, had that sense of the atmosphere of
general esteem and regard which surrounded her, which has a favourable
influence upon every character, and which did a great deal to give her
the sweet composure and serenity for which she was famed.
But from the time of that first conversation with her husband, a change
came upon the Madonna of the station. It was not perceptible to the
general vision, yet there were individual eyes which found out that
something was the matter, though nobody could tell what. Mrs. Hesketh
thought it was an attack of fever coming on, and Mrs. Kirkman hoped that
Mrs. Ochterlony was beginning to occupy herself about her spiritual
state; and the one recommended quinine to Mary, and the other sent her
sermons, which, to tell the truth, were not much more suitable to her
case. But Mary did not take any of the charitable friends about her into
her confidence. She went about among them as a prince might have gone
about in his court, or a chief among his vassals, after hearing in
secret that it was possible that one day he may be discovered to be an
impostor. Or, if not that,--for Mary knew that she never could be found
out an impostor,--at least, that such a charge was hanging over her
head, and that somebody might believe it; and that her history would be
discussed and her name get into people's mouths and her claims to their
regard be questioned. It was very hard upon her to think that such a
thing was possible with composure, or to contemplate her husband's
restless ways, and to recollect the indiscreet confidences which he was
in the habit of making. He had spoken to Colonel Kirkman about it, and
even quoted his advice about the marriage lines; and Mary could not but
think (though in this point she did the Colonel injustice) that Mrs.
Kirkman too must know; and then, with a man of Major Ochterlony's
temperament, nobody could make sure that he would not take young Askell,
the ensign, or any other boy in the station, into his confidence, if he
should happen to be in the way. All this was very galling to Mary, who
had so high an appreciation of the credit and honour which, up to this
moment, she had enjoyed; and who felt that she would rather die than
come down to be discussed and pitied and talked about among all these
people. She thought in her disturbed and uneasy mind, that she could
already hear all the different tones in which they would say, "Poor
Mary!" and all the wonders, and doubts, and inquiries that would rise up
round her. Mrs. Kirkman would have said that all these were signs that
her pride wanted humbling, and that the thing her friends should pray
for, should be some startling blow to lead her back to a better state of
mind. But naturally this was a kind of discipline which for herself, or
indeed for anybody else, Mary was not far enough advanced to desire.
Perhaps, however, it was partly true about the pride. Mrs. Ochterlony
did not say anything about it, but she locked the door of her own room
the next morning after that talk with the Major, and searched through
all her repositories for those "marriage lines," which no doubt she had
put away somewhere, and which she had naturally forgotten all about for
years. It was equally natural, and to be expected, that she should not
find them. She looked through all her papers, and letters, and little
sacred corners, and found many things that filled her heart with sadness
and her eyes with tears--for she had not come through those ten years
without leaving traces behind her where her heart had been wounded and
had bled by the way--but she did not find what she was in search of. She
tried hard to look back and think, and to go over in her mind the
contents of her little school-girl desk, which she had left at Aunt
Agatha's cottage, and the little work-table, and the secretary with all
its drawers. But she could not recollect anything about it, nor where
she had put it, nor what could have become of it; and the effect of her
examination was to give her, this time in reality, a headache, and to
make her eyes heavy and her heart sore. But she did not say a syllable
about her search to the Major, who was (as, indeed, he always was) as
anxiously affectionate as a man could be, and became (as he always did)
when he found his wife suffering, so elaborately noiseless and still,
that Mary ended by a good fit of laughing, which was of the greatest
possible service to her.
"When you are so quiet, you worry me, Hugh," she said. "I am used to
hear you moving about."
"My dear, I hope I am not such a brute as to move about when you are
suffering," her husband replied. And though his mind had again begun to
fill with the dark thoughts that had been the occasion of all Mary's
annoyance, he restrained himself with a heroic effort, and did not say a
syllable about it all that night.
But this was a height of virtue which was quite impossible any merely
mortal powers could keep up to. He began to make mysterious little
broken speeches next day, and to stop short and say, "My darling, I
mustn't worry _you_," and to sigh like a furnace, and to worry Mary to
such an extremity that her difficulty in keeping her temper and patience
grew indescribable. And then, when he had afflicted her in this way till
it was impossible to go any further--when he had betrayed it to her in
every look, in every step, in every breath he drew--which was half a
sigh--and in every restless movement he made; and when Mrs. Ochterlony,
who could not sleep for it, nor rest, nor get any relief from the
torture, had two red lines round her eyes, and was all but out of her
senses--the stream burst forth at last, and the Major spoke:
"You remember, perhaps, Mary, what we were talking of the other day," he
said, in an insidiously gentle way, one morning, early--when they had
still the long, long day before them to be miserable in. "I thought it
very important, but perhaps you may have forgot--about old Sommerville
who died?"
"Forgot!" said Mary. She felt it was coming now, and was rather glad to
have it over. "I don't know how I could forget, Hugh. What you said
would have made one recollect anything; but you cannot make old
Sommerville come alive again, whatever you do."
"My dear, I spoke to you about some--about a--paper," said the Major.
"Lines--that is what the Scotch call them--though, I daresay, they're
very far from being poetry. Perhaps you have found them, Mary?" said
Major Ochterlony, looking into her face in a pleading way, as if he
prayed her to answer yes. And it was with difficulty that she kept as
calm as she wished to do, and answered without letting him see the
agitation and excitement in her mind.
"I don't know where I have put them, Hugh," she said, with a natural
evasion, and in a low voice. She did not acknowledge having looked for
them, and having failed to find them; but in spite of herself, she
answered with a certain humility, as of a woman culpable. For, after
all, it was her fault.
"You don't know where you put them?" said the Major, with rising horror.
"Have you the least idea how important they are? They may be the saving
of you and of your children, and you don't know where you have put them!
Then it is all as I feared," Major Ochterlony added, with a groan, "and
everything is lost."
"What is lost?" said Mary. "You speak to me in riddles, Hugh. I know I
put them somewhere--I must have put them somewhere safe. They are, most
likely, in my old desk at home, or in one of the drawers of the
secretary," said Mary calmly, giving those local specifications with a
certainty which she was far from feeling. As for the Major, he was
arrested by the circumstance which made her faint hope and supposition
look somehow like truth.
"If I could hope that _that_ was the case," he said; "but it can't be
the case, Mary. You never were at home after we were married--you forget
that. We went to Earlston for a day, and we went to your guardian's; but
never to Aunt Agatha. You are making a mistake, my dear; and God bless
me, to think of it, what would become of you if anything were to happen
to me?"
"I hope there is nothing going to happen to you; but I don't think in
that case it would matter what became of me," said Mary in utter
depression; for by this time she was worn out.
"You think so now, my love; but you would be obliged to think
otherwise," said Major Ochterlony. "I hope I'm all right for many a
year; but a man can never tell. And the insurance, and pension, and
everything--and Earlston, if my brother should leave it to us--all our
future, my darling. I think it will drive me distracted," said the
Major, "not a witness nor a proof left!"
Mary could make no answer. She was quite overwhelmed by the images thus
called before her; for her part, the pension and the insurance money had
no meaning to her ears; but it is difficult not to put a certain faith
in it when a man speaks in such a circumstantial way of things that can
only happen after his death.
"You have been talking to the doctor, and he has been putting things
into your head," she said faintly. "It is cruel to torture me so. We
know very well how we were married, and all about it, and so do our
friends, and it is cruel to try to make me think of anything happening.
There is nobody in the regiment so strong and well as you are," she
continued, taking courage a little. She thought to herself he looked, as
people say, the picture of health, as he sat beside her, and she began
to recover out of her prostration. As for spleen or liver, or any of
those uncomfortable attributes, Major Ochterlony, up to this moment, had
not known whether he possessed them--which was a most re-assuring
thought, naturally, for his anxious wife.
"Thank God," said the Major, with a little solemnity. It was not that he
had any presentiment, or thought himself likely to die early; but simply
that he was in a pathetic way, and had a _naïf_ and innocent pleasure in
deepening his effects; and then he took to walking about the room in his
nervous manner. After a while he came to a dead stop before his wife,
and took both her hands into his.
"Mary," he said, "I know it's an idea you don't like; but, for my peace
of mind; suppose--just suppose for the sake of supposing--that I was to
die now, and leave you without a word to prove your claims. It would be
ten times worse than death, Mary; but I could die at peace if you would
only make one little sacrifice to my peace of mind."
"Oh, Hugh, don't kill me--you are not going to die," was all Mary could
say.
"No, my darling, not if I can help it; but if it were only for my peace
of mind. There's no harm in it that I can see. It's ridiculous, you
know; but that's all, Mary," said the Major, looking anxiously into her
face. "Why, it is what hosts of people do every day. It is the easiest
thing to do--a mere joke, for that matter. They will say, you know, that
it is like Ochterlony, and a piece of his nonsense. I know how they
talk; but never mind. I know very well there is nothing else you would
not do for my peace of mind. It will set your future above all
casualties, and it will be all over in half an hour. For instance,
Churchill says----"
"You have spoken to Mr. Churchill, too?" said Mary, with a thrill of
despair.
"A man can never do any harm speaking to his clergyman, I hope," the
Major said, peevishly. "What do you mean by _too_? I've only mentioned
it to Kirkman besides--I wanted his advice--and to Sorbette, to explain
that bad headache of yours. And they all think I am perfectly right."
Mary put her hands up to her face, and gave a low but bitter cry. She
said nothing more--not a syllable. She had already been dragged down
without knowing it, and set low among all these people. She who deserved
nothing but honour, who had done nothing to be ashamed of, who was the
same Madonna Mary whom they had all regarded as the "wisest,
virtuousest, discreetest, best." By this time they had all begun to
discuss her story, and to wonder if all _had_ been quite right at the
beginning, and to say, "Poor Mary!" She knew it as well as if she had
heard the buzz of talk in those three houses to which her husband had
confided his difficulty. It was a horrible torture, if you will but
think of it, for an innocent woman to bear.
"It is not like you to make such a fuss about so simple a thing," said
Major Ochterlony. "You know very well it is not myself but you I am
thinking of; that you may have everything in order, and your future
provided for, whatever may happen. It may be absurd, you know; but a
woman mustn't mind being absurd to please her husband. We'll ask our
friends to step over with us to church in the morning, and in half an
hour it will be all over. Don't cover your face, Mary. It worries me not
to see your face. God bless me, it is nothing to make such a fuss
about," said the Major, getting excited. "I would do a great deal more,
any day, to please you."
"I would cut off my hand to please you," said Mary, with perhaps a
momentary extravagance in the height of her passion. "You know there is
no sacrifice I would not make for you; but oh, Hugh, not this, not
this," she said, with a sob that startled him--one of those sobs that
tear and rend the breast they come from, and have no accompaniment of
tears.
His answer was to come up to her side, and take the face which she had
been covering, between his hands, and kiss it as if it had been a
child's. "My darling, it is only this that will do me any good. It is
for my peace of mind," he said, with all that tenderness and effusion
which made him the best of husbands. He was so loving to her that, even
in the bitterness of the injury, it was hard for Mary to refuse to be
soothed and softened. He had got his way, and his unbounded love and
fondness surrounded her with a kind of atmosphere of tender enthusiasm.
He knew so well there was none like her, nobody fit to be put for a
moment in comparison with his Mary; and this was how her fate was fixed
for her, and the crisis came to an end.