The next mail was an important one in many ways. It was to bring Aunt
Agatha's letter about little Hugh, and it did bring something which had
still more effect upon the Ochterlony peace of mind. The Major, as has
been already said, was not a man to be greatly excited by the arrival of
the mail. All his close and pressing interests were at present
concentrated in the station. His married sisters wrote to him now and
then, and he was very glad to get their letters, and to hear when a new
niece or nephew arrived, which was the general burden of these epistles.
Sometimes it was a death, and Major Ochterlony was sorry; but neither
the joy nor the sorrow disturbed him much. For he was far away, and he
was tolerably happy himself, and could bear with equanimity the
vicissitudes in the lot of his friends. But this time the letter which
arrived was of a different description. It was from his brother, the
head of the house--who was a little of an invalid and a good deal of a
dilettante, and gave the Major no nephews or nieces, being indeed a
confirmed bachelor of the most hopeless kind. He was a man who never
wrote letters, so that the communication was a little startling. And yet
there was nothing very particular in it. Something had occurred to make
Mr. Ochterlony think of his brother, and the consequence was that he had
drawn his writing things to his hand and written a few kind words, with
a sense of having done something meritorious to himself and deeply
gratifying to Hugh. He sent his love to Mary, and hoped the little
fellow was all right who was, he supposed, to carry on the family
honours--"if there are any family honours," the Squire had said, not
without an agreeable sense that there was something in his last paper on
the "Coins of Agrippa," that the Numismatic Society would not willingly
let die. This was the innocent morsel of correspondence which had come
to the Major's hand. Mary was sitting by with the baby on her lap while
he read it, and busy with a very different kind of communication. She
was reading Aunt Agatha's letter which she had been dreading and wishing
for, and her heart was growing sick over the innocent flutter of
expectation and kindness and delight which was in it. Every assurance of
the joy she would feel in seeing little Hugh, and the care she would
take of him, which the simple-minded writer sent to be a comfort to
Mary, came upon the mother's unreasonable mind like a kind of injury.
To think that anybody could be happy about an occurrence that would be
so terrible to her; to think that anybody could have the bad taste to
say that they looked with impatience for the moment that to Mary would
be like dying! She was unhinged, and for the first time, perhaps, in her
life, her nerves were thoroughly out of order, and she was unreasonable
to the bottom of her heart; and when she came to her young sister's gay
announcement of what for _her_ part she would do for her little nephew's
education, and how she had been studying the subject ever since Mary's
letter arrived, Mrs. Ochterlony felt as if she could have beaten the
girl, and was ready to cry with wretchedness and irritation and despair.
All these details served somehow to fix it, though she knew it had been
fixed before. They told her the little room Hugh should have, and the
old maid who would take care of him; and how he should play in the
garden, and learn his lessons in Aunt Agatha's parlour, and all those
details which would be sweet to Mary when her boy was actually there.
But at present they made his going away so real, that they were very
bitter to her, and she had to draw the astonished child away from his
play, and take hold of him and keep him by her, to feel quite sure that
he was still here, and not in the little North-country cottage which she
knew so well. But this was an arrangement which did not please the baby,
who liked to have his mother all to himself, and pushed Hugh away, and
kicked and screamed at him lustily. Thus it was an agitated little group
upon which the Major looked down as he turned from his brother's
pleasant letter. He was in a very pleasant frame of mind himself, and
was excessively entertained by the self-assertion of little Wilfrid on
his mother's knee.
"He is a plucky little soul, though he is so small," said Major
Ochterlony; "but Willie, my boy, there's precious little for you of the
grandeurs of the family. It is from Francis, my dear. It's very
surprising, you know, but still it's true. And he sends you his love.
You know I always said that there was a great deal of good in Francis;
he is not a demonstrative man--but still, when you get at it, he has a
warm heart. I am sure he would be a good friend to you, Mary, if
ever----"
"I hope I shall never need him to be a good friend to me," said Mrs.
Ochterlony. "He is your brother, Hugh, but you know we never got on." It
was a perfectly correct statement of fact, but yet, perhaps, Mary would
not have made it, had she not been so much disturbed by Aunt Agatha's
letter. She was almost disposed to persuade herself for that moment that
she had not got on with Aunt Agatha, which was a moral impossibility.
As for the Major, he took no notice of his wife's little ill-tempered
un-enthusiastic speech.
"You will be pleased when you read it," he said. "He talks of Hugh quite
plainly as the heir of Earlston. I can't help being pleased. I wonder
what kind of Squire the little beggar will make: but we shall not live
to see that--or, at least, _I_ shan't," the Major went on, and he looked
at his boy with a wistful look which Mary used to think of afterwards.
As for little Hugh, he was very indifferent, and not much more conscious
of the affection near home than of the inheritance far off. Major
Ochterlony stood by the side of Mary's chair, and he had it in his heart
to give her a little lesson upon her unbelief and want of confidence in
him, who was always acting for the best, and who thought much more of
her interests than of his own.
"My darling," he said, in that coaxing tone which Mary knew so well, "I
don't mean to blame you. It was a hard thing to make you do; and you
might have thought me cruel and too precise. But only see now how
important it was to be exact about our marriage--_too_ exact even. If
Hugh should come into the estate----"
Here Major Ochterlony stopped short all at once, without any apparent
reason. He had still his brother's letter in his hand, and was standing
by Mary's side; and nobody had come in, and nothing had happened. But
all at once, like a flash of lightning, something of which he had never
thought before had entered his mind. He stopped short, and said, "Good
God!" low to himself, though he was not a man who used profane
expressions. His face changed as a summer day changes when the wind
seizes it like a ghost, and covers its heavens with clouds. So great was
the shock he had received, that he made no attempt to hide it, but stood
gazing at Mary, appealing to her out of the midst of his sudden trouble.
"Good God!" he said. His eyes went in a piteous way from little Hugh,
who knew nothing about it, to his mother, who was at present the chief
sufferer. Was it possible that instead of helping he had done his best
to dishonour Hugh? It was so new an idea to him, that he looked
helplessly into Mary's eyes to see if it was true. And she, for her
part, had nothing to say to him. She gave a little tremulous cry which
did but echo his own exclamation, and pitifully held out her hand to her
husband. Yes; it was true. Between them they had sown thorns in their
boy's path, and thrown doubt on his name, and brought humiliation and
uncertainty into his future life. Major Ochterlony dropped into a chair
by his wife's side, and covered his face with her hand. He was struck
dumb by his discovery. It was only she who had seen it all long ago--to
whom no sudden revelation could come--who had been suffering, even
angrily and bitterly, but who was now altogether subdued and conscious
only of a common calamity; who was the only one capable of speech or
thought.
"Hugh, it is done now," said Mary; "perhaps it may never do him any
harm. We are in India, a long way from all our friends. They know what
took place in Scotland, but they can't know what happened here."
The Major only replied once more, "Good God!" Perhaps he was not
thinking so much of Hugh as of the failure he had himself made. To think
he should have landed in the most apparent folly by way of being
wise--that perhaps was the immediate sting. But as for Mrs. Ochterlony,
her heart was full of her little boy who was going away from her, and
her husband's horror and dismay seemed only natural. She had to withdraw
her hand from him, for the tyrant baby did not approve of any other
claim upon her attention, but she caressed his stooping head as she did
so. "Oh, Hugh, let us hope things will turn out better than we think,"
she said, with her heart overflowing in her eyes; and the soft tears
fell on Wilfrid's little frock as she soothed and consoled him. Little
Hugh for his part had been startled in the midst of his play, and had
come forward to see what was going on. He was not particularly
interested, it is true, but still he rather wanted to know what it was
all about. And when the pugnacious baby saw his brother he returned to
the conflict. It was his baby efforts with hands and feet to thrust Hugh
away which roused the Major. He got up and took a walk about the room,
sighing heavily. "When you saw what was involved, why did you let me do
it, Mary?" he said, amid his sighs. That was all the advantage his wife
had from his discovery. He was still walking about the room and sighing,
when the baby went to sleep, and Hugh was taken away; and then to be
sure the father and mother were alone.
"_That_ never came into my head," Major Ochterlony said, drawing a chair
again to Mary's side. "When you saw the danger why did you not tell me?
I thought it was only because you did not like it. And then, on the
other side, if anything happened to me----. Why did you let me do it
when you saw that?" said the Major, almost angrily. And he drew another
long impatient sigh.
"Perhaps it will do no harm, after all," said Mary, who felt herself
suddenly put upon her defence.
"Harm! it is sure to do harm," said the Major. "It is as good as saying
we were never married till now. Good heavens! to think you should have
seen all that, and yet let me do it. We may have ruined him, for all we
know. And the question is, what's to be done? Perhaps I should write to
Francis, and tell him that I thought it best for your sake, in case
anything happened to me---- and as it was merely a matter of form, I
don't see that Churchill could have any hesitation in striking it out of
the register----"
"Oh, Hugh, let it alone now," said Mrs. Ochterlony. "It is done, and we
cannot undo it. Let us only be quiet and make no more commotion. People
may forget it, perhaps, if we forget it."
"Forget it!" the Major said, and sighed. He shook his head, and at the
same time he looked with a certain tender patronage on Mary. "You may
forget it, my dear, and I hope you will," he said, with a magnanimous
pathos; "but it is too much to expect that I should forget what may have
such important results. I feel sure I ought to let Francis know. I
daresay he could advise us what would be best. It is a very kind
letter," said the Major; and he sighed, and gave Mary Mr. Ochterlony's
brief and unimportant note with an air of resigned yet hopeless
affliction, which half irritated her, and half awoke those possibilities
of laughter which come "when there is little laughing in one's head," as
we say in Scotland. She could have laughed, and she could have stormed
at him; and yet in the midst of all she felt a poignant sense of
contrast, and knew that it was she and not he who would really
suffer--as it was he and not she who was in fault.
While Mary read Mr. Ochterlony's letter, lulling now and then with a
soft movement the baby on her knee, the Major at the other side got
attracted after a while by the pretty picture of the sleeping child, and
began at length to forego his sighing, and to smooth out the long white
drapery that lay over Mary's dress. He was thinking no harm, the
tender-hearted man. He looked at little Wilfrid's small waxen face
pillowed on his mother's arm--so much smaller and feebler than Hugh and
Islay had been, the great, gallant fellows--and his heart was touched by
his little child. "My little man! _you_ are all right, at least," said
the inconsiderate father. He said it to himself, and thought, if he
thought at all on the subject, that Mary, who was reading his brother's
letter, did not hear him. And when Mrs. Ochterlony gave that cry which
roused all the house and brought everybody trooping to the door, in the
full idea that it must be a cobra at least, the Major jumped up to his
feet as much startled as any of them, and looked down to the floor and
cried, "Where--what is it?" with as little an idea of what was the
matter as the ayah who grinned and gazed in the distance. When he saw
that instead of indicating somewhere a reptile intruder, Mary had
dropped the letter and fallen into a weak outburst of tears, the Major
was confounded. He sent the servants away, and took his wife into his
arms and held her fast. "What is it, my love?" said the Major. "Are you
ill? For Heaven's sake tell me what it is; my poor darling, my bonnie
Mary?" This was how he soothed her, without the most distant idea what
was the matter, or what had made her cry out. And when Mary came to
herself, she did not explain very clearly. She said to herself that it
was no use making him unhappy by the fantastical horror which had come
into her mind with his words, or indeed had been already lurking there.
And, poor soul, she was better when she had had her cry out, and had
given over little Wilfrid, woke up by the sound, to his nurse's hands.
She said, "Never mind me, Hugh; I am nervous, I suppose;" and cried on
his shoulder as he never remembered her to have cried, except for very
serious griefs. And when at last he had made her lie down, which was the
Major's favourite panacea for all female ills of body or mind, and had
covered her over, and patted and caressed and kissed her, Major
Ochterlony went out with a troubled mind. It could not be anything in
Francis's letter, which was a model of brotherly correctness, that had
vexed or excited her: and then he began to think that for some time past
her health had not been what it used to be. The idea disturbed him
greatly, as may be supposed; for the thought of Mary ailing and weakly,
or perhaps ill and in danger, was one which had never yet entered his
mind. The first thing he thought of was to go and have a talk with
Sorbette, who ought to know, if he was good for anything, what it was.
"I am sure I don't know in the least what is the matter," the Major
said. "She is not ill, you know. This morning she looked as well as ever
she did, and then all at once gave a cry and burst into tears. It is so
unlike Mary."
"It is very unlike her," said the doctor. "Perhaps you were saying
something that upset her nerves."
"Nerves!" said the Major, with calm pride. "My dear fellow, you know
that Mary has no nerves; she never was one of that sort of women. To
tell the truth, I don't think she has ever been quite herself since that
stupid business, you know."
"What stupid business?" said Mr. Sorbette.
"Oh, you know--the marriage, to be sure. A man looks very silly
afterwards," said the Major with candour, "when he lets himself be
carried away by his feelings. She ought not to have consented when that
was her idea. I would give a hundred pounds I had not been so foolish. I
don't think she has ever been quite herself since."
The doctor had opened _de grands yeux_. He looked at his companion as if
he could not believe his ears. "Of course you would never have taken
such an unusual step if there had not been good reason for it," he
ventured to say, which was rather a hazardous speech; for the Major
might have divined its actual meaning, and then things would have gone
badly with Mr. Sorbette. But, as it happened, Major Ochterlony was far
too much occupied to pay attention to anybody's meaning except his own.
"Yes, there was good reason," he said. "She lost her marriage 'lines,'
you know; and all our witnesses are dead. I thought she might perhaps
find herself in a disagreeable position if anything happened to me."
As he spoke, the doctor regarded him with surprise so profound as to be
half sublime--surprise and a perplexity and doubt wonderful to behold.
Was this a story the Major had made up, or was it perhaps after all the
certain truth? It was just what he had said at first; but the first time
it was stated with more warmth, and did not produce the same effect. Mr.
Sorbette respected Mrs. Ochterlony to the bottom of his heart; but still
he had shaken his head, and said, "There was no accounting for those
things." And now he did not know what to make of it: whether to believe
in the innocence of the couple, or to think the Major had made up a
story--which, to be sure, would be by much the greatest miracle of all.
"If that was the case, I think it would have been better to let well
alone," said the doctor. "That is what I would have done had it been
me."
"Then why did not you tell me so?" said Major Ochterlony. "I asked you
before; and what you all said to me was, 'If that's the case, best to
repeat it at once.' Good Lord! to think how little one can rely upon
one's friends when one asks their advice. But in the meantime the
question is about Mary. I wish you'd go and see her and give her
something--a tonic, you know, or something strengthening. I think I'll
step over and see Churchill, and get him to strike that unfortunate
piece of nonsense out of the register. As it was only a piece of form, I
should think he would do it; and if it is _that_ that ails her, it would
do her good."
"If I were you, I'd let well alone," said the doctor; but he said it
low, and he was putting on his hat as he spoke, and went off immediately
to see his patient. Even if curiosity and surprise had not been in
operation, he would still probably have hastened to Madonna Mary. For
the regiment loved her in its heart, and the loss of her fair serene
presence would have made a terrible gap at the station. "We must not let
her be ill if we can help it," Mr. Sorbette said to himself; and then he
made a private reflection about that ass Ochterlony and his fidgets. But
yet, notwithstanding all his faults, the Major was not an ass. On
thinking it over again, he decided not to go to Churchill with that
little request about the register; and he felt more and more, the more
he reflected upon it, how hard it was that in a moment of real emergency
a man should be able to put so little dependence upon his friends. Even
Mary had let him do it, though she had seen how dangerous and impolitic
it was; and all the others had let him do it; for certainly it was not
without asking advice that he had taken what the doctor called so
unusual a step. Major Ochterlony felt as he took this into consideration
that he was an injured man. What was the good of being on intimate terms
with so many people if not one of them could give him the real counsel
of a friend when he wanted it? And even Mary had let him do it! The
thought of such a strange dereliction of duty on the part of everybody
connected with him, went to the Major's heart.
As for Mary, it would be a little difficult to express her feelings. She
got up as soon as her husband was gone, and threw off the light covering
he had put over her so carefully, and went back to her work; for to lie
still in a darkened room was not a remedy in which she put any faith.
And to tell the truth, poor Mary's heart was eased a little, perhaps
physically, by her tears, which had done her good, and by the other
incidents of the evening, which had thrown down as it were the
separation between her and her husband, and taken away the one rankling
and aching wound she had. Now that he saw that he had done wrong--now
that he was aware that it was a wrong step he had taken--a certain
remnant of bitterness which had been lurking in a corner of Mary's heart
came all to nothing and died down in a moment. As soon as he was himself
awakened to it, Mary forgot her own wound and every evil thought she had
ever had, in her sorrow for him. She remembered his look of dismay, his
dead silence, his unusual exclamation; and she said, "poor Hugh!" in her
heart, and was ready to condone his worst faults. _Otherwise_, as Mrs.
Ochterlony said to herself, he had scarcely a fault that anybody could
point out. He was the kindest, the most true and tender! Everybody
acknowledged that he was the best husband in the regiment, and which of
them could stand beside him, even in an inferior place? Not Colonel
Kirkman, who might have been a petrified Colonel out of the Drift (if
there were Colonels in those days), for any particular internal evidence
to the contrary; nor Captain Hesketh, who was so well off; nor any half
dozen of the other officers. This was the state of mind in which Mrs.
Ochterlony was when the doctor called. And he found her quite well, and
thought her an unaccountable woman, and shrugged his shoulders, and
wondered what the Major would take into his head next. "He said it was
on the nerves, as the poor women call it," said the doctor, transferring
his own suggestion to Major Ochterlony. "I should like to know what he
means by making game of people--as if I had as much time to talk
nonsense as he has: but I thought, to be sure, when he said that, that
it was a cock-and-bull story. I ought to know something about your
nerves."
"He was quite right," said Mrs. Ochterlony; and she smiled and took hold
of the great trouble that was approaching her and made a buckler of it
for her husband. "My nerves were very much upset. You know we have to
make up our minds to send Hugh home."
And as she spoke she looked up at Mr. Sorbette with eyes brimming over
with two great tears--real tears, Heaven knows, which came but too
readily to back up her sacred plea. The doctor recoiled before them as
if somebody had levelled a pistol at him; for he was a man that could
not bear to see women crying, as he said, or to see anybody in distress,
which was the true statement of the case.
"There--there," he said, "don't excite yourself. What is the good of
thinking about it? Everybody has to do it, and the monkeys get on as
well as possible. Look here, pack up all this work and trash, and amuse
yourself. Why don't you go out more, and take a little relaxation? You
had better send over to my sister for a novel; or if there's nothing
else for it, get the baby. Don't sit working and driving yourself crazy
here."
So that was all Mr. Sorbette could do in the case; and a wonderfully
puzzled doctor he was as he went back to his quarters, and took the
first opportunity of telling his sister that she was all wrong about the
Ochterlonys, and he always knew she was. "As if a man could know
anything about it," Miss Sorbette said. And in the meantime the Major
went home, and was very tender of Mary, and petted and watched over her
as if she had had a real illness. Though, after all, the question why
she had let him do so, was often nearly on his lips, as it was always in
his heart.