The experience of this evening, though it was only the second of her
stay at Earlston, proved to Mary that the visit she was paying to her
brother-in-law must be made as short as possible. She could not get up
and run away because Hugh had put an Etruscan vase in danger, and Islay
had broken his uncle's chair. It was Mr. Ochterlony who was the injured
party, and he was magnanimously silent, saying nothing, and even giving
no intimation that the presence of these objectionable little visitors
was not to be desired in the drawing-room; and Mary had to stay and keep
her boys out of sight, and live consciously upon sufferance, in the
nursery and her bedroom, until she could feel warranted in taking leave
of her brother-in-law, who, without doubt, meant to be kind. It was a
strange sort of position, and strangely out of accord with her character
and habits. She had never been rich, nor lived in such a great house,
but she had always up to this time been her own mistress--mistress of
her actions, free to do what she thought best, and to manage her
children according to her own wishes. Now she had, to a certain extent,
to submit to the housekeeper, who changed their hours, and interfered
with their habits at her pleasure. The poor ayah went weeping away, and
nobody was to be had to replace her except one of the Earlston maids,
who naturally was more under Mrs. Gilsland's authority than Mrs.
Ochterlony's; and to this girl Mary had to leave them when she went down
to the inevitable dinner which had always to be eaten downstairs. She
made several attempts to consult her brother-in-law upon her future, but
Mr. Ochterlony, though very polite, was not a sympathetic listener. He
had received the few details which she had been moved at first, with
restrained tears, to give him about the Major, with a certain
restlessness which chilled Mary. He was sorry for his brother; but he
was one of those men who do not care to talk about dead people, and who
think it best not to revive and recall sorrow--which would be very true
and just if true sorrow had any occasion to be revived and recalled; and
her own arrangements were all more or less connected with this (as Mr.
Ochterlony called it) painful subject. And thus it was that her
hesitating efforts to make her position clear to him, and to get any
advice which he could give, was generally put aside or swallowed up in
some communication from the Numismatic Society, or questions which she
could not answer about Indian art.
"We must leave Earlston soon," Mrs. Ochterlony took courage to say one
day, when the housekeeper, and the continued exclusion of the children,
and her own curious life on sufferance, had been too much for her. "If
you are at leisure, would you let me speak to you about it? I have so
little experience of anything but India--and I want to do what is best
for my boys."
"Oh--ah--yes," said Mr. Ochterlony, "you must send them to school. We
must try and hear of some good school for them. It is the only thing you
can do----"
"But they are so young," said Mary. "At their age they are surely best
with their mother. Hugh is only seven. If you could advise me where it
would be best to go----"
"Where it would be best to go!" said Mr. Ochterlony. He was a little
surprised, and not quite pleased for the moment. "I hope you do not find
yourself uncomfortable here?"
"Oh, no," said Mary, faltering; "but--they are very young and
troublesome, and--I am sure they must worry you. Such little children
are best by themselves," she said, trying to smile--and thus, by chance,
touched a chord of pity in her brother-in law's heart.
"Ah," he said, shaking his head, "I assure you I feel the painfulness of
your position. If you had been unencumbered, you might have looked
forward to so different a life; but with such a burden as these
children, and you so young still----"
"Burden?" said Mary; and it may be supposed how her eyes woke up, and
what a colour came to her cheek, and how her heart took to beating under
her crape. "You can't really think _my_ children are a burden to me? Ah!
you don't know---- I would not care to live another day if I had not my
boys."
And here, her nerves being weak with all she had come through, she would
have liked to cry--but did not, the moment being unsuitable, and only
sat facing the virtuoso, all lighted up and glowing, brightened by
indignation, and surprise, and sudden excitement, to something more like
the former Mary than ever yet had been seen underneath her widow's cap.
"Oh!" said Mr. Ochterlony. He could have understood the excitement had
it been about a Roman camp or a newly-discovered statue; but boys did
not commend themselves in the same way to his imagination. He liked his
sister-in-law, however, in his way. She was a good listener, and
pleasant to look at, and even when she was unintelligible was never
without grace, or out of drawing, and he felt disposed even to take a
little trouble for her. "You _must_ send them to school," he said.
"There is nothing else to be done. I will write to a friend of mine who
knows about such matters; and I am sure, for my part, I shall be very
glad if you can make yourself comfortable at Earlston--you and--and the
baby, of course," Mr. Ochterlony said, with a slightly wry face. The
innocent man had not an idea of the longing she had for that cottage
with the fire in it. It was a notion which never could have been made
intelligible to him, even had he been told in words.
"Thank you," said Mary, faltering more and more; indeed she made a dead
pause, and he thought she had accepted his decision, and that there was
to be no more about it--which was comforting and satisfactory. He had
just risen up to leave the room, breakfast being over, when she put out
her hand to stop him. "I will not detain you a minute," she said, "it is
so desolate to have no one to tell me what to do. Indeed, we cannot stay
here--though it is so good of you; they are too young to leave me, and I
care for nothing else in life," Mrs. Ochterlony said, yielding for an
instant to her emotion; but she soon recovered herself. "There are good
schools all over England, I have heard; in places where we could live
cheaply. That is what I want to do. Near one of the good grammar
schools. I am quite free; it does not matter where I live. If you would
give me your advice," she added, timidly. Mr. Ochterlony, for his part,
was taken so much by surprise that he stood between the table and the
door, with one foot raised to go on, and not believing his ears. He had
behaved like an angel, to his own conviction, and had never said a word
about the chair, though it had to be sent to town to be repaired. He had
continued to afford shelter to the little ruffian who did it, and had
carefully abstained from all expression of his feelings. What could the
woman want more?--and what should he know about grammar-schools, and
places where people could live cheaply? A woman, too, whom he liked, and
had explained his theory of ancient art more fully to than he had ever
done to any one. And she wanted to leave Earlston and his society, and
the Psyches and Venuses, to settle down in some half-pay neighbourhood,
where people with large families lived for the sake of education. No
wonder Mr. Ochterlony turned round, struck dumb with wonder, and came
slowly back before giving his opinion, which, but for an unexpected
circumstance, would no doubt have been such an opinion as to overwhelm
his companion with confusion, and put an instant stop to her foolish
plans.
But circumstances come wildly in the way of the best intentions, and cut
off the wisest speech sometimes on a man's very lips. At this moment the
door opened softly, and a new interlocutor presented herself. The
apparition was one which took not only the words but the very breath
from the lips of the master of Earlston. Aunt Agatha was twenty years
older than her niece, but so was Francis Ochterlony; and such a thing
was once possible as that the soft ancient maiden and the elderly
solitary dilettante might have made a cheerful human household at
Earlston. They had not met for years, not since the time when Miss Seton
was holding on by her lingering youth, and looking forward to the loss
of it with an anxious and care-worn countenance. She was twenty times
prettier now than she had been in those days--prettier perhaps, if the
truth were told, than she ever had been in her life. She was penitent,
too, and tearful in her white-haired sweetness, though Mr. Ochterlony
did not know why--with a soft colour coming and going on her checks, and
a wistful look in her dewy eyes. She had left her home at least two
hours before, and came carrying all the freshness and odours of the
morning, surrounded with sunshine and sweet air, and everything that
seems to belong to the young. Francis Ochterlony was so bewildered by
the sight that he stepped back out of her way, and could not have told
whether she was eighteen or fifty. Perhaps the sight of him had in some
degree the same effect upon Aunt Agatha. She made a little rush at Mary,
who had risen to meet her, and threw herself, soft little woman as she
was, upon her niece's taller form. "Oh, my dear love, I have been a
silly old woman--forgive me!" said Aunt Agatha. She had put up with the
estrangement as long as ever it was in human nature to put up with it.
She had borne Peggy's sneers, and Winnie's heartless suggestions that it
was her own doing. How was Winnie to know what made it so difficult for
her to have any communications with Earlston? But finally Aunt Agatha's
heart had conquered everything else. She had made such pictures to
herself of Mary, solitary and friendless ("for what is a Man? no company
when one is unhappy" Miss Seton had said to herself with unconscious
eloquence), until instinct and impulse drove her to this decided step.
The hall door at Earlston had been standing open, and there was nobody
to announce her. And this was how Aunt Agatha arrived just at the
critical moment, cutting off Mr. Ochterlony's utterance when he was on
the very point of speech.
The poor man, for his part, did not know what to do; after the first
moment of amaze he stood dumb and humble, with his hand stretched out,
waiting to greet his unexpected visitor. But the truth was, that the two
women as they clung together were both so dreadfully disposed to cry
that they dared not face Mr. Ochterlony. The sudden touch of love and
unlooked-for sympathy had this effect upon Mary, who had been agitated
and disturbed before; and as for Aunt Agatha, she was not an old maid by
conviction, and perhaps would not have objected to this house or its
master, and the revival of these old associations was hard upon her. She
clasped Mary tight, as if it was all for Mary's sake; but perhaps there
was also a little personal feeling involved. Mr. Ochterlony stood
speechless for a moment, and then he heard a faint sob, and fled in
consternation. If that was coming, it was high time for him to go. He
went away and took refuge in his library, in a confused and
uncomfortable state of mind. This was the result of having a woman in
the house; a man who had nothing to do in his own person with the
opposite half of humanity became subject to the invasion of other women,
and still worse, to the invasion of recollections and feelings which he
had no wish to have recalled. What did Agatha Seton mean by looking so
fresh and fair at her age? and yet she had white hair too, and called
herself an old woman. These thoughts came dreadfully in his way when he
sat down to work. He was writing a monograph upon Icelandic art, and
naturally had been much interested in a subject so characteristic and
exciting; but somehow after that glimpse of his old love his mind would
not stick to his theme. The two women clinging together, though one of
them had a bonnet on, made a pretty "subject." He was not mediæval, to
speak of, but rather classical in his tastes; yet it did strike him that
a painter might have taken an idea for a Visitation out of that embrace.
And so that was how Agatha Seton looked when she was an old woman! This
idea fluttered in and out before his mind's eye, and threw such
reflections upon his paper as came dreadfully in the way of his
monograph. He lost his notes and forgot his researches in the
bewilderment produced by it; for, to tell the truth, Agatha Seton was in
a very much finer state of preservation, not to say fairer to look upon,
than most of the existing monuments of Icelandic art.
"He has gone away," said Aunt Agatha, who was aware of that fact sooner
than Mary was, though Mrs. Ochterlony's face was towards her
brother-in-law; and she gave Mary a sudden hug and subsided into that
good cry, which is such a relief and comfort to the mind; Mary's tears
came too, but they were fewer and not by any means so satisfactory as
Aunt Agatha's, who was crying for nothing particular. "Oh, my dear love,
don't think me a wretch," the old lady said. "I have never been able to
get you out of my head, standing there on the platform all by yourself
with the dear children; and I, like an old monster, taking offence and
going away and leaving you! If it is any comfort to you, Mary, my
darling, I have been wretched ever since. I tried to write, but I could
not write. So now I've come to ask you to forgive me; and where are my
dear, dear, darling boys?"
The poor little boys! Mary's heart gave a little leap to hear some one
once more talk of those poor children as if they were not in the way.
"Mr. Ochterlony is very kind," she said, not answering directly; "but we
must not stay, Aunt Agatha, we cannot stay. He is not used to children,
you know, and they worry him. Oh, if I had but any little place of my
own!"
"You shall come to me, my darling love," said Aunt Agatha in triumph.
"You should have come to me from the first. I am not saying anything
against Francis Ochterlony. I never did; people might think he did not
quite behave as was expected; but I am sure I never said a word against
him. But how can a Man understand? or what can you look for from them?
My dearest Mary, you must come to me!"
"Thank you, Aunt Agatha," said Mary, doubtfully. "You are very kind--you
are all very kind"--and then she repeated, under her breath, that
longing aspiration, "Oh, that I had but any little place of my very
own!"
"Yes, my love, that is what we must do," said Aunt Agatha. "I would take
you with me if I could, or I would take the dear boys with me. Nobody
will be worried by them at the cottage. Oh, Mary, my darling, I never
would say anything against poor dear Hugh, or encourage you to keep his
relations at a distance; but just at this moment, my dear love, I did
think it was most natural that you should go to your own friends."
"I think when one has little children one should be by one's-self," said
Mary, "it is more natural. If I could get a little cottage near you,
Aunt Agatha----"
"My love, mine is a little cottage," said Miss Seton; "it is not half
nor quarter so big as Earlston--have you forgotten? and we are all a set
of women together, and the dear boys will rule over us. Ah, Mary, you
must come to me!" said the soft old lady. And after that she went up to
the dim Earlston nursery, and kissed and hugged the tabooed children,
whom it was the object of Mary's life to keep out of the way. But there
was a struggle in Aunt Agatha's gentle bosom when she heard of the
Etruscan vase and the rococo chair. Her heart yearned a little over the
pretty things thus put in peril, for she had a few pretty things herself
which were dear to her. Her alarm, however, was swallowed up by a
stronger emotion. It was natural for a woman to take thought for such
things, but it went to her heart to think of "poor Francis," once her
hero, in such a connection. "You see he has nothing else to care for,"
she said--and the fair old maiden paused and gave a furtive sigh over
the poor old bachelor, who might have been so different. "It was his own
fault," she added to herself, softly; but still the idea of Francis
Ochterlony "wrapped up," as Miss Seton expressed it, in chairs and
vases, gave a shock to her gentle spirit. It was righteous retribution,
but still Aunt Agatha was a woman, and pitiful. She was still more moved
when Mary took her into the drawing-room, where there were so many
beautiful things. She looked upon them with silent and reverent
admiration, but still not without a personal reference. "So that is all
he cares for, now-a-days," she said with a sigh; and it was just at the
same moment that Mr. Ochterlony, in his study, disturbed by visions of
two women in his peaceable house, gave up his monograph on Icelandic art
in despair.
This, it may be said, was how Mrs. Ochterlony's first experiment
terminated. She did not leave Earlston at once, but she did so shortly
after--without any particular resistance on the part of her
brother-in-law. After Aunt Agatha's visit, Mr. Ochterlony's thoughts
took a different turn. He was very civil to her before she left, as
indeed it was his nature to be to all women, and showed her his
collections, and paid her a certain alarmed and respectful deference.
But after that he did not do anything to detain Mary in his house. Where
one woman was, other women were pretty sure to come, and nobody could
tell what unseen visitants might enter along with them, to disturb a
man in his occupations, and startle him out of his tranquillity. He
never had the heart to resume that monograph on Icelandic art--which was
a great loss to the Society of Antiquaries and the æsthetic world in
general; and though he had no advice in particular to give to his
sister-in-law as to her future movements, he did not say anything
further to deter her from leaving Earlston. "I hope you will let me know
what your movements are, and where you decide upon settling," he said,
as he shook hands with her very gravely at the carriage door, "and if I
can be of any use." And this was how the first experiment came to an
end.
Then Mrs. Ochterlony kissed her boys when they were fairly out of the
grey shadow of their uncle's house, and shed a few tears over them. "Now
at least I shall not have to keep my bonnie boys out of the way any
more," said Mary. But she caught sight again of the cheery cottage, with
the fire burning within, and the hospitable door open, as she drove down
to the railway; and her heart longed to alight and take possession, and
find herself at home. When should she be at home? or was there no such
place in the world? But happily she had no maid, and no time to think or
calculate probabilities--and thus she set out upon her second venture,
among "her own friends."