Aunt Agatha's cottage was very different from Earlston. It was a woman's
house, and bore that character written all over it. The Psyche and the
Venus would have been dreadfully out of place in it, it is true, but yet
there was not a spot left vacant where an ornament could be; little
fanciful shelves nestled in all the corners--which it was a great
comfort to Mary's mind to see were just above her boys' range--bearing
little vases, and old teacups and curiosities of all kinds, not valuable
like Francis Ochterlony's, nor chosen with such refined taste, but yet
dear to Aunt Agatha's heart. Nothing so precious as the ware of Henri
II. had ever come in Miss Seton's way; but she had one or two trifling
articles that were real Wedgewood, and she had some bits of genuine
Sèvres, and a great deal of pretty rubbish, which answered the purpose
quite as well as if it had been worth countless sums of money; and then
there were flowers, wherever flowers could find a place. The rooms all
opened out with liberal windows upon the garden, and the doors stood
open, and sun and air, sound and fragrance, went through and through the
little house. It was the same house as that in which Mary had felt the
English leaves rustling, and the English breezes blowing, as she read
Aunt Agatha's letter in India, ages ago, before any of those great
events had happened which had thrown such a shadow on her life. The two
ladies of the cottage went to the railway to meet their visitors, and it
was Peggy, the real head of the establishment, who stood in her best
cap, in a flutter of black ribbons and white apron, to receive "Miss
Mary." And the glowing colour of the flowers, and the sunshine and the
open house, and the flutter of womanish welcome, made the difference
still more marked. When Mrs. Ochterlony was placed in the easiest chair
in the brightest corner in that atmosphere of sunshine and sweetness,
and saw her forlorn little boys take their place in the foreground of
the picture, elected autocrats over the household in general, the sense
of relief and difference was so sweet to her that she no longer felt
that yearning for some place of her own. The greatest infidel, the most
hard-hearted cynic could not have felt otherwise than at home under such
circumstances. The children were taken out of Mary's hands on the
instant, she whose time had been entirely devoted to keeping them
invisible and inaudible, and out of the way--and Peggy took possession
of the baby, and pretty Winnie flashed away into the garden with the two
boys, with floating curls and flying ribbons, and all the gay freedom of
a country girl, taking the hearts of her little companions by storm. Her
sister, who had not "taken to her" at first, sat in Aunt Agatha's chair,
in the first moment of conscious repose she had known in England, and
looked out at the fair young figure moving about among the flowers, and
began to be in love with Winnie. Here she was safe at last, she and her
fatherless children. Life might be over for her in its fullest
sense--but still she was here at peace among her own people, and again
some meaning seemed to come back to the word home. She was lingering
upon this thought in the unusual repose of the moment, and wiping some
quiet tears from her cheeks, when Aunt Agatha came and sat down beside
her and took Mary's hand. She had been partially incoherent with
satisfaction and delight until now, but by this time any little tendency
to hysterics which might be in Aunt Agatha's nature, had been calmed
down by the awe-inspiring presence of Peggy, and the comfort of
perceiving nothing but satisfaction in that difficult woman's
countenance. The baby had behaved himself like an angel, and had made
no objections whatever to the cap or features of his new guardian; and
Peggy, too, was visible from the open windows walking up and down the
garden with little Wilfrid in her arms, in all the glory of content.
This sight brought Miss Seton's comfort to a climax, as it did Mary's.
She came and took her niece's hand, and sat down beside her with a
tearful joy.
"Ah, Mary, this is what ought to have been from the very first," she
said; "this is different from Francis Ochterlony and his dreary house.
The dear children will be happy here."
"Yes, it is very different," said Mary, returning the pressure of the
soft little white hand; but her heart was full, and she could not find
much more to say.
"And you, too, my dear love," Aunt Agatha went on, who was not a wise
woman, looking into the new-comer's face--"you, too Mary, my
darling--you will try to be happy in your old home? Well, dear, never
mind answering me--I ought to know it is not the same for you as for us.
I can't help feeling so happy to have you and the dear children. Look at
Winnie, how delighted she is--she is so fond of children, though you
would not think so just at first. Doesn't it make you feel the
difference, Mary, to think you left her a baby, as one may say, and find
her grown up into such a great girl?"
"I have so many things to make me feel the difference," said Mary--for
Miss Seton was not one of those people who can do without an answer; and
then Aunt Agatha was very sorry, and kissed her, with tears in her eyes.
"Yes, my love--yes, my dear love;" she said, as if she were soothing a
child. "It was very foolish of me to use that expression; but you must
try not to mind me, Mary. Cry, my dear, or don't answer me, or do just
as you please. I never mean to say anything to recall---- Look at the
dear boys, how delighted they are. I know they will be fond of
Winnie--she has such a nice way with children. Don't you think she has a
very nice way?"
"She is very handsome," said Mary, looking out wistfully upon the young
imperious creature, whose stage of existence seemed the very antipodes
of her own.
"My dear love, she is beautiful," said Aunt Agatha. "Sir Edward told me
he had never, even at court--and you know he was a great deal about the
court in his young days--seen any one that promised to be such a
beautiful woman. And to think she should just be our Winnie all the
same! And so simple and sweet--such a perfect child with it all! You
may wonder how I have kept her so long," continued Winnie's adoring
guardian, "when you were married, Mary, before you were her age."
Mrs. Ochterlony tried hard to look up with the look of inquiry and
interest which was expected of her in Aunt Agatha's face; but she could
not. It was difficult enough to struggle with the recollections that
hung about this place, without having them thrust continually in her
face in this affectionately heartless way. Thus the wheel turned softly
round again, and the reality of the situation crept out in bare outline
from under the cloak of flowers and tenderness, as hard and clear as at
Earlston. Mary's grief was her own concern, and not of very much
consequence to anybody else in the world. She had no right to forget
that fact, and yet she did forget it, not being used yet to stand alone.
While Aunt Agatha, on her side, could not but think it was rather
hard-hearted of Mary to show so little interest in her own sister, and
such a sister as Winnie.
"It is not because she is not appreciated," Miss Seton went on, feeling
all the more bound to celebrate her favourite's praises, "but I am so
anxious she should make a good choice. She is not a girl that could
marry anybody, you know. She has her own little ways, and such a great
deal of character. I cannot tell you what a comfort it is to me, Mary,
my dear love, to think that now we shall have your experience to guide
us," Aunt Agatha added, melting into tenderness again.
"I am afraid experience is good for very little in such cases," said
Mary, "but I hope there will be no guidance needed--she seems very happy
now."
"To tell the truth, there is somebody at the Hall----" said Aunt Agatha,
"and I want to have your opinion, my dear. Oh, Mary, you must not talk
of no guidance being needed. I have watched over her ever since she was
born. The wind has never blown roughly on her; and if my darling was to
marry just an ordinary man, and be unhappy, perhaps--or no happier than
the rest of us----" said Aunt Agatha, with a sigh. This last touch of
nature went to Mary's heart.
"She is rich in having such love, whatever may happen to her," said Mrs.
Ochterlony, "and she looks as if, after all, she might yet have the
perfect life. She is very, very handsome--and good, I am sure, and
sweet--or she would not be your child, Aunt Agatha; but we must not be
too ready with our guidance. She would not be happy if her choice did
not come spontaneously, and of itself."
"But oh, my dear love, the risk of marrying!" said Miss Seton, with a
little sob--and she gave again a nervous pressure to Mary's hand, and
did not restrain her tears. They sat thus in the twilight together,
looking out upon the young little creatures for whom life was all
brightly uncertain--one of them regarding with a pitiful flutter of
dread and anxiety the world she had never ventured to enter into for
herself. Perhaps a vision of Francis Ochterlony mingled with Miss
Seton's thoughts, and a wistful backward glance at the life which might
have been, but had not. The other sat very still, holding Aunt Agatha's
soft little fluttering hand in her own, which was steady, and did not
tremble, with a strange pang of anguish and pity in her heart. Mary
looked at life through no such fanciful mists--she knew, as she thought,
its deepest depth and profoundest calamity; but the fountain of her
tears was all sealed up and closed, because nobody but herself had any
longer anything to do with it. And she, too, yearned over the young
creature whose existence was all to come, and felt that it was had to
think that she might be "no happier than the rest of us." It was these
words which had arrested Mary, who, perhaps, might have otherwise
thought that her own unquestionable sorrows demanded more sympathy than
Winnie's problematical future. Thus the two elder ladies sat, until
Winnie and the children came in, bring life and commotion with them. The
blackbird was still singing in the bushes, the soft northern twilight
lingering, and the dew falling, and all the sweet evening odours coming
in. As for Aunt Agatha, her heart, though it was old, fluttered with all
the agitation and disturbance of a girl's--while Mary, in the calm and
silence of her loneliness, felt herself put back as it were into
history, along with Ruth and Rachel, and her own mother, and all the
women whose lives had been and were over. This was how it felt to her in
the presence of Aunt Agatha's soft agitation--so that she half smiled at
herself sitting there composed and tranquil, and soothing her companion
into her usual calm.
"Mary agrees with me that this is better than Earlston, Winnie," said
Aunt Agatha, when the children were all disposed of for the night, and
the three who were so near to each other in blood, and who were
henceforward to be close companions, yet who knew so little of each
other in deed and truth, were left alone. The lamp was lighted, but the
windows were still open, and the twilight still lingered, and a wistful
blue-green sky looked in and put itself in swift comparison with the
yellow lamplight. Winnie stood in one of the open windows, half in and
half out, looking across the garden, as if expecting some one, and with
a little contraction in her forehead that marred her fine profile
slightly--giving a kind of careless half-attention to what was said.
"Does she?" she answered, indifferently; "I should have thought Earlston
was a much handsomer house."
"It was not of handsome houses we were thinking, my darling," said Aunt
Agatha, with soft reproof; "it was of love and welcome like what we are
so glad as to give her here."
"Wasn't Mr. Ochterlony kind?" said Winnie, with half contempt. "Perhaps
he does not fancy children. I don't wonder so very much at that. If they
were not my own nephews, very likely I should think them dreadful little
wretches. I suppose Mary won't mind me saying what I think. I always
have been brought up to speak out."
"They are dear children," said poor Aunt Agatha, promptly. "I wish you
would come in, my love. It is a great deal too late now to go out."
And at that moment Mary, who was the spectator, and could observe what
was going on, had her attention attracted by a little jar and rattle of
the window at which Winnie was standing. It was the girl's impatient
movement which had done it; and whether it was in obedience to Miss
Seton's mild command, or something more urgent, Winnie came in instantly
with a lowering brow, and shut the window with some noise and sharpness.
Probably Aunt Agatha was used to it, for she took no notice; but even
her patient spirit seemed moved to astonishment by the sudden clang of
the shutters, which the hasty young woman began to close.
"Leave that to Peggy, my darling," she said; "besides, it was nice to
have the air, and you know how I like the last of the gloaming. That is
the window where one can always see poor Sir Edward's light when he is
at home. I suppose they are sure to be at home, since they have not come
here to-night."
"Shall I open the window again, and let you look at the light, since you
like it so much?" said the undutiful Winnie. "I closed it for that. I
don't like to have anybody staring down at us in that superior sort of
way--as if we cared; and I am sure nobody here was looking for them
to-night."
"No, my dear, of course not," said Miss Seton. "Sir Edward is far too
much of a gentleman to think of coming the night that Mary was expected
home."
And then Winnie involuntarily turned half-round, and darted upon Mary an
inquiring defiant look out of her stormy eyes. The look seemed to say,
"So it was you who were the cause of it!" and then she swept past her
sister with her streaming ribbons, and pulled out an embroidery frame
which stood in a corner, and sat down to it in an irritated restless
way. In that pretty room, in the soft evening atmosphere, beside the
gentle old aunt, who was folding her soft hands in the sweet leisure
that became her age, and the fair, mature, but saddened presence of the
elder sister, who was resting in the calm of her exhaustion, a beautiful
girl bending over an embroidery frame was just the last touch of
perfection needed by the scene; but nobody would have thought so to see
how Winnie threw herself down to her work, and dashed at it, all because
of the innocent light that had been lighted in Sir Edward's window. Aunt
Agatha did her best, by impressive looks and coughs, and little
gestures, and transparently significant words, to subdue the spoilt
child into good behaviour; and then, in despair, she thought herself
called upon to explain.
"Sir Edward very often walks over of an evening," she said, edging
herself as it were between Mary and her sister. "We are always glad to
see him you know. It is a little change; and then he has some nice young
friends who stay with him occasionally," said the deceitful woman. "But
to be sure, he has too much feeling to think of making his appearance on
the night of your coming home."
"I hope you will make no difference for me," said Mary.
"My love, I hope I know what is proper," said Aunt Agatha, with her
little air of decision. And once more Winnie gave her sister a defiant
accusing glance. "It is I that will be the sufferer, and it is all on
your account," this look said, and the beautiful profile marked itself
out upon the wall with that contraction across the forehead which took
away half its loveliness. And then an uncomfortable silence ensued. Mrs.
Ochterlony could say nothing more in a matter of which she knew so
little, and Aunt Agatha, though she was the most yielding of guardians,
still came to a point of propriety now and then on which she would not
give way. This was how Mary discovered that instead of the Arcadian calm
and retirement of which the cottage seemed an ideal resting place, she
had come into another little centre of agitated human life, where her
presence made a jar and discord without any fault of hers.
But it would have been worse than ungrateful, it would have been
heartless and unkind, to have expressed such a feeling. So she, who was
the stranger, had to put force on herself, and talk and lead her two
companions back, so far as that was possible, from their pre-occupation;
but at the best it was an unsatisfactory and forced conversation, and
Mrs. Ochterlony was but too glad to own herself tired, and to leave her
aunt and sister to themselves. They had given her their best room, with
the fresh chintz and the pictures. They had made every arrangement for
her comfort that affection and thoughtful care could suggest. What they
had not been able to do was to let her come into their life without
disturbing it, without introducing forced restrictions and new rules,
without, in short, making her, all innocently and unwittingly on both
sides, the discord in the house. Thus Mary found that, without changing
her position, she had simply changed the scene; and the thought made her
heart sick.
When Mrs. Ochterlony had retired, the two ladies of the cottage said
nothing to each other for some time. Winnie continued her work in the
same restless way as she had begun, and poor Aunt Agatha took up a book,
which trembled in her hand. The impetuous girl had thrown open the
window when she was reproved for closing it, and the light in Sir
Edward's window shone far off on the tree tops, shedding an irritating
influence upon Winnie when she looked up; and at the same time she could
see the book shaking in Aunt Agatha's hand. Winnie was very fond of the
guardian of her youth, and would have indignantly declared herself
incapable of doing anything to vex her; but at the same time there could
be no doubt that Aunt Agatha's nervousness gave a certain satisfaction
to the young tyrant who ruled over her. Winnie saw that she was
suffering, and could not help feeling pleased, for had not she too
suffered all the evening? And she made no attempt to speak, or to take
any initiative, so that it was only after Miss Seton had borne it as
long as she was capable of bearing it, that the silence was broken at
last.
"Dear Winnie," said Aunt Agatha, with a faltering voice, "I think, when
you think of it, that you will not think you have been quite considerate
in making poor Mary uncomfortable the first night."
"Mary feel uncomfortable?" cried Winnie. "Good gracious, Aunt Agatha, is
one never to hear of anything but Mary? What has anybody done? I have
been sitting working all the evening, like--like a dressmaker or poor
needlewoman; does she object to that, I wonder?" and the young rebel put
her frame back into its corner, and rose to the fray. Sir Edward's
window still threw its distant light over the tree tops, and the sight
of it made her smouldering passion blaze.
"Oh, my dear, you know that was not what I meant," said the disturbed
and agitated aunt.
"I wish then, please, you would say what you mean," said Winnie. "She
would not come with us at first, when we were all ready for her, and
then she would not stay at Earlston after going there of her own free
will. I dare say she made Mr. Ochterlony's life wretched with her
trouble and widow's cap. Why didn't she be burnt with her Major, and be
done with it?" said Winnie. "I am sure it would be by far the most
comfortable way."
"Oh, Winnie, I thought you would have had a little sympathy for your
sister," said Aunt Agatha, with tears.
"Everybody has sympathy for my sister," said Winnie, "from Peggy up to
Sir Edward. I don't see why she should have it all. Hasn't she had her
day? Nobody came in upon her, when she was my age, to put the house in
mourning, and banish all one's friends. I hate injustice," cried the
young revolutionary. "It is the injustice that makes me angry. I tell
you, Aunt Agatha, she has had her day."
"Oh, Winnie," cried Miss Seton, weeping--"Oh, my darling child! don't be
so hard upon poor Mary. When she was your age she had not half nor
quarter the pleasures you have; and it was I that said she ought to come
among her own friends."
"I am sure she would be a great deal better in some place of her own,"
said Winnie, with a little violence. "I wonder how she can go to other
people's houses with all that lot of little children. If I should ever
come home a widow from India, or anywhere else----"
"Winnie!" cried Aunt Agatha, with a little scream, "for Heaven's sake,
don't say such things. Sorrow comes soon enough, without going to meet
it; and if we can give her a little repose, poor dear---- And what do a
few pleasant evenings signify to you at your time of life?"
"A few pleasant evenings!" said Winnie; and she gave a kind of gasp, and
threw herself into a chair, and cried too, for passion, and vexation,
and disgust--perhaps, a little, too, out of self-disgust, though she
would not acknowledge it. "As if that were all! And nobody thinks how
the days are flying, and how it may all come to an end!" cried the
passionate girl. After having given vent to such words, shame and
remorse seized upon Winnie. Her cheeks blazed so that the scorching heat
dried up her tears, and she sprang up again and flew at the shutters, on
which her feelings had already expended themselves more than once, and
brought down the bar with a clang that startled the whole house. As for
Aunt Agatha, she sat aghast, and gazed, and could not believe her eyes
or ears. What were the days that were flying, or the things that might
come to an end? Could this wild exclamation have anything to do with
the fact that Captain Percival was only on a visit at the Hall, and that
his days were, so to speak, numbered? Miss Seton was not so old as to
have forgotten what it was to be thus on the eve of losing sight of some
one who had, as she would herself have said, "interested you." But Aunt
Agatha had never in her life been guilty of violence or passion, and the
idea of committing such a sin against all propriety and good taste as to
have her usual visitors while the family was in affliction, was
something which she could not take into her mind. It looked a breach of
morals to Miss Seton; and for the moment it actually seemed as if
Winnie, for the first time in her life, was not to have her way.