That night was a painful night for Winnie. The girl was self-willed and
self-loving, as has been said. But she was not incapable of the more
generous emotions, and when she looked at her sister she could no more
suspect her of any wrong or treachery than she could suspect the sun
shining over their heads. And her interest in the young soldier had gone
a great length. She thought he loved her, and it was very hard to think
that he was kept apart from her by a reason which was no reason at all.
She roved about the garden all the evening in an unsettled way, thinking
he would come again--thinking he could not stay away--explaining to
herself that he must come to explain. And when she glanced indoors at
the lamp which was lighted so much earlier than it needed to be, for the
sake of Mary's sewing, and saw Mary seated beside it, in what looked
like perfect composure and quietness, Winnie's impatience got the better
of her. He was to be banished, or confined to a formal morning call, for
Mary's sake, who sat there so calm, a woman for whom the fret and cares
of life were over, while for Winnie life was only beginning, and her
heart going out eagerly to welcome and lay claim to its troubles. And
then the thought that it was the same Mrs. Ochterlony came sharp as a
sting to Winnie's heart. What could he have had to do with Mrs.
Ochterlony? what did _she_ mean coming home in the character of a
sorrowful widow, and shutting out their visitors, and yet awakening
something like agitation and unquestionable recognition in the first
stranger she saw? Winnie wandered through the garden, asking herself
those questions, while the sweet twilight darkened, and the magical hour
passed by, which had of late associated itself with so many dreams. And
again he did not come. It was impossible to her, when she looked at
Mary, to believe that there could be anything inexplainable in the link
which connected her lover with her sister--but still he ought to have
come to explain. And when Sir Edward's windows were lighted once more,
and the certainty that he was not coming penetrated her mind, Winnie
clenched her pretty hands, and went crazy for the moment with despite
and vexation. Another long dull weary evening, with all the expectation
and hope quenched out of it; another lingering night; another day in
which there was as much doubt as hope. And next week he was going away!
And it was all Mary's fault, however you took it--whether she had known
more of him than she would allow in India, or whether it was simply the
fault of that widow's cap which scared people away? This was what was
going on in Winnie's agitated mind while the evening dews fell upon the
banks of Kirtell, and the soft stars came out, and the young moon rose,
and everything glistened and shone with the sweetness of a summer night.
This fair young creature, who was in herself the most beautiful climax
of all the beauty around her, wandered among her flowers with her small
hands clenched, and the spirit of a little fury in her heart. She had
nothing in the world to trouble her, and yet she was very unhappy, and
it was all Mary's fault. Probably if Mary could but have seen into
Winnie's heart she would have thought it preferable to stay at Earlston,
where the Psyche and the Venus were highly indifferent, and had no
hearts, but only arms and noses that could be broken. Winnie was more
fragile than the Etruscan vases or the Henri II. porcelain. They had
escaped fracture, but she had not; but fortunately this thought did not
occur to Mrs. Ochterlony as she sat by the lamp working at Hugh's little
blouses in Aunt Agatha's chair.
And Aunt Agatha, more actively jealous than Winnie herself, sat by
knitting little socks--an occupation which she had devoted herself to,
heart and soul, from the moment when she first knew the little
Ochterlonys were coming home. She was knitting with the prettiest yarn
and the finest needles, and had a model before her of proportions so
shapely as to have filled any woman's soul with delight; but all that
was eclipsed for the time by the doubt which hung over Mary, and the
evident unhappiness of her favourite. Aunt Agatha was less wise than
Winnie, and had not eyes to perceive that people were characteristic
even in their wrong-doing, and that Captain Percival of himself could
have nothing to do with the shock which Mary had evidently felt at the
sight of him. Probably Miss Seton had not been above a little flirtation
in her own day, and she did not see how that would come unnatural to a
woman of her own flesh and blood. And she sat accordingly on the other
side of the lamp and knitted, with a pucker of anxiety upon her fair old
brow, casting wistful glances now and then into the garden where Winnie
was.
"And I suppose, my dear, you know Captain Percival very well?" said Aunt
Agatha, with that anxious look on her face.
"I don't think I ever saw him but once," said Mary, who was a little
impatient of the question.
"But once, my dear love! and yet you both were so surprised to meet,"
said Aunt Agatha, with reasonable surprise.
"There are some moments when to see a man is to remember him ever
after," said Mary. "It was at such a time that I saw Sir Edward's
friend. It would be best to tell you about it, Aunt Agatha. There was a
time when my poor Hugh----"
"Oh, Mary, my darling, you can't think I want to vex you," cried Aunt
Agatha, "or make you go back again upon anything that is painful. I am
quite satisfied, for my part, when you say so. And so would Winnie be, I
am sure."
"Satisfied?" said Mary, wondering, and yet with a smile; and then she
forgot the wonder of it in the anxiety. "I should be sorry to think that
Winnie cared much for anything that could be said about Captain
Percival. I used to hear of him from the Askells who were friends of
his. Do not let her have anything to do with him, Aunt Agatha; I am sure
he could bring her nothing but disappointment and pain."
"I--Mary?--Oh, my dear love, what can _I_ do?" cried Miss Seton, in
sudden confusion; and then she paused and recovered herself. "Of course
if he was a wicked young man, I--I would not let Winnie have anything to
do with him," she added, faltering; "but--do you think you are sure,
Mary? If it should be only that you do not--like him; or that you have
not got on--or something----"
"I have told you that I know nothing of him, Aunt," said Mary. "I saw
him once at the most painful moment of my life, and spoke half-a-dozen
words to him in my own house after that--but it is what I have heard the
gentlemen say. I do not like him. I think it was unmannerly and
indelicate to come to my house at such a time----"
"My darling!" said Aunt Agatha, soothing her tenderly. Miss Seton was
thinking of the major's death, not of any pain that might have gone
before; and Mary by this time in the throng of recollections that came
upon her had forgotten that everybody did not know.
"But that is not the reason," Mrs. Ochterlony said, composing herself:
"the reason is that he could not, unless he is greatly changed, make
Winnie otherwise than unhappy. I know the reputation he had. The
Heskeths would not let him come to their house after Annie came out; and
I have even heard Hugh----"
"My dear love, you are agitating yourself," cried Aunt Agatha. "Oh,
Mary, if you only knew how anxious I am to do anything to recall----"
"Thank you," said Mrs. Ochterlony, with a faint smile: "it is not so
far off that I should require anything to recall all that has happened
to me--but for Winnie's sake----"
And it was just at that moment that the light suddenly appeared in Sir
Edward's window, and brought Winnie in, white and passionate, with a
thunder-cloud full of tears and lightnings and miserable headache and
self-reproach, lowering over her brilliant eyes.
"It is very good of Mary, I am sure, to think of something for my sake,"
said Winnie. "What is it, Aunt Agatha? Everything is always so
unpleasant that is for one's good. I should like to know what it was."
And then there was a dead silence in the pretty room. Mary bent her head
over her work, silenced by the question, and Aunt Agatha, in a flutter
of uncertainty and tribulation, turned from one to the other, not
knowing which side to take nor what to say.
"Mary has come among us a stranger," said Winnie, "and I suppose it is
natural that she should think she knows our business better than we do.
I suppose that is always how it seems to a stranger; but at the same
time it is a mistake, Aunt Agatha, and I wish you would let Mary know
that we are disposed to manage for ourselves. If we come to any harm it
is we who will have to suffer, and not Mary," the impetuous girl cried,
as she drew that unhappy embroidery frame out of its corner.
And then another pause, severe and startling, fell upon the little
party. Aunt Agatha fluttered in her chair, looking from one to another,
and Winnie dragged a violent needle through her canvas, and a great
night moth came in and circled about them, and dashed itself madly
against the globe of light on the table. As for Mary, she sat working at
Hugh's little blouse, and for a long time did not speak.
"My dear love!" Aunt Agatha said at last, trembling, "you know there is
nothing in the world I would not do to please you, Winnie,--nor Mary
either. Oh, my dear children, there are only you two in the world. If
one says anything, it is for the other's good. And here we are, three
women together, and we are all fond of each other, and surely, surely,
nothing ever can make any unpleasantness!" cried the poor lady, with
tears. She had her heart rent in two, like every mediatrix, and yet the
larger half, as was natural, went to her darling's side.
"Winnie is right enough," Mary said, quietly. "I am a stranger, and I
have no right to interfere; and very likely, even if I were permitted to
interfere, it would do no good. It is a shame to vex you, Aunt Agatha.
My sister must submit to hear my opinion one time, but I am not going to
disturb the peace of the house, nor yours."
"Oh, Mary, my dear, it is only that she is a little impatient, and has
always had her own way," said Aunt Agatha, whispering across the table.
And then no more was said. Miss Seton took up her little socks, and
Winnie continued to labour hotly at her embroidery, and the sound of her
work, and the rustle of Mary's arm at her sewing, and the little click
of Aunt Agatha's knitting-needles, and the mad dashes of the moth at the
lamp, were all the sounds in the room, except, indeed, the sound of the
Kirtell, flowing softly over its pebbles at the foot of the brae, and
the sighing of the evening air among the trees, which were sadly
contradictory of the spirit of the scene within; and at a distance over
the woods, gleamed Sir Edward's window, with the ill-disposed light
which was, so to speak, the cause of all. Perhaps, after all, if Mrs.
Ochterlony had stayed at Earlston, where the Psyche and the Venus were
not sensitive, and there was nothing but marble and china to jar into
discord, it might have been better; and what would have been better
still, was the grey cottage on the roadside, with fire on the hearth and
peace and freedom in the house; and it was to that, with a deep and
settled longing, that Mary's heart and thoughts went always back.
When Mrs. Ochterlony had withdrawn, the scene changed much in Aunt
Agatha's drawing-room. But it was still a pretty scene. Then Winnie came
and poured out her girlish passion in the ears and at the feet of her
tender guardian. She sank down upon the carpet, and laid her beautiful
head upon Aunt Agatha's knee, and clasped her slender arms around her.
"To think she should come and drive every one I care for away from the
house, and set even you against me!" cried Winnie, with sobs of vexation
and rage.
"Oh, Winnie! not me! Never me, my darling," cried Aunt Agatha; and they
made a group which a painter would have loved, and which would have
conveyed the most delicate conception of love and grief to an admiring
public, had it been painted. Nothing less than a broken heart and a
blighted life would have been suggested to an innocent fancy by the
abandonment of misery in Winnie's attitude. And to tell the truth, she
was very unhappy, furious with Mary, and with herself, and with her
lover, and everybody in the wide world. The braids of her beautiful hair
got loose, and the net that confined them came off, and the glistening
silken flood came tumbling about her shoulders. Miss Seton could not but
take great handfuls of it as she tried to soothe her darling; and poor
Aunt Agatha's heart was rent in twain as she sat with this lovely burden
in her lap, thinking, Oh, if nobody had ever come to distract Winnie's
heart with love-making, and bring such disturbance to her life; oh, if
Hugh Ochterlony had thought better of it, and had not died! Oh, if Mary
had never seen Captain Percival, or seeing him, had approved of him, and
thought him of all others the mate she would choose for her sister! The
reverse of all these wishes had happened, and Aunt Agatha could not but
look at the combination with a certain despair.
"What can I do, my dear love?" she said. "It is my fault that Mary has
come here. You know yourself it would have been unnatural if she had
gone anywhere else: and how could we go on having people, with her in
such deep mourning? And as for Captain Percival, my darling----"
"I was not speaking of Captain Percival," said Winnie, with indignation.
"What is he to me?--or any man? But what I will not bear is Mary
interfering. She shall not tell us what we are to do. She shan't come in
and look as if she understood everything better than we do. And, Aunt
Agatha, she shan't--she shall never come, not for a moment, between you
and me!"
"My darling child! my dear love!" cried poor Aunt Agatha, "as if that
was possible, or as if poor Mary wanted to. Oh, if you would only do her
justice, Winnie? She is fond of you; I know she is fond of you. And what
she was saying was entirely for your good----"
"She is fond of nobody but her children," said Winnie, rising up, and
gathering her bright hair back into the net. "She would not care what
happened to us, as long as all was well with her tiresome little boys."
Aunt Agatha wrung her hands, as she looked in despair at the tears on
the flushed cheek, and the cloud which still hung upon her child's brow.
What could she say? Perhaps there was a little truth in what Winnie
said. The little boys, though Miss Seton could not help feeling them to
be so unimportant in comparison with Winnie and her beginning of life,
were all in all to Mrs. Ochterlony; and when she had murmured again that
Mary meant it all for Winnie's good, and again been met by a scornful
protestation that anything meant for one's good was highly unpleasant,
Aunt Agatha was silenced, and had not another word to say. All that she
could do was to pet her wilful darling more than ever, and to promise
with tears that Mary should never, never make any difference between
them, and that she herself would do anything that Winnie wished or
wanted. The interview left her in such a state of agitation that she
could not sleep, nor even lie down, till morning was breaking, and the
new day had begun--but wandered about in her dressing-gown, thinking she
heard Winnie move, and making pilgrimages to her room to find her,
notwithstanding all her passion and tears, as fast asleep as one of
Mary's boys--which was very, very different from Aunt Agatha's case, or
Mary's either, for that matter. As for Mrs. Ochterlony, it is useless to
enter into any description of her feelings. She went to bed with a heavy
heart, feeling that she had made another failure, and glad, as people
are when they have little comfort round them, of the kind night and the
possible sleep which, for a few hours at least, would make her free of
all this. But she did not sleep as Winnie did, who felt herself so
ill-used and injured. Thus, Mrs. Ochterlony's return, a widow, brought
more painful agitation to Miss Seton's cottage than had been known under
its quiet roof since the time when she went away a bride.