"I like all your people, mamma," said Hugh, "and I like little Nelly
best of all. She is a little jewel, and as fresh as a little rose."
"And such a thing might happen as that she might make you a nice little
wife one of these days," said Aunt Agatha, who was always a match-maker
in her heart.
Upon which Hugh nodded and laughed and grew slightly red, as became his
years. "I had always the greatest confidence in your good sense, my dear
Aunt," he said in his laughing way, and never so much as thought of
Wilfrid in the big Indian chair, who had been Nelly's constant companion
for at least one long year.
"I should like to know what business he has with Nelly," said Will
between his teeth. "A great hulking fellow, old enough to be her
father."
"She would never have _you_, Will," said Hugh, laughing; "girls always
despise a fellow of their own age. So you need not look sulky, old boy.
For that matter I doubt very much if she'd have me."
"You are presumptuous boys," said Mrs. Ochterlony, "to think she would
have either of you. She has too much to do at home, and too many things
to think of. _I_ should like to have her all to myself," said Mary, with
a sigh. She sighed, but she smiled; for though her boys could not be
with her as Nelly might have been, still all was well with them, and the
heart of their mother was content.
"My uncle wants you all to come over to Earlston," said Hugh. "I think
the poor old boy is beginning to give in. He looks very shaky in the
morning when he comes downstairs. I'd like to know what you think of
him, mamma; I don't think his wanting to see you all is a good sign.
He's awfully good when you come to know him," said Hugh, clearing his
throat.
"Do you mean that Francis Ochterlony is ill?" said Aunt Agatha, with
sudden interest. "Your mother must go and see him, but you must not ask
me; I am an old woman, and I have old-fashioned notions, you know--but a
married lady can go anywhere. Besides he would not care for seeing me,"
Aunt Agatha added, with a slightly-wistful look, "it is so very--very
many years since we used to----"
"I know he wants to see you," said Hugh, who could not help laughing a
little; "and with so many people in the house I think you might risk it,
Aunt Agatha. He stands awfully in awe of you, I can tell you. And there
are to be a lot of people. It's a kind of coming of age affair," said
Hugh. "I am to be set up on Psyche's pedestal, and everybody is to look
at me and sing out, 'Behold the heir!' That's the sort of thing it's to
be. You can bring anybody you like, you two ladies--little Nelly Askell,
and all that sort of thing," he added, with a conscious laugh; and grew
red again, not at thought of Nelly Askell, but with the thrill which
"all that sort of thing" naturally brought into the young man's veins.
The face of Wilfrid grew darker and darker as he sat and listened. It
was not a precocious passion for Nelly Askell that moved him. If Nelly
had been his sister, his heart might still have swelled with a very
similar sentiment. "He'll have _her_ too," was what the boy said to
himself. There was no sort of justice or distribution in it; Hugh was
the lucky fellow who had everything, while no personal appropriation
whatever was to be permitted to Wilfrid. He could not engross his mother
as he would have liked to do, for she loved Hugh and Islay just as well
as she loved himself, and had friends and acquaintances, and people who
came and talked, and occupied her time, and even one who was supposed to
have the audacity to admire her. And there was no one else to supply the
imperious necessity which existed in Will's mind, to be the chief object
of somebody's thoughts. His curate had a certain awe of him, which was
satisfactory enough in its way; but nobody watched and worshipped poor
Will, or did anything more than love him in a reasonable unadoring way;
and he had no sister whom he could make his slave, nor humble friend to
whom he could be the centre of interest. Nelly's coming had been a
God-send to the boy. She had found out his discontent, and taken to
comforting him instinctively, and had been introduced into a world new
to her by means of his fancies: and the budding woman had regarded the
budding man with that curiosity, and wonder, and respect, and interest,
which exists by nature between the two representatives of humanity. And
now here was Hugh, who, not content with being an Oxford scholar, and
the heir of Earlston, and his mother's eldest son, and Sir Edward's
favourite, and the most interesting member of the family to the parish
in general, was about to seize on Nelly too. Will, though he was perhaps
of a jealous temper, was not mean or envious, nor did he grudge his
brother his elevation. But he thought it hard that all should go to one,
and that there should be no shares: if he had had the arranging of it,
it would have been otherwise arranged; Hugh should still have had
Earlston, and any other advantages suited to his capacity--but as for
Oxford and Nelly---- It was unfair--that was the sting; all to one, and
nothing to the other. This sentiment made Wilfrid very unwilling to
accompany the rest of the family to Earlston. He did not want to go and
survey all the particulars of Hugh's good-fortune, and to make sure once
again, as he had already so often decided, that Hugh's capacities were
inferior to his luck, and that it was really of little advantage to him
to be so well off. But Will's inclinations, as it happened, were not
consulted on the subject; the expedition was all settled without any
room being left for his protest. Aunt Agatha was to go, though she had
very little desire to do so, being coy about Mr. Ochterlony's house, and
even not too well pleased to think that coyness was absurd in her case,
and that she was old enough to go to anybody's house, and indeed do what
she pleased. And Sir Edward was going, who was older than any of them,
and was still inclined to believe that Francis Ochterlony and Agatha
Seton might make it up; and then, though Mrs. Askell objected greatly,
and could not tell what she was to do with the children, and limited the
expedition absolutely to two days, Nelly was going too. Thus Will had to
give in, and withdraw his opposition. It was, as Hugh said, "a coming of
age sort of affair," but it was not precisely a coming of age, for that
important event had taken place some time before, when Hugh, whose
ambition was literary, had been working like a coal-heaver to take his
degree, and had managed to take it and please his uncle. But there was
to be a great dinner to introduce the heir of Earlston to his country
neighbours, and everything was to be conducted with as much solemnity as
if it had been the heir-apparent's birthday. It was so great an
occasion, that Mrs. Ochterlony got a new dress, and Aunt Agatha brought
forth among the sprigs of lavender her silver-grey which she wore at
Winnie's marriage. It was not Hugh's marriage, but it was an event
almost as important; and if his own people did not try to do him credit,
what was to be expected of the rest of the world?
And for Nelly Askell it was a very important crisis. She was sixteen,
but up to this moment she had never had a dress "made long," and the
excitement of coming to this grandeur, and of finding Hugh Ochterlony by
her side, full of unspeakable politeness, was almost too much for Nelly;
the latter complication was something she did not quite understand.
Will, for his part, carried things with a high hand, and behaved to her
as a brother behaves to the sister whom he tyrannizes over. It is true
that she sometimes tyrannized over him in her turn, as has been seen,
but they did not think it necessary to be civil, nor did either of them
restrain their personal sentiments in case anything occurred they
disapproved of. But Hugh was altogether different--Hugh was one of "the
gentlemen;" he was grown up, he had been to the University, he rode, and
shot, and hunted, and did everything that the gentlemen are expected to
do--and he lowered his voice when he spoke to Nelly, and schemed to get
near her, and took bouquets from the Cottage garden which were not
intended for Mrs. Askell. Altogether, he was like the hero of a story to
Nelly, and he made her feel as if she, just that very moment as it were,
translated into a long dress, was a young lady in a story too. Will was
her friend and companion, but this was something quite different from
Will; and to be taken to see his castle, and his guardian, and his
future domains, and assist at the recognition of the young prince, was
but the natural continuation of the romance. Nelly's new long dresses
were only muslin, but they helped out the force of the situation, and
intensified that vague thrill of commencing womanhood and power
undreamed of, which Hugh's presence had helped to produce. Could it be
possible that she could forget the children, and her mamma's head which
was always so bad, and go off for two whole days from her duty? Mrs.
Askell could scarcely believe it, and Nelly felt guilty when she
realized the dreadful thought, but still she wanted to go; and she had
no patience with Will's objections, but treated them with summary
incivility. "Why shouldn't you like to go?" said Nelly, "you would like
it very much if you were your brother. And I would not be jealous like
you, not for all the world;" and then Nelly added, "it is not because it
is a party that I care for it, but because it is such a pleasure to dear
Mrs. Ochterlony, and to--Mr. Hugh----"
"Ah, yes, I knew you would go over to Hugh's side," said Will; "I said
so the very day he came here."
"Why should I go over to his side?" cried Nelly, indignantly; "but I am
pleased to see people happy; and I am Mr. Hugh's friend, just as I am
your friend," added the little woman, with dignity; "it is all for dear
Mrs. Ochterlony's sake."
Thus it was that the new generation stepped in and took up all the
foreground of the stage, just as Winnie and her love affairs had done,
who was of the intermediate generation--thrusting the people whose play
was played out, and their personal story over, into the background.
Mary, perhaps, had not seen how natural it was, when her sister was the
heroine; but when she began to suspect that the everlasting romance
might, perhaps, begin again under her very eyes, with her children for
the actors, it gave her a sweet shock of surprise and amusement. She had
been in the shade for a long time, and yet she had still been the
central figure, and had everything in her hands. What if, now, perhaps,
Aunt Agatha's prophecy should come true, and Hugh, whose future was now
secure, should find the little waif all ready for him at the very outset
of his career? Such a possibility gave his mother, who had not yet
arrived at the age which can consent to be passive and superannuated, a
curious thrill--but still it might be a desirable event. When Mary saw
her son hanging over the fair young creature, whom she had coveted to be
her daughter, a true perception of what her own future must be came over
her. The boys _must_ go away, and would probably marry and set up
households, and the mother who had given up the best part of her life to
them _must_ remain alone. She was glad, and yet it went with a curious
penetrating pang to her heart. Some women might have been jealous of the
girl who had first revealed this possibility to them; but Mary, for her
part, knew better, and saw that it was Nature and not Nelly that was to
blame; and she was not a woman to go in the face of Nature. "Hugh will
marry early," she said to Aunt Agatha, with a smile; but her heart gave
a little flutter in her breast as she said it, and saw how natural it
was. Islay was gone already, and very soon Will would have to go; and
there would be no more for their mother to do but to live on, with her
occupation over, and her personal history at an end. The best thing to
do was to make up her mind to it. There was a little moisture in her
eyes as she smiled upon Nelly the night before they set out for
Earlston. The girl had to spend the previous night at the Cottage, to be
ready for their start next day; and Mrs. Ochterlony smiled upon and
kissed her, with a mingled yearning and revulsion. Ah, if she had but
been her own--that woman-child! and yet it required a little effort to
accept her for her own, at the cost, as it were, of her boy--for women
are inconsistent, especially when they are women who have children. But
one thing, at least, Mary was sure about, and that was, that her own
share of the world would henceforward be very slight. Nothing would ever
happen to her individually. Perhaps she regretted the agitations and
commotions of life, and felt as if she would prefer still to endure
them, and feel herself something in the world; but that was all over;
Will _must_ go. Islay was gone. Hugh would marry; and Mary's remaining
years would flow on by necessity like the Kirtell, until some day they
would come to a noiseless end. She said to herself that she ought to
accept, and make up her mind to it; that boys must go out into the
world, and quit the parent nest; and that she ought to be very thankful
for the calm and secure provision which had been made for the rest of
her life.
And next morning they started for Earlston, on the whole a very cheerful
party. Nelly was so happy, that it did every one's heart good to see
her; and she had given Will what she called "such a talking to," that he
was as good as gold, and made no unpleasant remarks. And Sir Edward was
very suave and benign, though full of recollections which confused and
embarrassed Aunt Agatha. "I remember travelling along this same road
when we still thought it could be all arranged," he said; "and thinking
what a long way it would be to have to go to Earlston to see you; but
there was no railroad then, and everything is very much changed."
"Yes, everything," said Aunt Agatha; and then she talked about the
weather in a tremulous way. Sir Edward would not have spoken as he did,
if he had not thought that even yet the two old lovers might make it up,
which naturally made it very confusing for Aunt Agatha to be the one to
go to Earlston, and make, as it were, the first advances. She felt just
the same heart thumping a little against her breast, and her white hair
and soft faded cheek could not be supposed to be so constantly visible
to her as they were to everybody else; and if Francis Ochterlony were to
take it into his head to imagine----For Miss Seton, though nothing would
have induced her to marry at her age, was not so certainly secure as her
niece was that nothing now would ever happen in her individual life.
Nothing did happen, however, when they arrived at Earlston, where the
master of the house received them, not with open arms, which was not his
nature, but with all the enthusiasm he was capable of. He took them to
see all his collections, everything he had that was most costly and
rare. To go back to the house in this way, and see the scene of her
former tortures; tortures which looked so light to look back upon, and
were so amusing to think of, but which had been all but unbearable at
the time, was strange to Mary. She told the story of her miseries, and
they all laughed; but Mr. Ochterlony was still seen to change colour,
when she pointed out the Etruscan vase which Hugh had taken into his
hand, and the rococo chair which Islay had mounted. "This is the
chair," the master of Earlston said; and he did not laugh so frankly as
the rest, but turned aside to show Miss Seton his Henri II. porcelain.
"It was nothing to laugh at, at the time," he said, confidentially, in a
voice which sank into Aunt Agatha's heart; and, to restore her
composure, she paid great attention to the Henri Deux ware. She said she
remembered longing very much to have a set like that when she was a
girl. "I never knew you were fond of china," said Mr. Ochterlony. "Oh,
yes," Aunt Agatha replied; but she did not explain that the china she
had longed for was a toy service for her doll's and little companions'
tea. Mr. Ochterlony put the costly cups away into a little cabinet, and
locked it, after this; and he offered Aunt Agatha his arm, to lead her
to the library, to see his collection there. She took it, but she
trembled a little, the tender-hearted old woman. They looked such an old
couple as they walked out of the room together, and yet there was
something virginal and poetic about them, which they owed to their
lonely lives. It was as if the roses that Hugh had just gathered for
Nelly had been put away for half a century, and brought out again all
dried and faded, but still roses, and with a lingering pensive perfume.
And Sir Edward sat and smiled in a corner, and whispered to Mary to
leave them to themselves a little: such things had been as that they
might make it up.
There was a great dinner in the evening, at which Hugh's health was
drunk, and everybody hoped to see him for many a happy year at Earlston,
yet prayed that it might be many a year before he had to take any other
place than the one he now occupied at his uncle's side. There were some
county ladies present, who were very gracious to Mary, and anxious to
know all about her boys, and whether she, too, was coming to Earlston;
but who were disposed to snub Nelly, who was not Mrs. Ochterlony's
daughter, nor "any relation," and who was clearly an interloper on such
an occasion. Nelly did not care much for being snubbed; but she was very
glad to seize the moment to propitiate Wilfrid, who had come into the
room looking in what Nelly called "one of his states of mind;" for it
must not be forgotten that she was a soldier's daughter, and had been
brought up exclusively in the regiment, and used many very colloquial
forms of speech. She managed to glide to the other end of the room where
Wilfrid was scowling over a collection of cameos without being noticed.
To tell the truth, Nelly was easier in her mind when she was at a little
distance from the Psyche and the Venus. She had never had any training
in art, and she would have preferred to throw a cloak or, at the least,
a lace shawl, or something, over those marble beauties. But she was, at
least, wise enough to keep her sentiments to herself.
"Why have you come up so early, Will?" she said.
"What need I stay for, I wonder?" said Will; "I don't care for their
stupid county talk. It is just as bad as parish talk, and not a bit more
rational. I suppose my uncle must have known better one time or other,
or he could not have collected all these things here."
"Do you think they are very pretty?" said Nelly, looking back from a
safe distance, and thinking that, however pretty they might be, they
were not very suitable for a drawing-room, where people in general were
in the habit of putting on more decorous garments: by which it will be
perceived that she was a very ignorant little girl and knew nothing
about it, and had no natural feeling for art.
"Pretty!" said Will, "you have only to look and see what they are--or to
hear their names would be enough. And to think of all those asses
downstairs turned in among them, that probably would like a few stupid
busts much better,--whereas there are plenty of other people that would
give their ears----"
"Oh, Will!" cried Nelly, "you are always harping on the old string!"
"I am not harping on any string," said Will. "All I want is, that people
should stick to what they understand. Hugh might know how much money it
was all worth, but I don't know what else he could know about it. If my
uncle was in his senses and left things in shares as they do in France
and everywhere where they have any understanding----"
"And then what would become of the house and the family?" cried
Nelly,--"if you had six sons and Hugh had six sons--and then your other
brother. They would all come down to have cottages and be a sort of
clan--instead of going and making a fortune like a man, and leaving
Earlston to be the head----" Probably Nelly had somewhere heard the
argument which she stated in this bewildering way, or picked it out of a
novel, which was the only kind of literature she knew much about--for it
would be vain to assert that the principles of primogeniture had ever
been profoundly considered in her own thoughts--"and if you were the
eldest," she added, forsaking her argumentation, "I don't think you
would care so much for everybody going shares."
"If I were the eldest it would be quite different," said Will. And then
he devoted himself to the cameos, and would enter into no further
explanation. Nelly sat down beside him in a resigned way, and looked at
the cameos too, without feeling very much interest in them, and wondered
what the children were doing, and whether mamma's head was bad; and her
own astonishing selfishness in leaving mamma's headache and the children
to take care of themselves, struck her vividly as she sat there in the
twilight and saw the Psyche and Venus, whom she did not approve of,
gleaming white in the grey gloaming, and heard the loud voices of the
ladies at the other end of the room. Then it began to come into her head
how vain pleasures are, and how to do one's duty is all one ought to
care for in the world. Mrs. Ochterlony was at the other end of the
drawing-room, talking to the other ladies, and "Mr. Hugh" was downstairs
with a quantity of stupid men, and Will was in one of his "states of
mind." And the chances were that something had gone wrong at home; that
Charley had fallen downstairs, or baby's bath had been too hot for her,
or something--a judgment upon Nelly for going away. At one moment she
got so anxious thinking of it all, that she felt disposed to get up and
run home all the way, to make sure that nothing had happened. Only that
just then Aunt Agatha came to join them in looking over the cameos, and
began to tell Nelly, as she often did, little stories about Mrs.
Percival, and to call her "my dear love," and to tell her her dress
looked very nice, and that nothing was so pretty as a sweet natural rose
in a girl's hair. "I don't care for artificial flowers at your age, my
dear," Aunt Agatha was saying, when the gentlemen came in and Hugh made
his appearance; and gradually the children's possible mischances and her
mamma's headache faded out of Nelly's thoughts.
It was the pleasantest two days that had been spent at Earlston in the
memory of man. Mrs. Ochterlony went over all the house with very
different feelings from those she had felt when she was an inmate of the
place, and smiled at her own troubles and found her misery very comical;
and little Nelly, who never in all her life before had known what it was
to have two days to herself, was so happy that she was perfectly
wretched about it when she went to bed. For it had never yet occurred to
Nelly, as it does to so many young ladies, that she had a right to
everything that was delightful and pleasant, and that the people who
kept her out of her rights were ogres and tyrants. She was frightened
and rather ashamed of herself for being so happy; and then she made it
up by resolving to be doubly good and make twice as much a slave of
herself as ever as soon as she got home. This curious and unusual
development of feeling probably arose from the fact that Nelly had never
been brought up at all, so to speak, but had simply grown; and had too
much to do to have any time for thinking of herself--which is the best
of all possible bringings up for some natures. As for Aunt Agatha, she
went and came about this house, which could never be otherwise than
interesting to her, with a wistful look and a flickering unsteady colour
that would not have shamed even Nelly's sixteen-year old cheek. Miss
Seton saw ghosts of what might have been in every corner; she saw the
unborn faces shine beside the never-lighted fire. She saw herself as she
might have been, rising up to receive her guests, sitting at the head of
the long, full, cheerful table. It was a curious sensation, and made her
stop to think now and then which was the reality and which the shadow;
and yet there could be no doubt that there was in it a certain charm.
And there could be no doubt, either, that a certain sadness fell upon
Mr. Ochterlony when they were all gone. He had a fire lighted in his
study that night, though it was warm, "to make it look a little more
cheerful," he said; and made Hugh sit with him long after the usual
time. He sat buried in his great chair, with his thin, long limbs
looking longer and thinner than ever, and his head a little sunk upon
his breast. And then he began to moralize and give his nephew good
advice.
"I hope you'll marry, Hugh," he said. "I don't think it's good to shut
one's self out from the society of women; they're very unscientific, but
still---- And it makes a great difference in a house. When I was a young
fellow like you---- But, indeed, it is not necessary to go back so far.
A man has it in his power to amuse himself for a long time, but it
doesn't last for ever---- And there are always things that might have
been better otherwise----" Here Mr. Ochterlony made a long pause and
stared into the fire, and after a while resumed without any preface:
"When I'm gone, Hugh, you'll pack up all that Henri Deux ware and send
it over to--to your Aunt Agatha. I never thought she cared for china.
John will pack it for you--he is a very careful fellow for that sort of
thing. I put it all into the Louis Quinze cabinet; now mind you don't
forget."
"Time enough for that, sir," said Hugh, cheerfully, and not without a
suppressed laugh; for the loves of Aunt Agatha and Francis Ochterlony
were slightly comical to Hugh.
"That is all you know about it," said his uncle. "But I shall expect you
altogether to be of more use in the world than I have been, Hugh; and
you'll have more to do. Your father, you know, married when he was a
boy, and went out of my reach; but you'll have all your people to look
after. Don't play the generous prince and spoil the boys--mind you don't
take any stupid notions into your head of being a sort of Providence to
them. It's a great deal better for them to make their own way; but
you'll be always here, and you'll lend a helping hand. Stand by
them--that's the great thing; and as for your mother, I needn't
recommend her to your kindest care. She has done a great deal for you."
"Uncle, I wish you would not talk like this," said Hugh; "there's
nothing the matter with you? What's the good of making a fellow uneasy
and sending him uncomfortable to bed? Leave those sort of things till
you're old and ill, and then I'll attend to what you say."
Mr. Ochterlony softly shook his head. "You won't forget about the Henri
Deux," he said; and then he paused again and laughed as it were under
his breath, with a kind of laugh that was pathetic and full of quaint
tenderness. "If it had ever come to that, I don't think you would have
been any the worse," he added; "we were not the sort of people to have
heirs," and the laugh faded into a lingering, wistful smile, half sad,
half amused, with which on his face, he sat for a long time and gazed
into the fading fire. It was, perhaps, simply that the presence of such
visitors had stirred up the old recollections in his heart--perhaps that
it felt strange to him to look back on his own past life in the light
thrown upon it by the presence of his heir, and to feel that it was
ending, while yet, in one sense, it had never begun. As for Hugh, to
tell the truth, he was chiefly amused by his uncle's reflective mood. He
thought, which no doubt was to some extent true, that the old man was
thinking of an old story which had come to nothing, and of which old
Aunt Agatha was the heroine. There was something touching in it he could
not but allow, but still he gave a laugh within himself at the
superannuated romance. And all that immediately came of it, was the
injunction not to forget about the Henri Deux.