While Hugh showed Nelly the way to the Lady's Well with that mixture of
brotherly tenderness and a dawning emotion of a much warmer kind, which
is the privileged entrance of their age into real love and passion; and
while Will made his with silent vehemence and ardour to Carlisle, Winnie
was left very miserable in the Cottage. It was a moment of reaction
after the furious excitement of the previous day. She had held him at
bay, she had shown him her contempt and scorn, she had proved to him
that their parting was final, and that she would never either see or
listen to him again; and the excitement of doing this had so supported
her that the day which Aunt Agatha thought a day of such horrible trial
to her poor Winnie, was, in short, the only day in which she had
snatched a certain stormy enjoyment since she returned to the Cottage.
But _the day after_ was different. He was gone; he had assented to her
desire, and accepted her decision to all appearance, and poor Winnie was
very miserable. For the moment all seemed to her to be over. She had
felt sure he would come, and the sense of the continued conflict had
buoyed her up; but she did not feel so sure that he would come again,
and the long struggle which had occupied her life and thoughts for so
many years seemed to have come to an abrupt end, and she had nothing
more to look forward to. When she realized this fact, Winnie stood
aghast. It is hard when love goes out of a life; but sometimes, when it
is only strife and opposition which go out of it, it is almost as hard
to bear. She thought she had sighed for peace for many a long day. She
had said so times without number, and written it down, and persuaded
herself that was what she wanted; but now that she had got it she found
out that it was not that she wanted. The Cottage was the very home of
peace, and had been so for many years. Even the growth of young life
within it, the active minds and varied temperaments of the three boys,
and Will's cloudy and uncomfortable disposition, had not hitherto
interfered with its character. But so far from being content, Winnie's
heart sank within her when she realized the fact, that War had marched
off in the person of her husband, and that she was to be "left in
peace"--horrible words that paralysed her very soul.
This event, however, if it had done nothing else, had opened her mouth.
Her history, which she had kept to herself, began to be revealed. She
told her aunt and her sister of his misdeeds, till the energy of her
narrative brought something like renewed life to her. She described how
she had herself endured, how she had been left to all the dangers that
attend a beautiful young woman whose husband has found superior
attractions elsewhere; and she gave such sketches of the women whom she
imagined to have attracted him, as only an injured wife in a chronic
state of wrath and suffering could give. She was so very miserable on
that morning that she had no alternative but to speak or die; and as she
could not die, she gave her miseries utterance. "And if he can do you
any harm--if he can strike me through my friends," said Winnie, "if you
know of any point on which he could assail you, you had better keep
close guard."
"Oh, my dear love!" said Aunt Agatha, with a troubled smile, "what harm
could he do us? He could hurt us only in wounding you; and now we have
you safe, my darling, and can defend you, so he never can harm us."
"Of course I never meant _you_," said Winnie. "But he might perhaps harm
Mary. Mary is not like you; she has had to make her way in the world,
and no doubt there may be things in her life, as in other people's, that
she would not care to have known."
Mary was startled by this speech, which was made half in kindness, half
in anger; for the necessity of having somebody to quarrel with had been
too great for Winnie. Mrs. Ochterlony was startled, but she could not
help feeling sure that her secret was no secret for her sister, and she
had no mind for a quarrel, though Winnie wished it.
"There is but one thing in my life that I don't wish to have known," she
said, "and Major Percival knows it, and probably so do you, Winnie. But
I am here among my own people, and everybody knows all about me. I don't
think it would be possible to do me harm here."
"It is because you don't know him," said Winnie. "He would do the Queen
harm in her own palace. You don't know what poison he can put on his
arrows, and how he shoots them. I believe he will strike me through my
friends."
All this time Aunt Agatha looked at the two with her lips apart, as if
about to speak; but in reality it was horror and amazement that moved
her. To hear them talking calmly of something that must be concealed! of
something, at least, that it was better should not be known!--and that
in a house which had always been so spotless, so respectable, and did
not know what mystery meant!
Mary shook her head, and smiled. She had felt a little anxious the night
before about what Percival might be saying to Wilfrid; but, somehow, all
that had blown away. Even Will's discontent with his brother had taken
the form of jealous tenderness for herself, which, in her thinking, was
quite incompatible with any revelation which could have lowered her in
his eyes; and it seemed to her as if the old sting, which had so often
come back to her, which had put it in the power of her friends in "the
regiment" to give her now and then a prick to the heart, had lost its
venom. Hugh was peacefully settled in his rights, and Will, if he had
heard anything, must have nobly closed his ears to it. Sometimes this
strange feeling of assurance and confidence comes on the very brink of
the deadliest danger, and it was so with Mary at the present moment that
she had no fear.
As for Winnie, she too was thinking principally of her own affairs, and
of her sister's only as subsidiary to them. She would have rather
believed in the most diabolical rage and assault than in her husband's
indifference and the utter termination of hostilities between them. "He
will strike me through my friends," she repeated; and perhaps in her
heart she was rather glad that there still remained this oblique way of
reaching her, and expressed a hope rather than a fear. This conversation
was interrupted by Sir Edward, who came in more cheerfully and alertly
than usual, taking off his hat as soon as he became visible through the
open window. He had heard what he thought was good news, and there was
satisfaction in his face.
"So Percival is here," he said. "I can't tell you how pleased I was.
Come, we'll have some pleasant days yet in our old age. Why hasn't he
come up to the Hall?"
There was an embarrassed pause--embarrassed at least on the part of Miss
Seton and Mrs. Ochterlony; while Winnie fixed her eyes, which looked so
large and wild in their sunken sockets, steadily upon him, without
attempting to make any reply.
"Yes, Major Percival was here yesterday," said Aunt Agatha with
hesitation; "he spent the whole day with us---- I was very glad to have
him, and I am sure he would have gone up to the Hall if he had had
time---- But he was obliged to go away."
How difficult it was to say all this under the gaze of Winnie's eyes,
and with the possibility of being contradicted flatly at any moment, may
be imagined. And while Aunt Agatha made her faltering statement, her own
look and voice contradicted her; and then there was a still more
embarrassed pause, and Sir Edward looked from one to another with amazed
and unquiet eyes.
"He came and spent the day with you," said their anxious neighbour, "and
he was obliged to go away! I confess I think I merited different
treatment. I wish I could make out what you all mean----"
"The fact is, Sir Edward," said Winnie, "that Major Percival was sent
away.... He is a very important person, no doubt; but he can't do just
as he pleases. My aunt is so good that she tries to keep up a little
fiction, but he and I have done with each other," said Winnie in her
excitement, notwithstanding that she had been up to this moment so
reticent and self-contained.
"Who sent him away?" asked Sir Edward, with a pitiful, confidential look
to Aunt Agatha, and a slight shake of his head over the very bad
business--a little pantomime which moved Winnie to deeper wrath and
discontent.
"_I_ sent him away," said Mrs. Percival, with as much dignity as this
ebullition of passion would permit her to assume.
"My dear Winnie," said Sir Edward, "I am very, very sorry to hear this.
Think a little of what is before you. You are a young woman still; you
are both young people. Do you mean to live here all the rest of your
life, and let him go where he pleases--to destruction, I suppose, if he
likes? Is that what you mean? And yet we all remember when you would not
hear a word even of advice--would not listen to anybody about him. He
had not been quite _sans reproche_ when you married him, my dear; and
you took him with a knowledge of it. If that had not been the case,
there might have been some excuse. But what I want you to do is to look
it in the face, and consider a little. It is not only for to-day, or
to-morrow--it is for your life."
Winnie gave a momentary shudder, as if of cold, and drew her shawl
closer around her. "I had rather not discuss our private affairs," she
replied: "they are between ourselves."
"But the fact is, they are not between yourselves," said Sir Edward, who
was inspired by the great conviction of doing his duty. "You have taken
the public into your confidence by coming here. I am a very old friend,
both of yours and his, and I might do some good, if you let me try. I
dare say he is not very far from here; and if I might mediate between
you----"
A sudden gleam shot out from Winnie's eyes--perhaps it was a sudden wild
hope--perhaps it was merely the flash of indignation; but still the
proposal moved her. "Mediate!" she said, with an air which was intended
for scorn; but her lips quivered as she repeated the word.
"Yes," said Sir Edward, "I might, if you would have confidence in me. No
doubt there are wrongs on both sides. He has been impatient, and you
have been exacting, and---- Where are you going?"
"It is no use continuing this conversation," said Winnie. "I am going to
my room. If I were to have more confidence in you than I ever had in any
one, it would still be useless. I have not been exacting. I have
been---- But it is no matter. I trust, Aunt Agatha, that you will
forgive me for going to my own room."
Sir Edward shook his head, and looked after her as she withdrew. He
looked as if he had said, "I knew how it would be;" and yet he was
concerned and sorry. "I have seen such cases before," he said, when
Winnie had left the room, turning to Aunt Agatha and Mary, and once
more shaking his head: "neither will give in an inch. They know that
they are in a miserable condition, but it is neither his fault nor hers.
That is how it always is. And only the bystanders can see what faults
there are on both sides."
"But I don't think Winnie is so exacting," said Aunt Agatha, with
natural partisanship. "I think it is worse than that. She has been
telling me two or three things----"
"Oh, yes," said Sir Edward, with mild despair, "they can tell you dozens
of things. No doubt _he_ could, on his side. It is always like that; and
to think that nothing would have any effect on her!--she would hear no
sort of reason--though you know very well you were warned that he was
not immaculate before she married him: nothing would have any effect."
"Oh, Sir Edward!" cried Aunt Agatha, with tears in her eyes: "it is
surely not the moment to remind us of that."
"For my part, I think it is just the moment," said Sir Edward; and he
shook his head, and made a melancholy pause. Then, with an obvious
effort to change the subject, he looked round the room, as if that
personage might, perhaps, be hidden in some corner, and asked where was
Hugh?
"He has gone to show Nelly Askell the way to the Lady's Well," said
Mary, who could not repress a smile.
"Ah! he seems disposed to show Nelly Askell the way to a great many
things," said Sir Edward. "There it is again you see! Not that I have a
word to say against that little thing. She is very nice, and pretty
enough; though no more to be compared to what Winnie was at her age----
But you'll see Hugh will have engaged himself and forestalled his life
before we know where we are."
"It would have been better had they been a little older," said Mary;
"but otherwise everything is very suitable; and Nelly is very good, and
very sweet----"
Again Sir Edward sighed. "You must know that Hugh might have done a very
great deal better," he said. "I don't say that I have any particular
objections, but only it is an instance of your insanity in the way of
marriage--all you Setons. You go and plunge into it head foremost,
without a moment's reflection; and then, of course, when leisure
comes---- I don't mean you, Mary. What I was saying had no reference to
you. So far as I am aware, you were always very happy, and gave your
friends no trouble. Though in one way, of course, it ought to be
considered that you did the worst of all."
"Captain Askell's family is very good," said Mary, by the way of turning
off too close an inquiry into her own affairs; "and he is just in the
same position as Hugh's father was; and I love Nelly like a child of my
own. I feel as if she ought to have been a child of my own. She and Will
used to lie in the same cradle----"
"Ah, by the way," said Sir Edward, looking round once more into the
corners, "where is Will?"
And then it had to be explained where Will had gone, which the old man
thought very curious. "To Carlisle? What did he want to go to Carlisle
for? If he had been out with his fishing rod, or out with the keepers,
looking after the young pheasants---- But what could he want going into
Carlisle? Is Percival there?"
"I hope not," said Mary, with sudden anxiety. It was an idea which had
not entered into her mind before.
"Why should you hope not? If he really wants to make peace with Winnie,
I should think it very natural," said Sir Edward; "and Will is a curious
sort of boy. He might be a very good sort of auxiliary in any
negotiation. Depend upon it that's why he is gone."
"I think not. I think he would have told me," said Mary, feeling her
heart sink with sudden dread.
"I don't see why he should have told you," said Sir Edward, who was in
one of his troublesome moods, and disposed to put everybody at sixes and
sevens. "He is old enough to act a little for himself. I hope you are
not one of the foolish women, Mary, that like to keep their boys always
at their apron-strings?"
With this reproach Sir Edward took his leave, and made his way placidly
homeward, with the tranquillity of a man who has done his duty. He felt
that he had discharged the great vocation of man, at least for the past
hour. Winnie had heard the truth, whether she liked it or not, and so
had the other members of the family, over whom he shook his head kindly
but sadly as he went home. Their impetuosity, their aptitude to rush
into any scrape that presented itself--and especially their madness in
respect to marriage, filled him with pity. There was Charlie Seton, for
example, the father of these girls, who had married that man Penrose's
sister. Sir Edward's memory was so long, that it did not seem to him a
very great stretch to go back to that. Not that the young woman was
amiss in herself, but the man who, with his eyes open, burdened his
unborn descendants with such an uncle, was worse then lunatic--he was
criminal. This was what Sir Edward thought as he went quietly home, with
a rather comfortable dreary sense of satisfaction in his heart in the
thought that his own behaviour had been marked by no such aberrations;
and, in the meantime, Winnie was fanning the embers of her own wrath,
and Mary had sickened somehow with a sense of insecurity and
unexplainable apprehension. On the other hand, the two young creatures
were very happy on the road to the Lady's Well, and Will addressed
himself to his strange business with resolution: and, painful as its
character was, was not pained to speak of, but only excited. So ran the
course of the world upon that ordinary summer day.