There is something wonderful in the ease with which the secondary actors
in a great crisis can shake themselves free of the event, and return to
their own affairs, however exciting the moment may be at which it suits
them to strike off. The bystanders turn away from the most horrible
calamity, and sit down by their own tables and talk about their own
trivial business before the sound of the guns has ceased to vibrate on
the air, or the smoke of the battle has dispersed which has brought ruin
and misery to their dearest friends. The principle of human nature, that
every man should bear his own burden, lies deeper than all philosophy.
Winnie, though she had been excited about her sister's mysterious
misfortune and roused by it, and was ready, to her own inconvenience, to
make a great effort on Mary's behalf, yet could turn off on her way
without any struggle, with that comfortable feeling that all must come
right in the end which is so easy for the lookers-on. But the real
sufferers could not entertain so charming a confidence. That same day
rose heavily over poor Hugh, who, all alone in Earlston, still debated
with himself. He had written to his uncle to express his amazement and
dismay, and to ask for time to give full consideration to the terrible
news he had heard. "You need not fear that I will do anything to wound
my mother," the poor boy had written, with a terrible pang in his heart.
But after that he had sunk into a maze of questions and discussions with
himself, and of miserable uncertainty as to what he ought to do. The
idea of asking anybody for information about it seemed almost as bad to
him as owning the fact at once; asking about his mother--about facts in
her life which she had never herself disclosed--inquiring if, perhaps,
she was a woman dishonoured and unworthy of her children's confidence!
It seemed to Hugh as if it would be far easier to give up Earlston, and
let Will or any one else who pleased have it. He had tried more than
once to write to Mr. Churchill, the chaplain, of whom he had heard his
mother speak, and of whom he had even a faint traditional sort of
recollection; but the effort always sickened him, and made him rush away
in disgust to the open air, and the soothing sounds of nature. He was
quite alone during those few days. His neighbours did not know of his
return, for he had been so speedily overtaken by this news as to have
had no heart to go anywhere or show himself among them. Thus he was left
to his own thoughts, and they were bitter. In the very height of his
youthful hopes and satisfaction, just at the moment when he was most
full of plans, and taking the most perfect pleasure in his life, this
bewildering cloud had come on him. He did not even go on with his
preparations for the transfer of the Museum, in the sickness of his
heart, notwithstanding the eagerness he felt whenever he thought of it
to complete that arrangement at least, and secure his uncle's will to
that extent, if no more. But it did not seem possible to exert himself
about one thing without exerting himself about all, and he who had been
so fresh and full of energy, fell supine into a kind of utter
wretchedness. The course of his life was stopped when it had been in
full career. He was suddenly thrown out of all he had been doing, all he
had been planning. The scheme of his existence seemed all at once turned
into folly and made a lie of. What could he do? His lawyer wrote to say
that he meant to come to Earlston on some business connected with the
estate, but Hugh put him off, and deferred everything. How could he
discuss affairs which possibly were not his affairs, but his brother's?
How could he enter into any arrangements, or think of anything, however
reasonable or necessary, with this sword hanging over his head? He got
up early in the morning, and startled the servants before they were up,
by opening the doors and shutters in his restlessness; and he sat up at
night thinking it all over, for ever thinking of it and never coming to
any result. How could he inquire, how could he prove or disprove the
horrible assertion? Even to think of it seemed a tacit injury to his
mother. The only way to do his duty by her seemed to be to give up all
and go away to the end of the world. And yet he was a man, and right and
justice were dear to him, and he revolted against doing that. It was as
if he had been caught by some gigantic iron hand of fate in the
sweetness of his fearless life. He had never heard nor read of, he
thought, anything so cruel. By times bitter tears came into his eyes,
wrung from him by the intolerable pressure. He could not give up his own
cause and his mother's cause without a struggle. He could not
relinquish his life and rights to another; and yet how could he defend
himself by means that would bring one question to careless lips, one
light laugh to the curious world, over his mother's name? Such an idea
had never so much as entered into his head. It made his life miserable.
He read over Mr. Penrose's letter a dozen times in the day, and he sat
at night with his eyes fixed on the flame of his lamp, calling back his
childhood and its events. It was as vague as a dream, and he could not
identify his broken recollections. If he could have gone to Mrs.
Ochterlony and talked it over with her, Hugh might have remembered many
things, but wanting that thread of guidance he lost himself in the misty
maze. By dint of thinking it over and over, and representing the scene
to his mind in every possible way, it came to him finally to believe
that some faint impression of the event which he was asked to remember
did linger in his memory, and that thought, which he could not put away,
stung him like a serpent. Was it really true that he remembered it? Then
the accusation must be true, and he nameless and without rights, and
Mary----. Not much wonder that the poor boy, sick to the heart, turned
his face from the light and hid himself, and felt that he would be glad
if he could only die. Yet dying would be of no use, for there was Islay
who would come next to him, who never would have dreamt of dispossessing
him, but who, if this was true, would need to stand aside in his turn
and make room for Will. Will!--It was hard for Hugh not to feel a thrill
of rage and scorn and amaze mixing with his misery when he thought of
the younger brother to whom he had been so continually indulgent and
affectionate. He who had been always the youngest, the most guarded and
tender, whom Hugh could remember in his mother's arms, on her knee, a
part of her as it were; he to turn upon them all, and stain her fame,
and ruin the family honour for his own base advantage! These thoughts
came surging up one after another, and tore Hugh's mind to pieces and
made him as helpless as a child, now with one suggestion, now with
another. What could he do? And accordingly he did nothing but fall into
a lethargy and maze of despair, did not sleep, did not eat, filled the
servants' minds with the wildest surmises, and shut himself up, as if
that could have deferred the course of events, or shut out the coming
fate.
This had lasted only a day or two, it is true, but it might have been
for a century, to judge by Hugh's feelings. He felt indeed as if he had
never been otherwise, never been light-hearted or happy, or free to
take pleasure in his life; as if he had always been an impostor
expecting to be found out. Nature itself might have awakened him from
his stupor had he been left to himself; but, as it happened, there came
a sweeter touch. He had become feverishly anxious about his letters ever
since the arrival of that one which had struck him so unlooked-for a
blow; and he started when something was brought to him in the evening at
an hour when letters did not arrive, and a little note with a little red
seal, very carefully folded that no curious eye might be able to
penetrate. Poor Hugh felt a certain thrill of fright at the
innocent-seeming thing, coming insidiously at this moment when he
thought himself safe, and bringing, for anything he could tell, the last
touch to his misery. He held it in his hand while it was explained to
him that one of the servants had been to Carlisle with an order given
before the world had changed--an order made altogether antiquated and
out of course by having been issued three days before; and that he had
brought back this note. Only when the door closed upon the man and his
explanation did Hugh break the tiny seal. It was not a letter to be
alarmed at. It was written as it were with tears, sweet tears of
sympathy and help and tender succour. This was what Nelly's little
letter said:--
"DEAR MR. HUGH,--I want to let you know of something that has happened
to-day, and at which you may perhaps be surprised. Mrs. Percival met
Major Percival here, and I think they have made friends; and she has
gone away with him. I think you ought to know, because she told us dear
Mrs. Ochterlony had gone to Liverpool; and Miss Seton will be left
alone. I should have asked mamma to let me go and stay with her, but I
am going into Scotland to an old friend of papa's, who is living at
Gretna. I remember hearing long ago that it was at Gretna dear Mrs.
Ochterlony was married--and perhaps there is somebody there who
remembers her. If you see Aunt Agatha, would you please ask her when it
happened? I should so like to see the place, and ask the people if they
remember her. I think she must have been so beautiful then; she is
beautiful now--I never loved anybody so much in my life. And I am afraid
she is anxious about Will. I should not like to trouble you, for I am
sure you must have a great deal to occupy your mind, but I should so
like to know how dear Mrs. Ochterlony is, and if there is anything the
matter with Will. He always was very funny, you know, and then he is
only a boy, and does not know what he means. Mamma sends her kind
regards, and I am, dear Mr. Hugh, very sincerely yours,--NELLY."
This was the letter. Hugh read it slowly over, every word--and then he
read it again; and two great globes of dew got into his eyes, and
Nelly's sweet name grew big as he read through them, and wavered over
all the page; and when he had come to that signature the second time he
put it down on the table, and leant his face on it, and cried. Yes,
cried, though he was a man--wept hot tears over it, few but great, that
felt to him like the opening of a spring in his soul, and drew the heat
and the horror out of his brain. His young breast shook with a few great
sobs--the passion climbing in his throat burst forth, and had utterance;
and then he rose up and stretched his young arms, and drew himself up to
the fulness of his height. What did it matter, after all? What was
money, and lands, and every good on earth, compared to the comfort of
living in the same world with a creature such as this, who was as sweet
as the flowers, and as true as the sky? She had done it by instinct, not
knowing, as she herself said, what she meant, or knowing only that her
little heart swelled with kind impulses, tender pity, and indignation,
and yet pity over all; pity for Will, too, who, perhaps, was going to
make them all miserable. But Nelly could not have understood the effect
her little letter had upon Hugh. He shook himself free after it, as if
from chains that had been upon him. He gave a groan, poor boy, at the
calamity which was not to be ignored, and then he said to himself,
"After all!" After all, and in spite of all, while there was Nelly
living, it was not unmingled ill to live. And when he looked at it
again, a more reasonable kind of comfort seemed to come to him out of
the girl's letter; his eye was caught by the word struck out, which yet
was not too carefully struck out, "where dear Mrs. Ochterlony was first
married." He gave a cry when this new light entered into his mind. He
roused himself up from his gloom and stupor, and thought and thought
until his very brain ached as with labour, and his limbs began to thrill
as with new vigour coming back. And a glimmering of the real truth
suddenly rushed, all vague and dazzling, upon Hugh's darkness. There had
been no hint in Mr. Penrose's letter of any such interpretation of the
mystery. Mr. Penrose himself had received no such hint, and even Will,
poor boy, had heard of it only as a fable, to which he gave no
attention. They two, and Hugh himself in his utter misery, had accepted
as a probable fact the calumny of which Nelly's pure mind instinctively
demanded an explanation. They had not known it to be impossible that
Mary should be guilty of such sin; but Nelly had known it, and
recognised the incredible mystery, and demanded the reason for it,
which everybody else had ignored or forgotten. He seemed to see it for a
moment, as the watchers on a sinking ship might see the gleam of a
lighthouse;--and then it disappeared from him in the wild waste of
ignorance and wonder, and then gleamed out again, as if in Nelly's eyes.
That was why she was going, bless her! She who never went upon visits,
who knew better, and had insight in her eyes, and saw it could not be.
These thoughts passed through Hugh's mind in a flood, and changed heaven
and earth round about him, and set him on solid ground, as it were,
instead of chaos. He was not wise enough, good enough, pure enough, to
know the truth of himself--but Nelly could see it, as with angel eyes.
He was young, and he loved Nelly, and that was how it appeared to him.
Shame that had been brooding over him in the darkness, fled away. He
rose up and felt as if he were yet a man, and had still his life before
him, whatever might happen; and that he was there not only to comfort
and protect his mother, but to defend and vindicate her; not to run away
and keep silent like the guilty, but to face the pain of it, and the
shame of it, if such bitter need was, and establish the truth. All this
came to Hugh's mind from the simple little letter, which Nelly, crying
and burning with indignation and pity, and an intolerable sense of
wrong, had written without knowing what she meant. For anything Hugh
could tell, his mother's innocence and honour, even if intact, might
never be proved,--might do no more for him than had it been guilt and
shame. The difference was that he had seen this accusation, glancing
through Nelly's eyes, to be impossible; that he had found out that there
was an interpretation somewhere, and the load was taken off his soul.
The change was so great, and his relief so immense, that he felt as if
even that night he must act upon it. He could not go away, as he longed
to do, for all modes of communication with the world until the morning
were by that time impracticable. But he did what eased his mind at
least. He wrote to Mr. Penrose a very grave, almost solemn letter, with
neither horror nor even anger in it. "I do not know what the
circumstances are, nor what the facts may be," he wrote, "but whatever
they are, I do not doubt that my mother will explain--and I shall come
to you immediately, that the truth may be made clearly apparent." And he
wrote to Mr. Churchill, as he had never yet had the courage to do,
asking to be told how it was. When he had done this, he rose up, feeling
himself still more his own master. Hugh did not deceive himself; he did
not think, because Nelly had communicated to his eyes her own divine
simplicity of sight, that therefore it was certain that everything would
be made clear and manifest to the law or the world. It might be
otherwise; Mrs. Ochterlony might never be able to establish her own
spotless fame, and her elder children's rights. It might be, by some
horrible conspiracy of circumstances, that his name and position should
be taken from him, and his honour stained beyond remedy. Such a thing
was still possible. But Hugh felt that even then all would not be lost,
that God would still be in heaven, and justice and mercy to some certain
extent on the earth, and duty still before him. The situation was not
changed, but only the key-note of his thoughts was changed, and his mind
had come back to itself. He rose up, though it was getting late, and
rang the bell for Francis Ochterlony's favourite servant, and began to
arrange about the removal of the Museum. He might not be master long--in
law; but he was master by right of nature and his uncle's will, and he
would at least do his duty as long as he remained there.
Mrs. Gilsland, the housekeeper, was in the hall as he went out, and she
curtseyed and stood before him, rustling in her black silk gown, and
eyeing him doubtfully. She was afraid to disturb the Squire, as she
said, but there was a poor soul there, if so be as he would speak a word
to her. It annoyed Hugh to be drawn away from his occupations just as he
had been roused to return to them; but Nelly's letter and the influence
of profound emotion had given a certain softness to his soul. He asked
what it was, and heard it was a poor woman who had come with a petition.
She had come a long way, and had a child with her, but nobody had liked
to disturb the young Squire: and now it was providential, Mrs. Gilsland
thought, that he should have passed just at that moment. "She has been
gone half her lifetime, Mr. Hugh--I mean Sir," said the housekeeper,
"though she was born and bred here; and her poor man is that bad with
the paralytics that she has to do everything, which she thought if
perhaps you would give her the new lodge----"
"The new lodge is not built yet," said Hugh, with a pang in his heart,
feeling, notwithstanding his new courage, that it was hard to remember
all his plans and the thousand changes it might never be in his power to
make; "and it ought to be some one who has a claim on the family," he
added, with a half-conscious sigh.
"And that's what poor Susan has," said Mrs. Gilsland. "Master would
never have said no if it had been in his time; for he knew as he had
been unjust to them poor folks; and a good claim on you, Mr. Hugh. She
is old Sommerville's daughter, as you may have heard talk on, and as
decent a woman----"
"Who was old Sommerville?" said Hugh.
"He was one as was a faithful servant to your poor papa," said the
housekeeper. "I've heard as he lost his place all for the Captain's
sake, as was Captain Ochterlony then, and as taking a young gentleman as
ever was. If your mother was to hear of it, Mr. Hugh, she is not the
lady to forget. A poor servant may be most a friend to his master--I've
heard many and many a one say so that was real quality--and your mamma
being a true lady----"
"Yes," said Hugh, "a good servant is a friend; and if she had any claims
upon my father, I will certainly see her; but I am busy now. I have not
been--well. I have been neglecting a great many things, and now that I
feel a little better, I have a great deal to do."
"Oh, sir, it isn't lost time as makes a poor creature's heart to sing
for joy!" said Mrs. Gilsland. She was a formidable housekeeper, but she
was a kind woman; and somehow a subtle perception that their young
master had been in trouble had crept into the mind of the household.
"Which it's grieved as we've all been to see as you was not--well," she
added with a curtsey; "it's been the watching and the anxiety; and so
good as you was, sir, to the Squire. But poor Susan has five mile to go,
and a child in arms, as is a load to carry; and her poor sick husband at
home. And it was borne in upon them as perhaps for old Sommerville's
sake----"
"Well, who was he?" said Hugh, with languid interest, a little fretted
by the interruption, yet turning his steps towards the housekeeper's
room, from which a gleam of firelight shone, at the end of a long
corridor. He did not know anything about old Sommerville; the name
awakened no associations in his mind, and even the housekeeper's long
narrative as she followed him caught his attention only by intervals.
She was so anxious to produce an effect for her PROTÉGÉE'S sake that she
began with an elaborate description of old Sommerville's place and
privileges, which whizzed past Hugh's ear without ever touching his
mind. But he was too good-hearted to resist the picture of the poor
woman who had five miles to go, and a baby and a sick husband. She was
sitting basking before the fire in Mrs. Gilsland's room, poor soul,
thinking as little about old Sommerville as the young Squire was; her
heart beating high with anxiety about the new lodge--beating as high as
if it was a kingdom she had hopes of conquering; with excitement as
profound as that which moved Hugh himself when he thought of his fortune
hanging in the balance, and of the name and place and condition of which
perhaps he was but an usurper. It was as much to poor Susan to have the
lodge as it was to him to have Earlston, or rather a great deal more.
And he went in, putting a stop to Mrs. Gilsland's narrative, and began
to talk to the poor suitor; and the firelight played pleasantly on the
young man's handsome face, as he stood full in its ruddy illumination to
hear her story, with his own anxiety lying at his heart like a stone. To
look at this scene, it looked the least interesting of all that was
going on at that moment in the history of the Ochterlony family--less
important than what was taking place in Liverpool, where Mary was--or
even than poor Aunt Agatha's solitary tears over Winnie's letter, which
had just been taken in to her, and which went to her heart. The new
lodge might never be built, and Hugh Ochterlony might never have it in
his power to do anything for poor Susan, who was old Sommerville's
daughter. But at least he was not hard-hearted, and it was a kind of
natural grace and duty to hear what the poor soul had to say.