It was morning when Mary arrived in Liverpool, early morning, chilly and
grey. She had been detained on the road by the troublesome delays of a
cross route, and the fresh breath of the autumnal morning chilled her to
the heart. And she had not come with any distinct plan. She did not know
what she was going to do. It had seemed to her as if the mere sight of
her would set her boy right, had there been evil in his mind; and she
did not know that there was any evil in his mind. She knew nothing of
what was in Mr. Penrose's letter, which had driven Hugh to such despair.
She did not even know whether Will had so much as mentioned his
discovery to Uncle Penrose, or whether he might not have fled there,
simply to get away from the terrible thought of his mother's disgrace.
If it were so, she had but to take her boy in her arms, to veil her face
with shame, yet raise it with conscious honour, and tell him how it all
was. This, perhaps, was what she most thought of doing--to show him the
rights of the story, of which he had only heard the evil-seeming side,
and to reconcile him to herself and the world, and his life, on all of
which a shadow must rest, as Mary thought, if any shadow rested on his
mother. By times she was grieved with Will--"angry," as he would have
said--to think he had gone away in secret without unfolding his troubles
to the only creature who could clear them up; but by times it seemed to
her as though it was only his tenderness of her, his delicacy for her,
that had driven him away. That he could not endure the appearance of a
stain upon her, that he was unable to let her know the possibility of
any suspicion--this was chiefly what Mrs. Ochterlony thought. And it
made her heart yearn towards the boy. Anything about Earlston, or Hugh,
or the property, or Will's rights, had not crossed her mind; even Mrs.
Kirkman's hints had proved useless, so far as that was concerned. Such a
thing seemed to her as impossible as to steal or to murder. When they
were babies, a certain thrill of apprehension had moved her whenever she
saw any antagonism between the brothers; but when the moment of
realizing it came, she was unable to conceive of such a horror. To think
of Will harming Hugh! It was impossible--more than impossible; and thus
as she drove through the unknown streets in the early bustle of the
morning, towards the distant suburb in which Mr. Penrose lived, her
thoughts rejected all tragical suppositions. The interview would be
painful enough in any case, for it was hard for a mother to have to
defend herself, and vindicate her good fame, to her boy; but still it
could have been nothing but Will's horror at such a revelation--his
alarm at the mere idea of such a suspicion ever becoming known to his
mother--his sense of disenchantment in the entire world following his
discovery, that made him go away: and this she had it in her power to
dissipate for ever. This was how she was thinking as she approached Mr.
Penrose's great mansion, looking out eagerly to see if any one might be
visible at the windows. She saw no one, and her heart beat high as she
looked up at the blank big house, and thought of the young heart that
would flutter and perhaps sicken at the sight of her, and then expand
into an infinite content. For by this time she had so reasoned herself
into reassurance, and the light and breath of the morning had so
invigorated her mind, that she had no more doubt that her explanations
would content him, and clear away every cloud from his thoughts, than
she had of his being her son, and loyal as no son of hers could fail to
be.
The servants did not make objections to her as they had done to Will.
They admitted her to the cold uninhabited drawing-room, and informed
her that Mr. Penrose was out, but that young Mr. Ochterlony was
certainly to be found. "Tell him it is his mother," said Mary, with her
heart yearning over him: and then she sat down to wait. There was
nothing after all in the emergency to tremble at. She smiled at herself
when she thought of her own horrible apprehensions, and of the feelings
with which she had hurried from the Cottage. It would be hard to speak
of the suspicion to which she was subjected, but then she could set it
to rest for ever: and what did the pang matter? Thus she sat with a
wistful smile on her face, and waited. The moments passed, and she heard
sounds of steps outside, and something that sounded like the hurried
shutting of the great door; but no eager foot coming to meet her--no
rapid entrance like that she had looked for. She sat still until the
smile became rigid on her lip, and a wonderful depression came to her
soul. Was he not coming? Could it be that he judged her without hearing
her, and would not see his mother? Then her heart woke up again when she
heard some one approaching, but it was only the servant who had opened
the door.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am," said the man, with hesitation, "but it
appears I made a mistake. Young Mr. Ochterlony was not--I mean he has
gone out. Perhaps, if it was anything of importance, you could wait."
"He has gone out? so early?--surely not after he knew I was here?" said
Mary, wildly; and then she restrained herself with an effort. "It _is_
something of importance," she said, giving a groan in her heart, which
was not audible. "I am his mother, and it is necessary I should see him.
Yes, I will wait; and if you could send some one to tell him, if you
know where he is----"
"I should think, ma'am, he is sure to be home to luncheon," said the
servant, evading this demand. To luncheon--and it was only about ten
o'clock in the morning now. Mary clasped her hands together to keep
herself from crying out. Could he have been out before she
arrived--could he have fled to avoid her? She asked herself the question
in a kind of agony; but Mr. Penrose's man stood blank and respectful at
the door, and offered no point of appeal. She could not take him into
her counsel, or consult him as to what it all meant; and yet she was so
anxious, so miserable, so heart-struck by this suspense, that she could
not let him go without an effort to find something out.
"Has he gone with his uncle?" she said. "Perhaps I might find it at Mr.
Penrose's office. No? Or perhaps you can tell me if there is any place
he is in the habit of going to, or if he always goes out so early. I
want very much to see him; I have been travelling all night; it is very
important," Mary added, wistfully looking in the attendant's face.
Mr. Penrose's butler was very solemn and precise, but yet there was
something in the sight of her restrained distress which moved him. "I
don't know as I have remarked what time the young gentleman goes out,"
he said. "He's early this morning--mostly he varies a bit--but I don't
make no doubt as he'll be in to luncheon." When he had said this the man
did not go away, but stood with a mixture of curiosity and sympathy,
sorry for the new-comer, and wondering what it all meant. If Mary
herself could but have made out what it all meant! She turned away, with
the blood, as she thought, all going back upon her heart, and the
currents of life flowing backward to their source. Had he fled from her?
What did it mean?
In this state of suspense Mrs. Ochterlony passed the morning. She had a
maid sent to her, and was shown, though with a little wonder and
hesitation, into a sleeping room, where she mechanically took off her
travelling wraps and assumed her indoor appearance so far as that was
possible. It was a great, still, empty, resounding house; the rooms were
large, coldly furnished, still looking new for want of use, and vacant
of any kind of occupation or interest. Mary came downstairs again, and
placed herself at one of the great windows in the drawing-room. She
would not go out, even to seek Will, lest she might miss him by the way.
She went and sat down by the window, and gazed out upon the strip of
suburban road which was visible through the shrubberies, feeling her
heart beat when any figure, however unlike her boy, appeared upon it. It
might be he, undiscernible in the distance, or it might be some one from
him, some messenger or ambassador. It was what might be called a
handsome room, but it was vacant, destitute of everything which could
give it interest, with some trifling picture-books on the table and
meaningless knick-nacks. When Mrs. Ochterlony was sick of sitting
watching at the window she would get up and walk round it, and look at
the well-bound volumes on the table, and feel herself grow wild in the
excess of her energy and vehemence, by contrast with the deadly calm of
her surroundings. What was it to this house, or its master, or the other
human creatures in it, that she was beating her wings thus, in the
silence, against the cage? Thus she sat, or walked about, the whole long
morning, counting the minutes on the time-piece or on her watch, and
feeling every minute an hour. Where had he gone? had he fled to escape?
or was his absence natural and accidental? These questions went through
her head, one upon another, with increasing commotion and passion, until
she found herself unable to rest, and felt her veins tingling, and her
pulses throbbing in a wild harmony. It seemed years since she had
arrived when one o'clock struck, and a few minutes later the sound of a
gong thrilled through the silence. This was for luncheon. It was not a
bell, which might be heard outside and quickened the steps of any one
who might be coming. Mary stood still and watched at her window, but
nobody came. And then the butler, whose curiosity was more and more
roused, came upstairs with steady step, and shoes that creaked in a
deprecating, apologetic way, to ask if she would go down to luncheon,
and to regret respectfully that the young gentleman had not yet come in.
"No doubt, ma'am, if he had known you were coming, he'd have been here,"
the man said, not without an inquiring look at her, which Mrs.
Ochterlony was vaguely conscious of. She went downstairs with a kind of
mechanical obedience, feeling it an ease to go into another room, and
find another window at which she could look out. She could see another
bit of road further off, and it served to fill her for the moment with
renewed hope. There, at least, she must surely see him coming. But the
moments still kept going on, gliding off the steady hand of the
time-piece like so many months or years. And still Will did not come.
It was all the more dreadful to her, because she had been totally
unprepared for any such trial. It had never occurred to her that her
boy, though he had run away, would avoid her now. By this time even the
idea that he could be avoiding her went out of her mind, and she began
to think some accident had happened to him. He was young and careless, a
country boy--and there was no telling what terrible thing might have
happened on those thronged streets, which had felt like Pandemonium to
Mary's unused faculties. And she did not know where to go to look for
him, or what to do. In her terror she began to question the man, who
kept coming and going into the room, sometimes venturing to invite her
attention to the dishes, which were growing cold, sometimes merely
looking at her, as he went and came. She asked about her boy, what he
had been doing since he came--if he were not in the habit of going to
his uncle's office--if he had made any acquaintances--if there was
anything that could account for his absence? "Perhaps he went out
sight-seeing," said Mary; "perhaps he is with his uncle at the office.
He was always very fond of shipping." But she got very doubtful and
hesitating replies--replies which were so uncertain that fear blazed up
within her; and the slippery docks and dangerous water, the great carts
in the streets and the string of carriages, came up before her eyes
again.
Thus the time passed till it was evening. Mary could not, or rather
would not, believe her own senses, and yet it was true. Shadows stole
into the corners, and a star, which it made her heart sick to see,
peeped out in the green-blue sky--and she went from one room to another,
watching the two bits of road. First the one opening, which was fainter
and farther off than the other, which was overshadowed by the trees, yet
visible and near. Every time she changed the point of watching, she felt
sure that he must be coming. But yet the stars peeped out, and the lamps
were lighted on the road, and her boy did not appear. She was a woman
used to self-restraint, and but for her flitting up and downstairs, and
the persistent way she kept by the window, the servants might not have
noticed anything remarkable about her; but they had all possession of
one fact which quickened their curiosity--and the respectable butler
prowled about watching her, in a way which would have irritated Mrs.
Ochterlony, had she been at sufficient leisure in her mind to remark
him. When the time came that the lamp must be lighted and the windows
closed, it went to her heart like a blow. She had to reason to herself
that her watch could make no difference--could not bring him a moment
sooner or later--and yet to be shut out from that one point of interest
was hard. They told her Mr. Penrose was expected immediately, and that
no doubt the young gentleman would be with him. To see Will only in his
uncle's presence was not what Mary had been thinking of--but yet it was
better than this suspense; and now that her eyes could serve her no
longer, she sat listening, feeling every sound echo in her brain, and
herself surrounded, as it were, by a rustle of passing feet and a roll
of carriages that came and passed and brought nothing to her. And the
house was so still and vacant, and resounded with every movement--even
with her own foot, as she changed her seat, though her foot had always
been so light. That day's watching had made a change upon her, which a
year under other circumstances would not have made. Her brow was
contracted with lines unknown to its broad serenity; her eyes looked out
eagerly from the lids which had grown curved and triangular with
anxiety; her mouth was drawn together and colourless. The long,
speechless, vacant day, with no occupation in it but that of watching
and listening, with its sense of time lost and opportunity deferred,
with its dreadful suggestion of other things and thoughts which might
be making progress and nourishing harm, while she sat here impeded and
helpless, and unable to prevent it, was perhaps the severest ordeal Mary
could have passed through. It was the same day on which Winnie went to
Carlisle--it was the same evening on which Hugh received Nelly's letter,
which found his mother motionless in Mr. Penrose's drawing-room,
waiting. This was the hardest of all, and yet not so hard as it might
have been. For she did not know, what all the servants in the house
knew, that Will had seen her arrive--that he had rushed out of the
house, begging the man to deceive her--that he had kept away all day,
not of necessity, but because he did not dare to face her. Mary knew
nothing of this; but it was hard enough to contend with the thousand
spectres that surrounded her, the fears of accident, the miserable
suspense, the dreary doubt and darkness that seemed to hang over
everything, as she waited ever vainly in the silence for her boy's
return.
When some one arrived at the door, her heart leaped so into her throat
that she felt herself suffocated; she had to put her hands to her side
and clasp them there to support herself as footsteps came up the stair.
She grew sick, and a mist came over her eyes; and then all at once she
saw clearly, and fell back, fainting in the body, horribly conscious and
alive in the mind, when she saw it was Mr. Penrose who came in alone.