So very late it was when Will came in, that he crept up to his room with
a silent stealth which felt more like ill-doing to him than any other
sin he had been guilty of. He crept to his room, though he would have
been glad to have lingered, and warmed himself and been revived with
food. But, at the end of this long, wretched day, he was more than ever
unfit to face his mother, who he felt sure must be watching for him,
watchful and unwearied as she always had been. It did not occur to him
that Mrs. Ochterlony, insensible for the moment to all sounds, was lying
enveloped in darkness, with her eyes open, and all her faculties at
work, and nothing but pain, pain, ever, for ever, in her mind. That she
could be wound up to a pitch of emotion so great that she would not have
heard whatever noise he might have made, that she would not have heeded
him, that he was safe to go and come as he liked, so far as Mary was
concerned, was an idea that never entered Will's mind. He stole in, and
went softly up the stairs, and swallowed the glass of wine the butler
compassionately brought him, without even saying a word of thanks. He
was chilled to his bones, and his head ached, and a sense of confused
misery was in all his frame. He crept into his bed like a savage, in the
dark, seeking warmth, seeking forgetfulness, and hiding; so long as he
could be hid, it did not matter. His mother could not come in with the
light in her hand to stand by his bedside, and drive all ghosts and
terrors away, for he had locked the door in his panic. No deliverance
could come to him, as it seemed, any way. If she was "angry" before,
what must she be now when he had fled and avoided her? and poor Will lay
breathing hard in the dark, wondering within himself why it was he dared
not face his mother. What had he done? Instead of having spent the day
in his usual fashion, why was he weary, and footsore, and exhausted, and
sick in body and in mind? He had meant her no harm, he had done no wrong
he knew of. It was only a confused, unintelligible weight on his
conscience, or rather on his consciousness, that bowed him down, and
made him do things which he did not understand. He went to sleep at
last, for he was young and weary, and nothing could have kept him from
sleeping; but he had a bad night. He dreamed dreadful dreams, and in the
midst of them all saw Mary, always Mary, threatening him, turning away
from him, leaving him to fall over precipices and into perils. He
started up a dozen times in the course of that troubled night, waking to
a confused sense of solitude, and pain, and abandonment, which in the
dark and the silence were very terrible to bear. He was still only a
boy, and he had done wrong, dreadful wrong, and he did not know what it
was.
In the morning when Will woke things were not much better. He was
utterly unrefreshed by his night's rest--if the partial unconsciousness
of his sleep could be called rest; and the thought he woke to was, that
however she might receive him, to-day he must see his mother. She might
be, probably was, "angry," beyond anything he could conceive; but
however that might be, he must see her and meet her wrath. It was not
until he had fully realized that thought, that a letter was brought to
Will, which increased his excitement. It was a very unusual thing for
him to get letters, and he was startled accordingly. He turned it over
and over before he opened it, and thought it must be from Hugh. Hugh,
too, must have adopted the plan of pouring out his wrath against his
brother for want of any better defence to make. But then he perceived
that the writing was not Hugh's. When he opened it Will grew pale, and
then he grew red. It was a letter which Nelly Askell had written before
she wrote the one to Hugh, which had roused him out of his despondency.
Something had inspired the little girl that day. She had written this
too, like the other, without very much minding what she meant. This is
what Will read upon the morning of the day which he already felt to be
in every description a day of fate:--
"WILL!--I don't think I can ever call you dear Will again, or think of
you as I used to do--oh, Will, what are you doing? If I had been you I
would have been tied to the stake, torn with wild horses, done anything
that used to be done to people, rather than turn against my mother. _I_
would have done that for _my_ mother, and if I had had yours! Oh, Will,
say you don't mean it? I think sometimes you can't mean it, but have got
deluded somehow, for you know you have a bad temper. How could you ever
believe it; She is not my mother, but I know she never did any wrong.
She may have sinned perhaps, as people say everybody sins, but she never
could have done any _wrong_; look in her face, and just try whether you
can believe it. It is one comfort to me that if you mean to be so wicked
(which I cannot believe of you), and were to win (which is not
possible), you would never more have a day's happiness again. I _hope_
you would never have a day's happiness. You would break her heart, for
she is a woman, and though you would not break _his_ heart, you would
put his life all wrong, and it would haunt you, and you would pray to be
poor, or a beggar, or anything rather than in a place that does not
belong to you. You may think I don't know, but I do know. I am a woman,
and understand things better than a boy like you. Oh, Will! we used to
be put in the same cradle, and dear Mrs. Ochterlony used to nurse us
both when we were babies. Sometimes I think I should have been your
sister. If you will come back and put away all this which is so dreadful
to think of, I will never more bring it up against you. I for one will
forget it, as if it had never been. Nobody shall put it into your mind
again. We will forgive you, and love you the same as ever; and when you
are a man, and understand and see what it is you have been saved from,
you will go down on your knees and thank God.
"If I had been old enough to travel by myself, or to be allowed to do
what I like, I should have gone to Liverpool too, to have given you no
excuse. It is not so easy to write; but oh, Will, you know what I mean.
Come back, and let us forget that you were ever so foolish and so
wicked. I could cry when I think of you all by yourself, and nobody to
tell you what is right. Come back, and nobody shall ever bring it up
against you. Dear Will! don't you love us all too well to make us
unhappy?--Still your affectionate NELLY."
This letter startled the poor boy, and affected him in a strange way. It
brought the tears to his eyes. It touched him somehow, not by its
reproaches, but by the thought that Nelly cared. She had gone over to
Hugh's side like all the rest--and yet she cared and took upon her that
right of reproach and accusation which is more tender than praise. And
it made Will's heart ache in a dull way to see that they all thought him
wicked. What had he done that was wicked? He ached, poor boy, not only
in his heart but in his head, and all over him. He did not get up even
to read his letter, but lay in a kind of sad stupor all the morning,
wondering if his mother was still in the house--wondering if she would
come to him--wondering if she was so angry that she no longer desired to
see him. The house was more quiet than usual, he thought--there was no
stir in it of voices or footsteps. Perhaps Mrs. Ochterlony had gone away
again--perhaps he was to be left here, having got Uncle Penrose on his
side, to his sole company--excommunicated and cast off by his own.
Wilfrid lay pondering all these thoughts till he could bear it no
longer; instead of his pain and shrinking a kind of dogged resistance
came into his mind; at least he would go and face it, and see what was
to happen to him. He would go downstairs and find out, to begin with,
what this silence meant.
Perhaps it was just because it was so much later than usual that he felt
as if he had been ill when he got up--felt his limbs trembling under
him, and shivered, and grew hot and cold--or perhaps it was the fatigue
and mental commotion of yesterday. By this time he felt sure that his
mother must be gone. Had she been in the house she would have come to
see him. She would have seized the opportunity when he could not escape
from her. No doubt she was gone, after waiting all yesterday for
him,--gone either hating him or scorning him, casting him off from her;
and he felt that he had not deserved that. Perhaps he might have
deserved that Hugh should turn his enemy--notwithstanding that, even for
Hugh he felt himself ready to do anything--but to his mother he had done
no harm. He had meditated nothing but good to her. _He_ would not have
thought of marrying, or giving to any one but her the supreme place in
his house. He would never have asked her or made any doubt about it, but
taken her at once to Earlston, and showed her everything there arranged
according to her liking. This was what Will had always intended and
settled upon. And his mother, for whom he would have done all this, had
gone away again, offended and angry, abandoning him to his own devices.
Bitterness took possession of his soul as he thought of it. He meant it
only for their good--for justice and right, and to have his own; and
this was the cruel way in which they received it, as if he had done it
out of unkind feelings--even Nelly! A sense that he was wronged came
into Wilfrid's mind as he dressed himself, and looked at his pale face
in the glass, and smoothed his long brown hair. And yet he stepped out
of his room with the feelings of one who ventures upon an undiscovered
country, a new region, in which he does not know whether he is to meet
with good or evil. He had to support himself by the rail as he went
downstairs. He hesitated and trembled at the drawing-room door, which
was a room Mr. Penrose never occupied. Breakfast must be over long ago.
If there was any lady in the house, no doubt she would be found there.
He put his hand on the door, but it was a minute or more before he could
open it, and he heard no sound within. No doubt she had gone away. He
had walked miles yesterday to avoid her, but yet his heart was sore and
bled, and he felt deserted and miserable to think that she was gone. But
when Will had opened the door, the sight he saw was more wonderful to
him than if she had been gone. Mary was seated at the table writing: she
was pale, but there was something in her face which told of unusual
energy and resolution, a kind of inspiration which gave character to
every movement she made. And she was so much preoccupied, that she
showed no special excitement at sight of her boy; she stopped and put
away her pen, and rose up looking at him with pitiful eyes. "My poor
boy!" she said, and kissed him in her tender way. And then she sat down
at the table, and went back to her letters again.
It was not simple consternation which struck Will; it was a mingled pang
of wonder and humiliation and sharp disappointment. Only her poor
boy!--only the youngest, the child as he had always been, not the young
revolutionary to whom Nelly had written that letter, whom Mrs.
Ochterlony had come anxious and in haste to seek. She was more anxious
now about her letters apparently than about him, and there was nothing
but tenderness and sorrow in her eyes; and when she did raise her head
again, it was to remark his paleness and ask if he was tired. "Go and
get some breakfast, Will," she said; but he did not care for breakfast.
He had not the heart to move--he sat in the depths of boyish
mortification and looked at her writing her letters. Was that all that
it mattered? or was she only making a pretence at indifference? But Mary
was too much occupied evidently for any pretence. Her whole figure and
attitude were full of resolution. Notwithstanding the pity of her voice
as she addressed him, and the longing look in her eyes, there was
something in her which Wilfrid had never seen before, which revealed to
him in a kind of dull way that his mother was wound up to some great
emergency, that she had taken a great resolution, and was occupied by
matters of life and death.
"You are very busy, it seems," he said, peevishly, when he had sat for
some time watching her, wondering when she would speak to him. To find
that she was not angry, that she had something else to think about, was
not half so great a relief as it appeared.
"Yes, I am busy," said Mary. "I am writing to your brother, Will, and to
some people who know all about me, and I have no time to lose. Your
Uncle Penrose is a hard man, and I am afraid he will be hard on Hugh."
"No, mother," said Will, feeling his heart beat quick; "he shall not be
hard upon Hugh. I want to tell you that. I want to have justice; but for
anything else--Hugh shall have whatever he wishes; and as for you----"
"Oh, Will," said Mrs. Ochterlony; and somehow it seemed to poor Will's
disordered imagination that she and his letter were speaking
together---- "I had almost forgotten that you had anything to do with
it. If you had but come first and spoken to me----"
"Why should I have come and spoken to you?" said Will, growing into
gradual excitement; "it will not do you any harm. I am your son as well
as Hugh--if it is his or if it is mine, what does it matter? I knew you
would be angry if I stood up for myself; but a man must stand up for
himself when he knows what are his rights."
"Will, you must listen to me," said Mary, putting away her papers, and
turning round to him. "It is Mr. Penrose who has put all this in your
head: it could not be my boy that had such thoughts. Oh, Will! my poor
child! And now we are in his pitiless hands," said Mary, with a kind of
cry, "and it matters nothing what you say or what I say. You have put
yourself in his hands."
"Stop, mother," said Will; "don't make such a disturbance about it.
Uncle Penrose has nothing to do with it. It is my doing. I will do
anything in the world for you, whatever you like to tell me; but I won't
let a fellow be there who has no right to be there. I am the heir, and I
will have my rights."
"You are not the heir," said Mrs. Ochterlony, frightened for the moment
by the tone and his vehemence, and his strange looks.
"I heard it from two people that were both _there_," said Will, with a
gloomy composure. "It was not without asking about it. I am not blaming
you, mother--you might have some reason;--but it was I that was born
after that thing that happened in India. What is the use of struggling
against it? And if it is I that am the heir, why should you try to keep
me out of my rights?"
"Will," said Mary, suddenly driven back into regions of personal
emotion, which she thought she had escaped from, and falling by instinct
into those wild weaknesses of personal argument to which women resort
when they are thus suddenly stung. "Will, look me in the face and tell
me. Can you believe your dear father, who was true as--as heaven itself;
can you believe me, who never told you a lie, to have been such wretched
deceivers? Can you think we were so wicked? Will, look me in the face!"
"Mother," said Will, whose mind was too little imaginative to be moved
by this kind of argument, except to a kind of impatience. "What does it
matter my looking you in the face? what does it matter about my father
being true? You might have some reason for it. I am not blaming you; but
so long as it was a fact what does _that_ matter? I don't want to injure
any one--I only want my rights."
It was Mary's turn now to be struck dumb. She had thought he was afraid
of her, and had fled from her out of shame for what he had done; but he
looked in her face as she told him with unhesitating frankness, and even
that touch of impatience as of one whose common sense was proof to all
such appeals. For her own part, when she was brought back to it, she
felt the effect of the dreadful shock she had received; and she could
not discuss this matter reasonably with her boy. Her mind fell off into
a mingled anguish and horror and agonized sense of his sin and pity for
him. "Oh, Will, your rights," she cried; "your rights! Your rights are
to be forgiven and taken back, and loved and pitied, though you do not
understand what love is. These are all the rights you have. You are
young, and you do not know what you are doing. You have still a right to
be forgiven."
"I was not asking to be forgiven," said Will, doggedly. "I have done no
harm. I never said a word against you. I will give Hugh whatever he
likes to get himself comfortably out in the world. I don't want to make
any fuss or hurry. It can be quietly managed, if he will; but it's me
that Earlston ought to come to; and I am not going to be driven out of
it by talk. I should just like to know what Hugh would do if he was in
my place."
"Hugh could never have been in your place," cried Mary, in her anguish
and indignation. "I ought to have seen this is what it would come to. I
ought to have known when I saw your jealous temper, even when you were a
baby. Oh, my little Will! How will you ever bear it when you come to
your senses, and know what it is you have been doing? Slandering your
dear father's name and mine, though all the world knows different--and
trying to supplant your brother, your elder brother, who has always been
good to you. God forgive them that have brought my boy to this," said
Mary, with tears. She kept gazing at him, even with her eyes full. It
did not seem possible that he could be insensible to her look, even if
he was insensible to her words.
Wilfrid, for his part, got up and began to walk about the room. It _was_
hard, very hard to meet his mother's eyes. "When she is vexed, she gives
a fellow such a look." He remembered those words which he had said to
Uncle Penrose only yesterday with a vague sort of recollection. But when
he got up his own bodily sensations somehow gave him enough to do. He
half forgot about his mother in the strange feeling he had in his
physical frame, as if his limbs did not belong to him, nor his head
either for that part, which seemed to be floating about in the air,
without any particular connexion with the rest of him. It must be that
he was so very tired, for when he sat down and clutched at the arms of
his chair, he seemed to come out of his confusion and see Mrs.
Ochterlony again, and know what she had been talking about. He said,
with something that looked like sullenness: "Nobody brought me to
this--I brought myself," in answer to what she had said, and fell, as it
were, into a moody reverie, leaning upon the arms of his chair. Mary
saw it, and thought it was that attitude of obstinate and immovable
resolve into which she had before seen him fall; and she dried her eyes
with a little flash of indignation, and turned again to the
half-finished letter which trembled in her hands, and which she could
not force her mind back to. She said to herself in a kind of despair,
that the bitter cup must be drunk--that there was nothing for it but to
do battle for her son's rights, and lose no time in vain outcries, but
forgive the unhappy boy when he came to his right mind and returned to
her again. She turned away, with her heart throbbing and bleeding, and
made an effort to recover her composure and finish her letter. It was a
very important letter, and required all her thoughts. But if it had been
hard to do it before, it was twenty times harder now.
Just at that moment there was a commotion at the door, and a sound of
some one entering below. It might be only Mr. Penrose coming back, as he
sometimes did, to luncheon. But every sound tingled through Mrs.
Ochterlony in the excitement of her nerves. Then there came something
that made her spring to her feet--a single tone of a voice struck on her
ear, which she thought could only be her own fancy. But it was not her
fancy. Some one came rushing up the stairs, and dashed into the room.
Mary gave a great cry, and ran into his arms, and Will, startled and
roused up from a sudden oblivion which he did not understand, drew his
hand across his heavy eyes, and looked up doubting, and saw Hugh--Hugh
standing in the middle of the room holding his mother, glowing with
fresh air, and health, and gladness.--Hugh! How did he come there? Poor
Will tried to rise from his chair, but with a feeling that he was fixed
in it for ever, like the lady in the fable. Had he been asleep? and
where was he? Had it been but a bad dream, and was this the Cottage, and
Hugh come home to see them all? These were the questions that rose in
Will's darkened mind, as he woke up and drew his hand across his heavy
eyes, and sat as if glued in Mr. Penrose's chair.