All the women are jealous of her; there is no doubt about that. The
first time she appears in church with crisp mauve muslins floating
about her and a dainty mauve erection on her head, which presumably
she calls a bonnet, I know at once how it will be. And of course the
other sex will range themselves on her side to a man; that is also
beyond question. As she rises from her knees and takes her little
lavender-gloved hands from her face and looks about her for a moment
with a sweet shy glance, she is simply bewitching; and I doubt if any
male creature in our musty little church pays proper attention to the
responses for ten minutes afterwards. A new face is a great rarity with
us, and _such_ a new face one might not see more than once in a decade,
so let us hope we may be forgiven.
As I gaze at the delicate profile before me, the coils of golden hair,
the complexion like the inside of a sea-shell, the slender milk-white
throat, and the long dark eyelashes, which droop modestly over the
glorious gray eyes, shall I own that I steal a glance of disapproval
at Mary Anne, my Mary Anne, the partner of my joys and sorrows for
twenty years, and the mother of my six children? Mary Anne’s figure is
somewhat overblown, her hair is tinged with gray, and the complexion of
her good-humoured face is slightly rubicund. But she has been a good
wife to me; and I feel, with a twinge of compunction, that I have no
right to be critical, as I think of a shining spot on the top of my
own head, and of a little box I received from the dentist only a month
ago, carefully secured from observation. But as we emerge from church
I draw myself up and try to look my best as we pass the trailing mauve
robes. Jack, one of our six, stumbles over the train; which gives
me an opportunity of raising my hat and apologising for the brat’s
awkwardness; and I am rewarded with a sweet smile and an upward glance
out of the great gray eyes which is simply intoxicating.
‘We must call on Mrs Ogilvie at once,’ I observe to Mary Anne as we
proceed across the fields on our homeward walk. ‘It is my duty as her
landlord to find out if she is comfortable. She is a ladylike person,’
I continue, diplomatically forbearing to allude to the obvious beauty;
‘and I daresay, my dear, you will find her an agreeable neighbour.’
‘Ladylike!’ cries my wife, with a ring of indignation in her voice. ‘I
don’t call it ladylike to come to a quiet country church dressed as if
she were going to a flower-show. Besides, she is painted. A colour
like that can’t be natural. But you men are all alike—always taken with
a little outside show and glitter.’
‘But my dear,’ I remonstrate, ‘perhaps she did not know how very
countrified and bucolic our congregation is; and I really do think it
will be very unneighbourly if we don’t call. It must be very dull for
her to know no one.’ I ignore the remark about the paint, but in my
heart I give the assertion an emphatic contradiction.
Mrs Ogilvie has rented a small cottage which I own in the west-country
village in which I am the principal doctor. She is the wife of a
naval officer who is away in the Flying Squadron, and has settled in
our sleepy little hamlet to live quietly during his absence. All her
references have been quite unexceptionable, and indeed she is slightly
known to our Squire, as is also her absent husband. ‘A splendid fellow
he is,’ Mr Dillon tells me, ‘stands six feet in his stockings, and is
as handsome as Apollo; indeed I don’t believe that for good looks you
could find such another couple in England.’
The following day Mary Anne, with but little persuasion, agrees to
accompany me to the cottage to call on Mrs Ogilvie. The door is opened
by a neat maid-servant. She is at home; and we are ushered into the
drawing-room, which we almost fail to recognise, so changed is it.
Bright fresh hangings are in the windows, a handsome piano stands open,
books and periodicals lie on the tables in profusion, and flowers are
everywhere. ‘Evidently a woman of refinement and cultivated tastes,’ I
think to myself; ‘the beauty is more than skin deep.’
Presently Mrs Ogilvie comes in, looking if possible even lovelier than
she did the day before. She is in a simple white dress, with here and
there a knot of blue ribbon about it; and she has a bit of blue also
in her golden hair. Her manner is as charming as her looks, and as she
thanks my wife with pleasant cordial words for being the first of her
neighbours to take compassion on her loneliness, I can see that my Mary
Anne, whose heart is as large as her figure, basely deserts the female
faction and goes over to the enemy. Mrs Ogilvie is very young, still
quite a girl, though she has been married three years she tells us.
‘It is dreadful that Frank should have to go away,’ she says, and
the tears well up in her large gray eyes; ‘that is the worst of the
service. But I suppose no woman ought to interfere with her husband’s
career. I am going to live here as quietly as possible until he
returns. See; here is his photograph,’ she continues, lifting a case
from the table and handing it to Mary Anne. ‘Is he not handsome?’
He is most undeniably so, if the likeness speaks truth, and we both say
so; Mary Anne, with the privilege of her sex and age, adding a word as
to the beauty of the pair.
‘O yes,’ replies Mrs Ogilvie without the smallest embarrassment: ‘we
are always called the “handsome couple.”’
I suppose something of my astonishment expresses itself in my
countenance, for she smiles, and says: ‘I am afraid you think me very
vain; but I cannot help knowing that I am good-looking, any more than
I can help being aware that my eyes are gray, not black, and that my
hair is golden. It is a gift from God, like any talent; a valuable one
too, I think it; and I own that I am proud of it, for my dear Frank’s
sake, who admires it so much.’
Yes, this is Mrs Ogilvie’s peculiarity, as we afterwards discover—an
intense and quite open admiration of her own beauty. And indeed
there is something so simple and naïve about it, that we do not find
it displeasing when we get accustomed to it. She always speaks of
herself as if she were a third person, and honestly appreciates her
lovely face, as if it were some rare picture, as indeed it is, of Dame
Nature’s own painting. She is equally ready to admit the good looks of
other women, and has not a trace of jealousy in her composition. But
often you will hear her say, in describing some one else: ‘She has a
lovely complexion—something in the style of mine, but not so clear.’
Or, ‘She has a beautiful head of hair, but not so sunny as mine;’ &c.
&c. At first, every one is astonished at this idiosyncrasy of hers,
but in a little while we all come to laugh at it; there is something
original and amusing about it; and in all other ways she is _so_
charming.
My wife, with whom she speedily becomes intimate, tells me that she is
sure she values her beauty more for her husband’s sake than her own.
‘She evidently adores him,’ says Mary Anne; ‘and he seems to think so
much of her sweet looks. She says he fell in love with her at first
sight, before he ever spoke to her.’
But Mrs Ogilvie has many more attractions than are to be found in her
face. She is a highly educated woman, a first-rate musician and a
pleasant and intelligent companion; and more than all, she has a sweet
loving disposition, and a true heart at the core of all her little
vanities. She is very good to the poor in our village, and often when
I am on my rounds, I meet her coming out of some cottage with an empty
basket in her hand, which was full when she entered it.
In a quiet little neighbourhood like ours, such a woman cannot fail to
be an acquisition, and every one hastens to call on her, and many are
the dinners and croquet parties which are inaugurated in her honour.
To the former she will not go; she does not wish to go out in the
evening during her husband’s absence—much to my wife’s satisfaction,
who approves of women being ‘keepers at home’—and it is only seldom
that she can be induced to grace one of the croquet parties with her
presence.
But when she does, she eclipses every one else. She always dresses
in the most exquisite taste, as if anxious that the setting should
be worthy of the jewel—the beauty which she prizes so highly. She is
always sweet and gracious, and vanquishes the men by her loveliness,
the women in spite of it. But she is in no sense of the word a
coquette; and the only admirer she favours is our Jack, aged fourteen,
who is head-over-ears in love with her, and is ready at any moment to
forego cricket for the honour of escorting Mrs Ogilvie through the
village, and the privilege of carrying her basket. So the quiet weeks
and months glide by, linking us daily more closely together.
She has been settled at the cottage rather more than two years and
is beginning to count the weeks to her husband’s return. _We_ do not
number them quite so eagerly, for when he comes he will take her away
from us, and we shall miss her sorely. It is summer again, a hot damp
summer; it has been a very sickly season, and my hands are full.
‘I shall have to get a partner, my dear,’ I say to my wife as I prepare
to go out. ‘If this goes on I shall have more to do than I can manage.
There is a nasty fever about which I don’t like the look of; and if we
don’t have a change for the better in this muggy weather, there is no
saying what it may turn to.’
‘I am glad all the boys are at school,’ observes Mary Anne, ‘and I
think I will let the girls accept their aunt’s invitation and go to her
for a month.’
‘It would be a very good plan, and I should be glad if you would go
too. A little change would do you good.’
‘And pray who is to look after you?’ asks my wife reproachfully. ‘Who
is to see that you take your meals properly, and don’t rush off to see
your patients, leaving your dinner untasted on the table?’
Mentally I confess that I should probably be poorly off without my Mary
Anne; but it is a bad plan to encourage vanity in one’s wife, so I say:
‘Oh, I should do very well by myself;’ and with a parting nod betake
myself to my daily duty.
In the village I meet Mrs Ogilvie, basket in hand. She doesn’t look
well, and I say so.
‘You have no business out in the heat of the day,’ I tell her. ‘You are
not a Hercules, and you will only be knocking yourself up. What will
your husband say, if he does not find you looking your best when he
comes back?’
A shade passes over her face. ‘Ah! he would not be pleased,’ she says
rather gravely; ‘he always likes to see me look my _very_ best and
prettiest.’
‘Well then, as your doctor, I must forbid your doing any more
cottage-visiting just at present. You are not looking strong, and going
into those close houses is not good for you. I will come and see you on
my way back.’
Which I do. I find there is nothing the matter with her; she is only a
little languid. Perhaps the weather has affected her; perhaps she is
wearying for her husband; and I prescribe a tonic, which I think will
soon set her to rights. I do not remain long with her, for I have an
unspoken anxiety, and I am in a hurry to get home.
‘You had better send the children away to-morrow morning, Mary Anne,’
I say as soon as I get in. ‘Mrs Black is very ill, and I am afraid—I
cannot quite tell yet, but I am afraid—she is going to have small-pox.
Of course I shall have her removed at once, if I am right; but it may
prove not to be an isolated case, and it will be as well to get the
children out of the way. I shall try and persuade every one in the
village to be vaccinated to-morrow.’
‘You will be clever if you manage that,’ says my wife. ‘I am afraid
some of the people are very prejudiced against it. You know when
the children and I were revaccinated three years ago, you could not
persuade any of the villagers to be done at the same time.’
On the following day we despatch the children early to their aunt’s,
under the care of an old servant; and as soon as I have seen them off,
I go down to Mrs Black’s. To my consternation I find Mrs Ogilvie just
leaving the house.
‘I have been disobedient, you see,’ she says gaily; ‘but I promised
to bring Mrs Black something early this morning; and she seemed so ill
yesterday that I did not like to disappoint her. But I am not going to
transgress orders again—for Frank’s sake,’ she adds softly.
I give an internal groan. Heaven grant she may not have transgressed
them once too often! And I hasten into the cottage, to find my worst
fears confirmed. Mrs Black has small-pox quite unmistakably.
For some hours I am occupied in making arrangements for her removal
to the infirmary, and in vaccinating such of my poorer patients as I
can frighten or coerce into allowing me to do so; and it is afternoon
before I am able to go and look after Mrs Ogilvie.
She seems rather astonished when I inform her what my errand is—that
I want to vaccinate her (for of course I do not wish to frighten her
by telling her about Mrs Black); but she submits readily enough when I
say that I have heard of a case of small-pox in a neighbouring village
(which I have), and think it would be a wise precautionary measure.
‘It is very good of you,’ she says in her pretty gracious way as she
bares her white arm. ‘I have never been vaccinated since I was a baby,
so I suppose it will be desirable.’
Desirable? I should think so indeed! And I send up a prayer as I
perform the operation that I may not be too late.
I am so busy for the next few days that I am unable to go down to the
cottage. One or two more cases of small-pox appear in the village, and
I am anxious and hard-worked; but Mary Anne tells me that Mrs Ogilvie
has heard of Mrs Black’s removal and is dreadfully nervous about
herself. ‘I hope she will not frighten herself into it,’ adds my wife.
‘If she hadn’t contracted it before I vaccinated her, I think she is
pretty safe,’ I reply; ‘but there is just the chance that she may have
had the poison in her previously.’
Almost as I speak a message comes from Mrs Ogilvie, who ‘wishes to see
me professionally.’ My heart sinks as I seize my hat and follow the
messenger; and with too good reason. I find her suffering from the
first symptoms of small-pox; and in twenty-four hours it has declared
itself unequivocally and threatens to be a bad case. I try to keep the
nature of her illness from her, but in vain. She questions me closely,
and when she discovers the truth, gives way to a burst of despair which
is painful to witness. ‘I shall be marked; I shall be hideous!’ she
exclaims, sobbing bitterly. ‘Poor Frank, how he will hate me!’
In vain I try to comfort her, to convince her that in not one out of
a hundred cases does the disease leave dreadful traces behind it; she
refuses to be consoled. And soon she is too ill to be reasoned with,
or indeed to know much of her own state. She is an orphan, and has no
near relatives for whom we can send, so Mary Anne installs herself
in the sick-room as head-nurse; and as I see her bending lovingly
over the poor disfigured face, and ministering with tender hands to
the ceaseless wants of the invalid, my wife is in my eyes beautiful
exceedingly; so does the shadow of a good deed cast a glory around the
most homely countenance.
For some time Mrs Ogilvie’s life is in great danger; but her youth and
good constitution prevail against the grim destroyer, and at length I
am able to pronounce all peril past.
But alas, alas! all my hopes, all my care, all my poor skill have been
in vain; and the beauty which we have all admired so much, and which
has been so precious to our poor patient, is a thing of the past. She
is marked—slightly it is true; but the pure complexion is thick and
muddy, the once bright eyes are heavy and dull, and the golden hair is
thin and lustreless. We keep it from her as long as we can, but she
soon discovers it in our sorrowful looks; and her horror, her agony,
almost threaten to unseat her reason. My wife is with her night and
day, watching her like a mother, using every argument she can think of
to console her, and above all, counselling with gentle words submission
to the will of God. But her misery, after the first shock, is not so
much for herself as for the possible effect the loss of her beauty may
have on her husband, who is now daily expected. His ship has been at
sea, so we have been unable to write to him; and only on his arrival
in Plymouth Sound will he hear of his poor young wife’s illness and
disfigurement. Before her sickness she had been counting the hours;
now she sees every day go past with a shudder, feeling that she is
brought twenty-four hours nearer to the dread trial. At length his
vessel arrives, and I receive a telegram telling me when we may expect
him, and begging me to break the news gently to his wife. She receives
it with a flood of bitter tears and sobs, crying out that he will hate
and loathe her, and that she is about to lose all the happiness of her
life. My wife weeps with her; and I am conscious of a choking sensation
in my throat as we take leave of her half an hour before Mr Ogilvie is
expected, and pray God to bless and sustain her.
We are sitting in rather melancholy mood after dinner, talking of the
poor young husband and wife, when Mr Ogilvie is announced, and I hasten
to the door to meet him.
‘She will not see me!’ he says impetuously, coming in without any
formal greeting. ‘She has shut herself into her room, and calls to me
with hysterical tears that she is too dreadful to look upon, that I
shall cease to love her as soon as I behold her, and that she cannot
face it.’ And the strong man falls into a chair with a sob.
‘It is not so bad as that,’ I begin.
‘I don’t care how bad it is,’ he cries; ‘she need not doubt my love.
My poor darling will always be the same to me whether she has lost her
beauty or not.’
Whereupon I extend my hand to him and shake his heartily; and I know my
wife has great difficulty in restraining herself from enveloping him in
her motherly arms and embracing him.
‘We must resort to stratagem,’ I say. ‘I will go down to the cottage
at once, and you follow me in ten minutes with my wife. I will try and
coax Mrs Ogilvie to come out and speak to me, and you must steal upon
her unawares.’
Mrs Ogilvie at first refuses to see or speak to me; but I go up to her
door and am mean enough to remind her of my wife’s devotion to her and
entreat her, for her sake, to come down to me.
‘Where is Frank?’ she asks.
‘I left him at home with Mary Anne,’ I reply, feeling that I am worthy
of being a diplomatist at the court of St Petersburg, as she opens the
door and descends the stairs. I take her out into the garden and begin
to reprove her for her conduct, with assumed anger. She listens with
eyes blinded by tears. I, on the look-out for it, hear the latch of the
garden gate click; but she, absorbed in her sorrow, does not notice
it. I look up and see Frank Ogilvie’s eyes fixed hungrily on his wife.
Her changed appearance must be an awful shock to him; but he bears it
bravely; and in a moment he has sprung forward, clasped her in his
arms, and the poor scarred face is hidden on his true and loving heart!
Then Mary Anne and I turn silently away, and leave him to teach her
that there are things more valuable, of far higher worth than any mere
beauty of face or form.
* * * * *
After all, we do not lose her, for Mr Ogilvie coming into some money,
leaves the navy and purchases a small estate in our neighbourhood,
on which they still reside. Mrs Ogilvie is no longer young, and has
a family of lads and lasses around her, who inherit much of their
mother’s loveliness. But one of the first things she teaches them is
not to set a fictitious value on it; ‘for,’ she says, ‘I thought too
much of mine, and God took it from me.’ No one ever hears her regret
the loss of her beauty; ‘for through that trial,’ she tells my wife, ‘I
learned to know the true value of my Frank’s heart.’
She simply worships her husband, and is in all respects a happy woman.
Indeed, seeing the sweet smiles which adorn her face and the loving
light which dwells in her eyes, I am sometimes tempted to call her as
of yore—Pretty Mrs Ogilvie.