Madonna Mary
And it was to be expected that Mrs. Kirkman would come to see her, to console her that morning, and put the worst thoughts into her head, But before even Mrs. Kirkman, little Emma Askell came rushing in, with her baby and a bundle, and threw herself at Mary’s feet. The Ensign had gone to the wars, and it was the first experience of such a kind that had fallen to the lot of his little baby-wife; and naturally her anxiety told more distinctly upon her than it did upon Mary’s ripe soul and frame. The poor little thing was white and cold and shivering, notwithstanding the blazing Indian day that began to lift itself over their heads. She fell down at Mary’s feet, forgetting all about the beetles and scorpions which were the horror of her ordinary existence, and clasped her knees, and held Mrs. Ochterlony fast, grasping the bundle and the little waxen baby at the same time in the other arm.
“Do you think they will ever come back?” said poor little Emma. “Oh, Mrs. Ochterlony, tell me. I can bear it if you will tell me the worst. If anything were to happen to Charlie, and me not with him! I never, never, never can live until the news comes. Oh, tell me, do you think they will ever come back?”
“If I did not think they would come back, do you think I could take it so quietly?” said Mary, and she smiled as best she could, and lifted up the poor little girl, and took from her the baby and the bundle, which seemed all one, so closely were they held. Mrs. Ochterlony had deep eyes, which did not show when she had been crying; and she was not young enough to cry in thunder showers, as Emma Askell at eighteen might still be permitted to do; and the very sight of her soothed the young creature’s heart. “You know you are a soldier’s wife,” Mary said; “I think I was as bad as you are the first time the Major left me – but we all get used to it after a few years.”
“And he came back?” said Emma, doing all she could to choke a sob.
“He must have come back, or I should not have parted with him this morning,” said Mrs. Ochterlony, who had need of all her own strength just at that moment. “Let us see in the meantime what this bundle is, and why you have brought poor baby out in her night-gown. And what a jewel she is to sleep! When my little Willy gets disturbed,” said Mary, with a sigh, “he gives none of us any rest. I will make up a bed for her here on the sofa; and now tell me what this bundle is for, and why you have rushed out half dressed. We’ll talk about them presently. Tell me first about yourself.”
Upon which Emma hung down her pretty little head, and began to fold a hem upon her damp handkerchief, and did not know how to explain herself. “Don’t be angry with me,” she said. “Oh, my Madonna, let me come and stay with you! – that was what I meant; I can’t stay there by myself – and I will nurse Willy, and do your hair and help sewing. I don’t mind what I do. Oh, Mrs. Ochterlony, don’t send me away! I should die if I were alone. And as for baby, she never troubles anybody. She is so good. I will be your little servant, and wait upon you like a slave, if you will only let me stay.”
It would be vain to say that Mrs. Ochterlony was pleased by this appeal, for she was herself in a very critical state of mind, full of fears that she could give no reason for, and a hundred fantastic pains which she would fain have hidden from human sight. She had been taking a little comfort in the thought of the solitude, the freedom from visitors and disturbance, that she might safely reckon on, and in which she thought her mind might perhaps recover a little; and this young creature’s society was not specially agreeable to her. But she was touched by the looks of the forlorn girl, and could no more have sent her away than she could repress the little movement of impatience and half disgust that rose in her heart. She was not capable of giving her an effusive welcome; but she kissed poor little Emma, and put the bundle beside the baby on the sofa, and accepted her visitor without saying anything about it. Perhaps it did her no harm: though she felt by moments as if her impatient longing to be alone and silent, free to think her own thoughts, would break out in spite of all her self-control. But little Mrs. Askell never suspected the existence of any such emotions. She thought, on the contrary, that it was because Mary was used to it that she took it so quietly, and wondered whether she would ever get used to it. Perhaps, on the whole, Emma hoped not. She thought to herself that Mrs. Ochterlony, who was so little disturbed by the parting, would not feel the joy of the return half so much as she should; and on these terms she preferred to take the despair along with the joy. But under the shadow of Mary’s matronly presence the little thing cheered up, and got back her courage. After she had been comforted with tea, and had fully realized her position as Mrs. Ochterlony’s visitor, Emma’s spirits rose. She was half or quarter Irish, as has been already mentioned, and behaved herself accordingly. She recollected her despair, it is true, in the midst of a game with Hugh and Islay, and cried a little, but soon comforted herself with the thought that at that moment her Charlie could be in no danger. “They’ll be stopping somewhere for breakfast by a well, and camping all about, and they can’t get any harm there,” said Emma; and thus she kept chattering all day. If she had chattered only, and been content with chattering, it would have been comparatively easy work; but then she was one of those people who require answers, and will be spoken to. And Mary had to listen and reply, and give her opinion where they would be now, and when, at the very earliest, they might be expected back. With such a discipline to undergo, it may be thought a supererogation to bring Mrs. Kirkman in upon her that same morning with her handkerchief in her hand, prepared, if it were necessary, to weep with Mary. But still it is the case that Mrs. Kirkman did come, as might have been expected; and to pass over conversation so edifying as hers, would, under such circumstances, be almost a crime.
“My dear Mary,” Mrs. Kirkman said when she came in, “I am so glad to see you up and making an effort; it is so much better than giving way. We must accept these trials as something sent for our good. I am sure the Major has all our prayers for his safe return. Oh, Mary, do you not remember what I said to you – that God, I was sure, was not going to let you alone?”
“I never thought He would leave me alone,” said Mrs. Ochterlony; but certainly, though it was a right enough sentiment, it was not uttered in a right tone of voice.
“He will not rest till you see your duty more clearly,” said her visitor; “if it were not for that, why should He have sent you so many things one after another? It is far better and more blessed than if He had made you happy and comfortable as the carnal heart desires. But I did not see you had any one with you,” said Mrs. Kirkman, stopping short at the sight of Emma, who had just come into the room.
“Poor child, she was frightened and unhappy, and came to me this morning,” said Mary. “She will stay with me – till – they come home.”
“Let us say if they come home,” said Mrs. Kirkman, solemnly. “I never like to be too certain. We know when they go forth, but who can tell when they will come back. That is in God’s hands.”
At this speech Emma fell trembling and shivering again, and begged Mrs. Kirkman to tell her the worst, and cried out that she could bear it. She thought of nothing but her Charlie, as was natural, and that the Colonel’s wife had already heard some bad news. And Mrs. Kirkman thought of nothing but improving the occasion; and both of them were equally indifferent, and indeed unaware of the cold shudder which went through Mary, and the awful foreboding that closed down upon her, putting out the sunshine. It was a little safeguard to her to support the shivering girl who already half believed herself a widow, and to take up the challenge of the spiritual teacher who felt herself responsible for their souls.
“Do not make Emma think something is wrong,” she said. “It is so easy to make a young creature wretched with a word. If the Colonel had been with them, it might have been different. But it is easy just now for you to frighten us. I am sure you do not mean it.” And then Mary had to whisper in the young wife’s ear, “She knows nothing about them – it is only her way,” which was a thing very easily said to Emma, but very difficult to establish herself upon in her own heart.
And then Mrs. Hesketh came in to join the party.
“So they are gone,” the new-comer said. “What a way little Emma is in, to be sure. Is it the first time he has ever left you, my dear? and I daresay they have been saying something dreadful to frighten you. It is a great shame to let girls marry so young. I have been reckoning,” said the easy-minded woman, whose husband was also of the party, “how long they are likely to be. If they get to Amberabad, say to-morrow, and if there is nothing very serious, and all goes well, you know, they might be back here on Saturday – and we had an engagement for Saturday,” Mrs. Hesketh said. Her voice was quite easy and pleasant, as it always was; but nevertheless, Mary knew that if she had not felt excited, she would not have paid such an early morning visit, and that even her confident calculation about the return proved she was in a little anxiety about it. The fact was, that none of them were quite at their ease, except Mrs. Kirkman, who, having no personal interest in the matter, was quite equal to taking a very gloomy view of affairs.
“How can any one think of such vanities at such a moment?” Mrs. Kirkman said. “Oh, if I could only convince you, my dear friends. None of us can tell what sort of engagement they may have before next Saturday – perhaps the most solemn engagement ever given to man. Don’t let misfortune find you in this unprepared state of mind. There is nothing on earth so solemn as seeing soldiers go away. You may think of the band and all that, but for me, I always seem to hear a voice saying, ‘Prepare to meet your God.’”
To be sure the Colonel was in command of the station and was safe at home, and his wife could speculate calmly upon the probable fate of the detachment. But as for the three women who were listening to her, it was not so easy for them. There was a dreadful pause, for nobody could contradict such a speech; and poor little Emma dropped down sobbing on the floor; and the colour forsook even Mrs. Hesketh’s comely cheek; and as for Mary, though she could not well be paler, her heart seemed to contract and shrink within her; and none of them had the courage to say anything. Naturally Mrs. Hesketh, with whom it was a principle not to fret, was the first to recover her voice.
“After all, though it’s always an anxious time, I don’t see any particular reason we have to be uneasy,” she said. “Hesketh told me he felt sure they would give in at once. It may be very true all you say, but at the same time we may be reasonable, you know, and not take fright when there is no cause for it. Don’t cry, Emma, you little goose; you’ll have him back again in two or three days, all right.”
And after awhile the anxious little assembly broke up, and Mrs. Hesketh, who though she was very liberal in her way, was not much given to personal charities, went to see some of the soldiers’ wives, who, poor souls, would have been just as anxious if they had had the time for it, and gave them the best advice about their children, and promised tea and sugar if they would come to fetch it, and old frocks, in which she was always rich; and these women were so ungrateful as to like her visit better than that of the Colonel’s wife, who carried them always on her heart and did them a great deal of good, and never confined herself to kindness of impulse. And little Emma Askell cried herself to sleep sitting on the floor, notwithstanding the beetles, reposing her pretty face flushed with weeping and her swollen eyes upon the sofa, where Mary sat and watched over her. Mrs. Hesketh got a little ease out of her visit to the soldiers’ wives, and Emma forgot her troubles in sleep; but no sort of relief came to Mary, who reasoned with herself all day long without being able to deliver herself from the pressure of the deadly cold hand that seemed to have been laid upon her heart.
CHAPTER IX
AND Mary’s forebodings came true. Though it was so unlikely, and indeed seemed so unreasonable to everybody who knew about such expeditions, instead of bringing back his men victorious, it was the men, all drooping and discouraged, who carried back the brave and tender Major, covered over with the flag he had died for. The whole station was overcast with mourning when that melancholy procession came back. Mr. Churchill, who met them coming in, hurried back with his heart swelling up into his throat to prepare Mrs. Ochterlony for what was coming; but Mary was the only creature at the station who did not need to be prepared. She knew it was going to be so when she saw him go away. She felt in her heart that this was to be the end of it from the moment when he first told her of the expedition on which he was ordered. And when she saw poor Mr. Churchill’s face, from which he had vainly tried to banish the traces of the horrible shock he had just received, she saw that the blow had fallen. She came up to him and took hold of his hands, and said, “I know what it is;” and almost felt, in the strange and terrible excitement of the moment, as if she were sorry for him who felt it so much.
This was how it was, and all the station was struck with mourning. A chance bullet, which most likely had been fired without any purpose at all, had done its appointed office in Major Ochterlony’s brave, tender, honest bosom. Though he had been foolish enough by times, nobody now thought of that to his disadvantage. Rather, if anything, it surrounded him with a more affectionate regret. A dozen wise men might have perished and not left such a gap behind them as the Major did, who had been good to everybody in his restless way, and given a great deal of trouble, and made up for it, as only a man with a good heart and natural gift of friendliness could do. He had worried his men many a time as the Colonel never did, for example; but then, to Major Ochterlony they were men and fine fellows, while they were only machines, like himself, to Colonel Kirkman; and more than one critic in regimentals was known to say with a sigh, “If it had only been the Colonel.” But it was only the fated man who had been so over-careful about his wife’s fate in case anything happened to him. Young Askell came by stealth like a robber to take his little wife out of the house where Mary was not capable any longer of her society; and Captain Hesketh too had come back all safe – all of them except the one: and the women in their minds stood round Mary in a kind of hushed circle, looking with an awful fellow-feeling and almost self-reproach at the widowhood which might have, but had not, fallen upon themselves. It was no fault of theirs that she had to bear the cross for all of them as it were; and yet their hearts ached over her, as if somehow they had purchased their own exemption at her expense. When the first dark moment, during which nobody saw Madonna Mary – a sweet title which had come back to all their lips in the hour of trouble – was over, they took turns to be with her, those grieved and compunctious women – compunctious not so much because at one time in thought they had done her wrong, as because now they were happy and she was sorrowful. And thus passed over a time that cannot be described in a book, or at least in such a book as this. Mary had to separate herself, with still the bloom of her life unimpaired, from all the fair company of matrons round her; to put the widow’s veil over the golden reflections in her hair, and the faint colour that came faintly back to her cheek by imprescriptible right of her health and comparative youth, and to go away out of the high-road of life where she had been wayfaring in trouble and in happiness, to one of those humble by-ways where the feeble and broken take shelter. Heaven knows she did not think of that. All that she thought of was her dead soldier who had gone away in the bloom of his days to the unknown darkness which God alone knows the secrets of, who had left all his comrades uninjured and at peace behind him, and had himself been the only one to answer for that enterprise with his life. It is strange to see this wonderful selection going on in the world, even when one has no immediate part in it; but stranger, far stranger, to wake up from one’s musings and feel all at once that it is one’s self whom God has laid his hand upon for this stern purpose. The wounded creature may writhe upon the sword, but it is of no use; and again as ever, those who are not wounded – those perhaps for whose instruction the spectacle is made – draw round in a hushed circle and look on. Mary Ochterlony was a dutiful woman, obedient and submissive to God’s will; and she gave no occasion to that circle of spectators to break up the hush and awe of natural sympathy and criticise her how she bore it. But after a while she came to perceive, what everybody comes to perceive who has been in such a position, that the sympathy had changed its character. That was natural too. How a man bears death and suffering of body, has long been one of the favourite objects of primitive human curiosity; and to see how anguish and sorrow affect the mind is a study as exciting and still more interesting. It was this that roused Mrs. Ochterlony out of her first stupor, and made her decide so soon as she did upon her journey home.
All these events had passed in so short a time, that there were many people who on waking up in the morning, and recollecting that Mary and her children were going next day, could scarcely realize that the fact was possible, or that it could be true about the Major, who had so fully intended sending his little boys home by that same mail. But it is, on the whole, astonishing how soon and how calmly a death is accepted by the general community; and even the people who asked themselves could this change really have happened in so short a time, took pains an hour or two after to make up little parcels for friends at home, which Mary was to carry; bits of Oriental embroidery and filagree ornaments, and little portraits of the children, and other trifles that were not important enough to warrant an Overland parcel, or big enough to go by the Cape. Mary was very kind in that way, they all said. She accepted all kinds of commissions, perhaps without knowing very well what she was doing, and promised to go and see people whom she had no likelihood of ever going to see; the truth was, that she heard and saw and understood only partially, sometimes rousing up for a moment and catching one word or one little incident with the intensest distinctness, and then relapsing back again into herself. She did not quite make out what Emma Askell was saying the last time her little friend came to see her. Mary was packing her boys’ things at the moment, and much occupied with a host of cares, and what she heard was only a stream of talk, broken with the occasional burden which came in like a chorus “when you see mamma.”
“When I see mamma?” said Mary, with a little surprise.
“Dear Mrs. Ochterlony, you said you would perhaps go to see her – in St. John’s Wood,” said Emma, with tears of vexation in her eyes; “you know I told you all about it. The Laburnums, Acacia-road. And she will be so glad to see you. I explained it all, and you said you would go. I told her how kind you had been to me, and how you let me stay with you when I was so anxious about Charlie. Oh, dear Mrs. Ochterlony, forgive me! I did not mean to bring it back to your mind.”
“No,” said Mary, with a kind of forlorn amusement. It seemed so strange, almost droll, that they should think any of their poor little passing words would bring that back to her which was never once out of her mind, nor other than the centre of all her thoughts. “I must have been dreaming when I said so, Emma: but if I have promised, I will try to go – I have nothing to do in London, you know – I am going to the North-country, among my own people,” which was an easier form of expression than to say, as they all did, that she was going home.
“But everybody goes to London,” insisted Emma; and it was only when Mr. Churchill came in, also with a little packet, that the ensign’s wife was silenced. Mr. Churchill’s parcel was for his mother who lived in Yorkshire, naturally, as Mrs. Ochterlony was going to the North, quite in her way. But the clergyman, for his part, had something more important to say. When Mrs. Askell was gone, he stopped Mary in her packing to speak to her seriously as he said, “You will forgive me and feel for me, I know,” he said. “It is about your second marriage, Mrs. Ochterlony.”
“Don’t speak of it – oh, don’t speak of it,” Mary said, with an imploring tone that went to his heart.
“But I ought to speak of it – if you can bear it,” said Mr. Churchill, “and I know for the boys’ sake that you can bear everything. I have brought an extract from the register, if you would like to have it; and I have added below – ”
“Mr. Churchill, you are very kind, but I don’t want ever to think of that,” said Mrs. Ochterlony. “I don’t want to recollect now that such a thing ever took place – I wish all record of it would disappear from the face of the earth. Afterwards he thought the same,” she said, hurriedly. Meanwhile Mr. Churchill stood with the paper half drawn from his pocket-book, watching the changes of her face.
“It shall be as you like,” he said, slowly, “but only as I have written below – If you change your mind, you have only to write to me, my dear Mrs. Ochterlony – if I stay here – and I am sure I don’t know if I shall stay here; but in case I don’t, you can always learn where I am, from my mother at that address.”
“Do you think you will not stay here?” said Mary, whose heart was not so much absorbed in her own sorrows that she could not feel for the dismayed, desponding mind that made itself apparent in the poor clergyman’s voice.
“I don’t know,” he said, in the dreary tones of a man who has little choice, “with our large family, and my wife’s poor health. I shall miss you dreadfully – both of you: you can’t think how cheery and hearty he always was – and that to a down-hearted man like me – ”
And then Mary sat down and cried. It went to her heart and dispersed all her heaviness and stupor, and opened the great sealed fountains. And Mr. Churchill once more felt the climbing sorrow in his throat, and said in broken words, “Don’t cry – God will take care of you. He knows why He has done it, though we don’t; and He has given his own word to be a father to the boys.”
That was all the poor priest could find it in his heart to say – but it was better than a sermon – and he went away with the extract from the register still in his pocket-book and tears in his eyes; while for her part Mary finished her packing with a heart relieved by her tears. Ah, how cheery and hearty he had been, how kind to the down-hearted man; how different the stagnant quietness now from that cheerful commotion he used to make, and all the restless life about him; and then his favourite words seemed to come up about and surround her, flitting in the air with a sensation between acute torture and a dull happiness. His bonnie Mary! It was not any vanity on Mary’s part that made her think above all of that name. Thus she did her packing and got ready for her voyage, and took the good people’s commissions without knowing very well to what it was that she pledged herself; and it was the same mail – “the mail after next” – by which she had written to Aunt Agatha that Hugh was to be sent home.
They would all have come to see her off if they could have ventured to do it that last morning; but the men prevented it, who are good for something now and then in such cases. As it was, however, Mrs. Kirkman and Mrs. Hesketh and Emma Askell were there, and poor sick Mrs. Churchill, who had stolen from her bed in her dressing-gown to kiss Mary for the last time.
“Oh, my dear, if it had been me – oh, if it had only been me! – and you would all have been so good to the poor children,” sobbed the poor clergyman’s ailing wife. Yet it was not her, but the strong, brave, cheery Major, the prop and pillar of a house. As for Mrs. Kirkman, there never was a better proof that she was, as we have so often said, in spite of her talk, a good woman, than the fact that she could only cry helplessly over Mary, and had not a word to say. She had thought and prayed that God would not leave her friend alone, but she had not meant Him to go so far as this; and her heart ached and fluttered at the terrible notion that perhaps she had something to do with the striking of this blow. Mrs. Hesketh for her part packed every sort of dainties for the children in a basket, and strapped on a bundle of portable toys to amuse them on the journey, to one of Mrs. Ochterlony’s boxes. “You will be glad of them before you get there,” said the experienced woman, who had once made the journey with half-a-dozen, as she said, and knew what it was. And then one or two of the men were walking about outside in an accidental sort of way, to have a last look of Mary. It was considered a very great thing among them all when the doctor, who hated to see people in trouble, and disapproved of crying on principle, made up his mind to go in and shake hands with Mrs. Ochterlony; but it was not that he went for, but to look at the baby, and give Mary a little case “with some sal volatile and so forth, and the quantities marked,” he said, “not that you are one to want sal volatile. The little shaver there will be all right as soon as you get to England. Good-bye. Take care of yourself.” And he wrung her hand and bolted out again like a flash of lightning. He said afterwards that the only sensible thing he knew of his sister, was that she did not go; and that the sight of all those women crying was enough to give a man a sunstroke, not to speak of the servants and the soldiers’ wives who were howling at the back of the house.