Madonna Mary

CHAPTER X

AUNT AGATHA had grown into a sweet old lady: not so old, perhaps, but that she might have made up still into that elderly aspirant after youth, for whose special use the name “old maid” must have been invented. And yet there is a sweetness in the name, and it was not inapplicable to the fair old woman, who received Mary Ochterlony into her kind arms. There was a sort of tender misty consciousness upon her age, just as there is a tender unconsciousness in youth, of so many things that cannot but come to the knowledge of people who have eaten of the tree in the middle of the garden. She was surrounded by the unknown as was seemly to such a maiden soul. And yet she was old, and gleams of experience, and dim knowledge at second hand, had come to her from those misty tracts. Though she had not, and never could have, half the vigour or force in her which Mary had even in her subdued and broken state, still she had strength of affection and goodness enough to take the management of all affairs into her hands for the moment, and to set herself at the head of the little party. She took Mary and the children from the ship, and brought them to the inn at which she had stayed the night before; and, what was a still greater achievement, she repressed Winnie, and kept her in a semi-subordinate and silent state – which was an effort which taxed all Aunt Agatha’s powers. Though it may seem strange to say it, Mary and her young sister did not, as people say, take to each other at that first meeting. It was twelve years since they had met, and the eighteen-year-old young woman, accustomed to be a sovereign among her own people, and have all her whims attended to, did not, somehow, commend herself to Mary, who was broken, and joyless, and feeble, and little capable of glitter and motion. Aunt Agatha took the traveller to a cool room, where comparative quiet was to be had, and took off her heavy bonnet and cloak, and made her lie down, and came and sat by her. The children were in the next room, where the sound of their voices could reach their mother to keep her heart; and then Aunt Agatha took Mary’s hand in both of hers, and said, “Tell me about it, my dear love.” It was a way she had of speaking, but yet such words are sweet; especially to a forlorn creature who has supposed that there is nobody left in the world to address her so. And then Mary told her sad story with all the details that women love, and cried till the fountain of tears was for the time exhausted, and grief itself by its very vehemence had got calm; which was, as Aunt Agatha knew by instinct, the best way to receive a poor woman who was a widow, and had just set her solitary feet for the first time upon the shores which she left as a bride.

And so they rested and slept that first night on English soil. There are moments when sorrow feels sacramental, and as if it never could be disturbed again by the pettier emotions of life. Mrs. Ochterlony had gone to sleep in this calm, and it was with something of the same feeling that she awoke. As if life, as she thought, being over, its cares were in some sense over too, and that now nothing could move her further; unless, indeed, it might be any harm to the children, which, thank God, there was no appearance of. In this state of mind she rose up and said her prayers, mingling them with some of those great tears which gather one by one as the heart fills, and which seem to give a certain physical relief when they brim over; and then she went to join her aunt and sister at breakfast, where they had not expected to see her. “My love, I would have brought you your tea,” said Aunt Agatha, with a certain reproach; and when Mary smiled and said there was no need, even Winnie’s heart was touched, – wilful Winnie in her black muslin gown, who was a little piqued to feel herself in the company of one more interesting than even she was, and hated herself for it, and yet could not help feeling as if Mary had come in like the prodigal, to be feasted and tended, while they never even killed a kid for her who had always been at home.

Winnie was eighteen, and she was not like her sister. She was tall, but not like Mary’s tallness – a long slight slip of a girl, still full of corners. She had corners at her elbows, and almost at her shoulders, and a great many corners in her mind. She was not so much a pretty girl as a girl who would, or might be, a beautiful woman. Her eyebrows were arched, and so were her delicate nostrils, and her upper lip – all curved and moveable, and ready to quiver and speak when it was needful. When you saw her face in profile, that outline seemed to cut itself out, as in some warm marble against the background. It was not the beauté du diable, the bewildering charm of youth, and freshness, and smiles, and rose tints. She had something of all this, and to boot she had features —beaux traits. But as for this part of her power, Winnie, to do her justice, thought nothing of it; perhaps, to have understood that people minded what she said, and noticed what she did because she was very handsome, would have conveyed something like an insult and affront to the young lady. She did not care much, nor mind much at the present moment, whether she was pretty or not. She had no rivals, and beauty was a weapon the importance of which had not occurred to her. But she did care a good deal for being Winifred Seton, and as such, mistress of all she surveyed; and though she could have beaten herself for it, it galled her involuntarily to find herself thus all at once in the presence of a person whom Providence seemed to have set, somehow, in a higher position, and who was more interesting than herself. It was a wicked thought, and she did it battle. If it had been left to her, how she could have petted and cared for Mary, how she would have borne her triumphantly over all the fatigues of the journey, and thought nothing to take the tickets, and mind the luggage, and struggle with the railway porters for Mary’s sake! But to have Mary come in and absorb Aunt Agatha’s and everybody’s first look, their first appeal and principal regard, was trying to Winnie; and she had never learned yet to banish altogether from her eyes what she thought.

“It does not matter, aunt,” said Mary; “I cannot make a recluse of myself – I must go among strangers – and it is well to be able to practise a little with Winnie and you.”

“You must not mind Winnie and me, my darling,” said Aunt Agatha, who had a way of missing the arrow, as it were, and catching some of the feathers of it as it flew past.

“What do you mean about going among strangers?” said the keener Winnie. “I hope you don’t think we are strangers; and there is no need for you to go into society that I can see – not now at least; or at all events not unless you like,” she continued with a suspicion of sharpness in her tone, not displeased, perhaps, on the whole that Mary was turning out delusive, and was thinking already of society – for which notwithstanding she scorned her sister, as was natural to a young woman at the experienced age of eighteen.

“Society is not what I was thinking of,” said Mary, who in her turn did not like her young sister’s criticism; and she took her seat and her cup of tea with an uncomfortable sense of opposition. She had thought that she could not be annoyed any more by petty matters, and was incapable of feeling the little cares and complications of life, and yet it was astonishing how Winnie’s little, sharp, half-sarcastic tone brought back the faculty of being annoyed.

“The little we have at Kirtell will be a comfort to you, my love,” said the soothing voice of Aunt Agatha; “all old friends. The vicar you know, Mary, and the doctor, and poor Sir Edward. There are some new people, but I do not make much account of them; and our little visiting would harm nobody,” the old lady said, though with a slight tone of apology, not quite satisfied in herself that the widow should be even able to think of society so soon.

Upon which a little pucker of vexation came to Mary’s brow. As if she cared or could care for their little visiting, and the vicar, and the doctor, and Sir Edward! she to whom going among strangers meant something so real and so hard to bear.

“Dear Aunt Agatha,” she said, “I am afraid you will not be pleased; but I have not been looking forward to anything so pleasant as going to Kirtell. The first thing I have to think of is the boys and their interests. And Francis Ochterlony has asked us to go to Earlston.” These words came all confused from Mary’s lips. She broke down, seeing what was coming; for this was something that she never had calculated on, or thought of having to bear.

A dead pause ensued; Aunt Agatha started and flushed all over, and gave an agitated exclamation, and then a sudden blank came upon her sweet old face. Mary did not look at her, but she saw without looking how her aunt stiffened into resentment, and offence, and mortification. She changed in an instant, as if Mrs. Ochterlony’s confused statement had been a spell, and drew herself up and sat motionless, a picture of surprised affection and wounded pride. Poor Mary saw it, and was grieved to the heart, and yet could not but resent such a want of understanding of her position and sympathy for herself. She lifted her cup to her lips with a trembling hand, and her tea did not refresh her. And it was the only near relative she had in the world, the tenderest-hearted creature in existence, a woman who could be cruel to nobody, who thus shut up her heart against her. Thus the three women sat together round their breakfast-table, and helped each other, and said nothing for one stern moment, which was a cruel moment for one of them at least.

“Earlston!” said Aunt Agatha at last, with a quiver in her voice. “Indeed it never occurred to me – I had not supposed that Francis Ochterlony had been so much to – But never mind; if that is what you think best for yourself, Mary – ”

“There is nothing best for myself,” said Mrs. Ochterlony, with the sharpness of despair. “I think it is my duty – and – and Hugh, I know, would have thought so. Our boy is his uncle’s heir. They are the – the only Ochterlonys left now. It is what I must – what I ought to do.”

And then there was another pause. Aunt Agatha for her part would have liked to cry, but then she had her side of the family to maintain, and though every pulse in her was beating with disappointment and mortified affection, she was not going to show that. “You must know best,” she said, taking up her little air of dignity; “I am sure you must know best; I would never try to force my way of thinking on you, Mary. No doubt you have been more in the world than I have; but I did think when a woman was in trouble that to go among her own friends – ”

“Yes,” said Mary, who was overwhelmed, and did not feel able to bear it, “but her friends might understand her and have a little pity for her, aunt, when she had hard things to do that wrung her heart – ”

“My dear,” said Aunt Agatha, with, on her side, the bitterness of unappreciated exertion, “if you will think how far I have come, and what an unusual journey I have made, I think you will perceive that to accuse me of want of pity – ”

“Don’t worry her, Aunt Agatha,” said Winnie, “she is not accusing you of want of pity. I think it a very strange sort of thing, myself; but let Mary have justice, that was not what she meant.”

“I should like to know what she did mean,” said Aunt Agatha, who was trembling with vexation, and with those tears which she wanted so much to shed: and then two or three of them dropped on the broad-brimmed cambric cuff which she was wearing solely on Mary’s account. For, to be sure, Major Ochterlony was not to say a relation of hers that she should have worn such deep mourning for him. “I am sure I don’t want to interfere, if she prefers Francis Ochterlony to her own friends,” she added, with tremulous haste. She was the very same Aunt Agatha who had taken Mary to her arms the day before, and sat by her bed, listening to all the sad story of her widowhood. She had wept for Hugh, and she would have shared her cottage and her garden and all she had with Mary, with goodwill and bounty, eagerly – but Francis Ochterlony was a different matter; and it was not in human nature to bear the preference of a husband’s brother to “her own friends.” “They may be the last Ochterlonys,” said Aunt Agatha, “but I never understood that a woman was to give up her own family entirely; and your sister was born a Seton like you and me, Winnie; – I don’t understand it, for my part.”

Aunt Agatha broke down when she had said this, and cried more bitterly, more effusively, so long as it lasted, than she had cried last night over Hugh Ochterlony’s sudden ending: and Mary could not but feel that; and as for Winnie, she sat silent, and if she did not make things worse, at least she made no effort to make them better. On the whole, it was not much wonder. They had made great changes in the cottage for Mary’s sake. Aunt Agatha had given up her parlour, her own pretty room that she loved, for a nursery, and they had made up their minds that the best chamber was to be Mary’s, with a sort of sense that the fresh chintz and the pictures on the walls – it was the only bed-room that had any pictures – would make up to her if anything could. And now to find all the time that it was Francis Ochterlony, and not her own friends, that she was going to! Winnie sat quite still, with her fine profile cut out sternly against the dark green wall, looking immovable and unfeeling, as only a profile can under such circumstances. This was what came of Mary’s placid morning, and the dear union of family support and love into which she thought she had come. It was harder upon Mrs. Ochterlony than if Aunt Agatha had not come to meet her. She had to sit blank and silent like a criminal, and see the old lady cry and the young lady lift up the stern delicacy of that profile against her. They were disappointed in Mary; and not only were they disappointed, but mortified – wounded in their best feelings and embarrassed in secondary matters as well; for naturally Aunt Agatha had told everybody that she was going to bring her niece, Mrs. Ochterlony, and the poor dear children home.

Thus it will be seen that the first breakfast in England was a very unsatisfactory meal for Mary. She took refuge with her children when it was over, and shut up, as she had been forced to do in other days, another door in her heart; and Aunt Agatha and Winnie, on the other hand, withdrew to their apartment and talked it over, and kindled each other’s indignation. “If you knew the kind of man he was, Winnie!” Aunt Agatha said, with a severity which was not entirely on Mary’s account; “not the sort of man I would trust those poor dear children with. I don’t believe he has any religious principles. Dear, dear, to think how Mary should have changed! I never could have thought she would have preferred Francis Ochterlony, and turned against her own friends.”

“I don’t know anything about Francis Ochterlony,” said Winnie, “but I know what a lot of bother we have had at home making all those changes; and your parlour that you had given up, Aunt Agatha – I must say when I think of that – ”

“That is nothing, my love,” said Aunt Agatha; “I was not thinking of what I have done, I hope – as if the sacrifice was anything.” But nevertheless the tears came into her eyes at the thought. It is hard when one has made a sacrifice with a liberal heart, to have it thrown back, and to feel that it is useless. This is hard, and Aunt Agatha was only human. If she had been alone, probably after the first moment of annoyance she would have gone to Mary, and the two would have cried together, and after little Hugh’s prospects had been discussed, Miss Seton would have consented that it was best for her niece to go to Earlston; but then Winnie was there to talk it over and keep up Aunt Agatha’s indignation. And Mary was wounded, and had retired and shut herself up among her children. And it was thus that the most trifling and uncalled-for of cares came, with little pricks of vexation and disappointment, to disturb at its very outset the new chapter of life which Mrs. Ochterlony had imagined herself to be entering upon in such a calm of tranquillising grief.

They were to go to London that day, and to continue their journey to the North by the night train: but it was no longer a journey in which any of the party could take any pleasure. As for Mary, in the great revulsion of her disappointment, it seemed to her as if there was no comfort for her anywhere. She had to go to Earlston to accept a home from Francis Ochterlony, whom she had never “taken to,” even in her young days. And it had occurred to her that her aunt and sister would understand why, and would be sorry for her, and console her under this painful effort. When, on the contrary, they proved to be affronted and indignant, Mary’s heart shut close, and retreated within itself. She could take her children into her arms, and press them against her heart, as if that would do it some good; but she could not talk to the little things, nor consult them, nor share anything with them except such smiles as were practicable. To a woman who has been used to talk all her concerns over with some one, it is terrible to feel her yearnings for counsel and sympathy turned back upon her own soul, and to be struck dumb, and feel that no ear is open to her, and that in all the world there is no one living to whom her affairs are more than the affairs of a stranger. Some poor women there are who must have fellowship somehow, and who will be content with pity if sympathy is not to be had. But Mary was not of this kind of women. She shut her doors. She went in, into herself in the silence and solitude, and felt her instinctive yearning to be helped and understood come pouring back upon her like a bitter flood. And then she looked at her little boys in their play, who had need of all from her, and could give her back but their childish fondness, and no help, or stay, or counsel. It is hard upon a woman, but yet it is a thing which every woman must confront and make up her mind to, whom God places in such circumstances. I do not know if it is easier work for a man in the same position. Mary had felt the prop of expected sympathy and encouragement and affection rudely driven from under her, and when she came in among her innocent helpless children she faced her lot, and did not deceive herself any more. To judge for herself, and do the best that in her lay, and take all the responsibilities upon her own head, whatever might follow; to know that nobody now in all the world was for her, or stood by her, except in a very secondary way, after his or her concerns and intentions and feelings had been carefully provided for in the first place. This was how her position appeared to her. And, indeed, such was her position, without any exaggeration. It was very kind of Francis Ochterlony to be willing to take her in, and very kind of Aunt Agatha to have made preparations for her; and kindness is sweet, and yet it is bitter, and hard, and cold, and killing to meet with. It made Mary sick to her heart, and filled her with a longing to take up her babes and rush away into some solitary corner, where nobody would ever see her again or hear of her. I do not say that she was right, or that it was a proper state of mind to be in. And Mary was too right-minded a woman to indulge in it long; but that was the feeling that momentarily took possession of her as she put the doors to in her heart, and realized that she really was alone there, and that her concerns were hers alone, and belonged to nobody else in the world.