Madonna Mary

by Mrs. Oliphant

“For you must marry, you know,” he said. “I consider that a bargain between us. Don’t trust to your younger brother, as I did—not but what it was the best thing for you. Some little bright thing like that—that was with your mother. You may laugh, but I can remember when Agatha Seton was as pretty a creature——”

“I think she is pretty now,” said Hugh, half because he did think so, and half because he was anxious to find something he could say.

Then Mr. Ochterlony brightened up in the strangest pathetic way, laughing a little, with a kind of tender consciousness that he was laughing at himself. He was so nearly separated from himself now that he was tender as if it was the weakness of a dear old familiar friend at which he was laughing. “She is very pretty,” he said. “I am glad you have the sense to see it,—and good; and she’ll go now and make a slave of herself to that girl. I suppose that is my fault, too. But be sure you don’t forget about the Henri Deux.”

And then all of a sudden, while his nephew was sitting watching him, Mr. Ochterlony fell asleep. When he was sleeping he looked so grey, and worn, and emaciated, that Hugh’s heart smote him. He could not explain to himself why it was that he had never noticed it before; and he was very doubtful and uncertain what he ought to do. If he sent for his mother, which seemed the most natural idea, Mr. Ochterlony might not like it, and he had himself already sent for the doctor. Hugh had the good sense finally to conclude upon doing the one thing that was most difficult—to do nothing. But it was not an enlivening occupation. He went off and got some wraps and cushions, and propped his uncle up in the deep chair he was reclining in, and then he sat down and watched him, feeling a thrill run through him every time there was a little drag in the breathing or change in his patient’s face. He might die like that, with the Psyche and the Venus gleaming whitely over him, and nobody by who understood what to do. It was the most serious moment that had ever occurred in Hugh’s life; and it seemed to him that days, and not minutes, were passing. When the doctor arrived, it was a very great relief. And then Mr. Ochterlony was taken to bed and made comfortable, as they said; and a consciousness crept through the house, no one could tell how, that the old life and the old times were coming to a conclusion—that sad change and revolution hung over the house, and that Earlston would soon be no more as it had been.

On the second day Hugh wrote to his mother, but that letter had not been received at the time of Sir Edward’s visit. And he made a very faithful devoted nurse, and tended his uncle like a son. Mr. Ochterlony did not die all at once, as probably he had himself expected and intended—he had his spell of illness to go through like other people, and he bore it very cheerfully, as he was not suffering much. He was indeed a great deal more playful and at his ease than either the doctor or the attorney, or Mrs. Gilsland, the housekeeper, thought quite right.

The lawyer did not come until the following day; and then it was young Mr. Preston who came, his father being occupied, and Mr. Ochterlony had a distaste somehow to young Mr. Preston. He was weak, too, and not able to go into details. All that he would say was, that Islay and Wilfrid were to have the same younger brother’s portion as their father had, and that everything else was to go to Hugh. He would not suffer himself to be tempted to say anything about the museum, though the suggestion had gone to his heart—and to make a will with so little in it struck the lawyer almost as an injury to himself.

“No legacies?” he said—“excuse me, Mr. Ochterlony—nothing about your beautiful collection? There ought to be some stipulation about that.”

“My nephew knows all my wishes,” Mr. Ochterlony said, briefly, “and I have no time now for details. Is it ready to be signed? Everything else of which I die possessed to my brother, Hugh Ochterlony’s eldest son. That is what I want. The property is his already, by his grandfather’s will. Everything of which I die possessed, to dispose of according as his direction and circumstances may permit.”

“But there are other friends—and servants,” pleaded Mr. Preston; “and then your wonderful collection——”

“My nephew knows all my wishes,” said Mr. Ochterlony; and his weakness was so great that he sank back on his pillows. He took his own way in this, while poor Hugh hung about the room wistfully looking on. It was to Hugh’s great advantage, but he was not thinking of that. He was asking himself could he have done anything to stop the malady if he had noticed it in time? And he was thinking how to arrange the Ochterlony Museum. If it could only have been done in his lifetime, so that its founder could see. When the doctor and the attorney were both gone, Hugh sat down by his uncle’s bedside, and, half afraid whether he was doing right, began to talk of it. He was too young and too honest to pretend to disbelieve what Mr. Ochterlony himself and the doctor had assured him of. The room was dimly lighted, the lamp put away on a table in a corner with a shade over it, and the sick room “made comfortable,” and everything arranged for the night. And then the two had an hour of very affectionate, confidential, almost tender talk. Mr. Ochterlony was almost excited about the museum. It was not to be bestowed on his college, as Hugh at first thought, but to be established at Dalken, the pretty town of which everybody in the Fells was proud. And then the conversation glided off to more familiar subjects, and the old man who was dying gave a great deal of very sound advice to the young man who was about to begin to live.