HIS was the kind of crisis in the family history at which Uncle Penrose was sure to make his appearance. He was the only man among them, he sometimes said—or, at least, the only man who knew anything about money; and he came into the midst of the Ochterlonys in their mourning, as large and important as he had been when Winnie was married, looking as if he had never taken his left hand out of his pocket all the time. He had not been asked to the funeral, and he marked his consciousness of that fact by making his appearance in buff waistcoats and apparel which altogether displayed light-heartedness if not levity—and which was very wounding to Aunt Agatha’s feelings. Time, somehow, did not seem to have touched him. If he was not so offensively and demonstratively a Man, in the sweet-scented feminine house, as he used to be, it was no reticence of his, but because the boys were men, or nearly so, and the character of the household changed. And Hugh was Mr. Ochterlony of Earlston; which, perhaps, was the fact that made the greatest difference of all.
He came the day after Hugh’s return, and in the evening there had been a very affecting scene in the Cottage. In faithful discharge of his promise, Hugh had carried the Henri Deux, carefully packed, as became its value and fragile character, to Aunt Agatha; and she had received it from him with a throbbing heart and many tears. “It was almost the last thing he said to me,” Hugh had said. “He put it all aside with his own hand, the day you admired it so much; and he told me over and over again, to be sure not to forget.” Aunt Agatha had been sitting with her hands clasped upon the arm of his chair, and her eyes fixed upon him, not to lose a word; but when he said this, she covered her face with those soft old hands, and was silent and did not even weep. It was the truest grief that was in her heart, and yet with that, there was an exquisite pang of delight, such as goes through and through a girl when first she perceives that she is loved, and sees her power! She was as a widow, and yet she was an innocent maiden, full of experience and inexperience, feeling the heaviness of the evening shadows, and yet still in the age of splendour in the grass and glory in the flower. The sense of that last tenderness went through her with a thrill of joy and grief beyond description. It gave him back to her for ever and ever, but not with that sober appropriation which might have seemed natural to her age. She could no more look them in the face while it was being told, than had he been a living lover and she a girl. It was a supreme conjunction and blending of the two extremes of life, a fusion of youth and of age.
“I never thought he noticed what I said,” she answered at last with a soft sob—and uncovered the eyes that were full of tears, and yet dazzled as with a sudden light; and she would let no one touch the precious legacy, but unpacked it herself, shedding tears that were bitter and yet sweet, over its many wrappings. Though he was a man, and vaguely buoyed up, without knowing it, by the strange new sense of his own importance, Hugh could have found it in his heart to shed tears, too, over the precious bits of porcelain, that had now acquired an interest so much more near and touching than anything connected with Henri Deux; and so could his mother. But there were two who looked on with dry eyes: the one was Winnie, who would have liked to break it all into bits, as she swept past it with her long dress, and could not put up with Aunt Agatha’s nonsense; the other was Will, who watched the exhibition curiously with close observation, wondering how it was that people were such fools, and feeling the shadow of his brother weigh upon him with a crushing weight. But these two malcontents were not in sympathy with each other, and never dreamt of making common cause.
And it was when the house was in this condition, that Uncle Penrose arrived. He arrived, as usual, just in time to make a fuss necessary about a late dinner, and to put Peggy out of temper, which was a fact that soon made itself felt through the house; and he began immediately to speak to Hugh about Earlston, and about “your late uncle,” without the smallest regard for Aunt Agatha’s feelings. “I know there was something between him and Miss Agatha once,” he said, with a kind of smile at her, “but of course that was all over long ago.” And this was said when poor Miss Seton, who felt that the bond had never before been so sweet and so close, was seated at the head of her own table, and had to bear it and make no sign.
“Probably there will be a great deal to be done on the estate,” Mr. Penrose said; “these studious men always let things go to ruin out of doors; but there’s a collection of curiosities or antiquities, or something. If that’s good, it will bring in money. When a man is known, such things sell.”
“But it is not to be sold,” said Hugh quickly. “I have settled all about that.”
“Not to be sold?—nonsense!” said Mr. Penrose; “you don’t mean to say you are a collector—at your age? No, no, my boy; they’re no good to him where he is now; he could not take them into his vault with him. Feelings are all very well, but you can’t be allowed to lose a lot of money for a prejudice. What kind of things are they—pictures and that sort? or——”
“I have made all the necessary arrangements,” said Hugh with youthful dignity. “I want you to go with me to Dalken, mother, to see some rooms the mayor has offered for them—nice rooms belonging to the Town Hall. They could have ‘Ochterlony Museum’ put up over the doors, and do better than a separate building, besides saving the expense.”
Mr. Penrose gave a long whistle, which under any circumstances would have been very indecorous at a lady’s table. “So that is how it’s to be!” he said; “but we’ll talk that over first, with your permission, Mr. Ochterlony of Earlston. You are too young to know what you’re doing. I suppose the ladies are at the bottom of it; they never know the value of money. And yet we know what it costs to get it when it is wanted, Miss Agatha,” said the insolent man of money, who never would forget that Miss Seton herself had once been in difficulties. She looked at him with a kind of smile, as politeness ordained, but tears of pain stood in Aunt Agatha’s eyes. If ever she hated anybody in her gentle life, it was Mr. Penrose; and somehow he made himself hateful in her presence to everybody concerned.
“It costs more to get it than it is ever worth,” said Winnie, indignant, and moved for the first time, to make a diversion, and come to Aunt Agatha’s aid.