Madonna Mary

by Mrs. Oliphant

Upon this his new companion gave a keen look at him, as if discerning some meaning under the words.

“I thought so,” he said; “and I am Major Percival, whom you may have heard of. It is a queer question, but I suppose there is no doubt that my wife is up there?”

He gave a little jerk with his hand as he spoke in the direction of the Cottage. He was standing on the very same spot where he had seen Winnie coming to him the day they first pledged their troth; and though he was far from being a good man, he remembered it, having still a certain love for his wife, and the thought gave bitterness to his tone.

“Yes, she is there,” said Will.

“Then I will thank you to come back with me,” said Percival. “I don’t want to go and send in my name, like a stranger. Take me in by the garden, where you enter by the window. I suppose nobody can have any objection to my seeing my wife: your aunt, perhaps, or your mother?”

“Perhaps she does not wish to see you,” said Will.

The stranger laughed.

“It is a pleasant suggestion,” he said; “but at least you cannot object to admit me, and let me try.”

Wilfrid might have hesitated if he had been more fully contented with everybody belonging to him; but, to tell the truth, he knew no reason why Winnie’s husband should not see her. He had not been sufficiently interested to wish to fathom the secret, and he had accepted, not caring much about it, Aunt Agatha’s oft-repeated declaration, that their visitor had arrived so suddenly to give her “a delightful surprise.” Wilfrid did not care much about the matter, and he made no inquiries into it. He turned accordingly with the new-comer, not displeased to be the first of the house to make acquaintance with him. Percival had all a man’s advantage over his wife in respect to wear and tear. She had lost her youth, her freshness, and all that gave its chief charm to her beauty, but he had lost very little in outward appearance. Poor Winnie’s dissipations were the mildest pleasures in comparison with his, and yet he had kept even his youth, while hers was gone for ever. And he had not the air of a bad man—perhaps he was not actually a bad man. He did whatever he liked without acknowledging any particular restraint of duty, or truth, or even honour, except the limited standard of honour current among men of his class—but he had no distinct intention of being wicked; and he was, beyond dispute, a little touched by seeing, as he had just done, the scene of that meeting which had decided Winnie’s fate. He went up the bank considerably softened, and disposed to be very kind. It was he who had been in the wrong in their last desperate struggle, and he found it easy to forgive himself; and Aunt Agatha’s garden, and the paths, and flower-pots he remembered so well, softened him more and more. If he had gone straight in, and nothing had happened, he would have kissed his wife in the most amiable way, and forgiven her, and been in perfect amity with everybody—but this was not how it was to be.

Winnie was sitting as usual, unoccupied, indoors. As she was not doing anything her eyes were free to wander further than if they had been more particularly engaged, and at that moment, as it happened, they were turned in the direction of the window from which she had so often watched Sir Edward’s light. All at once she started to her feet. It was what she had looked for from the first; what, perhaps, in the stagnation of the household quiet here she had longed for. High among the roses and waving honeysuckles she caught a momentary glimpse of a head which she could have recognised at any distance. At that sight all the excitement of the interrupted struggle rushed back into her heart. A pang of fierce joy, and hatred, and opposition moved her. There he stood who had done her so much wrong; who had trampled on all her feelings and insulted her, and yet pretended to love her, and dared to seek her. Winnie did not say anything to her companions; indeed she was too much engrossed at the moment to remember that she had any companions. She turned and fled without a word, disappearing swiftly, noiselessly, in an instant, as people have a gift of doing when much excited. She was shut up in her room, with her door locked, before any one knew she had stirred. It is true he was not likely to come upstairs and assail her by force; but she did not think of that. She locked her door and sat down, with her heart beating, and her breath coming quick, expecting, hoping—she would herself have said fearing—an attack.