Madonna Mary

by Mrs. Oliphant

“Oh! is he jealous?” said Hugh, laughing; and there was no more said about it; for Will’s jealousy in this respect was not a thing to alarm anybody much.

But Will had not gone to bed. He was seated in his room at the table, leaning his head upon both his hands, and staring into the flame of his candle. He was trying to put what he had heard into some sort of shape. That Hugh, who was downstairs so triumphant and successful, was, after all, a mere impostor; that it was he himself, whom nobody paid any particular attention to, who was the real heir; that his instinct had not deceived him, but from his birth he had been ill-used and oppressed: these thoughts went all circling through his mind as the moths circled round his light, taking now a larger, and now a shorter flight. This strange sense that he had been right all along was, for the moment, the first feeling in his mind. He had been disinherited and thrust aside, but still he had felt all along that it was he who was the natural heir; and there was a satisfaction in having it thus proved and established. This was the first distinct reflection he was conscious of amid the whirl of thoughts; and then came the intoxicating sense that he could now enter upon his true position, and be able to arrange everybody’s future wisely and generously, without any regard for mere proprieties, or for the younger brother’s two thousand pounds. Strange to say, in the midst of this whirlwind of egotistical feeling, Will rushed all at once into imaginations that were not selfish, glorious schemes of what he would do for everybody. He was not ungenerous, nor unkind, but only it was a necessity with him that generosity and kindness should come from and not to himself.

All this passed through the boy’s mind before it ever occurred to him what might be the consequences to others of his extraordinary discovery, or what effect it must have upon his mother, and the character of the family. He was self-absorbed, and it did not occur to him in that light. Even when he did come to think of it, he did it in the calmest way. No doubt his mother would be annoyed; but she deserved to be annoyed—she who had so long kept him out of his rights; and, after all, it would still be one of her sons who would have Earlston. And as for Hugh, Wilfrid had the most generous intentions towards him. There was, indeed, nothing that he was not ready to do for his brothers. As soon as he believed that all was to be his, he felt himself the steward of the family. And then his mind glanced back upon the Psyche and the Venus, and upon Earlston, which might be made into a fitter shrine for these fair creations. These ideas filled him like wine, and went to his head, and made him dizzy; and all the time he was as unconscious of the moral harm, and domestic treachery, as if he had been one of the lower animals; and no scruple of any description, and no doubt of what it was right and necessary to do, had so much as entered into his primitive and savage mind.

We call his mind savage and primitive because it was at this moment entirely free from those complications of feeling and dreadful conflict of what is desirable, and what is right, which belong to the civilized and cultivated mind. Perhaps Will’s affections were not naturally strong; but, at all events, he gave in to this temptation as a man might have given in to it in the depths of Africa, where the “good old rule” and “simple plan” still exist and reign; and where everybody takes what he has strength to take, and he keeps who can. This was the real state of the case in Wilfrid’s mind. It had been supposed to be Hugh’s right, and he had been obliged to give in; now it was his right, and Hugh would have to make up his mind to it. What else was there to say? So far as Will could see, the revolution would be alike certain and instantaneous. It no more occurred to him to doubt the immediate effect of the new fact than to doubt its truth. Perhaps it was his very egotism, as well as his youth and inexperience, which made him so credulous. It had been wonder enough to him how anybody could leave him in an inferior position, even while he was only the youngest; to think of anybody resisting his rights, now that he had rights, was incredible.

Yet when the morning came, and the sober daylight brightened upon his dreams, Will, notwithstanding all his confidence, began to see the complication of circumstances. How was he to announce his discovery to his mother? How was he to acquaint Hugh with the change in their mutual destinies? What seemed so easy and simple to him the night before, became difficult and complicated now. He began to have a vague sense that they would insist, that Mrs. Ochterlony would fight for her honour, and Hugh for his inheritance, and that in claiming his own rights, he would have to rob his mother of her good name, and put a stigma ineffaceable upon his brother. This idea startled him, and took away his breath; but it did not make him falter; Uncle Penrose’s suggestion about buying up him and his beggarly estate, and Major Percival’s evident entire indifference to the question whether anything it suited him to do was right or wrong, had had their due effect on Will. He did not see what call he had to sacrifice himself for others. No doubt, he would be sorry for the others, but after all it was his own life he had to take care of, and his own rights that he had to assert. But he mused and knitted his brows over it as he had never done before in his life. Throughout it will be seen that he regarded the business in a very sober, matter-of-fact way—not in the imaginative way which leads you to enter into other people’s position, and analyse their possible feelings. As for himself, he who had been so jealous of his mother’s visitors, and watched over her so keenly, did not feel somehow that horror which might have been expected at the revelation that she was not the spotless woman he thought her. Perhaps it was the importance of the revelation to himself—perhaps it was a secret disbelief in any guilt of hers—perhaps it was only the stunned condition in which the announcement left him. At all events, he was neither horrified at the thought, nor profoundly impressed by the consciousness that to prove his own rights, would be to take away everything from her, and to shut her up from all intercourse with the honourable and pure. When the morning roused him to a sense of the difficulties as well as the advantages of his discovery, the only thing he could think of was to seek advice and direction from Percival, who was so experienced a man of the world. But it was not so easy to do this without betraying his motive. The only practical expedient was that of escorting Nelly home; which was not a privilege he was anxious for of itself; for though he was jealous that she had been taken away from him, he shrank instinctively from her company in his present state of mind. Yet it was the only thing that could be done.

When the party met at the breakfast-table, there were three of them who were ill at ease. Winnie made her appearance in a state of headache, pale and haggard as on the day of her arrival; and Aunt Agatha was pale too, and could not keep her eyes from dwelling with a too tender affectionateness upon her suffering child. And as for Will, the colour of his young face was indescribable, for youth and health still contended in it with those emotions which contract the skin and empty the veins. But on the other hand, there were Hugh and Nelly handsome and happy, with hearts full of charity to everybody, and confidence in the brightness of their own dawning lot. Mary sat at the head of the table, with the urn before her, superintending all. The uneasiness of last night had passed from her mind; her cheek was almost as round and fair as that of the girl by her side—fairer perhaps in its way; her eyes were as bright as they had ever been; her dress, it is true, was still black, but it had not the shadowy denseness of her widow’s garb of old. It was silk, that shone and gave back subdued reflections to the light, and in her hair there were still golden gleams, though mixed with here and there a thread of silver. Her mourning, which prevented any confusion of colours, but left her a sweet-complexioned woman, rich in the subdued tints of nature, in the soft austerity of black and white, did all for her that toilette could do. This was the figure which her son Wilfrid saw at the head of a pretty country breakfast-table, between the flowers and the sunshine—an unblemished matron and a beloved mother. He knew, and it came into his mind as he looked at her, that in the parish, or even in the country, there was nobody more honoured; and yet—— He kept staring at her so, and had so scared a look in his eyes, that Mrs. Ochterlony herself perceived it at last.

“What is the matter, Will?” she said. “I could think there was a ghost standing behind you, from your eyes. Why do you look so startled?”

“Nothing,” said Will, hastily; “I didn’t know I looked startled. A fellow can’t help how he looks. Look here, Nelly, if you’re going home to-day, I’ll go with you, and see you safe there.”

“You’ll go with her?” said Hugh, with a kind of good-natured elder-brotherly contempt. “Not quite so fast, Will. We can’t trust young ladies in your care. I am going with Nelly myself.”

“Oh! I am sure Will is very kind,” said Nelly; and then she stopped short, and looked first at Mrs. Ochterlony and then at Hugh. Poor Nelly had heard of brothers being jealous of each other, and had read of it in books, and was half afraid that such a case was about to come under her own observation. She was much frightened, and her impulse was to accept Will’s guardianship, that no harm might come of it, though the sacrifice to herself would be considerable; but then, what if Hugh should be jealous too?