Madonna Mary

by Mrs. Oliphant

“That doesn’t matter,” said Hugh, who was hot and excited, having been taken into Winnie’s confidence. “She has been beautiful, and that’s enough. Indeed, she ought to be beautiful now, if that fellow hadn’t been a brute. And if he means to come back here——” “Perhaps it is not her he wants,” said Will, whose profound self-consciousness made him play quite a new part in the dialogue.

“What could he want else?” said Hugh, with scorn. “You may be sure it is no affection for any of us that brings him here.”

Here was the opportunity, if Will could but have taken it. Now was the moment to tell him that something other than Winnie might be in Percival’s mind—that it was his own fortune, and not hers, that hung in the balance. But Will was dumb; his lips were sealed; his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. It was not his will that was in fault. It was a rebellion of all his physical powers, a rising up of nature against his purpose. He was silent in spite of himself; he said not another word as they walked on together. He suffered Hugh to stray into talk about the Askells, about the Museum, about anything or nothing. Once or twice he interrupted the conversation abruptly with some half-dozen words, which brought it to a sudden stop, and gave him the opportunity of broaching his own subject. But when he came to that point he was struck dumb. Hugh, all innocent and unconscious, in serene elderly-brotherly superiority, good humoured and condescending, and carelessly affectionate, was as difficult to deal with as Mary herself. Without withdrawing from his undertaking, or giving up his “rights,” Wilfrid felt himself helpless; he could not say it out. It seemed to him now that so far from giving in to it, as he once imagined, without controversy, Hugh equally without controversy would set it aside as something monstrous, and that his new hope would be extinguished and come to an end if his elder brother had the opportunity of thus putting it down at once. When they reached home, Will withdrew to his own room, with a sense of being baffled and defeated—defeated before he had struck a blow. He did not come downstairs again, as they remembered afterwards—he did not want any tea. He had not a headache, as Aunt Agatha, now relieved from attendance upon Winnie, immediately suggested. All he wanted was to be left alone, for he had something to do. This was the message that came downstairs. “He is working a great deal too much,” said Aunt Agatha, “you will see he will hurt his brain or something;” while Hugh, too, whispered to his mother, “You shall see; I never did much, but Will will go in for all sorts of honours,” the generous fellow whispered in his mother’s ear; and Mary smiled, in her heart thinking so too. If they had seen Will at the moment sitting with his face supported by both his hands, biting his nails and knitting his brows, and pondering more intently than any man ever pondered over classic puzzle or scientific problem, they might have been startled out of those pleasant thoughts.

And yet the problem he was considering was one that racked his brain, and made his head ache, had he been sufficiently at leisure to feel it. The more impossible he felt it to explain himself and make his claim, the more obstinately determined was he to make it, and have what belonged to him. His discouragement and sense of defeat did but intensify his resolution. He had failed to speak, notwithstanding his opportunities; but he could write, or he could employ another voice as his interpreter. With all his egotism and determination, Wilfrid was young, nothing but a boy, and inexperienced, and at a loss what to do. Everything seemed easy to him until he tried to do it; and when he tried, everything seemed impossible. He had thought it the most ordinary affair in the world to tell his discovery to his mother and brother, until the moment came which in both cases proved the communication to be beyond his powers. And now he thought he could write. After long pondering, he got up and opened the little desk upon which he had for years written his verses and exercises, troubled by nothing worse than a doubtful quantity, and made an endeavour to carry out his last idea. Will’s style was not a bad style. It was brief and terse, and to the point,—a remarkable kind of diction for a boy,—but he did not find that it suited his present purpose. He put himself to torture over his letters. He tried it first in one way, and then in another; but however he put it, he felt within himself that it would not do. He had no sort of harsh or unnatural meaning in his mind. They were still his mother and brother to whom he wanted to write, and he had no inclination to wound their feelings, or to be disrespectful or unkind. In short, it only required this change, and his establishment in what he supposed his just position, to make him the kindest and best of sons and brothers. He toiled over his letters as he had never toiled over anything in his life. He could not tell how to express himself, nor even what to say. He addressed his mother first, and then Hugh, and then his mother again; but the more he laboured the more impossible he found his task. When Mrs. Ochterlony came upstairs and opened his door to see what her boy was about, Wilfrid stumbled up from his seat red and heated, and shut up his desk, and faced her with an air of confusion and trouble which she could not understand. It was not too late even then to bring her in and tell her all; and this possibility bewildered Will, and filled him with agitation and excitement, to which naturally his mother had no clue.

“What is the matter?” she said, anxiously; “are you ill, Will? Have you a headache? I thought you were in bed.”

“No, I am all right,” said Will, facing her with a look, which in its confusion seemed sullen. “I am busy. It is too soon to go to bed.”

“Tell me what is wrong,” said Mary, coming a step further into the room. “Will, my dear boy, I am sure you are not well. You have not been quarrelling with any one—with Hugh——?”

“With Hugh!” said Will, with a little scorn; “why should I quarrel with Hugh?”

“Why, indeed!” said Mrs. Ochterlony, smiling faintly; “but you do not look like yourself. Tell me what you have been doing, at least.”

Will’s heart thumped against his breast. He might put her into the chair by which she was standing, and tell her everything and have it over. This possibility still remained to him. He stood for a second and looked at her, and grew breathless with excitement, but then somehow his voice seemed to die away in his throat.