Madonna Mary

by Mrs. Oliphant

But Winnie did not move. It was not in her to run away. Now that she had an audience to fortify her, she could sit and face her assailant, and defy all attacks;—though at the same time her eyes and cheeks blazed, and the thought that it was only Aunt Agatha whom she had to stand up for her, filled her with furious contempt and bitterness. At length it was Mrs. Kirkman who rose up with sad solemnity, and drew her silk robe about her, and shook the dust, if there was any dust, not from her feet, but from the fringes of her handsome shawl.

“I will ask the maid to show me up to Mary’s room,” she said, with pathetic resignation. “I suppose I may wait for her there; and I hope it may never be recorded against you that you have rejected a word of Christian warning. Good-by, Miss Seton; I hope you will be faithful to your poor dear niece yourself, though you will not permit me.”

“We know our own affairs best,” said Aunt Agatha, whose nerves were so affected that she could scarcely keep up to what she considered a correct standard of polite calm.

“Alas, I hope it may not prove to be just our own best interests that we are most ignorant of,” said Mrs. Kirkman, with a heavy sigh—and she swept out of the room following the maid, who looked amazed and aghast at the strange request. “Show me to Mrs. Ochterlony’s room, and kindly let her know when she comes in that I am there.”

As for Winnie, she burst into an abrupt laugh when her monitress was gone—a laugh which wounded Aunt Agatha, and jarred upon her excited nerves. But there was little mirth in it. It was, in its way, a cry of pain, and it was followed by a tempest of hot tears, which Miss Seton took for hysterics. Poor Winnie! she was not penitent, nor moved by anything that had been said to her, except to rage and a sharper sense of pain. But yet, such an attack made her feel her position, as she did not do when left to herself. She had no protector but Aunt Agatha. She was open to all the assaults of well-meaning friends, and social critics of every description. She was not placed above comment as a woman is who keeps her troubles to herself—for she had taken the world in general into her confidence, as it were, and opened their mouths, and subjected herself voluntarily to their criticism. Winnie’s heart seemed to close up as she pondered this—and her life rose up before her, wilful and warlike—and all at once it came into her head what her sister had said to her long ago, and her own decision: were it for misery, were it for ruin, rather to choose ruin and misery with him, than peace without him? How strange it was to think of the change that time had made in everything. She had been fighting him, and making him her chief antagonist, almost ever since. And yet, down in the depths of her heart poor Winnie remembered Mary’s words, and felt with a curious pang, made up of misery and sweetness, that even yet, even yet, under some impossible combination of circumstances—this was what made her laugh, and made her cry so bitterly—but Aunt Agatha, poor soul, could not enter into her heart and see what she meant.

They were in this state of agitation when Mary came in, all unconscious of any disturbance. And a further change arose in Winnie at sight of her sister. Her tears dried up, but her eyes continued to blaze. “It is your friend, Mrs. Kirkman, who has been paying us a visit,” she said, in answer to Mary’s question; and it seemed to Mrs. Ochterlony that the blame was transferred to her own shoulders, and that it was she who had been doing something, and showing herself the general enemy.

“She is a horrid woman,” said Aunt Agatha, hotly. “Mary, I wish you would explain to her, that after what has happened it cannot give me any pleasure to see her here. This is twice that she has insulted us. You will mention that we are not—not used to it. It may do for the soldiers’ wives, poor things! but she has no right to come here.”

“She must mean to call Mary to repentance, too,” said Winnie. She had been thinking, with a certain melting of heart, of what Mary had once said to her; yet she could not refrain from flinging a dart at her sister ere she returned to think about herself.

At this time, Mrs. Kirkman was seated in Mary’s room, waiting. Her little encounter had restored her to herself. She had come back to her lofty position of superiority and goodness. She would have said herself that she had carried the Gospel message to that poor sinner, and that it had been rejected; and there was a certain satisfaction of woe in her heart. It was necessary that she should do her duty to Mary also, about whom, when she started, she had been rather compunctious. There is nothing more strange than the processes of thought by which a limited understanding comes to grow into content with itself, and approval of its own actions. It seemed to this good woman’s straitened soul that she had been right, almost more than right, in seizing upon the opportunity presented to her, and making an appeal to a sinner’s perverse heart. And she thought it would be right to point out to Mary, how any trouble that might be about to overwhelm her was for her good, and that she herself had, like Providence, acted for the best. She looked about the room with actual curiosity, and shook her head at the sight of the Major’s sword, hanging over the mantel-piece, and the portraits of the three boys underneath. She shook her head, and thought of creature-worship, and how some stroke was needed to wean Mrs. Ochterlony’s heart from its inordinate affections. “It will keep her from trusting to a creature,” she said to herself, and by degrees came to look complacently on her own position, and to settle how she should tell the tale to be also for the best. It never occurred to her to think what poor hands hers were to meddle with the threads of fate, or to decide which or what calamity was “for the best.” Nor did any consideration of the mystery of pain disturb her mind. She saw no complications in it. Your dearest ties—your highest assurances of good—were but “blessings lent us for a day,” and it seemed only natural to Mrs. Kirkman that such blessings should be yielded up in a reasonable way. She herself had neither had nor relinquished any particular blessings. Colonel Kirkman was very good in a general way, and very correct in his theological sentiments; but he was a very steady and substantial possession, and did not suggest any idea of being lent for a day—and his wife felt that she herself was fortunately beyond that necessity, but that it would be for Mary’s good if she had another lesson on the vanity of earthly endowments. And thus she sat, feeling rather comfortable about it, and too sadly superior to be offended by her agitation downstairs, in Mrs. Ochterlony’s room.

Mary went in with her face brightened by her walk, a little soft anxiety (perhaps) in her eyes, or at least curiosity,—a little indignation, and yet the faintest touch of amusement about her mouth. She went in and shut the door, leaving her sister Aunt Agatha below, moved by what they supposed to be a much deeper emotion. Nobody in the house so much as dreamt that anything of any importance was going on there. There was not a sound as of a raised voice or agitated utterance as there had been when Mrs. Kirkman made her appeal to Winnie. But when the door of Mrs. Ochterlony’s room opened again, and Mary appeared, showing her visitor out, her countenance was changed, as if by half-a-dozen years. She followed her visitor downstairs, and opened the door for her, and looked after her as she went away, but not the ghost of a smile came upon Mary’s face. She did not offer her hand, nor say a word at parting that any one could hear. Her lips were compressed, without smile or syllable to move them, and closed as if they never would open again, and every drop of blood seemed to be gone from her face. When Mrs. Kirkman went away from the door, Mary closed it, and went back again to her own room. She did not say a word, nor look as if she had anything to say. She went to her wardrobe and took out a bag, and put some things into it, and then she tied on her bonnet, everything being done as if she had planned it all for years. When she was quite ready, she went downstairs and went to the drawing-room, where Winnie, agitated and disturbed, sat talking, saying a hundred wild things, of which Aunt Agatha knew but half the meaning. When Mary looked in at the door, the two who were there, started, and stared at her with amazed eyes. “What has happened, Mary?” cried Aunt Agatha; and though she was beginning to resume her lost tranquillity, she was so scared by Mrs. Ochterlony’s face that she had a palpitation which took away her breath, and made her sink down panting and lay her hands upon her heart. Mary, for her part, was perfectly composed and in possession of her senses. She made no fuss at all, nor complaint,—but nothing could conceal the change, nor alter the wonderful look in her eyes.