“I am going to Liverpool,” she said, “I must see Will immediately, and I want to go by the next train. There is nothing the matter with him. It is only something I have just heard, and I must see him without loss of time.”
“What is it, Mary?” gasped Aunt Agatha. “You have heard something dreadful. Are any of the boys mixed up in it? Oh, say something, and don’t look in that dreadful fixed way.”
“Am I looking in a dreadful fixed way?” said Mary, with a faint smile. “I did not mean it. No there is nothing the matter with any of the boys. But I have heard something that has disturbed me, and I must see Will. If Hugh should come while I am away——”
But here her strength broke down. A choking sob came from her breast. She seemed on the point of breaking out into some wild cry for help or comfort; but it was only a spasm, and it passed. Then she came to Aunt Agatha and kissed her. “Good-bye; if either of the boys come, keep them till I come back,” she said. She had looked so fair and so strong in the composure of her middle age when she stood there only an hour before, that the strange despair which seemed to have taken possession of her, had all the more wonderful effect. It woke even Winnie from her preoccupation, and they both came round her, wondering and disquieted, to know what was the matter. “Something must have happened to Will,” said Aunt Agatha.
“It is that woman who has brought her bad news,” cried Winnie; and then both together they cried out, “What is it, Mary? have you bad news?”
“Nothing that I have not known for years,” said Mrs. Ochterlony, and she kissed them both, as if she was kissing them for the last time, and disengaged herself, and turned away. “I cannot wait to tell you any more,” they heard her say as she went to the door; and there they stood, looking at each other, conscious more by some change in the atmosphere than by mere eyesight, that she was gone. She had no time to speak or to look behind her; and when Aunt Agatha rushed to the window, she saw Mary far off on the road, going steady and swift with her bag in her hand. In the midst of her anxiety and suspicion, Miss Seton even felt a pang at the sight of the bag in Mary’s hand. “As if there was no one to carry it for her!” The two who were left behind could but look at each other, feeling somehow a sense of shame, and instinctive consciousness that this new change, whatever it was, involved trouble far more profound than the miseries over which they had been brooding. Something that she had known for years! What was there in these quiet words which made Winnie’s veins tingle, and the blood rush to her face? All these quiet years was it possible that a cloud had ever been hovering which Mary knew of, and yet held her way so steadily? As for Aunt Agatha, she was only perplexed and agitated, and full of wonder, making every kind of suggestion. Will might have broken his leg—he might have got into trouble with his uncle. It might be something about Islay. Oh! Winnie, my darling, what do you think it can be? Something that she had known for years!
This was what it really was. It seemed to Mary as if for years and years she had known all about it; how it would get to be told to her poor boy; how it would act upon his strange half-developed nature; how Mrs. Kirkman would tell her of it, and the things she would put into her travelling bag, and the very hour the train would leave. It was a miserably slow train, stopping everywhere, waiting at a dreary junction for several trains in the first chill of night. But she seemed to have known it all, and to have felt the same dreary wind blow, and the cold creeping to the heart, and to be used and deadened to it. Why is it that one feels so cold when one’s heart is bleeding and wounded? It seemed to go in through the physical covering, which shrinks at such moments from the sharp and sensitive soul, and to thrill her with a shiver as of ice and snow. She passed Mrs. Kirkman on the way, but could not take any notice of her, and she put down her veil and drew her shawl closely about her, and sat in a corner that she might escape recognition. But it was hard upon her that the train should be so slow, though that too she seemed to have known for years.
Thus the cross of which she had partially and by moments tasted the bitterness for so long, was laid at last full upon Mary’s shoulders. She went carrying it, marking her way, as it were, by blood-drops which answered for tears, to do what might be done, that nobody but herself might suffer. For one thing, she did not lose a moment. If Will had been ill, or if he had been in any danger, she would have done the same. She was a woman who had no need to wait to make up her mind. And perhaps she might not be too late, perhaps her boy meant no evil. He was her boy, and it was hard to associate evil or unkindness with him. Poor Will! perhaps he had but gone away because he could not bear to see his mother fallen from her high estate. Then it was that a flush of fiery colour came to Mary’s face, but it was only for a moment; things had gone too far for that. She sat at the junction waiting, and the cold wind blew in upon her, and pierced to her heart—and it was nothing that she had not known for years.
CHAPTER XLI.
