“Dear Mr. Hugh,—I want to let you know of something that has happened to-day, and at which you may perhaps be surprised. Mrs. Percival met Major Percival here, and I think they have made friends; and she has gone away with him. I think you ought to know, because she told us dear Mrs. Ochterlony had gone to Liverpool; and Miss Seton will be left alone. I should have asked mamma to let me go and stay with her, but I am going into Scotland to an old friend of papa’s, who is living at Gretna. I remember hearing long ago that it was at Gretna dear Mrs. Ochterlony was married—and perhaps there is somebody there who remembers her. If you see Aunt Agatha, would you please ask her when it happened? I should so like to see the place, and ask the people if they remember her. I think she must have been so beautiful then; she is beautiful now—I never loved anybody so much in my life. And I am afraid she is anxious about Will. I should not like to trouble you, for I am sure you must have a great deal to occupy your mind, but I should so like to know how dear Mrs. Ochterlony is, and if there is anything the matter with Will. He always was very funny, you know, and then he is only a boy, and does not know what he means. Mamma sends her kind regards, and I am, dear Mr. Hugh, very sincerely yours,—Nelly.”
This was the letter. Hugh read it slowly over, every word—and then he read it again; and two great globes of dew got into his eyes, and Nelly’s sweet name grew big as he read through them, and wavered over all the page; and when he had come to that signature the second time he put it down on the table, and leant his face on it, and cried. Yes, cried, though he was a man—wept hot tears over it, few but great, that felt to him like the opening of a spring in his soul, and drew the heat and the horror out of his brain. His young breast shook with a few great sobs—the passion climbing in his throat burst forth, and had utterance; and then he rose up and stretched his young arms, and drew himself up to the fulness of his height. What did it matter, after all? What was money, and lands, and every good on earth, compared to the comfort of living in the same world with a creature such as this, who was as sweet as the flowers, and as true as the sky? She had done it by instinct, not knowing, as she herself said, what she meant, or knowing only that her little heart swelled with kind impulses, tender pity, and indignation, and yet pity over all; pity for Will, too, who, perhaps, was going to make them all miserable. But Nelly could not have understood the effect her little letter had upon Hugh. He shook himself free after it, as if from chains that had been upon him. He gave a groan, poor boy, at the calamity which was not to be ignored, and then he said to himself, “After all!” After all, and in spite of all, while there was Nelly living, it was not unmingled ill to live. And when he looked at it again, a more reasonable kind of comfort seemed to come to him out of the girl’s letter; his eye was caught by the word struck out, which yet was not too carefully struck out, “where dear Mrs. Ochterlony was first married.” He gave a cry when this new light entered into his mind. He roused himself up from his gloom and stupor, and thought and thought until his very brain ached as with labour, and his limbs began to thrill as with new vigour coming back. And a glimmering of the real truth suddenly rushed, all vague and dazzling, upon Hugh’s darkness. There had been no hint in Mr. Penrose’s letter of any such interpretation of the mystery. Mr. Penrose himself had received no such hint, and even Will, poor boy, had heard of it only as a fable, to which he gave no attention. They two, and Hugh himself in his utter misery, had accepted as a probable fact the calumny of which Nelly’s pure mind instinctively demanded an explanation. They had not known it to be impossible that Mary should be guilty of such sin; but Nelly had known it, and recognised the incredible mystery, and demanded the reason for it, which everybody else had ignored or forgotten. He seemed to see it for a moment, as the watchers on a sinking ship might see the gleam of a lighthouse;—and then it disappeared from him in the wild waste of ignorance and wonder, and then gleamed out again, as if in Nelly’s eyes. That was why she was going, bless her! She who never went upon visits, who knew better, and had insight in her eyes, and saw it could not be. These thoughts passed through Hugh’s mind in a flood, and changed heaven and earth round about him, and set him on solid ground, as it were, instead of chaos. He was not wise enough, good enough, pure enough, to know the truth of himself—but Nelly could see it, as with angel eyes. He was young, and he loved Nelly, and that was how it appeared to him. Shame that had been brooding over him in the darkness, fled away. He rose up and felt as if he were yet a man, and had still his life before him, whatever might happen; and that he was there not only to comfort and protect his mother, but to defend and vindicate her; not to run away and keep silent like the guilty, but to face the pain of it, and the shame of it, if such bitter need was, and establish the truth. All this came to Hugh’s mind from the simple little letter, which Nelly, crying and burning with indignation and pity, and an intolerable sense of wrong, had written without knowing what she meant. For anything Hugh could tell, his mother’s innocence and honour, even if intact, might never be proved,—might do no more for him than had it been guilt and shame. The difference was that he had seen this accusation, glancing through Nelly’s eyes, to be impossible; that he had found out that there was an interpretation somewhere, and the load was taken off his soul.
The change was so great, and his relief so immense, that he felt as if even that night he must act upon it. He could not go away, as he longed to do, for all modes of communication with the world until the morning were by that time impracticable. But he did what eased his mind at least. He wrote to Mr. Penrose a very grave, almost solemn letter, with neither horror nor even anger in it. “I do not know what the circumstances are, nor what the facts may be,” he wrote, “but whatever they are, I do not doubt that my mother will explain—and I shall come to you immediately, that the truth may be made clearly apparent.” And he wrote to Mr. Churchill, as he had never yet had the courage to do, asking to be told how it was. When he had done this, he rose up, feeling himself still more his own master. Hugh did not deceive himself; he did not think, because Nelly had communicated to his eyes her own divine simplicity of sight, that therefore it was certain that everything would be made clear and manifest to the law or the world. It might be otherwise; Mrs. Ochterlony might never be able to establish her own spotless fame, and her elder children’s rights. It might be, by some horrible conspiracy of circumstances, that his name and position should be taken from him, and his honour stained beyond remedy. Such a thing was still possible. But Hugh felt that even then all would not be lost, that God would still be in heaven, and justice and mercy to some certain extent on the earth, and duty still before him. The situation was not changed, but only the key-note of his thoughts was changed, and his mind had come back to itself. He rose up, though it was getting late, and rang the bell for Francis Ochterlony’s favourite servant, and began to arrange about the removal of the Museum. He might not be master long—in law; but he was master by right of nature and his uncle’s will, and he would at least do his duty as long as he remained there.
Mrs. Gilsland, the housekeeper, was in the hall as he went out, and she curtseyed and stood before him, rustling in her black silk gown, and eyeing him doubtfully. She was afraid to disturb the Squire, as she said, but there was a poor soul there, if so be as he would speak a word to her. It annoyed Hugh to be drawn away from his occupations just as he had been roused to return to them; but Nelly’s letter and the influence of profound emotion had given a certain softness to his soul. He asked what it was, and heard it was a poor woman who had come with a petition. She had come a long way, and had a child with her, but nobody had liked to disturb the young Squire: and now it was providential, Mrs. Gilsland thought, that he should have passed just at that moment. “She has been gone half her lifetime, Mr. Hugh—I mean Sir,” said the housekeeper, “though she was born and bred here; and her poor man is that bad with the paralytics that she has to do everything, which she thought if perhaps you would give her the new lodge——”
“The new lodge is not built yet,” said Hugh, with a pang in his heart, feeling, notwithstanding his new courage, that it was hard to remember all his plans and the thousand changes it might never be in his power to make; “and it ought to be some one who has a claim on the family,” he added, with a half-conscious sigh.
“And that’s what poor Susan has,” said Mrs. Gilsland. “Master would never have said no if it had been in his time; for he knew as he had been unjust to them poor folks; and a good claim on you, Mr. Hugh. She is old Sommerville’s daughter, as you may have heard talk on, and as decent a woman——”
“Who was old Sommerville?” said Hugh.
“He was one as was a faithful servant to your poor papa,” said the housekeeper. “I’ve heard as he lost his place all for the Captain’s sake, as was Captain Ochterlony then, and as taking a young gentleman as ever was. If your mother was to hear of it, Mr. Hugh, she is not the lady to forget. A poor servant may be most a friend to his master—I’ve heard many and many a one say so that was real quality—and your mamma being a true lady——”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “a good servant is a friend; and if she had any claims upon my father, I will certainly see her; but I am busy now. I have not been—well. I have been neglecting a great many things, and now that I feel a little better, I have a great deal to do.”
“Oh, sir, it isn’t lost time as makes a poor creature’s heart to sing for joy!” said Mrs. Gilsland. She was a formidable housekeeper, but she was a kind woman; and somehow a subtle perception that their young master had been in trouble had crept into the mind of the household. “Which it’s grieved as we’ve all been to see as you was not—well,” she added with a curtsey; “it’s been the watching and the anxiety; and so good as you was, sir, to the Squire. But poor Susan has five mile to go, and a child in arms, as is a load to carry; and her poor sick husband at home. And it was borne in upon them as perhaps for old Sommerville’s sake——”