Madonna Mary

by Mrs. Oliphant

Mr. Penrose gave a “humph,” partly indignant, partly satisfied, and walked about the room for a minute, making it shake with his portly form. And then he gave a low, short, whistle, and went downstairs, as he was told. Quite a different train of speculation had entered into his mind when he uttered that sound. If Wilfrid should die, the chances were that some distant set of Ochterlonys, altogether unconnected with himself, would come in for the estate, supposing Will’s claim in the meantime to be substantiated. Perhaps even yet it could be hushed up; for to see a good thing go out of the family was more than he could bear. This was what Mr. Penrose was thinking of as he went downstairs.

It seemed to Mary a long time before Hugh came back with the doctor, but yet it was not long: and Will still lay asleep, with his head upon her shoulder, but moving uneasily at times, and opening his eyes now and then. There could be no doubt that he was going to be ill, but what the illness was to be, whether serious and malignant, or the mere result of over-fatigue, over-tension and agitation of mind, even the doctor could not tell. But at least it was possible to remove him, which was a relief to all. Mary did not know how the afternoon passed. She saw Hugh coming and going as she sat by her sick boy, whom they had laid upon the sofa, and heard him downstairs talking to uncle Penrose, and then she was aware by the sound of carriage-wheels at the door that he had come to fetch them; but all her faculties were hushed and quieted as by the influence of poor Will’s sleep. She did not feel as if she had interest enough left in the great question that had occupied her so profoundly on the previous night as to ask what new light it was which Hugh had seemed to her for one moment to throw on it. A momentary wonder thrilled through her mind once or twice while she sat and waited; but then Will would stir, or his heavy eyelids would lift unconsciously and she would be recalled to the present calamity, which seemed nearer and more appalling than any other. She sat in the quiet, which, for Will’s sake, had to be unbroken, and in her anxiety and worn-out condition, herself by times slept “for sorrow,” like those disciples among the olive-trees. And all other affairs fell back in her mind, as into a kind of twilight—a secondary place. It did not seem to matter what happened, or how things came to be decided. She had had no serious illness to deal with for many, many years—almost never before in her life since those days when she lost her baby in India; and her startled mind leapt forward to all tragic possibilities—to calamity and death. It was a dull day, which, no doubt, deepened every shadow. The grey twilight seemed to close in over her before the day was half spent, and the blinds were drawn down over the great staring windows, as it was best they should be for Will, though the sight of them gave Mary a pang. All these conjoined circumstances drove every feeling out of her mind but anxiety for her boy’s life, and hushed her faculties, and made her life beat low, and stilled all other interests and emotions in her breast.

Then there came the bustle in the house which was attendant upon Will’s removal. Mr. Penrose stood by, and made no objection to it. He was satisfied, on the whole, that whatever it might be—fever, cholera, or decline, or any thing fatal, it should not be in his house; and his thoughts were full of that speculation about the results if Will should die. He shook hands with Mary when she followed her boy into the carriage, and said a word to comfort her:

“Don’t worry yourself about what we were talking of,” he said; “perhaps, after all, in case anything were to happen, it might still be hushed up.”

“What were we talking of?” asked Mary, vaguely, not knowing whether it was the old subject or the new one which he meant; and she made him no further answer, and went away to the lodging Hugh had found for her, to nurse her son. Uncle Penrose went back discomfited into his commodious house. It appeared, on the whole, that it did not matter much to them, though they had made so great a fuss about it. Hugh was the eldest son, even though, perhaps, he might not be the heir; and Will, poor boy, was the youngest, the one to be guarded and taken care of; and whatever the truth might be about Mary’s marriage, she was their mother; and even at this very moment, when they might have been thought to be torn asunder, and separated from each other, nature had stepped in and they were all one. It was strange, but so it was. Mr. Penrose had even spoken to Hugh, but had drawn nothing from him but anxiety about the sick boy, to find the best doctor, and the best possible place to remove him to; not a word about the private arrangement he had, no doubt, come to make, or the transfer of Earlston; and if Will should die, perhaps, it could yet be hushed up. This was the last idea in Mr. Penrose’s mind, as he went in and shut behind him the resounding door.

CHAPTER XLVII.

HE illness of Will took a bad turn. Instead of being a mere accumulation of cold and fatigue, it developed into fever, and of the most dangerous kind. Perhaps he had been bringing it on for a long time by his careless ways, by his long vigils and over thought; and that day of wretched wandering, and all the confused agitation of his mind had brought it to a climax. This at least was all that could be said. He was very ill; he lay for six weeks between life and death; and Mrs. Ochterlony, in his sick-room, had no mind nor understanding for anything but the care of him. Aunt Agatha would have come to help her, but she wanted no help. She lived as women do live at such times, without knowing how—without sleep, without food, without air, without rest to her mind or comfort to her heart. Except, indeed, in Hugh’s face, which was as anxious as her own, but looked in upon her watching, from time to time like a face out of heaven. She had been made to understand all about it—how her prayer had been granted, and the cup had passed from her, and her honour and her children’s had been vindicated for ever. She had been made to understand this, and had given God thanks, and felt one weight the less upon her soul; but yet she did not understand it any more than Will did, who in his wanderings talked without cease of the looks his mother gave him; and what had been done? He would murmur by the hour such broken unreason as he had talked to Mary the morning before he was taken ill—that he meant to injure nobody—that all he wanted was his rights—that he would do anything for Hugh or for his mother—only he must have his rights; and why did they all look at him so, and what did Nelly mean, and what had been done? Mrs. Ochterlony sitting by the bedside with tears on her pale cheeks came to a knowledge of his mind which she had never possessed before—as clear a knowledge as was possible to a creature of so different a nature. And she gave God thanks in her heart that the danger had been averted, and remembered, in a confused way, the name of old Sommerville, which had been engraved on her memory years before, when her husband forced her into the act which had cost her so much misery. Mary could not have explained to any one how it was that old Sommerville’s name came back with the sense of deliverance. For the moment she would scarcely have been surprised to know that he had come to life again to remedy the wrongs his death had brought about. All that she knew was that his name was involved in it, and that Hugh was satisfied, and the danger over. She said it to herself sometimes in an apologetic way as if to account to herself for the suddenness with which all interest on the subject had passed out of her thoughts. The danger was over. Two dangers so appalling could not exist together. The chances are that Will’s immediate and present peril would have engrossed her all the same, even had all not been well for Hugh.

When he had placed his mother and brother in the rooms he had taken for them, and had seen poor Will laid down on the bed he was not to quit for long, Hugh went back to see Mr. Penrose. He was agitated and excited, and much melted in his heart by his brother’s illness; but still, though he might forgive Will, he had no thought of forgiving the elder man, who ought to have given the boy better counsel: but he was very cool and collected, keeping his indignation to himself, and going very fully into detail. Old Sommerville’s daughter had been married, and lived with her husband at the border village where Mary’s marriage had taken place. It was she who had waited on the bride, with all the natural excitement and interest belonging to the occasion; and her husband and she, young themselves, and full of sympathy with the handsome young couple, had stolen in after them into the homely room where the marriage ceremony, such as it was, was performed. The woman who told Hugh this story had not the faintest idea that suspicion of any kind rested upon the facts she was narrating, neither did her hearer tell her of it. He had listened with what eagerness, with what wonder and delight may be imagined, while she went into all the details. “She mayn’t mind me, but I mind her,” the anxious historian had said, her thoughts dwelling not on the runaway marriage she was talking of, as if that could be of importance, but on the unbuilt lodge, and the chances of getting it if she could but awake the interest of the young squire. “She had on but a cotton gown, as was not for the likes of her on her wedding-day, and a bit of a straw-bonnet; and it was me as took off her shawl, her hands being trembly a bit, as was to be expected; I took her shawl off afore she came into the room, and I slipped in after her, and made Rob come, though he was shy. Bless your heart, sir, the Captain and the young lady never noticed him nor me.”

Hugh had received all these details into his mind with a distinctness which only the emergency could have made possible. It seemed to himself that he saw the scene—more clearly, far more clearly, than that dim vision of the other scene in India, which now he ventured in his heart to believe that he recollected too. He told everything to Mr. Penrose, who sat with glum countenance, and listened. “And now, uncle,” he said, “I will tell you what my mother is ready to do. I don’t think she understands what I have told her about my evidence; but I found this letter she had been writing when Will was taken ill. You can read it if you please. It will show you at least how wrong you were in thinking she would ever desert and abandon me.”