“To tell the truth, there is somebody at the Hall——” said Aunt Agatha, “and I want to have your opinion, my dear. Oh, Mary, you must not talk of no guidance being needed. I have watched over her ever since she was born. The wind has never blown roughly on her; and if my darling was to marry just an ordinary man, and be unhappy, perhaps—or no happier than the rest of us——” said Aunt Agatha, with a sigh. This last touch of nature went to Mary’s heart.
“She is rich in having such love, whatever may happen to her,” said Mrs. Ochterlony, “and she looks as if, after all, she might yet have the perfect life. She is very, very handsome—and good, I am sure, and sweet—or she would not be your child, Aunt Agatha; but we must not be too ready with our guidance. She would not be happy if her choice did not come spontaneously, and of itself.”
“But oh, my dear love, the risk of marrying!” said Miss Seton, with a little sob—and she gave again a nervous pressure to Mary’s hand, and did not restrain her tears. They sat thus in the twilight together, looking out upon the young little creatures for whom life was all brightly uncertain—one of them regarding with a pitiful flutter of dread and anxiety the world she had never ventured to enter into for herself. Perhaps a vision of Francis Ochterlony mingled with Miss Seton’s thoughts, and a wistful backward glance at the life which might have been, but had not. The other sat very still, holding Aunt Agatha’s soft little fluttering hand in her own, which was steady, and did not tremble, with a strange pang of anguish and pity in her heart. Mary looked at life through no such fanciful mists—she knew, as she thought, its deepest depth and profoundest calamity; but the fountain of her tears was all sealed up and closed, because nobody but herself had any longer anything to do with it. And she, too, yearned over the young creature whose existence was all to come, and felt that it was had to think that she might be “no happier than the rest of us.” It was these words which had arrested Mary, who, perhaps, might have otherwise thought that her own unquestionable sorrows demanded more sympathy than Winnie’s problematical future. Thus the two elder ladies sat, until Winnie and the children came in, bring life and commotion with them. The blackbird was still singing in the bushes, the soft northern twilight lingering, and the dew falling, and all the sweet evening odours coming in. As for Aunt Agatha, her heart, though it was old, fluttered with all the agitation and disturbance of a girl’s—while Mary, in the calm and silence of her loneliness, felt herself put back as it were into history, along with Ruth and Rachel, and her own mother, and all the women whose lives had been and were over. This was how it felt to her in the presence of Aunt Agatha’s soft agitation—so that she half smiled at herself sitting there composed and tranquil, and soothing her companion into her usual calm.
“Mary agrees with me that this is better than Earlston, Winnie,” said Aunt Agatha, when the children were all disposed of for the night, and the three who were so near to each other in blood, and who were henceforward to be close companions, yet who knew so little of each other in deed and truth, were left alone. The lamp was lighted, but the windows were still open, and the twilight still lingered, and a wistful blue-green sky looked in and put itself in swift comparison with the yellow lamplight. Winnie stood in one of the open windows, half in and half out, looking across the garden, as if expecting some one, and with a little contraction in her forehead that marred her fine profile slightly—giving a kind of careless half-attention to what was said.
“Does she?” she answered, indifferently; “I should have thought Earlston was a much handsomer house.”
“It was not of handsome houses we were thinking, my darling,” said Aunt Agatha, with soft reproof; “it was of love and welcome like what we are so glad as to give her here.”
“Wasn’t Mr. Ochterlony kind?” said Winnie, with half contempt. “Perhaps he does not fancy children. I don’t wonder so very much at that. If they were not my own nephews, very likely I should think them dreadful little wretches. I suppose Mary won’t mind me saying what I think. I always have been brought up to speak out.”
“They are dear children,” said poor Aunt Agatha, promptly. “I wish you would come in, my love. It is a great deal too late now to go out.”
And at that moment Mary, who was the spectator, and could observe what was going on, had her attention attracted by a little jar and rattle of the window at which Winnie was standing. It was the girl’s impatient movement which had done it; and whether it was in obedience to Miss Seton’s mild command, or something more urgent, Winnie came in instantly with a lowering brow, and shut the window with some noise and sharpness. Probably Aunt Agatha was used to it, for she took no notice; but even her patient spirit seemed moved to astonishment by the sudden clang of the shutters, which the hasty young woman began to close.
“Leave that to Peggy, my darling,” she said; “besides, it was nice to have the air, and you know how I like the last of the gloaming. That is the window where one can always see poor Sir Edward’s light when he is at home. I suppose they are sure to be at home, since they have not come here to-night.”