“He will never marry,” said Mary; “he was a great deal older than your father; he is quite an old man.”
“Indeed, Mary, he is not old at all, for a man,” said Aunt Agatha, with eagerness. “Ladies are so different. He might get a very nice wife yet, and children, for anything any one could tell. Not too young, you know—I think it would be a great pity if he were to marry anybody too young; but a nice person, of perhaps forty or so,” said Aunt Agatha; and she rounded off her sentence with a soft little sigh.
“He will never marry, I am sure,” said Mary, almost with indignation; for, not to speak of the injustice to Hugh, it sounded like an imputation upon her brother-in-law, who was sober-minded, and not thinking of anything so foolish; not to say that his heart was with his marble Venus, and he was indifferent to any other love.
“Well, if you think so, my dear——” said Miss Seton; and a faint colour rose upon her soft old cheek. She thought Mary’s meaning was, that after his behaviour to herself, which was not exactly what people expected, he was not likely to entertain another affection; which was probably as true as any other theory of Mr. Ochterlony’s conduct. Aunt Agatha thought this was Mary’s meaning, and it pleased her. It was an old story, but still she remembered it so well, that it was pleasant to think he had not forgotten. But this, to be sure, had very little to do with Hugh.
“I wish he would marry,” said his heir presumptive, “or put one out of pain one way or another. Things can’t go on for ever like this. Islay is only sixteen, and he is starting already; and here am I eighteen past, and good for nothing. You would not like me to be a useless wretch all my life?” said Hugh, severely, turning round upon his mother, who was not prepared for such an address; but Hugh, of all the boys, was the one most like his father, and had the Major’s “way.”
“No,” cried Mary, a little alarmed, “anything but that. I still think you might wait a little, and see what your uncle means. You are not so very old. Well, my dear boy! don’t be impatient; tell me what you wish to do.”
But this was exactly what Hugh could not tell. “If there had been no Earlston in the question, one would have known,” he said. “It is very hard upon a fellow to be another man’s nephew. I think the best thing I could do would be to ignore Earlston altogether, and go in for—anything I could make my own living by. There’s Islay has had the first chance——”
“My dear, one is surely enough in a family to be a soldier,” said Aunt Agatha, “if you would consider your poor mamma’s feelings and mine; but I never thought, for my part, that that was the thing for Islay, with his long head. He had always such a very peculiar head. When he was a child, you know, Mary, we never could get a child’s hat to fit him. Now, I think, if Hugh had gone into a very nice regiment, and Islay had studied for something——”
“Do you think he will have no study to do, going in for the Engineers?” said Hugh, indignantly. “I am not envious of Islay. I know he is the best fellow among us; but, at the same time—— The thing for me would be to go to Australia or New Zealand, where one does not need to be good for anything in particular. That is my case,” said the disconsolate youth; and out of the depths, if not of his soul, at least of his capacious chest, there came a profound, almost despairing sigh.
“Oh, Hugh, my darling boy! you cannot mean to break all our hearts,” cried Aunt Agatha.