Mary did not say that Winnie had done what was a great deal more than complaining, and had set her husband before them in a very uncomfortable light—and she took the verdict upon herself quietly, as a matter of course. “Mr. Askell used to know him very well,” she said; “perhaps he knows something. But Edward Percival never was very popular, and you must not quarrel with me if I bring you back a disagreeable report. I think I will go into Carlisle as soon as they arrive—I should like to see them all again.”
“I should like to hear the truth whatever it is,” said Aunt Agatha, “but my dear love, seeing them all will be a great trial for you.”
Mary was silent, for she was thinking of other things: not merely of her happy days, and the difference which would make such a meeting “a great trial;” but of the one great vexation and mortification of her life, of which the regiment was aware—and whether the painful memory of it would ever return again to vex her. It had faded out of her recollection in the long peacefulness and quiet of her life. Could it ever return again to shame and wound, as it had once done? From where she was sitting with her work, between the cheerful lamp and the bright little blazing fire, Mary went away in an instant to the scene so distant and different, and was kneeling again by her husband’s side, a woman humbled, yet never before so indignantly, resentfully proud, in the little chapel of the station. Would it ever come back again, that one blot on her life, with all its false, injurious suggestions? She said to herself “No.” No doubt it had died out of other people’s minds as out of her own, and on Kirtell-side nobody would have dared to doubt on such a subject; and now that the family affairs were settled, and Hugh was established at Earlston, his uncle’s acknowledged heir, this cloud, at least, could never rise on her again to take the comfort out of her life. She dismissed the very thought of it from her mind, and her heart warmed to the recollection of the old faces and the old ways. She had a kind of a longing to see them, as if her life would be completer after. It was not as “a great trial” that Mary thought of it. She was too eager and curious to know how they had all fared; and if, to some of them at least, the old existence, so long broken up for herself, continued and flourished as of old.
CHAPTER XXV.
T was accordingly with a little excitement that when the regiment had actually arrived Mrs. Ochterlony set out for the neighbouring town to renew her acquaintance with her old friends. It was winter by that time, and winter is seldom very gentle in Cumberland: but she was too much interested to be detained by the weather. She had said nothing to Wilfrid on the subject, and it startled her a little to find him standing at the door waiting for her, carefully dressed, which was not usually a faculty of his, and evidently prepared to accompany her. When she opened the Cottage door to go out, and saw him, an unaccountable panic seized her. There he stood in the sunshine,—not gay and thoughtless like his brother Hugh, nor preoccupied like Islay,—with his keen eyes and sharp ears, and mind that seemed always to lie in wait for something. The recollection of the one thing which she did not want to be known had come strongly to her mind once more at that particular moment; a little tremor had run through her frame—a sense of half-painful, half-pleasant, excitement. When her eye fell on Wilfrid, she went back a step unconsciously, and her heart for the moment seemed to stop beating. She wanted to bring her friends to Kirtell, to show them her boys and make them acquainted with all her life; and probably, had it been Hugh, he would have accompanied her as a matter of course. But somehow Wilfrid was different. Without knowing what her reason was, she felt reluctant to undergo the first questionings and reminiscences with this keen spectator standing by to hear and see all, and to demand explanation of matters which it might be difficult to explain.
“Did you mean to go with me, Will?” she said. “But you know we cannot leave Aunt Agatha all by herself. I wanted to see you to ask you to be as agreeable as possible while I am gone.”
“I am never agreeable to Aunt Agatha,” said Will; “she always liked the others best; and besides, she does not want me, and I am going to take care of you.”
“Thank you,” said Mary, with a smile; “but I don’t want you either for to-day. We shall have so many things to talk about—old affairs that you would not understand.”
“I like that sort of thing,” said Will; “I like listening to women’s talk—especially when it is about things I don’t understand. It is always something new.”