Who Was Lost and Is Found: A Novel

by Mrs. Oliphant

“You may make your mind easy, mem,” said Janet; “I will no be wanting for an excuse.”

“So long as you just let nobody in,” said her mistress. Mrs Ogilvy had never in her life availed herself even of the common and well-understood fiction, “Not at home,” to turn away an unwelcome visitor; but she did not inquire now what it was that Janet meant to say. She went away with a little lightening of her heavy heart. To be able to speak to somebody who was beyond all doubt, and incapable of betraying her, of perhaps having something suggested to her, some plan that would afford succour, was for the moment almost as if she had attained a certain relief. It was July now, the very heat and climax of the year. The favoured fields of Mid-Lothian were beginning to whiten to the harvest; the people about were in light dresses, in their summer moods and ways, saying to each other, “What a beautiful day—was there ever such fine weather?”—for indeed it was a happy year without rain, without clouds. To see everybody as usual going about their honest work was at once a pang and a relief to Mrs Ogilvy. The world, then, was just as before—it was not turned upside down; most people were busy doing something; there was no suspension of the usual laws. And yet all the more for this universal reign of law and order, which it was a refreshment to see—all the more was it terrible to think of Robbie, lawless, careless of all rules, wasting his life—of the two young men whom she had left behind her, both in the strength of their manhood, doing nothing, good for nothing. These two sensations, which were so different, tore Mrs Ogilvy’s heart in two.

CHAPTER XVI.

Mr Somerville was engaged with another client, and it was a long time before Mrs Ogilvy could see him. She had to wait, trembling with impatience, and dismayed by the passage of time, following the hands of the clock with her eyes, wondering what perhaps might be happening at home. She was not, perhaps, on the face of things, a very strong defensive force, but she had got by degrees into the habit of feeling that safety depended more or less upon her presence. She might have perhaps a little tendency that way by nature, to think that her little world depended upon her, and that nothing went quite right when she was away; but this feeling was doubly strong now. She felt that the little house was quite undefended in her absence, that all the doors and windows which she could not bear to have shut were now standing wide open to let misfortune come in.

When she did at last succeed in seeing Mr Somerville, however, he was very comforting to her. It was not that he did not see the gravity of the situation. He was very grave indeed upon the whole matter. He did not conceal from her his conviction that Robert stood a much worse chance if he were found in the company of the other man. “Which is no doubt unjust,” he said, “for I understood you to say that your son had a great repugnance to this scoundrel who had led him astray.” Mrs Ogilvy responded to this by a very faltering and doubtful “Yes.” Yes indeed—Robbie had said he hated the man; but there was very little appearance on his part of hating him now—and Mrs Ogilvy herself did not hate Lew. She hated nobody, so that this perhaps was not wonderful, but her feeling towards the scoundrel, as Mr Somerville called him, was more than that abstract one. She felt herself his defender, too, as well as her son’s. She was eager to save him as well as her son. To ransom Robbie by giving up his companion was not what she thought of.

I do not know whether she succeeded in conveying this impression to Mr Somerville’s mind. But yet it was a relief to her to pour out her heart, to tell all her trouble; and the old lawyer had a sympathetic ear. They sat long together, going over the case, and he insisted that she should share his lunch with him, and not go back to the Hewan fasting after the long agitating morning. Even that was a relief to Mrs Ogilvy, though she was scarcely aware of it, and in her heart believed that she was very impatient to get away. But the quiet meal was grateful to her, with her kind old friend taking an interest in her, persuading her to eat, pouring out a modest glass of wine, paying all the attention possible in his old-fashioned old-world way. She was very anxious to get back, and yet the tranquil reflection gave her a sense of peace and comfort to which she had been long a stranger. There were still people in the world who were kind, who were willing to help her, who would listen and understand what she had to bear, who believed everything that was good about Robbie,—that he had been “led away,” but was now anxious, very anxious, to return to righteous ways. Mrs Ogilvy’s heart grew lighter in spite of herself, even though the news was not good—though she ascertained that there was certainly an American officer in Edinburgh whose mission was to track out the fugitives. “He must not stay at the Hewan—it would be most dangerous for Robert: you must get him to go away,” the old gentleman said.

“If I could but get him to do that! but, oh, you know by yourself how hard it is for the like of me, that never shut my doors in my life to a stranger, to say to a man, Go!—a man that is a well-spoken man, and has a great deal of good in him, and has no parents of his own, and never has had instruction nor even kindness to keep him right.”

“Mrs Ogilvy, he is a murderer,” said Mr Somerville, severely.

“Oh, but are you sure of that? If I were sure! But a man that sits at your table, that you see every day of his life, that does no harm, nor is unkind to any one—how is it possible to think he has done anything like that?”

“But, my dear lady,” said Mr Somerville, “it is true.”