Who Was Lost and Is Found: A Novel

by Mrs. Oliphant

If Mrs Ogilvy had been at home, it is almost certain that none of these things could have happened—if she had not been kept so long, if Mr Somerville’s other client had not detained him, and, worst of all, if she had not been beguiled by the unaccustomed relief of a sympathetic listener, a friendly hand held out to help her, to waste that precious hour in taking her luncheon with her old friend. That was pure waste—to please him, and in a foolish yielding to those claims of nature which Mrs Ogilvy, like so many women, thought she could defy. To-day, in the temporary relief of her mind after pouring out all her troubles—a process which for the moment felt almost like the removal of them—she had become aware of her own exhaustion and need of refreshment and rest. And thus she had thrown away voluntarily a precious hour.

She met Susie and Mrs Ainslie at her own gate, and though tired with her walk from the station, stopped to speak to them. “We found the gentlemen at their dinner,” Mrs Ainslie said, her usual jaunty air increased by a sort of triumphant excitement, “and therefore of course we did not go in; but I rested a little outside, and the sound of their jolly voices quite did me good. They don’t speak between their teeth, like all you people here.”

“My son—has a friend with him,—for a very short time,” Mrs Ogilvy said.

“Oh yes, I know—the friend with whom he takes long walks late in the evening. I have often heard of them in the village,” Mrs Ainslie said.

“His visit is almost over—he is just going away,” said Mrs Ogilvy, faintly. “I am just a little tired with my walk. Susie, you would perhaps see—my son?”

“I saw Robbie—for a minute. We had no time to say anything. I—could not keep him from his dinner—and his friend,” Susie said, with a flush. It hurt her to speak of Robbie, who had not cared to see her, who had nothing to say to her. “We are keeping you, and you are tired: and me, I have much to do—and perhaps soon going away altogether,” said Susie, not able to keep a complaint which was almost an appeal out of her voice.

“She will go to her own house, I hope,” cried Mrs Ainslie; “and I hope you who are a friend of the family will advise her for her good, Mrs Ogilvy. A good husband waiting for her—and she threatens to go away altogether, as if we were driving her out. Was there ever anything so silly—and cruel to her father—not to speak of me——”

“Oh, my dear Susie! if I were not so faint—and tired,” Mrs Ogilvy said.

And Susie, full of tender compunction and interest, but daring to ask nothing except with her eyes, hurried her companion away.

Mrs Ogilvy went up with a slow step to her own house. She was in haste to get there—yet would have liked to linger, to leave herself a little more time before she confronted again those two who were so strong against her in their combination, so careless of what she said or felt. She thought, with a sickness at her heart, of those “jolly voices” which that woman had heard. She knew exactly what they were—the noise, the laughter, which at first she had been so glad to hear as a sign that Robbie’s heart had recovered the cheerfulness of youth, but which sometimes made her sick with misery and the sense of helplessness. She would find them so now, rattling away with their disjointed talk, and in her fatigue and trouble it would “turn her heart.” She went up slowly, saying to herself, as a sort of excuse, that she could not walk as she once could, that her breath was short and her foot uncertain and tremulous, so that she could not be sure of not stumbling even in the approach to her own house.