“The little we have at Kirtell will be a comfort to you, my love,” said the soothing voice of Aunt Agatha; “all old friends. The vicar you know, Mary, and the doctor, and poor Sir Edward. There are some new people, but I do not make much account of them; and our little visiting would harm nobody,” the old lady said, though with a slight tone of apology, not quite satisfied in herself that the widow should be even able to think of society so soon.
Upon which a little pucker of vexation came to Mary’s brow. As if she cared or could care for their little visiting, and the vicar, and the doctor, and Sir Edward! she to whom going among strangers meant something so real and so hard to bear.
“Dear Aunt Agatha,” she said, “I am afraid you will not be pleased; but I have not been looking forward to anything so pleasant as going to Kirtell. The first thing I have to think of is the boys and their interests. And Francis Ochterlony has asked us to go to Earlston.” These words came all confused from Mary’s lips. She broke down, seeing what was coming; for this was something that she never had calculated on, or thought of having to bear.
A dead pause ensued; Aunt Agatha started and flushed all over, and gave an agitated exclamation, and then a sudden blank came upon her sweet old face. Mary did not look at her, but she saw without looking how her aunt stiffened into resentment, and offence, and mortification. She changed in an instant, as if Mrs. Ochterlony’s confused statement had been a spell, and drew herself up and sat motionless, a picture of surprised affection and wounded pride. Poor Mary saw it, and was grieved to the heart, and yet could not but resent such a want of understanding of her position and sympathy for herself. She lifted her cup to her lips with a trembling hand, and her tea did not refresh her. And it was the only near relative she had in the world, the tenderest-hearted creature in existence, a woman who could be cruel to nobody, who thus shut up her heart against her. Thus the three women sat together round their breakfast-table, and helped each other, and said nothing for one stern moment, which was a cruel moment for one of them at least.
“Earlston!” said Aunt Agatha at last, with a quiver in her voice. “Indeed it never occurred to me—I had not supposed that Francis Ochterlony had been so much to—— But never mind; if that is what you think best for yourself, Mary——”
“There is nothing best for myself,” said Mrs. Ochterlony, with the sharpness of despair. “I think it is my duty—and—and Hugh, I know, would have thought so. Our boy is his uncle’s heir. They are the—the only Ochterlonys left now. It is what I must—what I ought to do.”
And then there was another pause. Aunt Agatha for her part would have liked to cry, but then she had her side of the family to maintain, and though every pulse in her was beating with disappointment and mortified affection, she was not going to show that. “You must know best,” she said, taking up her little air of dignity; “I am sure you must know best; I would never try to force my way of thinking on you, Mary. No doubt you have been more in the world than I have; but I did think when a woman was in trouble that to go among her own friends——”
“Yes,” said Mary, who was overwhelmed, and did not feel able to bear it, “but her friends might understand her and have a little pity for her, aunt, when she had hard things to do that wrung her heart——”
“My dear,” said Aunt Agatha, with, on her side, the bitterness of unappreciated exertion, “if you will think how far I have come, and what an unusual journey I have made, I think you will perceive that to accuse me of want of pity——”
“Don’t worry her, Aunt Agatha,” said Winnie, “she is not accusing you of want of pity. I think it a very strange sort of thing, myself; but let Mary have justice, that was not what she meant.”
“I should like to know what she did mean,” said Aunt Agatha, who was trembling with vexation, and with those tears which she wanted so much to shed: and then two or three of them dropped on the broad-brimmed cambric cuff which she was wearing solely on Mary’s account. For, to be sure, Major Ochterlony was not to say a relation of hers that she should have worn such deep mourning for him. “I am sure I don’t want to interfere, if she prefers Francis Ochterlony to her own friends,” she added, with tremulous haste. She was the very same Aunt Agatha who had taken Mary to her arms the day before, and sat by her bed, listening to all the sad story of her widowhood. She had wept for Hugh, and she would have shared her cottage and her garden and all she had with Mary, with goodwill and bounty, eagerly—but Francis Ochterlony was a different matter; and it was not in human nature to bear the preference of a husband’s brother to “her own friends.” “They may be the last Ochterlonys,” said Aunt Agatha, “but I never understood that a woman was to give up her own family entirely; and your sister was born a Seton like you and me, Winnie;—I don’t understand it, for my part.”
Aunt Agatha broke down when she had said this, and cried more bitterly, more effusively, so long as it lasted, than she had cried last night over Hugh Ochterlony’s sudden ending: and Mary could not but feel that; and as for Winnie, she sat silent, and if she did not make things worse, at least she made no effort to make them better. On the whole, it was not much wonder. They had made great changes in the cottage for Mary’s sake. Aunt Agatha had given up her parlour, her own pretty room that she loved, for a nursery, and they had made up their minds that the best chamber was to be Mary’s, with a sort of sense that the fresh chintz and the pictures on the walls—it was the only bed-room that had any pictures—would make up to her if anything could. And now to find all the time that it was Francis Ochterlony, and not her own friends, that she was going to! Winnie sat quite still, with her fine profile cut out sternly against the dark green wall, looking immovable and unfeeling, as only a profile can under such circumstances. This was what came of Mary’s placid morning, and the dear union of family support and love into which she thought she had come. It was harder upon Mrs. Ochterlony than if Aunt Agatha had not come to meet her. She had to sit blank and silent like a criminal, and see the old lady cry and the young lady lift up the stern delicacy of that profile against her. They were disappointed in Mary; and not only were they disappointed, but mortified—wounded in their best feelings and embarrassed in secondary matters as well; for naturally Aunt Agatha had told everybody that she was going to bring her niece, Mrs. Ochterlony, and the poor dear children home.
Thus it will be seen that the first breakfast in England was a very unsatisfactory meal for Mary. She took refuge with her children when it was over, and shut up, as she had been forced to do in other days, another door in her heart; and Aunt Agatha and Winnie, on the other hand, withdrew to their apartment and talked it over, and kindled each other’s indignation. “If you knew the kind of man he was, Winnie!” Aunt Agatha said, with a severity which was not entirely on Mary’s account; “not the sort of man I would trust those poor dear children with. I don’t believe he has any religious principles. Dear, dear, to think how Mary should have changed! I never could have thought she would have preferred Francis Ochterlony, and turned against her own friends.”
“I don’t know anything about Francis Ochterlony,” said Winnie, “but I know what a lot of bother we have had at home making all those changes; and your parlour that you had given up, Aunt Agatha—I must say when I think of that——”
“That is nothing, my love,” said Aunt Agatha; “I was not thinking of what I have done, I hope—as if the sacrifice was anything.” But nevertheless the tears came into her eyes at the thought. It is hard when one has made a sacrifice with a liberal heart, to have it thrown back, and to feel that it is useless. This is hard, and Aunt Agatha was only human. If she had been alone, probably after the first moment of annoyance she would have gone to Mary, and the two would have cried together, and after little Hugh’s prospects had been discussed, Miss Seton would have consented that it was best for her niece to go to Earlston; but then Winnie was there to talk