Читать книгу Young Musgrave - Mrs. Oliphant - Страница 14

Now, however, all at once, so great a change had happened to her, that Mary could no longer understand, or even believe in, this state of mind which had been hers for so many years. Perfectly still, tranquil, fearing nothing—when her own flesh and blood were in such warfare in the world! How was it possible? Wondering pangs of self-reproach seized her; mysteries of death and of birth, such as had never touched her maidenly quiet, seemed to surround her, and mock at her former ease. All this time the gates of heaven had been opening and shutting to John. Hope sometimes, sometimes despair, love, anguish, want, pain, had struggled for him, while she had sat and looked on so calmly, and reasoned so placidly about the general equality of life. How could she have done it? The revelation was as painful as it was overwhelming. Nature seized upon her with a grip of iron, and avenged upon her in a moment all the indifferences of her previous life. The appeal of these frightened children, the solemn charge laid upon her by her brother, awoke her with a start and shiver. How had she dared to sit and look through calm windows, or on the threshold by her tranquil door, upon the struggles, pangs, and labours of the other human creatures about her? Was it excuse enough that she was neither wife nor mother? had she therefore nothing to do in guarding, and continuing, and handing down the nobler successions of life? Mary was startled altogether out of the state of mind habitual to her. Instead of remaining the calm lady of the manor, the female Squire, the lawgiver of the village which she had hitherto been—a little above the problems that were brought to her, a little wanting in consideration of motives and meaning, perhaps now and then too decided in her judgment, seeing the distinction between right and wrong too clearly, and entertaining a supreme, though gentle contempt for the trimmings and compromises, as well as for the fusses and agitations of the ordinary world—she felt herself to have plunged all at once into the midst of those agitations at a single step. She became anxious, timorous, yet rash, faltering even in opinion, hesitating, vacillating—she who had been so decided and so calm. Her feelings were all intensified, the cords of her nature tightened, as it were, vibrating to the lightest touch. And at the same time, which was strange enough, while thus the little circle, in which she stood, became full of such intense, unthought-of interest, the world widened around her as it had never widened before; into darknesses and silences indeed—but still with an extended horizon which expanded her heart. John was there in the wide unknown, which stretched round this one warm, lighted spot, wandering she knew not where, a solitary man. She had never realized him so before; and not only John, but thousands like him, strangers, wanderers, strugglers with fate. This sudden breath of novelty, of enlightenment, expanded her heart like a sob. Her composure, her satisfaction, her tranquillity fled from her; but how much greater, more real and true, more penetrating and actual, became her existence and the world! And all this was produced, not by any great mental enlightenment, any sudden development of character, but by the simple fact that two small helpless creatures had been put into her hands and made absolutely dependent upon her. This was all; but the whole world could not have been more to Mary. It changed her in every way. She who had been so rooted in her place, so absorbed in her occupations, would have relinquished all, had it been necessary, and gone out solitary into the world for the children. Could there be any office so important, any trust so precious? This, which sounded like the vulgarest commonplace, and at the same time most fictitious high-flown sentiment, on the lips of Mrs. Pennithorne, became all at once, in a moment, the leading principle of Miss Musgrave’s life.

But she had to undergo various petty inconveniences from the curiosity of her neighbours, and their anxiety to advise her as to what she should do in the “trying circumstances.” What could she know about children? Mrs. Pen, for one, thought it very important to give Miss Musgrave the benefit of her advice. She made a solemn visit to inspect them, and tell her what she ought to do. The little boy, she felt sure, was delicate, and would require a great deal of care; but the thing that troubled Mrs. Pennithorne the most was that Miss Musgrave could not be persuaded to put on mourning for her brother’s wife. Notwithstanding that it was, as Mary pleaded, five years since she died, the vicar’s wife thought that crape would be a proof that all “misunderstandings” were over, and would show a Christian feeling. And when she could not make this apparent to the person principally concerned, she did all she could to impress it upon her husband, whom she implored to “speak to”—both father and daughter—on the subject. Most people would have been all the more particular to put on crape, and to wear it deep, because there had been “misunderstandings.” “Misunderstandings!” cried Mr. Pen. It was not, however, he who spoke to Miss Musgrave, but she who spoke to him on this important subject; and what she said somewhat bewildered the vicar, who could not fathom her mind in this respect.

“Emily thinks we should put on mourning,” she said. “And, do you know, I really believe that is the reason that poor John is so much more in my thoughts?”

“What—the mourning?” the vicar asked faltering.

“Her death. Hitherto the idea of one has been mingled with that of the other. Now he is just John; everything else has melted away; there is nothing but himself to think of. He has never been only John before. Do you know what I mean, Mr. Pen?”

The vicar shook his head. He wondered if this could be a touch of feminine jealousy, knowing that even Mary was not perfect; and this gave him a momentary pang.

“I don’t suppose that I should feel so;—I was very fond of John—but I, of course, could not be jealous—I mean of his love for one unworthy—— ”

“How do you know even that she was unworthy? It is not that, Mr. Pen. But she was nothing to us, and confused him in our minds. Now he is himself—and where is he?” said Miss Musgrave, with tears in her eyes.

“In God’s hands—in God’s hands, Miss Mary! and God bless him wherever he is—and I humbly beg your pardon,” cried Mr. Pen, with an excess of compunction which she scarcely understood. His feelings were almost too warm Mary thought.

And as the news got spread through those invisible channels which convey reports all over a country, many were the visitors that came to the Castle to see what the story meant, though they did not announce this as the object of their visit. Among these visitors the most important was Lady Stanton, who had been Mary’s rival in beauty when the days were. They had not been rivals indeed to their own consciousness, but warm friends, in their youth and day of triumph; but events had separated the two girls, and the two women rarely met, and had outgrown all acquaintance; for Lady Stanton had been involved, almost more immediately than Mary Musgrave, in the tragedy which had so changed life at Penninghame, and this had changed their relations like everything else. This lady arrived one day to the great surprise of everybody, and came in with timid eagerness and haste, growing red and growing pale as she held out her hands to her old friend.

“We never quarrelled,” she said; “why should we never see each other? Is there any reason?”

“No reason,” said Miss Musgrave, making room upon the sofa beside her. But such an unexpected appeal agitated her, and for the moment she could not satisfy herself as to the object of the visit. Lady Stanton, however, was of a very simple mind, and could not conceal what that object was.

“Oh, Mary,” she said, the tears coming into her eyes, “I heard that John’s children had come home. Is it true? You know I always took an interest—— ” And here she stopped, making a gulp of some emotion which, to a superficial spectator, might have seemed out of place in Sir Henry Stanton’s wife. She had grown stout, but that does not blunt the feelings. “I should like to see them,” she said, with an appeal in her eyes which few people could withstand. And Mary was touched too, partly by this sudden renewal of an old love, partly by the thought of all that had happened since she last sat by her old companion’s side, who was a Mary too.

“I cannot bring them here,” she said, “but I will take you to the hall to see them. My father likes them to be kept—in their own part of the house.”

“Oh, I hope he is kind to them!” said Lady Stanton, clasping her white dimpled hands. “Are they like your family? I hope they are like the Musgraves. But likenesses are so strange—mine are not like me,” said the old beauty, plaintively. Perhaps the trouble in her face was less on account of her own private trials in this respect than out of alarm lest John Musgrave’s children should bear the likeness of another face of which she could not think with kindness. There was so little disguise in her mind, that this sentiment also found its way into words. “Oh Mary,” she cried, “you and I were once the two beauties, and everybody was at our feet; but that common girl was more thought of than either you or me.”

“Hush!” said Mary Musgrave, putting up her hand; “she is dead.”

“Is she dead?” Lady Stanton was struck with a momentary horror; for it was a contemporary of whom they were speaking, and she could not but be conscious of a little shiver in her own well-developed person, to think of the other who was clay. “That is why they have come home?” she said, half under her breath.

“Yes; and because he cannot carry them about with him wherever he goes.”

“You have heard from him, Mary? I hope he is doing well. I hope he is not—very—heart-broken. If you are writing you might say I inquired. He might like to know that he was remembered; and you know I always took—an interest—— ”

“I know you always had the kindest heart.”

“I always took an interest, notwithstanding everything; and—will he come home? Now surely he might come home. It is so long ago; and surely now no one would interfere.”

“I cannot say anything about that, for I don’t know,” said Miss Musgrave; “he does not say. Will you come and see the children, Lady Stanton?”

“Oh, Mary, what have I done that you should call me Lady Stanton? I have never wished to stand aloof. It has not been my doing. Do you remember what friends we were? and I couldn’t call you Miss Musgrave if I tried. When I heard of the children I thought this was an opening,” said Lady Stanton, faltering a little. She told her little fib, which was an innocent one; but she was true at bottom and told it ill; and what difference did it make whether she sought the children for Mary’s sake, or Mary for the children’s? Miss Musgrave accepted her proffered embrace with kindness, yet with a smile. She was touched by the emotion of her old friend, and by the remnants of that “interest” which had survived fifteen years of married life, and much increase of substance. Perhaps a harsher judge might have thought the emotion slightly improper. But poor John had got but hard measure in the world; and a little compensating faithfulness was a salve to his sister’s feelings. She led her visitor downstairs and through the narrow passage, in all her wealth of silk and amplitude of shadow. Mary herself was still as slim as when they had skimmed about these passages together; and she was Mary still; for once in a way she felt herself not without some advantage over Sir Henry’s wife.

Nello was standing full in the light when the ladies went into the hall, and he it was who came forward to be caressed by the pretty lady, who took to him all the more warmly that she had no boys of her own. Lady Stanton fairly cried over his fair head, with its soft curls. “What a little Musgrave he is!” she cried; “how like his father! I cannot help being glad he is like his father.” But when this vision of splendour and beauty, which Lilias came forward to admire, saw the little girl, she turned from her with a slight shiver. “Ah!” she cried, retreating, “is that—the little girl?” And the sight silenced her, and drove her away.