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Produced by Stan Goodman, Mary Meehan | |
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team | |
OLD LADY MARY. | |
A STORY OF THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN. | |
By Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant | |
I | |
She was very old, and therefore it was very hard for her to make up her | |
mind to die. I am aware that this is not at all the general view, but | |
that it is believed, as old age must be near death, that it prepares the | |
soul for that inevitable event. It is not so, however, in many cases. In | |
youth we are still so near the unseen out of which we came, that death is | |
rather pathetic than tragic,--a thing that touches all hearts, but to | |
which, in many cases, the young hero accommodates himself sweetly and | |
courageously. And amid the storms and burdens of middle life there are | |
many times when we would fain push open the door that stands ajar, and | |
behind which there is ease for all our pains, or at least rest, if | |
nothing more. But age, which has gone through both these phases, is apt, | |
out of long custom and habit, to regard the matter from a different view. | |
All things that are violent have passed out of its life,--no more strong | |
emotions, such as rend the heart; no great labors, bringing after them | |
the weariness which is unto death; but the calm of an existence which is | |
enough for its needs, which affords the moderate amount of comfort and | |
pleasure for which its being is now adapted, and of which there seems no | |
reason that there should ever be any end. To passion, to joy, to anguish, | |
an end must come; but mere gentle living, determined by a framework of | |
gentle rules and habits--why should that ever be ended? When a soul has | |
got to this retirement and is content in it, it becomes very hard to die; | |
hard to accept the necessity of dying, and to accustom one's self to the | |
idea, and still harder to consent to carry it out. | |
The woman who is the subject of the following narrative was in this | |
position. She had lived through almost everything that is to be found in | |
life. She had been beautiful in her youth, and had enjoyed all the | |
triumphs of beauty; had been intoxicated with flattery, and triumphant in | |
conquest, and mad with jealousy and the bitterness of defeat when it | |
became evident that her day was over. She had never been a bad woman, or | |
false, or unkind; but she had thrown herself with all her heart into | |
those different stages of being, and had suffered as much as she enjoyed, | |
according to the unfailing usage of life. Many a day during these storms | |
and victories, when things went against her, when delights did not | |
satisfy her, she had thrown out a cry into the wide air of the universe | |
and wished to die. And then she had come to the higher table-land of | |
life, and had borne all the spites of fortune,--had been poor and rich, | |
and happy and sorrowful; had lost and won a hundred times over; had sat | |
at feasts, and kneeled by deathbeds, and followed her best-beloved to the | |
grave, often, often crying out to God above to liberate her, to make an | |
end of her anguish, for that her strength was exhausted and she could | |
bear no more. But she had borne it and lived through all; and now had | |
arrived at a time when all strong sensations are over, when the soul is | |
no longer either triumphant or miserable, and when life itself, and | |
comfort and ease, and the warmth of the sun, and of the fireside, and the | |
mild beauty of home were enough for her, and she required no more. That | |
is, she required very little more, a useful routine of hours and rules, a | |
play of reflected emotion, a pleasant exercise of faculty, making her | |
feel herself still capable of the best things in life--of interest in her | |
fellow-creatures, kindness to them, and a little gentle intellectual | |
occupation, with books and men around. She had not forgotten anything in | |
her life,--not the excitements and delights of her beauty, nor love, nor | |
grief, nor the higher levels she had touched in her day. She did not | |
forget the dark day when her first-born was laid in the grave, nor that | |
triumphant and brilliant climax of her life when every one pointed to her | |
as the mother of a hero. All these things were like pictures hung in the | |
secret chambers of her mind, to which she could go back in silent | |
moments, in the twilight seated by the fire, or in the balmy afternoon, | |
when languor and sweet thoughts are over the world. Sometimes at such | |
moments there would be heard from her a faint sob, called forth, it was | |
quite as likely, by the recollection of the triumph as by that of the | |
deathbed. With these pictures to go back upon at her will she was never | |
dull, but saw herself moving through the various scenes of her life with | |
a continual sympathy, feeling for herself in all her troubles,--sometimes | |
approving, sometimes judging that woman who had been so pretty, so happy, | |
so miserable, and had gone through everything that life can go through. | |
How much that is, looking back upon it!--passages so hard that the wonder | |
was how she could survive them; pangs so terrible that the heart would | |
seem at its last gasp, but yet would revive and go on. | |
Besides these, however, she had many mild pleasures. She had a pretty | |
house full of things which formed a graceful _entourage_ suitable, as | |
she felt, for such a woman as she was, and in which she took pleasure for | |
their own beauty,--soft chairs and couches, a fireplace and lights | |
which were the perfection of tempered warmth and illumination. She had a | |
carriage, very comfortable and easy, in which, when the weather was | |
suitable, she went out; and a pretty garden and lawns, in which, when she | |
preferred staying at home, she could have her little walk, or sit out | |
under the trees. She had books in plenty, and all the newspapers, and | |
everything that was needful to keep her within the reflection of the busy | |
life which she no longer cared to encounter in her own person. The post | |
rarely brought her painful letters; for all those impassioned interests | |
which bring pain had died out, and the sorrows of others, when they were | |
communicated to her, gave her a luxurious sense of sympathy, yet | |
exemption. She was sorry for them; but such catastrophes could touch her | |
no more: and often she had pleasant letters, which afforded her something | |
to talk and think about, and discuss as if it concerned her,--and yet did | |
not concern her,--business which could not hurt her if it failed, which | |
would please her if it succeeded. Her letters, her papers, her books, | |
each coming at its appointed hour, were all instruments of pleasure. She | |
came down-stairs at a certain hour, which she kept to as if it had been | |
of the utmost importance, although it was of no importance at all: she | |
took just so much good wine, so many cups of tea. Her repasts were as | |
regular as clockwork--never too late, never too early. Her whole life | |
went on velvet, rolling smoothly along, without jar or interruption, | |
blameless, pleasant, kind. People talked of her old age as a model of old | |
age, with no bitterness or sourness in it. And, indeed, why should she | |
have been sour or bitter? It suited her far better to be kind. She was in | |
reality kind to everybody, liking to see pleasant faces about her. The | |
poor had no reason to complain of her; her servants were very | |
comfortable; and the one person in her house who was nearer to her own | |
level, who was her companion and most important minister, was very | |
comfortable too. This was a young woman about twenty, a very distant | |
relation, with "no claim," everybody said, upon her kind mistress and | |
friend,--the daughter of a distant cousin. How very few think anything | |
at all of such a tie! but Lady Mary had taken her young namesake when she | |
was a child, and she had grown up as it were at her godmother's | |
footstool, in the conviction that the measured existence of the old was | |
the rule of life, and that her own trifling personality counted for | |
nothing, or next to nothing, in its steady progress. Her name was Mary | |
too--always called "little Mary" as having once been little, and not yet | |
very much in the matter of size. She was one of the pleasantest things | |
to look at of all the pretty things in Lady Mary's rooms, and she had the | |
most sheltered, peaceful, and pleasant life that could be conceived. The | |
only little thorn in her pillow was, that whereas in the novels, of which | |
she read a great many, the heroines all go and pay visits and have | |
adventures, she had none, but lived constantly at home. There was | |
something much more serious in her life, had she known, which was that | |
she had nothing, and no power of doing anything for herself; that she had | |
all her life been accustomed to a modest luxury which would make poverty | |
very hard to her; and that Lady Mary was over eighty, and had made no | |
will. If she did not make any will, her property would all go to her | |
grandson, who was so rich already that her fortune would be but as a drop | |
in the ocean to him; or to some great-grandchildren of whom she knew very | |
little,--the descendants of a daughter long ago dead who had married an | |
Austrian, and who were therefore foreigners both in birth and name. That | |
she should provide for little Mary was therefore a thing which nature | |
demanded, and which would hurt nobody. She had said so often; but she | |
deferred the doing of it as a thing for which there was no hurry. For why | |
should she die? There seemed no reason or need for it. So long as she | |
lived, nothing could be more sure, more happy and serene, than little | |
Mary's life; and why should she die? She did not perhaps put this into | |
words; but the meaning of her smile, and the manner in which she put | |
aside every suggestion about the chances of the hereafter away from her, | |
said it more clearly than words. It was not that she had any | |
superstitious fear about the making of a will. When the doctor or the | |
vicar or her man of business, the only persons who ever talked to her on | |
the subject, ventured periodically to refer to it, she assented | |
pleasantly,--yes, certainly, she must do it--some time or other. | |
"It is a very simple thing to do," the lawyer said. "I will save you all | |
trouble; nothing but your signature will be wanted--and that you give | |
every day." | |
"Oh, I should think nothing of the trouble!" she said. | |
"And it would liberate your mind from all care, and leave you free to | |
think of things more important still," said the clergyman. | |
"I think I am very free of care," she replied. | |
Then the doctor added bluntly, "And you will not die an hour the sooner | |
for having made your will." | |
"Die!" said Lady Mary, surprised. And then she added, with a smile, "I | |
hope you don't think so little of me as to believe I would be kept back | |
by that?" | |
These gentlemen all consulted together in despair, and asked each other | |
what should be done. They thought her an egotist--a cold-hearted old | |
woman, holding at arm's length any idea of the inevitable. And so she | |
did; but not because she was cold-hearted,--because she was so accustomed | |
to living, and had survived so many calamities, and gone on so long--so | |
long; and because everything was so comfortably arranged about her--all | |
her little habits so firmly established, as if nothing could interfere | |
with them. To think of the day arriving which should begin with some | |
other formula than that of her maid's entrance drawing aside the | |
curtains, lighting the cheerful fire, bringing her a report of the | |
weather; and then the little tray, resplendent with snowy linen and | |
shining silver and china, with its bouquet of violets or a rose in the | |
season, the newspaper carefully dried and cut, the letters,--every detail | |
was so perfect, so unchanging, regular as the morning. It seemed | |
impossible that it should come to an end. And then when she came | |
downstairs, there were all the little articles upon her table always | |
ready to her hand; a certain number of things to do, each at the | |
appointed hour; the slender refreshments it was necessary for her to | |
take, in which there was a little exquisite variety--but never any change | |
in the fact that at eleven and at three and so forth something had to be | |
taken. Had a woman wanted to abandon the peaceful life which was thus | |
supported and carried on, the very framework itself would have resisted. | |
It was impossible (almost) to contemplate the idea that at a given moment | |
the whole machinery must stop. She was neither without heart nor without | |
religion, but on the contrary a good woman, to whom many gentle thoughts | |
had been given at various portions of her career. But the occasion | |
seemed to have passed for that as well as other kinds of emotion. The | |
mere fact of living was enough for her. The little exertion which it was | |
well she was required to make produced a pleasant weariness. It was a | |
duty much enforced upon her by all around her, that she should do nothing | |
which would exhaust or fatigue. "I don't want you to think," even the | |
doctor would say; "you have done enough of thinking in your time." And | |
this she accepted with great composure of spirit. She had thought and | |
felt and done much in her day; but now everything of the kind was over. | |
There was no need for her to fatigue herself; and day followed day, all | |
warm and sheltered and pleasant. People died, it is true, now and then, | |
out of doors; but they were mostly young people, whose death might have | |
been prevented had proper care been taken,--who were seized with violent | |
maladies, or caught sudden infections, or were cut down by accident; all | |
which things seemed natural. Her own contemporaries were very few, and | |
they were like herself--living on in something of the same way. At | |
eighty-five all people under seventy are young; and one's contemporaries | |
are very, very few. | |
Nevertheless these men did disturb her a little about her will. She had | |
made more than one will in the former days during her active life; but | |
all those to whom she had bequeathed her possessions were dead. She had | |
survived them all, and inherited from many of them; which had been a hard | |
thing in its time. One day the lawyer had been more than ordinarily | |
pressing. He had told her stories of men who had died intestate, and left | |
trouble and penury behind them to those whom they would have most wished | |
to preserve from all trouble. It would not have become Mr. Furnival to | |
say brutally to Lady Mary, "This is how you will leave your godchild when | |
you die." But he told her story after story, many of them piteous enough. | |
"People think it is so troublesome a business," he said, "when it is | |
nothing at all--the most easy matter in the world. We are getting so | |
much less particular nowadays about formalities. So long as the | |
testator's intentions are made quite apparent--that is the chief matter, | |
and a very bad thing for us lawyers." | |
"I dare say," said Lady Mary, "it is unpleasant for a man to think of | |
himself as 'the testator.' It is a very abstract title, when you come to | |
think of it." | |
"Pooh'" said Mr. Furnival, who had no sense of humor. | |
"But if this great business is so very simple," she went on, "one could | |
do it, no doubt, for one's self?" | |
"Many people do, but it is never advisable," said the lawyer. "You will | |
say it is natural for me to tell you that. When they do, it should be as | |
simple as possible. I give all my real property, or my personal property, | |
or my share in so-and-so, or my jewels, or so forth, to--whoever it may | |
be. The fewer words the better,--so that nobody may be able to read | |
between the lines, you know,--and the signature attested by two | |
witnesses; but they must not be witnesses that have any interest; that | |
is, that have anything left to them by the document they witness." | |
Lady Mary put up her hand defensively, with a laugh. It was still a most | |
delicate hand, like ivory, a little yellowed with age, but fine, the | |
veins standing out a little upon it, the finger-tips still pink. "You | |
speak," she said, "as if you expected me to take the law in my own hands. | |
No, no, my old friend; never fear, you shall have the doing of it." | |
"Whenever you please, my dear lady--whenever you please. Such a thing | |
cannot be done an hour too soon. Shall I take your instructions now?" | |
Lady Mary laughed, and said, "You were always a very keen man for | |
business. I remember your father used to say, Robert would never neglect | |
an opening." | |
"No," he said, with a peculiar look. "I have always looked after my | |
six-and-eightpences; and in that case it is true, the pounds take care of | |
themselves." | |
"Very good care," said Lady Mary; and then she bade her young companion | |
bring that book she had been reading, where there was something she | |
wanted to show Mr. Furnival. "It is only a case in a novel, but I am sure | |
it is bad law; give me your opinion," she said. | |
He was obliged to be civil, very civil. Nobody is rude to the Lady Marys | |
of life; and besides, she was old enough to have an additional right to | |
every courtesy. But while he sat over the novel, and tried with | |
unnecessary vehemence to make her see what very bad law it was, and | |
glanced from her smiling attention to the innocent sweetness of the girl | |
beside her, who was her loving attendant, the good man's heart was sore. | |
He said many hard things of her in his own mind as he went away. | |
"She will die," he said bitterly. "She will go off in a moment when | |
nobody is looking for it, and that poor child will be left destitute." | |
It was all he could do not to go back and take her by her fragile old | |
shoulders and force her to sign and seal at once. But then he knew very | |
well that as soon as he found himself in her presence, he would of | |
necessity be obliged to subdue his impatience, and be once more civil, | |
very civil, and try to suggest and insinuate the duty which he dared not | |
force upon her. And it was very clear that till she pleased she would | |
take no hint. He supposed it must be that strange reluctance to part with | |
their power which is said to be common to old people, or else that horror | |
of death, and determination to keep it at arm's length, which is also | |
common. Thus he did as spectators are so apt to do, he forced a meaning | |
and motive into what had no motive at all, and imagined Lady Mary, the | |
kindest of women, to be of purpose and intention risking the future of | |
the girl whom she had brought up, and whom she loved,--not with passion, | |
indeed, or anxiety, but with tender benevolence; a theory which was as | |
false as anything could be. | |
That evening in her room, Lady Mary, in a very cheerful mood, sat | |
by a little bright unnecessary fire, with her writing-book before her, | |
waiting till she should be sleepy. It was the only point in which she | |
was a little hard upon her maid, who in every other respect was the | |
best-treated of servants. Lady Mary, as it happened, had often no | |
inclination for bed till the night was far advanced. She slept little, as | |
is common enough at her age. She was in her warm wadded dressing-gown, an | |
article in which she still showed certain traces (which were indeed | |
visible in all she wore) of her ancient beauty, with her white hair | |
becomingly arranged under a cap of cambric and lace. At the last moment, | |
when she had been ready to step into bed, she had changed her mind, and | |
told Jervis that she would write a letter or two first. And she had | |
written her letters, but still felt no inclination to sleep. Then there | |
fluttered across her memory somehow the conversation she had held with | |
Mr. Furnival in the morning. It would be amusing, she thought, to cheat | |
him out of some of those six-and-eightpences he pretended to think so | |
much of. It would be still more amusing, next time the subject of her | |
will was recurred to, to give his arm a little tap with her fan, and say, | |
"Oh, that is all settled, months ago." She laughed to herself at this, | |
and took out a fresh sheet of paper. It was a little jest that pleased | |
her. | |
"Do you think there is any one up yet, Jervis, except you and me?" she | |
said to the maid. Jervis hesitated a little, and then said that she | |
believed Mr. Brown had not gone to bed yet; for he had been going over | |
the cellar, and was making up his accounts. Jervis was so explanatory | |
that her mistress divined what was meant. "I suppose I have been spoiling | |
sport, keeping you here," she said good-humoredly; for it was well known | |
that Miss Jervis and Mr. Brown were engaged, and that they were only | |
waiting (everybody knew but Lady Mary, who never suspected it) the death | |
of their mistress, to set up a lodging-house in Jermyn Street, where they | |
fully intended to make their fortune. "Then go," Lady Mary said, "and | |
call Brown. I have a little business paper to write, and you must both | |
witness my signature." She laughed to herself a little as she said this, | |
thinking how she would steel a march on Mr. Furnival. "I give, and | |
bequeath," she said to herself playfully, after Jervis had hurried away. | |
She fully intended to leave both of these good servants something, but | |
then she recollected that people who are interested in a will cannot sign | |
as witnesses. "What does it matter?" she said to herself gayly; "If it | |
ever should be wanted, Mary would see to that." Accordingly she dashed | |
off, in her pretty, old-fashioned handwriting, which was very angular and | |
pointed, as was the fashion in her day, and still very clear, though | |
slightly tremulous, a few lines, in which, remembering playfully Mr. | |
Furnival's recommendation of "few words," she left to little Mary all she | |
possessed, adding, by the prompting of that recollection about the | |
witnesses, "She will take care of the servants." It filled one side only | |
of the large sheet of notepaper, which was what Lady Mary habitually | |
used. Brown, introduced timidly by Jervis, and a little overawed by the | |
solemnity of the bedchamber, came in and painted solidly his large | |
signature after the spidery lines of his mistress. She had folded down | |
the paper, so that neither saw what it was. | |
"Now I will go to bed," Lady Mary said, when Brown had left the room. | |
"And Jervis, you must go to bed too." | |
"Yes, my lady," said Jervis. | |
"I don't approve of courtship at this hour." | |
"No, my lady," Jervis replied, deprecating and disappointed. | |
"Why cannot he tell his tale in daylight?" | |
"Oh, my lady, there's no tale to tell," cried the maid. "We are not of | |
the gossiping sort, my lady, neither me nor Mr. Brown." Lady Mary | |
laughed, and watched while the candles were put out, the fire made a | |
pleasant flicker in the room,--it was autumn and still warm, and it was | |
"for company" and cheerfulness that the little fire was lit; she liked to | |
see it dancing and flickering upon the walls,--and then closed her eyes | |
amid an exquisite softness of comfort and luxury, life itself bearing her | |
up as softly, filling up all the crevices as warmly, as the downy pillow | |
upon which she rested her still beautiful old head. | |
If she had died that night! The little sheet of paper that meant so much | |
lay openly, innocently, in her writing-book, along with the letters she | |
had written, and looking of as little importance as they. There was | |
nobody in the world who grudged old Lady Mary one of those pretty placid | |
days of hers. Brown and Jervis, if they were sometimes a little | |
impatient, consoled each other that they were both sure of something in | |
her will, and that in the mean time it was a very good place. And all the | |
rest would have been very well content that Lady Mary should live | |
forever. But how wonderfully it would have simplified everything, and how | |
much trouble and pain it would have saved to everybody, herself included, | |
could she have died that night! | |
But naturally, there was no question of dying on that night. When she was | |
about to go downstairs, next day, Lady Mary, giving her letters to be | |
posted, saw the paper she had forgotten lying beside them. She had | |
forgotten all about it, but the sight of it made her smile. She folded | |
it up and put it in an envelope while Jervis went down-stairs with the | |
letters; and then, to carry out her joke, she looked round her to see | |
where she would put it. There was an old Italian cabinet in the room, | |
with a secret drawer, which it was a little difficult to open,--almost | |
impossible for any one who did not know the secret. Lady Mary looked | |
round her, smiled, hesitated a little, and then walked across the room | |
and put the envelope in the secret drawer. She was still fumbling with it | |
when Jervis came back; but there was no connection in Jervis's mind, then | |
or ever after, between the paper she had signed and this old cabinet, | |
which was one of the old lady's toys. She arranged Lady Mary's shawl, | |
which had dropped off her shoulders a little in her unusual activity, | |
and took up her book and her favorite cushion, and all the little | |
paraphernalia that moved with her, and gave her lady her arm to go | |
down-stairs; where little Mary had placed her chair just at the right | |
angle, and arranged the little table, on which there were so many little | |
necessaries and conveniences, and was standing smiling, the prettiest | |
object of all, the climax of the gentle luxury and pleasantness, to | |
receive her godmother, who had been her providence all her life. | |
But what a pity! oh, what a pity, that she had not died that night! | |
II. | |
Life went on after this without any change. There was never any change in | |
that delightful house; and if it was years, or months, or even days, the | |
youngest of its inhabitants could scarcely tell, and Lady Mary could not | |
tell at all. This was one of her little imperfections,--a little mist | |
which hung, like the lace about her head, over her memory. She could not | |
remember how time went, or that there was any difference between one day | |
and another. There were Sundays, it was true, which made a kind of gentle | |
measure of the progress of time; but she said, with a smile, that she | |
thought it was always Sunday--they came so close upon each other. And | |
time flew on gentle wings, that made no sound and left no reminders. She | |
had her little ailments like anybody, but in reality less than anybody, | |
seeing there was nothing to fret her, nothing to disturb the even tenor | |
of her days. Still there were times when she took a little cold, or got a | |
chill, in spite of all precautions, as she went from one room to another. | |
She came to be one of the marvels of the time,--an old lady who had seen | |
everybody worth seeing for generations back; who remembered as distinctly | |
as if they had happened yesterday, great events that had taken place | |
before the present age began at all, before the great statesmen of our | |
time were born; and in full possession of all her faculties, as everybody | |
said, her mind as clear as ever, her intelligence as active, reading | |
everything, interested in everything, and still beautiful, in extreme old | |
age. Everybody about her, and in particular all the people who helped to | |
keep the thorns from her path, and felt themselves to have a hand in her | |
preservation, were proud of Lady Mary and she was perhaps a little, a | |
very little, delightfully, charmingly, proud of herself. The doctor, | |
beguiled by professional vanity, feeling what a feather she was in his | |
cap, quite confident that she would reach her hundredth birthday, and | |
with an ecstatic hope that even, by grace of his admirable treatment and | |
her own beautiful constitution, she might (almost) solve the problem and | |
live forever, gave up troubling about the will which at a former period | |
he had taken so much interest in. "What is the use?" he said; "she will | |
see us all out." And the vicar, though he did not give in to this, was | |
overawed by the old lady, who knew everything that could be taught her, | |
and to whom it seemed an impertinence to utter commonplaces about duty, | |
or even to suggest subjects of thought. Mr. Furnival was the only man who | |
did not cease his representations, and whose anxiety about the young | |
Mary, who was so blooming and sweet in the shadow of the old, did not | |
decrease. But the recollection of the bit of paper in the secret drawer | |
of the cabinet, fortified his old client against all his attacks. She had | |
intended it only as a jest, with which some day or other to confound him, | |
and show how much wiser she was than he supposed. It became quite a | |
pleasant subject of thought to her, at which she laughed to herself. Some | |
day, when she had a suitable moment, she would order him to come with all | |
his formalities, and then produce her bit of paper, and turn the laugh | |
against him. But oddly, the very existence of that little document kept | |
her indifferent even to the laugh. It was too much trouble; she only | |
smiled at him, and took no more notice, amused to think how astonished | |
he would be,--when, if ever, he found it out. | |
It happened, however, that one day in the early winter the wind changed | |
when Lady Mary was out for her drive; at least they all vowed the wind | |
changed. It was in the south, that genial quarter, when she set out, but | |
turned about in some uncomfortable way, and was a keen northeaster when | |
she came back. And in the moment of stepping from the carriage, she | |
caught a chill. It was the coachman's fault, Jervis said, who allowed the | |
horses to make a step forward when Lady Mary was getting out, and kept | |
her exposed, standing on the step of the carriage, while he pulled them | |
up; and it was Jervis's fault, the footman said, who was not clever | |
enough to get her lady out, or even to throw a shawl round her when she | |
perceived how the weather had changed. It is always some one's fault, or | |
some unforeseen, unprecedented change, that does it at the last. Lady | |
Mary was not accustomed to be ill, and did not bear it with her usual | |
grace. She was a little impatient at first, and thought they were making | |
an unnecessary fuss. But then there passed a few uncomfortable feverish | |
days, when she began to look forward to the doctor's visit as the only | |
thing there was any comfort in. Afterwards she passed a night of a very | |
agitating kind. She dozed and dreamed, and awoke and dreamed again. Her | |
life seemed all to run into dreams,--a strange confusion was about her, | |
through which she could define nothing. Once waking up, as she supposed, | |
she saw a group round her bed, the doctor,--with a candle in his hand, | |
(how should the doctor be there in the middle of the night?) holding her | |
hand or feeling her pulse; little Mary at one side, crying,--why should | |
the child cry?--and Jervis, very, anxious, pouring something into a | |
glass. There were other faces there which she was sure must have come out | |
of a dream,--so unlikely was it that they should be collected in her | |
bedchamber,--and all with a sort of halo of feverish light about them; a | |
magnified and mysterious importance. This strange scene, which she did | |
not understand, seemed to make itself visible all in a moment out of the | |
darkness, and then disappeared again as suddenly as it came. | |
III. | |
When she woke again, it was morning; and her first waking consciousness | |
was, that she must be much better. The choking sensation in her throat | |
was altogether gone. She had no desire to cough--no difficulty in | |
breathing. She had a fancy, however, that she must be still dreaming, | |
for she felt sure that some one had called her by her name, "Mary." | |
Now all who could call her by her Christian name were dead years ago; | |
therefore it must be a dream. However, in a short time it was | |
repeated,--"Mary, Mary! get up; there is a great deal to do." This voice | |
confused her greatly. Was it possible that all that was past had been | |
mere fancy, that she had but dreamed those long, long years,--maturity | |
and motherhood, and trouble and triumph, and old age at the end of all? | |
It seemed to her possible that she might have dreamed the rest,--for she | |
had been a girl much given to visions,--but she said to herself that she | |
never could have dreamed old age. And then with a smile she mused, and | |
thought that it must be the voice that was a dream; for how could she | |
get up without Jervis, who had never appeared yet to draw the curtains or | |
make the fire? Jervis perhaps had sat up late. She remembered now to have | |
seen her that time in the middle of the night by her bedside; so that it | |
was natural enough, poor thing, that she should be late. Get up! who was | |
it that was calling to her so? She had not been so called to, she who had | |
always been a great lady, since she was a girl by her mother's side. | |
"Mary, Mary!" It was a very curious dream. And what was more curious | |
still was, that by-and-by she could not keep still any longer, but got up | |
without thinking any more of Jervis, and going out of her room came all | |
at once into the midst of a company of people, all very busy; whom she | |
was much surprised to find, at first, but whom she soon accustomed | |
herself to, finding the greatest interest in their proceedings, and | |
curious to know what they were doing. They, for their part, did not seem | |
at all surprised by her appearance, nor did any one stop to explain, as | |
would have been natural; but she took this with great composure, somewhat | |
astonished, perhaps, being used, wherever she went, to a great many | |
observances and much respect, but soon, very soon, becoming used to it. | |
Then some one repeated what she had heard before. "It is time you got | |
up,--for there is a great deal to do." | |
"To do," she said, "for me?" and then she looked round upon them with | |
that charming smile which had subjugated so many. "I am afraid," she | |
said, "you will find me of very little use. I am too old now, if ever I | |
could have done much, for work." | |
"Oh no, you are not old,--you will do very well," some one said. | |
"Not old!"--Lady Mary felt a little offended in spite of herself. | |
"Perhaps I like flattery as well as my neighbors," she said with dignity, | |
"but then it must be reasonable. To say I am anything but a very old | |
woman--" | |
Here she paused a little, perceiving for the first time, with surprise, | |
that she was standing and walking without her stick or the help of any | |
one's arm, quite freely and at her ease, and that the place in which she | |
was had expanded into a great place like a gallery in a palace, instead | |
of the room next her own into which she had walked a few minutes ago; but | |
this discovery did not at all affect her mind, or occupy her except with | |
the most passing momentary surprise. | |
"The fact is, I feel a great deal better and stronger," she said. | |
"Quite well, Mary, and stronger than ever you were before?" | |
"Who is it that calls me Mary? I have had nobody for a long time to call | |
me Mary; the friends of my youth are all dead. I think that you must be | |
right, although the doctor, I feel sure, thought me very bad last night. | |
I should have got alarmed if I had not fallen asleep again." | |
"And then woke up well?" | |
"Quite well: it is wonderful, but quite true. You seem to know a great | |
deal about me." | |
"I know everything about you. You have had a very pleasant life, and do | |
you think you have made the best of it? Your old age has been very | |
pleasant." | |
"Ah! you acknowledge that I am old, then?" cried Lady Mary with a smile. | |
"You are old no longer, and you are a great lady no longer. Don't you see | |
that something has happened to you? It is seldom that such a great change | |
happens without being found out." | |
"Yes; it is true I have got better all at once. I feel an extraordinary | |
renewal of strength. I seem to have left home without knowing it; none of | |
my people seem near me. I feel very much as if I had just awakened from a | |
long dream. Is it possible," she said, with a wondering look, "that I | |
have dreamed all my life, and after all am just a girl at home?" The idea | |
was ludicrous, and she laughed. "You see I am very much improved indeed," | |
she said. | |
She was still so far from perceiving the real situation, that some one | |
came towards her out of the group of people about--some one whom she | |
recognized--with the evident intention of explaining to her how it was. | |
She started a little at the sight of him, and held out her hand, and | |
cried: "You here! I am very glad to see you--doubly glad, since I was | |
told a few days ago that you had--died." | |
There was something in this word as she herself pronounced it that | |
troubled her a little. She had never been one of those who are afraid of | |
death. On the contrary, she had always taken a great interest in it, and | |
liked to hear everything that could be told her on the subject. It gave | |
her now, however, a curious little thrill of sensation, which she did not | |
understand: she hoped it was not superstition. | |
"You have guessed rightly," he said, "quite right. That is one of the | |
words with a false meaning, which is to us a mere symbol of something we | |
cannot understand. But you see what it means now." | |
It was a great shock, it need not be concealed. Otherwise, she had been | |
quite pleasantly occupied with the interest of something new, into which | |
she had walked so easily out of her own bedchamber, without any trouble, | |
and with the delightful new sensation of health and strength. But when it | |
flashed upon her that she was not to go back to her bedroom again, nor | |
have any of those cares and attentions which had seemed necessary to | |
existence, she was very much startled and shaken. Died? Was it possible | |
that she personally had died? She had known it was a thing that happened | |
to everybody; but yet--And it was a solemn matter, to be prepared for, | |
and looked forward to, whereas--"If you mean that I too--" she said, | |
faltering a little; and then she added, "it is very surprising," with a | |
trouble in her mind which yet was not all trouble. "If that is so, it is | |
a thing well over. And it is very wonderful how much disturbance people | |
give themselves about it--if this is all." | |
"This is not all, however," her friend said; "you have an ordeal before | |
you which you will not find pleasant. You are going to think about your | |
life, and all that was imperfect in it, and which might have been done | |
better." | |
"We are none of us perfect," said Lady Mary, with a little of that | |
natural resentment with which one hears one's self accused,--however | |
ready one may be to accuse one's self. | |
"Permit me," said he, and took her hand and led her away without further | |
explanation. The people about were so busy with their own occupations | |
that they took very little notice; neither did she pay much attention to | |
the manner in which they were engaged. Their looks were friendly when | |
they met her eye, and she too felt friendly, with a sense of brotherhood. | |
But she had always been a kind woman. She wanted to step aside and help, | |
on more than one occasion, when it seemed to her that some people in her | |
way had a task above their powers; but this her conductor would not | |
permit. And she endeavored to put some questions to him as they went | |
along, with still less success. | |
"The change is very confusing," she said; "one has no standard to judge | |
by. I should like to know something about--the kind of people--and | |
the--manner of life." | |
"For a time," he said, "you will have enough to do, without troubling | |
yourself about that." | |
This naturally produced an uneasy sensation in her mind. "I suppose," she | |
said, rather timidly, "that we are not in--what we have been accustomed | |
to call heaven?" | |
"That is a word," he said, "which expresses rather a condition than a | |
place." | |
"But there must be a place--in which that condition can exist." She had | |
always been fond of discussions of this kind, and felt encouraged to find | |
that they were still practicable. "It cannot be the--Inferno; that is | |
clear, at least," she added, with the sprightliness which was one of her | |
characteristics; "perhaps--Purgatory? since you infer I have something to | |
endure." | |
"Words are interchangeable," he said: "that means one thing to one of us | |
which to another has a totally different signification." There was | |
something so like his old self in this, that she laughed with an | |
irresistible sense of amusement. | |
"You were always fond of the oracular," she said. She was conscious that | |
on former occasions, if he made such a speech to her, though she would | |
have felt the same amusement, she would not have expressed it so frankly. | |
But he did not take it at all amiss. And her thoughts went on in other | |
directions. She felt herself saying over to herself the words of the old | |
north-country dirge, which came to her recollection she knew not how-- | |
If hosen and shoon thou gavest nane, | |
The whins shall prick thee intil the bane. | |
When she saw that her companion heard her, she asked, "Is that true?" | |
He shook his head a little. "It is too matter of fact," he said, "as I | |
need hardly tell you. Hosen and shoon are good, but they do not always | |
sufficiently indicate the state of the heart." | |
Lady Mary had a consciousness, which was pleasant to her, that so far as | |
the hosen and shoon went, she had abundant means of preparing herself for | |
the pricks of any road, however rough; but she had no time to indulge | |
this pleasing reflection, for she was shortly introduced into a great | |
building, full of innumerable rooms, in one of which her companion left | |
her. | |
IV. | |
The door opened, and she felt herself free to come out. How long she had | |
been there, or what passed there, is not for any one to say. She came out | |
tingling and smarting--if such words can be used--with an intolerable | |
recollection of the last act of her life. So intolerable was it that all | |
that had gone before, and all the risings up of old errors and visions | |
long dead, were forgotten in the sharp and keen prick of this, which was | |
not over and done like the rest. No one had accused her, or brought | |
before her judge the things that were against her. She it was who had | |
done it all,--she, whose memory did not spare her one fault, who | |
remembered everything. But when she came to that last frivolity of her | |
old age, and saw for the first time how she had played with the future | |
of the child whom she had brought up, and abandoned to the hardest | |
fate,--for nothing, for folly, for a jest,--the horror and bitterness of | |
the thought filled her mind to overflowing. In the first anguish of that | |
recollection she had to go forth, receiving no word of comfort in respect | |
to it, meeting only with a look of sadness and compassion, which went to | |
her very heart. She came forth as if she had been driven away, but not by | |
any outward influence, by the force of her own miserable sensations. "I | |
will write," she said to herself, "and tell them; I will go--" And then | |
she stopped short, remembering that she could neither go nor write,--that | |
all communication with the world she had left was closed. Was it all | |
closed? Was there no way in which a message could reach those who | |
remained behind? She caught the first passer-by whom she passed, and | |
addressed him piteously. "Oh, tell me,--you have been longer here than | |
I,--cannot one send a letter, a message, if it were only a single word?" | |
"Where?" he said, stopping and listening; so that it began to seem | |
possible to her that some such expedient might still be within her reach. | |
"It is to England," she said, thinking he meant to ask as to which | |
quarter of the world. | |
"Ah," he said, shaking his head, "I fear that it is impossible." | |
"But it is to set something right, which out of mere inadvertence, with | |
no ill meaning,"--No, no (she repeated to herself), no ill-meaning--none! | |
"Oh sir, for charity! tell me how I can find a way. There must--there | |
must be some way." | |
He was greatly moved by the sight of her distress. "I am but a stranger | |
here," he said; "I may be wrong. There are others who can tell you | |
better; but"--and he shook his head sadly--"most of us would be so | |
thankful, if we could, to send a word, if it were only a single word, to | |
those we have left behind, that I fear, I fear--" | |
"Ah!" cried Lady Mary, "but that would be only for the tenderness; | |
whereas this is for justice and for pity, and to do away with a great | |
wrong which I did before I came here." | |
"I am very sorry for you," he said; but shook his head once more as he | |
went away. She was more careful next time, and chose one who had the look | |
of much experience and knowledge of the place. He listened to her very | |
gravely, and answered yes, that he was one of the officers, and could | |
tell her whatever she wanted to know; but when she told him what she | |
wanted, he too shook his head. "I do not say it cannot be done," he said. | |
"There are some cases in which it has been successful, but very few. It | |
has often been attempted. There is no law against it. Those who do it do | |
it at their own risk. They suffer much, and almost always they fail." | |
"No, oh no! You said there were some who succeeded. No one can be more | |
anxious than I. I will give--anything--everything I have in the world!" | |
He gave her a smile, which was very grave nevertheless, and full of pity. | |
"You forget," he said, "that you have nothing to give; and if you had, | |
that there is no one here to whom it would be of any value." | |
Though she was no longer old and weak, yet she was still a woman, and she | |
began to weep, in the terrible failure and contrariety of all things; but | |
yet she would not yield. She cried: "There must be some one here who | |
would do it for love. I have had people who loved me in my time. I must | |
have some here who have not forgotten me. Ah! I know what you would say. | |
I lived so long I forgot them all, and why should they remember me?" | |
Here she was touched on the arm, and looking round, saw close to her the | |
face of one whom, it was very true, she had forgotten. She remembered him | |
but dimly after she had looked long at him. A little group had gathered | |
about her, with grieved looks, to see her distress. He who had touched | |
her was the spokesman of them all. | |
"There is nothing I would not do," he said, "for you and for love." | |
And then they all sighed, surrounding her, and added, "But it is | |
impossible--impossible!" | |
She stood and gazed at them, recognizing by degrees faces that she knew, | |
and seeing in all that look of grief and sympathy which makes all human | |
souls brothers. Impossible was not a word that had been often said to be | |
in her life; and to come out of a world in which everything could be | |
changed, everything communicated in the twinkling of an eye, and find a | |
dead blank before her and around her, through which not a word could go, | |
was more terrible than can be said in words. She looked piteously upon | |
them, with that anguish of helplessness which goes to every heart, and | |
cried, "What is impossible? To send a word--only a word--to set right | |
what is wrong? Oh, I understand," she said, lifting up her hands. "I | |
understand that to send messages of comfort must not be; that the people | |
who love you must bear it, as we all have done in our time, and trust | |
to God for consolation. But I have done a wrong! Oh, listen, listen to | |
me, my friends. I have left a child, a young creature, unprovided | |
for--without any one to help her. And must that be? Must she bear it, and | |
I bear it, forever, and no means, no way of setting it right? Listen to | |
me! I was there last night,--in the middle of the night I was still | |
there,--and here this morning. So it must be easy to come--only a short | |
way; and two words would be enough,--only two words!" | |
They gathered closer and closer round her, full of compassion. "It is | |
easy to come," they said, "but not to go." | |
And one added, "It will not be forever; comfort yourself. When she comes | |
here, or to a better place, that will seem to you only as a day. | |
"But to her," cried Lady Mary,--"to her it will be long years--it will be | |
trouble and sorrow; and she will think I took no thought for her; and she | |
will be right," the penitent said with a great and bitter cry. | |
It was so terrible that they were all silent, and said not a | |
word,--except the man who had loved her, who put his hand upon her arm, | |
and said, "We are here for that; this is the fire that purges us,--to see | |
at last what we have done, and the true aspect of it, and to know the | |
cruel wrong, yet never be able to make amends." | |
She remembered then that this was a man who had neglected all lawful | |
affections, and broken the hearts of those who trusted him for her sake; | |
and for a moment she forgot her own burden in sorrow for his. | |
It was now that he who had called himself one of the officers came | |
forward again; for the little crowd had gathered round her so closely | |
that he had been shut out. He said, "No one can carry your message for | |
you; that is not permitted. But there is still a possibility. You | |
may have permission to go yourself. Such things have been done, though | |
they have not often been successful. But if you will--" | |
She shivered when she heard him; and it became apparent to her why no one | |
could be found to go,--for all her nature revolted from that step, which | |
it was evident must be the most terrible which could be thought of. She | |
looked at him with troubled, beseeching eyes, and the rest all looked at | |
her, pitying and trying to soothe her. | |
"Permission will not be refused," he said, "for a worthy cause." | |
Upon which the others all spoke together, entreating her. "Already," they | |
cried, "they have forgotten you living. You are to them one who is dead. | |
They will be afraid of you if they can see you. Oh, go not back! Be | |
content to wait,--to wait; it is only a little while. The life of man is | |
nothing; it appears for a little time, and then it vanishes away. And | |
when she comes here she will know,--or in a better place." They sighed as | |
they named the better place; though some smiled too, feeling perhaps | |
more near to it. | |
Lady Mary listened to them all, but she kept her eyes upon the face of | |
him who offered her this possibility. There passed through her mind a | |
hundred stories she had heard of those who had _gone back_. But not one | |
that spoke of them as welcome, as received with joy, as comforting those | |
they loved. Ah no! was it not rather a curse upon the house to which they | |
came? The rooms were shut up, the houses abandoned, where they were | |
supposed to appear. Those whom they had loved best feared and fled them. | |
They were a vulgar wonder,--a thing that the poorest laughed at, yet | |
feared. Poor, banished souls! it was because no one would listen to them | |
that they had to linger and wait, and come and go. She shivered, and in | |
spite of her longing and her repentance, a cold dread and horror took | |
possession of her. She looked round upon her companions for comfort, and | |
found none. | |
"Do not go," they said; "do not go. We have endured like you. We wait | |
till all things are made clear." | |
And another said, "All will be made clear. It is but for a time." | |
She turned from one to another, and back again to the first speaker,--he | |
who had authority. | |
He said, "It is very rarely successful; it <DW44>s the course of your | |
penitence. It is an indulgence, and it may bring harm and not good but if | |
the meaning is generous and just, permission will be given, and you may | |
go." | |
Then all the strength of her nature rose in her. She thought of the child | |
forsaken, and of the dark world round her, where she would find so few | |
friends; and of the home shut up in which she had lived her young and | |
pleasant life; and of the thoughts that must rise in her heart, as though | |
she were forsaken and abandoned of God and man. Then Lady Mary turned to | |
the man who had authority. She said, "If he whom I saw to-day will give | |
me his blessing, I will go--" and they all pressed round her, weeping and | |
kissing her hands. | |
"He will not refuse his blessing," they said; "but the way is terrible, | |
and you are still weak. How can you encounter all the misery of it? He | |
commands no one to try that dark and dreadful way." | |
"I will try," Lady Mary said. | |
V. | |
The night which Lady Mary had been conscious of, in a momentary glimpse | |
full of the exaggeration of fever, had not indeed been so expeditious | |
as she believed. The doctor, it is true, had been pronouncing her | |
death-warrant when she saw him holding her wrist, and wondered what he | |
did there in the middle of the night; but she had been very ill before | |
this, and the conclusion of her life had been watched with many tears. | |
Then there had risen up a wonderful commotion in the house, of which | |
little Mary, her godchild, was very little sensible. Had she left any | |
will, any instructions, the slightest indication of what she wished to be | |
done after her death? Mr. Furnival, who had been very anxious to be | |
allowed to see her, even in the last days of her illness, said | |
emphatically, no. She had never executed any will, never made any | |
disposition of her affairs, he said, almost with bitterness, in the | |
tone of one who is ready to weep with vexation and distress. The vicar | |
took a more hopeful view. He said it was impossible that so considerate | |
a person could have done this, and that there must, he was sure, be | |
found somewhere, if close examination was made, a memorandum, a | |
letter,--something which should show what she wished; for she must have | |
known very well, notwithstanding all flatteries and compliments upon her | |
good looks, that from day to day her existence was never to be calculated | |
upon. The doctor did not share this last opinion. He said that there was | |
no fathoming the extraordinary views that people took of their own case; | |
and that it was quite possible, though it seemed incredible, that Lady | |
Mary might really be as little expectant of death, on the way to | |
ninety, as a girl of seventeen; but still he was of opinion that she | |
might have left a memorandum somewhere. | |
These three gentlemen were in the foreground of affairs; because she had | |
no relations to step in and take the management. The earl, her grandson, | |
was abroad, and there were only his solicitors to interfere on his | |
behalf, men to whom Lady Mary's fortune was quite unimportant, although | |
it was against their principles to let anything slip out of their hands | |
that could aggrandize their client; but who knew nothing about the | |
circumstances,--about little Mary, about the old lady's peculiarities, in | |
any way. Therefore the persons who had surrounded her in her life, and | |
Mr. Furnival, her man of business, were the persons who really had the | |
management of everything. Their wives interfered a little too, or rather | |
the one wife who only could do so,--the wife of the vicar, who came in | |
beneficently at once, and took poor little Mary, in her first desolation, | |
out of the melancholy house. Mrs. Vicar did this without any hesitation, | |
knowing very well that, in all probability, Lady Mary had made no will, | |
and consequently that the poor girl was destitute. A great deal is said | |
about the hardness of the world, and the small consideration that is | |
shown for a destitute dependent in such circumstances. But this is not | |
true; and, as a matter of fact, there is never, or very rarely, such | |
profound need in the world, without a great deal of kindness and much | |
pity. The three gentlemen all along had been entirely in Mary's interest. | |
They had not expected legacies from the old lady, or any advantage to | |
themselves. It was of the girl that they had thought. And when now they | |
examined everything and inquired into all her ways and what she had done, | |
it was of Mary they were thinking. But Mr. Furnival was very certain of | |
his point. He knew that Lady Mary had made no will; time after time he | |
had pressed it upon her. He was very sure, even while he examined her | |
writing-table, and turned out all the drawers, that nothing would be | |
found. The little Italian cabinet had _chiffons_ in its drawers, | |
fragments of old lace, pieces of ribbon, little nothings of all sorts. | |
Nobody thought of the secret drawer; and if they had thought of it, where | |
could a place have been found less likely? If she had ever made a will, | |
she could have had no reason for concealing it. To be sure, they did | |
not reason in this way, being simply unaware of any place of concealment | |
at all. And Mary knew nothing about this search they were making. She did | |
not know how she was herself "left." When the first misery of grief was | |
exhausted, she began, indeed, to have troubled thoughts in her own | |
mind,--to expect that the vicar would speak to her, or Mr. Furnival send | |
for her, and tell her what she was to do. But nothing was said to her. | |
The vicar's wife had asked her to come for a long visit; and the anxious | |
people, who were forever talking over this subject and consulting what | |
was best for her, had come to no decision as yet, as to what must be said | |
to the person chiefly concerned. It was too heart-rending to have to put | |
the real state of affairs before her. | |
The doctor had no wife; but he had an anxious mother, who, though she | |
would not for the world have been unkind to the poor girl, yet was very | |
anxious that she should be disposed of and out of her son's way. It is | |
true that the doctor was forty and Mary only eighteen,--but what then? | |
Matches of that kind were seen every day; and his heart was so soft to | |
the child that his mother never knew from one day to another what might | |
happen. She had naturally no doubt at all that Mary would seize the first | |
hand held out to her; and as time went on, held many an anxious | |
consultation with the vicar's wife on the subject. "You cannot have her | |
with you forever," she said. "She must know one time or another how she | |
is left, and that she must learn to do something for herself." | |
"Oh," said the vicar's wife, "how is she to be told? It is heart-rending | |
to look at her and to think,--nothing but luxury all her life, and now, | |
in a moment, destitution. I am very glad to have her with me: she is a | |
dear little thing, and so nice with the children. And if some good | |
man would only step in--" | |
The doctor's mother trembled; for that a good man should step in was | |
exactly what she feared. "That is a thing that can never be depended | |
upon," she said; "and marriages made out of compassion are just as bad as | |
mercenary marriages. Oh no, my dear Mrs. Bowyer, Mary has a great deal of | |
character. You should put more confidence in her than that. No doubt she | |
will be much cast down at first, but when she knows, she will rise to the | |
occasion and show what is in her." | |
"Poor little thing! what is in a girl of eighteen, and one that has lain | |
on the roses and fed on the lilies all her life? Oh, I could find it in | |
my heart to say a great deal about old Lady Mary that would not be | |
pleasant! Why did she bring her up so if she did not mean to provide for | |
her? I think she must have been at heart a wicked old woman." | |
"Oh no! we must not say that. I dare say, as my son says, she always | |
meant to do it sometime-" | |
"Sometime! how long did she expect to live, I wonder?" | |
"Well," said the doctor's mother, "it is wonderful how little old one | |
feels sometimes within one's self, even when one is well up in years." | |
She was of the faction of the old, instead of being like Mrs. Bowyer, who | |
was not much over thirty, of the faction of the young. She could make | |
excuses for Lady Mary; but she thought that it was unkind to bring the | |
poor little girl here in ignorance of her real position, and in the way | |
of men who, though old enough to know better, were still capable of | |
folly,--as what man is not, when a girl of eighteen is concerned? "I | |
hope," she added, "that the earl will do something for her. Certainly he | |
ought to, when he knows all that his grandmother did, and what her | |
intentions must have been. He ought to make her a little allowance; that | |
is the least he can do,--not, to be sure, such a provision as we all | |
hoped Lady Mary was going to make for her, but enough to live upon. Mr. | |
Furnival, I believe, has written to him to that effect." | |
"Hush!" cried the vicar's wife; indeed she had been making signs to the | |
other lady, who stood with her back to the door, for some moments. Mary | |
had come in while this conversation was going on. She had not paid any | |
attention to it; and yet her ear had been caught by the names of Lady | |
Mary, and the earl, and Mr. Furnival. For whom was it that the earl | |
should make an allowance enough to live upon? whom Lady Mary had not | |
provided for, and whom Mr. Furnival had written about? When she sat down | |
to the needle-work in which she was helping Mrs. Vicar, it was not to be | |
supposed that she should not ponder these words,--for some time very | |
vaguely, not perceiving the meaning of them; and then with a start she | |
woke up to perceive that there must be something meant, some one,--even | |
some one she knew. And then the needle dropped out of the girl's hand, | |
and the pinafore she was making fell on the floor. Some one! it must be | |
herself they meant! Who but she could be the subject of that earnest | |
conversation? She began to remember a great many conversations as | |
earnest, which had been stopped when she came into the room, and the | |
looks of pity which had been bent upon her. She had thought in her | |
innocence that this was because she had lost her godmother, her | |
protectress,--and had been very grateful for the kindness of her friends. | |
But now another meaning came into everything. Mrs. Bowyer had accompanied | |
her visitor to the door, still talking, and when she returned her face | |
was very grave. But she smiled when she met Mary's look, and said | |
cheerfully,-- | |
"How kind of you, my dear, to make all those pinafores for me! The little | |
ones will not know themselves. They never were so fine before." | |
"Oh, Mrs. Bowyer," cried the girl, "I have guessed something! and I want | |
you to tell me! Are you keeping me for charity, and is it I that am | |
left--without any provision, and that Mr. Furnival has written--" | |
She could not finish her sentence, for it was very bitter to her, as may | |
be supposed. | |
"I don't know what you mean, my dear," cried the vicar's wife. | |
"Charity,--well, I suppose that is the same as love,--at least it is so in | |
the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians. You are staying with us, I hope, for | |
love, if that is what you mean." | |
Upon which she took the girl in her arms and kissed her, and cried, as | |
women must. "My dearest," she said, "as you have guessed the worst, it is | |
better to tell you. Lady Mary--I don't know why; oh, I don't wish to | |
blame her--has left no will; and, my dear, my dear, you who have been | |
brought up in luxury, you have not a penny." Here the vicar's wife gave | |
Mary a closer hug, and kissed her once more. "We love you all the | |
better,--if that was possible," she said. | |
How many thoughts will fly through a girl's mind while her head rests on | |
some kind shoulder, and she is being consoled for the first calamity that | |
has touched her life! She was neither ungrateful nor unresponsive; but | |
as Mrs. Bowyer pressed her close to her kind breast and cried over her, | |
Mary did not cry, but thought,--seeing in a moment a succession of | |
scenes, and realizing in a moment so complete a new world, that all her | |
pain was quelled by the hurry and rush in her brain as her forces rallied | |
to sustain her. She withdrew from her kind support after a moment, with | |
eyes tearless and shining, the color mounting to her face, and not a sign | |
of discouragement in her, nor yet of sentiment, though she grasped her | |
kind friend's hands with a pressure which her innocent small fingers | |
seemed incapable of giving. "One has read of such things--in books," she | |
said, with a faint courageous smile; "and I suppose they happen,--in | |
life." | |
"Oh, my dear, too often in life. Though how people can be so cruel, so | |
indifferent, so careless of the happiness of those they love--" | |
Here Mary pressed her friend's hands till they hurt, and cried, "Not | |
cruel, not indifferent. I cannot hear a word--" | |
"Well, dear, it is like you to feel so,--I knew you would; and I will not | |
say a word. Oh, Mary, if she ever thinks of such things now--" | |
"I hope she will not--I hope she cannot!" cried the girl, with once more | |
a vehement pressure of her friend's hands. | |
"What is that?" Mrs. Bowyer said, looking round. "It is somebody in the | |
next room, I suppose. No, dear, I hope so too, for she would not be happy | |
if she remembered. Mary, dry your eyes, my dear. Try not to think of | |
this. I am sure there is some one in the next room. And you must try not | |
to look wretched, for all our sakes--" | |
"Wretched!" cried Mary, springing up. "I am not wretched." And she turned | |
with a countenance glowing and full of courage to the door. But there was | |
no one there,--no visitor lingering in the smaller room as sometimes | |
happened. | |
"I thought I heard some one come in," said the vicar's wife. "Didn't you | |
hear something, Mary? I suppose it is because I am so agitated with all | |
this, but I could have sworn I heard some one come in." | |
"There is nobody," said Mary, who, in the shock of the calamity which had | |
so suddenly changed the world to her, was perfectly calm. She did not | |
feel at all disposed to cry or "give way." It went to her head with a | |
thrill of pain, which was excitement as well, like a strong stimulant | |
suddenly applied; and she added, "I should like to go out a little, if | |
you don't mind, just to get used to the idea." | |
"My dear, I will get my hat in a moment--" | |
"No, please. It is not unkindness; but I must think it over by | |
myself,--by myself," Mary cried. She hurried away, while Mrs. Bowyer took | |
another survey of the outer room, and called the servant to know who had | |
been calling. Nobody had been calling, the maid said; but her mistress | |
still shook her head. | |
"It must have been some one who does not ring, who just opens the door," | |
she said to herself. "That is the worst of the country. It might be Mrs. | |
Blunt, or Sophia Blackburn, or the curate, or half-a-dozen people,--and | |
they have just gone away when they heard me crying. How could I help | |
crying? But I wonder how much they heard, whoever it was." | |
VI. | |
It was winter, and snow was on the ground. | |
Lady Mary found herself on the road that led through her own village, | |
going home. It was like a picture of a wintry night,--like one of those | |
pictures that please the children at Christmas. A little snow sprinkled | |
on the roofs, just enough to define them, and on the edges of the roads; | |
every cottage window showing a ruddy glimmer in the twilight; the men | |
coming home from their work; the children, tied up in comforters and | |
caps, stealing in from the slides, and from the pond, where they were | |
forbidden to go; and, in the distance, the trees of the great House | |
standing up dark, turning the twilight into night. She had a curious | |
enjoyment in it, simple like that of a child, and a wish to talk to some | |
one out of the fullness of her heart. She overtook, her step being far | |
lighter than his, one of the men going home from his work, and spoke to | |
him, telling him with a smile not to be afraid; but he never so much as | |
raised his head, and went plodding on with his heavy step, not knowing | |
that she had spoken to him. She was startled by this; but said to | |
herself, that the men were dull, that their perceptions were confused, | |
and that it was getting dark; and went on, passing him quickly. His | |
breath made a cloud in the air as he walked, and his heavy plodding steps | |
sounded into the frosty night. She perceived that her own were invisible | |
and inaudible, with a curious momentary sensation, half of pleasure, half | |
of pain. She felt no cold, and she saw through the twilight as clearly as | |
if it had been day. There was no fatigue or sense of weakness in her; but | |
she had the strange, wistful feeling of an exile returning after long | |
years, not knowing how he may find those he had left. At one of the first | |
houses in the village there was a woman standing at her door, looking out | |
for her children; one who knew Lady Mary well. She stopped quite | |
cheerfully to bid her good evening, as she had done in her vigorous days, | |
before she grew old. It was a little experiment, too. She thought it | |
possible that Catherine would scream out, and perhaps fly from her; but | |
surely would be easily reassured when she heard the voice she knew, and | |
saw by her one who was no ghost, but her own kind mistress. But Catherine | |
took no notice when she spoke; she did not so much as turn her head. Lady | |
Mary stood by her patiently, with more and more of that wistful desire to | |
be recognized. She put her hand timidly upon the woman's arm, who was | |
thinking of nothing but her boys, and calling to them, straining her eyes | |
in the fading light. "Don't be afraid, they are coming, they are safe," | |
she said, pressing Catherine's arm. But the woman never moved. She took | |
no notice. She called to a neighbor who was passing, to ask if she had | |
seen the children, and the two stood and talked in the dim air, not | |
conscious of the third who stood between them, looking from one to | |
another, astonished, paralyzed. Lady Mary had not been prepared for this; | |
she could not believe it even now. She repeated their names more and more | |
anxiously, and even plucked at their sleeves to call their attention. She | |
stood as a poor dependent sometimes stands, wistful, civil, trying to say | |
something that will please, while they talked and took no notice; and | |
then the neighbor passed on, and Catherine went into her house. It is | |
hard to be left out in the cold when others go into their cheerful | |
houses; but to be thus left outside of life, to speak and not be heard, | |
to stand unseen, astounded, unable to secure any attention! She had | |
thought they would be frightened, but it was not they who were | |
frightened. A great panic seized the woman who was no more of this world. | |
She had almost rejoiced to find herself back walking so lightly, so | |
strongly, finding everything easy that had been so hard; and yet but a | |
few minutes had passed, and she knew never more to be deceived, that she | |
was no longer of this world. What if she should be condemned to wander | |
forever among familiar places that knew her no more, appealing for a | |
look, a word, to those who could no longer see her, or hear her cry, or | |
know of her presence? Terror seized upon her, a chill and pang of fear | |
beyond description. She felt an impulse to fly wildly into the dark, | |
into the night, like a lost creature; to find again somehow, she could | |
not tell how, the door out of which she had come, and beat upon it wildly | |
with her hands, and implore to be taken home. For a moment she stood | |
looking round her, lost and alone in the wide universe; no one to speak | |
to her, no one to comfort her; outside of life altogether. Other rustic | |
figures, slow-stepping, leisurely, at their ease, went and came, one at a | |
time; but in this place, where every stranger was an object of curiosity, | |
no one cast a glance at her. She was as if she had never been. | |
Presently she found herself entering her own house. It was all shut and | |
silent,--not a window lighted along the whole front of the house which | |
used to twinkle and glitter with lights. It soothed her somewhat to see | |
this, as if in evidence that the place had changed with her. She went in | |
silently, and the darkness was as day to her. Her own rooms were all shut | |
up, yet were open to her steps, which no external obstacle could limit. | |
There was still the sound of life below stairs, and in the housekeeper's | |
room a cheerful party gathered round the fire. It was then that she | |
turned first, with some wistful human attraction, towards the warmth and | |
light rather than to the still places in which her own life had been | |
passed. Mrs. Prentiss, the housekeeper, had her daughter with her on a | |
visit, and the daughter's baby lay asleep in a cradle placed upon two | |
chairs, outside the little circle of women round the table, one of whom | |
was Jervis, Lady Mary's maid. Jervis sat and worked and cried, and mixed | |
her words with little sobs. "I never thought as I should have had to take | |
another place," she said. "Brown and me, we made sure of a little | |
something to start upon. He's been here for twenty years, and so have | |
you, Mrs. Prentiss; and me, as nobody can say I wasn't faithful night and | |
day." | |
"I never had that confidence in my lady to expect anything," Prentiss | |
said. | |
"Oh, mother, don't say that: many and many a day you've said, 'When my | |
lady dies--'" | |
"And we've all said it," said Jervis. "I can't think how she did it, nor | |
why she did it; for she was a kind lady, though appearances is against | |
her." | |
"She was one of them, and I've known a many, as could not abide to see a | |
gloomy face," said the housekeeper. "She kept us all comfortable for the | |
sake of being comfortable herself, but no more." | |
"Oh, you are hard upon my lady!" cried Jervis, "and I can't bear to hear | |
a word against her, though it's been an awful disappointment to me." | |
"What's you or me, or any one," cried Mrs. Prentiss, "in comparison of | |
that poor little thing that can't work for her living like we can; that | |
is left on the charity of folks she don't belong to? I'd have forgiven my | |
lady anything, if she'd done what was right by Miss Mary. You'll get a | |
place, and a good place; and me, they'll leave me here when the new folks | |
come as have taken the house. But what will become of her, the darling? | |
and not a penny, nor a friend, nor one to look to her? Oh, you selfish | |
old woman! oh, you heart of stone! I just hope you are feeling it where | |
you're gone," the housekeeper cried. | |
But as she said this, the woman did not know who was looking at her with | |
wide, wistful eyes, holding out her hands in appeal, receiving every word | |
as if it had been a blow,--though she knew it was useless. Lady Mary | |
could not help it. She cried out to them, "Have pity upon me! Have pity | |
upon me! I am not cruel, as you think," with a keen anguish in her voice, | |
which seemed to be sharp enough to pierce the very air and go up to the | |
skies. And so, perhaps, it did; but never touched the human atmosphere in | |
which she stood a stranger. Jervis was threading her needle when her | |
mistress uttered that cry; but her hand did not tremble, nor did the | |
thread deflect a hair's-breadth from the straight line. The young mother | |
alone seemed to be moved by some faint disturbance. "Hush!" she said, "is | |
he waking?"--looking towards the cradle. But as the baby made no further | |
sound, she too, returned to her sewing; and they sat bending their heads | |
over their work round the table, and continued their talk. The room was | |
very comfortable, bright, and warm, as Lady Mary had liked all her rooms | |
to be. The warm firelight danced upon the walls; the women talked in | |
cheerful tones. She stood outside their circle, and looked at them with a | |
wistful face. Their notice would have been more sweet to her, as she | |
stood in that great humiliation, than in other times the look of a queen. | |
"But what is the matter with baby?" the mother said, rising hastily. | |
It was with no servile intention of securing a look from that little | |
prince of life that she who was not of this world had stepped aside | |
forlorn, and looked at him in his cradle. Though she was not of this | |
world, she was still a woman, and had nursed her children in her arms. | |
She bent over the infant by the soft impulse of nature, tenderly, with no | |
interested thought. But the child saw her; was it possible? He turned his | |
head towards her, and flickered his baby hands, and cooed with that | |
indescribable voice that goes to every woman's heart. Lady Mary felt such | |
a thrill of pleasure go through her, as no incident had given her for | |
long years. She put out her arms to him as his mother snatched him from | |
his little bed; and he, which was more wonderful, stretched towards her | |
in his innocence, turning away from them all. | |
"He wants to go to some one," cried the mother. "Oh look, look, for God's | |
sake! Who is there that the child sees?" | |
"There's no one there,--not a soul. Now dearie, dearie, be reasonable. | |
You can see for yourself there's not a creature," said the grandmother. | |
"Oh, my baby, my baby! He sees something we can't see," the young woman | |
cried. "Something has happened to his father, or he's going to be taken | |
from me!" she said, holding the child to her in a sudden passion. The | |
other women rushed to her to console her,--the mother with reason, and | |
Jervis with poetry. "It's the angels whispering, like the song says." Oh, | |
the pang that was in the heart of the other whom they could not hear! She | |
stood wondering how it could be,--wondering with an amazement beyond | |
words, how all that was in her heart, the love and the pain, and the | |
sweetness and bitterness, could all be hidden,--all hidden by that air in | |
which the women stood so clear! She held out her hands, she spoke to | |
them, telling who she was, but no one paid any attention; only the little | |
dog Fido, who had been basking by the fire, sprang up, looked at her, and | |
retreating slowly backwards till he reached the wall, sat down there and | |
looked at her again, with now and then a little bark of inquiry. The dog | |
saw her. This gave her a curious pang of humiliation, yet pleasure. She | |
went away out of that little centre of human life in a great excitement | |
and thrill of her whole being. The child had seen her, and the dog; but, | |
oh heavens! how was she to work out her purpose by such auxiliaries as | |
these? | |
She went up to her old bedchamber with unshed tears heavy about her eyes, | |
and a pathetic smile quivering on her mouth. It touched her beyond | |
measure that the child should have that confidence in her. "Then God is | |
still with me," she said to herself. Her room, which had been so warm and | |
bright, lay desolate in the stillness of the night; but she wanted no | |
light, for the darkness was no darkness to her. She looked round her for | |
a little, wondering to think how far away from her now was this scene of | |
her old life, but feeling no pain in the sight of it,--only a kind | |
indulgence for the foolish simplicity which had taken so much pride in | |
all these infantile elements of living. She went to the little Italian | |
cabinet which stood against the wall, feeling now at least that she could | |
do as she would,--that here there was no blank of human unconsciousness | |
to stand in her way. But she was met by something that baffled and vexed | |
her once more. She felt the polished surface of the wood under her hand, | |
and saw all the pretty ornamentation, the inlaid-work, the delicate | |
carvings, which she knew so well; they swam in her eyes a little, as if | |
they were part of some phantasmagoria about her, existing only in her | |
vision. Yet the smooth surface resisted her touch; and when she withdrew | |
a step from it, it stood before her solidly and square, as it had stood | |
always--a glory to the place. She put forth her hands upon it, and could | |
have traced the waving lines of the exquisite work, in which some artist | |
soul had worked itself out in the old times; but though she thus saw it | |
and felt, she could not with all her endeavors find the handle of the | |
drawer, the richly-wrought knob of ivory, the little door that opened | |
into the secret place. How long she stood by it, attempting again and | |
again to find what was as familiar to her as her own hand, what was | |
before her, visible in every line, what she felt with fingers which began | |
to tremble, she could not tell. Time did not count with her as with | |
common men. She did not grow weary, or require refreshment or rest, like | |
those who were still of this world. Put at length her head grew giddy and | |
her heart failed. A cold despair took possession of her soul. She could | |
do nothing, then,--nothing; neither by help of man, neither by use of her | |
own faculties, which were greater and clearer than ever before. She sank | |
down upon the floor at the foot of that old toy, which had pleased her in | |
the softness of her old age, to which she had trusted the fortunes of | |
another; by which, in wantonness and folly she had sinned, she had | |
sinned! And she thought she saw standing round her companions in the land | |
she had left, saying, "It is impossible, impossible!" with infinite pity | |
in their eyes; and the face of him who had given her permission to come, | |
yet who had said no word to her to encourage her in what was against | |
nature. And there came into her heart a longing to fly, to get home, to | |
be back in the land where her fellows were, and her appointed place. A | |
child lost, how pitiful that is! without power to reason and divine how | |
help will come; but a soul lost, outside of one method of existence, | |
withdrawn from the other, knowing no way to retrace its steps, nor how | |
help can come! There had been no bitterness in passing from earth to the | |
land where she had gone; but now there came upon her soul, in all the | |
power of her new faculties, the bitterness of death. The place which was | |
hers she had forsaken and left, and the place that had been hers knew her | |
no more. | |
VII. | |
Mary, when she left her kind friend in the vicarage, went out and took a | |
long walk. She had received a shock so great that it took all sensation | |
from her, and threw her into the seething and surging of an excitement | |
altogether beyond her control. She could not think until she had got | |
familiar with the idea, which indeed had been vaguely shaping itself in | |
her mind ever since she had emerged from the first profound gloom and | |
prostration of the shadow of death. She had never definitely thought of | |
her position before,--never even asked herself what was to become of her | |
when Lady Mary died. She did not see, any more than Lady Mary did, why | |
she should ever die; and girls, who have never wanted anything in their | |
lives, who have had no sharp experience to enlighten them, are slow to | |
think upon such subjects. She had not expected anything; her mind had not | |
formed any idea of inheritance; and it had not surprised her to hear of | |
the earl, who was Lady Mary's natural heir, nor to feel herself separated | |
from the house in which all her previous life had been passed. But there | |
had been gradually dawning upon her a sense that she had come to a crisis | |
in her life, and that she must soon be told what was to become of her. It | |
was not so urgent as that she should ask any questions; but it began to | |
appear very clearly in her mind that things were not to be with her as | |
they had been. She had heard the complaints and astonishment of the | |
servants, to whom Lady Mary had left nothing, with resentment,--Jervis, | |
who could not marry and take her lodging-house, but must wait until she | |
had saved more money, and wept to think, after all her devotion, of | |
having to take another place; and Mrs. Prentiss, the housekeeper, who was | |
cynical, and expounded Lady Mary's kindness to her servants to be the | |
issue of a refined selfishness; and Brown, who had sworn subdued oaths, | |
and had taken the liberty of representing himself to Mary as "in the same | |
box" with herself. Mary had been angry, very angry at all this; and she | |
had not by word or look given any one to understand that she felt herself | |
"in the same box." But yet she had been vaguely anxious, curious, | |
desiring to know. And she had not even begun to think what she should do. | |
That seemed a sort of affront to her godmother's memory, at all events, | |
until some one had made it clear to her. But now, in a moment, with her | |
first consciousness of the importance of this matter in the sight of | |
others, a consciousness of what it was to herself, came into her mind. A | |
change of everything,--a new life,--a new world; and not only so, but a | |
severance from the old world,--a giving up of everything that had been | |
most near and pleasant to her. | |
These thoughts were driven through her mind like the snowflakes in a | |
storm. The year had slid on since Lady Mary's death. Winter was beginning | |
to yield to spring; the snow was over, and the great cold. And other | |
changes had taken place. The great house had been let, and the family who | |
had taken it had been about a week in possession. Their coming had | |
inflicted a wound upon Mary's heart; but everybody had urged upon her the | |
idea that it was much better the house should be let for a time, "till | |
everything was settled." When all was settled, things would be different. | |
Mrs. Vicar did not say, "You can then do what you please," but she did | |
convey to Mary's mind somehow a sort of inference that she would have | |
something to do it with. And when Mary had protested. "It shall never be | |
let again with my will," the kind woman had said tremulously, "Well, my | |
dear!" and had changed the subject. All these things now came to Mary's | |
mind. They had been afraid to tell her; they had thought it would be so | |
much to her,--so important, such a crushing blow. To have nothing,--to be | |
destitute; to be written about by Mr. Furnival to the earl; to have her | |
case represented,--Mary felt herself stung by such unendurable | |
suggestions into an energy--a determination--of which her soft young life | |
had known nothing. No one should write about her, or ask charity for her, | |
she said to herself. She had gone through the woods and round the park, | |
which was not large, and now she could not leave these beloved precincts | |
without going to look at the house. Up to this time she had not had the | |
courage to go near the house; but to the commotion and fever of her mind | |
every violent sensation was congenial, and she went up the avenue now | |
almost gladly, with a little demonstration to herself of energy and | |
courage. Why not that as well as all the rest? | |
It was once more twilight, and the dimness favored her design. She wanted | |
to go there unseen, to look up at the windows with their alien lights, | |
and to think of the time when Lady Mary sat behind the curtains, and | |
there was nothing but tenderness and peace throughout the house. There | |
was a light in every window along the entire front, a lavishness of | |
firelight and lamplight which told of a household in which there were | |
many inhabitants. Mary's mind was so deeply absorbed, and perhaps her | |
eyes so dim with tears that she could scarcely see what was before her, | |
when the door opened suddenly and a lady came out. "I will go myself," | |
she said in an agitated tone to some one behind her. "Don't get yourself | |
laughed at," said a voice from within. The sound of the voices roused | |
the young spectator. She looked with a little curiosity, mixed with | |
anxiety, at the lady who had come out of the house, and who started, too, | |
with a gesture of alarm, when she saw Mary move in the dark. "Who are | |
you?" she cried out in a trembling voice, "and what do you want here?" | |
Then Mary made a step or two forward and said, "I must ask your pardon if | |
I am trespassing. I did not know there was any objection--" This stranger | |
to make an objection! It brought something like a tremulous laugh to | |
Mary's lips. | |
"Oh, there is no objection," said the lady, "only we have been a little | |
put out. I see now; you are the young lady who--you are the young lady | |
that--you are the one that--suffered most." | |
"I am Lady Mary's goddaughter," said the girl. "I have lived here all my | |
life." | |
"Oh, my dear, I have heard all about you," the lady cried. The people who | |
had taken the house were merely rich people; they had no other | |
characteristic; and in the vicarage, as well as in the other houses | |
about, it was said, when they were spoken of, that it was a good thing | |
they were not people to be visited, since nobody could have had the heart | |
to visit strangers in Lady Mary's house. And Mary could not but feel a | |
keen resentment to think that her story, such as it was, the story which | |
she had only now heard in her own person, should be discussed by such | |
people. But the speaker had a look of kindness, and, so far as could be | |
seen, of perplexity and fretted anxiety in her face, and had been in a | |
hurry, but stopped herself in order to show her interest. "I wonder," she | |
said impulsively, "that you can come here and look at the place again, | |
after all that has passed." | |
"I never thought," said Mary, "that there could be--any objection." | |
"Oh, how can you think I mean that?--how can you pretend to think so?" | |
cried the other, impatiently. "But after you have been treated so | |
heartlessly, so unkindly,--and left, poor thing! they tell me, without a | |
penny, without any provision--" | |
"I don't know you," cried Mary, breathless with quick rising passion. "I | |
don't know what right you can have to meddle with my affairs." | |
The lady stared at her for a moment without speaking, and then she said, | |
all at once, "That is quite true,--but it is rude as well; for though I | |
have no right to meddle with your affairs, I did it in kindness, because | |
I took an interest in you from all I have heard." | |
Mary was very accessible to such a reproach and argument. Her face | |
flushed with a sense of her own churlishness. "I beg your pardon," she | |
said; "I am sure you mean to be kind." | |
"Well," said the stranger, "that is perhaps going too far on the other | |
side, for you can't even see my face, to know what I mean. But I do mean | |
to be kind, and I am very sorry for you. And though I think you've been | |
treated abominably, all the same I like you better for not allowing any | |
one to say so. And now, do you know where I was going? I was going to the | |
vicarage,--where you are living, I believe,--to see if the vicar, or his | |
wife, or you, or all of you together, could do a thing for me." | |
"Oh, I am sure Mrs. Bowyer--" said Mary, with a voice much less assured | |
than her words. | |
"You must not be too sure, my dear. I know she doesn't mean to call upon | |
me, because my husband is a city man. That is just as she pleases. I am | |
not very fond of city men myself. But there's no reason why I should | |
stand on ceremony when I want something, is there? Now, my dear, I want | |
to know--Don't laugh at me. I am not superstitious, so far as I am aware; | |
but--Tell me, in your time was there ever any disturbance, any appearance | |
you couldn't understand, any--Well, I don't like the word ghost. It's | |
disrespectful, if there's anything of the sort: and it's vulgar if there | |
isn't. But you know what I mean. Was there anything--of that sort--in | |
your time?" | |
In your time! Poor Mary had scarcely realized yet that her time was over. | |
Her heart refused to allow it when it was thus so abruptly brought before | |
her, but she obliged herself to subdue these rising rebellions, and to | |
answer, though with some _hauteur_, "There is nothing of the kind that I | |
ever heard of. There is no superstition or ghost in our house." | |
She thought it was the vulgar desire of new people to find a conventional | |
mystery, and it seemed to Mary that this was a desecration of her home. | |
Mrs. Turner, however (for that was her name), did not receive the | |
intimation as the girl expected, but looked at her very gravely, and | |
said, "That makes it a great deal more serious," as if to herself. She | |
paused and then added, "You see, the case is this. I have a little girl | |
who is our youngest, who is just my husband's idol. She is a sweet little | |
thing, though perhaps I should not say it. Are you fond of children? Then | |
I almost feel sure you would think so too. Not a moping child at all, or | |
too clever, or anything to alarm one. Well, you know, little Connie, | |
since ever we came in, has seen an old lady walking about the house." | |
"An old lady!" said Mary, with an involuntary smile. | |
"Oh, yes. I laughed too, the first time. I said it would be old Mrs. | |
Prentiss, or perhaps the char-woman, or some old lady from the village | |
that had been in the habit of coming in the former people's time. But the | |
child got very angry. She said it was a real lady. She would not allow me | |
to speak. Then we thought perhaps it was some one who did not know the | |
house was let, and had walked in to look at it; but nobody would go on | |
coming like that with all the signs of a large family in the house. And | |
now the doctor says the child must be low, that the place perhaps doesn't | |
agree with her, and that we must send her away. Now I ask you, how could | |
I send little Connie away, the apple of her father's eye? I should have | |
to go with her, of course, and how could the house get on without me? | |
Naturally we are very anxious. And this afternoon she has seen her again, | |
and sits there crying because she says the dear old lady looks so sad. I | |
just seized my hat, and walked out, to come to you and your friends at | |
the vicarage, to see if you could help me. Mrs. Bowyer may look down upon | |
a city person,--I don't mind that; but she is a mother, and surely she | |
would feel for a mother," cried the poor lady vehemently, putting up her | |
hands to her wet eyes. | |
"Oh, indeed, indeed she would! I am sure now that she will call | |
directly. We did not know what a--" Mary stopped herself in saying, | |
"what a nice woman you are," which she thought would be rude, though poor | |
Mrs. Turner would have liked it. But then she shook her head and added, | |
"What could any of us do to help you? I have never heard of any old lady. | |
There never was anything--I know all about the house, everything that has | |
ever happened, and Prentiss will tell you. There is nothing of that | |
kind,--indeed, there is nothing. You must have--" But here Mary stopped | |
again; for to suggest that a new family, a city family, should have | |
brought an apparition of their own with them, was too ridiculous an idea | |
to be entertained. | |
"Miss Vivian," said Mrs. Turner, "will you come back with me and speak to | |
the child?" | |
At this Mary faltered a little. "I have never been there--since | |
the--funeral," she said. | |
The good woman laid a kind hand upon her shoulder, caressing and | |
soothing. "You were very fond of her--in spite of the way she has used | |
you?" | |
"Oh, how dare you, or any one, to speak of her so! She used me as if I | |
had been her dearest child. She was more kind to me than a mother. There | |
is no one in the world like her!" Mary cried. | |
"And yet she left you without a penny. Oh, you must be a good girl to | |
feel for her like that. She left you without--What are you going to do, | |
my dear? I feel like a friend. I feel like a mother to you, though you | |
don't know me. You mustn't think it is only curiosity. You can't stay | |
with your friends for ever,--and what are you going to do?" | |
There are some cases in which it is more easy to speak to a stranger | |
than to one's dearest and oldest friend. Mary had felt this when she | |
rushed out, not knowing how to tell the vicar's wife that she must leave | |
her, and find some independence for herself. It was, however, strange to | |
rush into such a discussion with so little warning, and Mary's pride was | |
very sensitive. She said, "I am not going to burden my friends," with a | |
little indignation; but then she remembered how forlorn she was, and her | |
voice softened. "I must do something,--but I don't know what I am good | |
for," she said, trembling, and on the verge of tears. | |
"My dear, I have heard a great deal about you," said the stranger; "it is | |
not rash, though it may look so. Come back with me directly, and see | |
Connie. She is a very interesting little thing, though I say it; it is | |
wonderful sometimes to hear her talk. You shall be her governess, my | |
dear. Oh, you need not teach her anything,--that is not what I mean. I | |
think, I am sure, you will be the saving of her, Miss Vivian; and such a | |
lady as you are, it will be everything for the other girls to live with | |
you. Don't stop to think, but just come with me. You shall have whatever | |
you please, and always be treated like a lady. Oh, my dear, consider my | |
feelings as a mother, and come; oh, come to Connie! I know you will save | |
her; it is an inspiration. Come back! Come back with me!" | |
It seemed to Mary too like an inspiration. What it cost her to cross that | |
threshold and walk in a stranger, to the house which had been all her | |
life as her own, she never said to any one. But it was independence; it | |
was deliverance from entreaties and remonstrances without end. It was a | |
kind of setting right, so far as could be, of the balance which had got | |
so terribly wrong. No writing to the earl now; no appeal to friends; | |
anything in all the world,--much more, honest service and kindness,--must | |
be better than that. | |
VIII. | |
"Tell the young lady all about it, Connie," said her mother. | |
But Connie was very reluctant to tell. She was very shy, and clung to her | |
mother, and hid her face in her ample dress; and though presently she was | |
beguiled by Mary's voice, and in a short time came to her side, and clung | |
to her as she had clung to Mrs. Turner, she still kept her secret to | |
herself. They were all very kind to Mary, the elder girls standing round | |
in a respectful circle looking at her, while their mother exhorted them | |
to "take a pattern" by Miss Vivian. The novelty, the awe which she | |
inspired, the real kindness about her, ended in overcoming in Mary's | |
young mind the first miserable impression of such a return to her home. | |
It gave her a kind of pleasure to write to Mrs. Bowyer that she had found | |
employment, and had thought it better to accept it at once. "Don't be | |
angry with me; and I think you will understand me," she said. And then | |
she gave herself up to the strange new scene. | |
The "ways" of the large simple-minded family, homely, yet kindly, so | |
transformed Lady Mary's graceful old rooms that they no longer looked the | |
same place. And when Mary sat down with them at the big heavy-laden | |
table, surrounded with the hum of so large a party, it was impossible for | |
her to believe that everything was not new about her. In no way could the | |
saddening recollections of a home from which the chief figure had | |
disappeared, have been more completely broken up. Afterwards Mrs. Turner | |
took her aside, and begged to know which was Mary's old room, "for I | |
should like to put you there, as if nothing had happened." "Oh, do not | |
put me there!" Mary cried, "so much has happened." But this seemed a | |
refinement to the kind woman, which it was far better for her young guest | |
not to "yield" to. The room Mary had occupied had been next to her | |
godmother's, with a door between, and when it turned out that Connie, | |
with an elder sister, was in Lady Mary's room, everything seemed | |
perfectly arranged in Mrs. Turner's eyes. She thought it was | |
providential,--with a simple belief in Mary's powers that in other | |
circumstances would have been amusing. But there was no amusement in | |
Mary's mind when she took possession of the old room "as if nothing | |
had happened." She sat by the fire for half the night, in an agony of | |
silent recollection and thought, going over the last days of her | |
godmother's life, calling up everything before her, and realizing as she | |
had never realized till now, the lonely career on which she was setting | |
out, the subjection to the will and convenience of strangers in which | |
henceforth her life must be passed. This was a kind woman who had opened | |
her doors to the destitute girl; but notwithstanding, however great the | |
torture to Mary, there was no escaping this room which was haunted by the | |
saddest recollections of her life. Of such things she must no longer | |
complain,--nay, she must think of nothing but thanking the mistress of | |
the house for her thoughtfulness, for the wish to be kind, which so often | |
exceeds the performance. | |
The room was warm and well lighted; the night was very calm and | |
sweet outside, nothing had been touched or changed of all her little | |
decorations, the ornaments which had been so delightful to her | |
girlhood. A large photograph of Lady Mary held the chief place over the | |
mantel-piece, representing her in the fullness of her beauty,--a | |
photograph which had been taken from the picture painted ages ago by a | |
Royal Academician. It fortunately was so little like Lady Mary in her old | |
age that, save as a thing which had always hung there, and belonged to | |
her happier life, it did not affect the girl; but no picture was | |
necessary to bring before her the well-remembered figure. She could not | |
realize that the little movements she heard on the other side of the door | |
were any other than those of her mistress, her friend, her mother; for | |
all these names Mary lavished upon her in the fullness of her heart. The | |
blame that was being cast upon Lady Mary from all sides made this child | |
of her bounty but more deeply her partisan, more warm in her adoration. | |
She would not, for all the inheritances of the world, have acknowledged | |
even to herself that Lady Mary was in fault. Mary felt that she would | |
rather a thousand times be poor and have to gain her daily bread, than | |
that she who had nourished and cherished her should have been forced in | |
her cheerful old age to think, before she chose to do so, of parting and | |
farewell and the inevitable end. | |
She thought, like every young creature in strange and painful | |
circumstances, that she would be unable to sleep, and did indeed lie | |
awake and weep for an hour or more, thinking of all the changes that had | |
happened; but sleep overtook her before she knew, while her mind was | |
still full of these thoughts; and her dreams were endless, confused, full | |
of misery and longing. She dreamed a dozen times over that she heard | |
Lady Mary's soft call through the open door,--which was not open, but | |
shut closely and locked by the sisters who now inhabited the next room; | |
and once she dreamed that Lady Mary came to her bedside and stood there | |
looking at her earnestly, with the tears flowing from her eyes. Mary | |
struggled in her sleep to tell her benefactress how she loved her, and | |
approved of all she had done, and wanted nothing,--but felt herself | |
bound as by a nightmare, so that she could not move or speak, or even put | |
out a hand to dry those tears which it was intolerable to her to see; | |
and woke with the struggle, and the miserable sensation of seeing her | |
dearest friend weep and being unable to comfort her. The moon was shining | |
into the room, throwing part of it into a cold, full light, while | |
blackness lay in all corners. The impression of her dream was so strong | |
that Mary's eyes turned instantly to the spot where in her dream her | |
godmother had stood. To be sure, there was nobody there; but as her | |
consciousness returned, and with it the sweep of painful recollection, | |
the sense of change, the miserable contrast between the present and the | |
past,--sleep fled from her eyes. She fell into the vividly awake | |
condition which is the alternative of broken sleep, and gradually, as she | |
lay, there came upon her that mysterious sense of another presence in the | |
room which is so subtle and indescribable. She neither saw anything nor | |
heard anything, and yet she felt that some one was there. | |
She lay still for some time and held her breath, listening for a | |
movement, even for the sound of breathing,--scarcely alarmed, yet sure | |
that she was not alone. After a while she raised herself on her pillow, | |
and in a low voice asked, "Who is there? is any one there?" There was no | |
reply, no sound of any description, and yet the conviction grew upon her. | |
Her heart began to beat, and the blood to mount to her head. Her own | |
being made so much sound, so much commotion, that it seemed to her she | |
could not hear anything save those beatings and pulsings. Yet she was not | |
afraid. After a time, however, the oppression became more than she could | |
bear. She got up and lit her candle, and searched through the familiar | |
room; but she found no trace that any one had been there. The furniture | |
was all in its usual order. There was no hiding-place where any human | |
thing could find refuge. When she had satisfied herself, and was about to | |
return to bed, suppressing a sensation which must, she said to herself, | |
be altogether fantastic, she was startled by a low knocking at the door | |
of communication. Then she heard the voice of the elder girl. "Oh, Miss | |
Vivian what is it? Have you seen anything?" A new sense of anger, | |
disdain, humiliation, swept through Mary's mind. And if she had seen | |
anything, she said to herself, what was that to those strangers? She | |
replied, "No, nothing; what should I see?" in a tone which was almost | |
haughty, in spite of herself. | |
"I thought it might be--the ghost. Oh, please, don't be angry. I thought | |
I heard this door open, but it is locked. Oh! perhaps it is very silly, | |
but I am so frightened, Miss Vivian." | |
"Go back to bed," said Mary; "there is no--ghost. I am going to sit up | |
and write some--letters. You will see my light under the door." | |
"Oh, thank you," cried the girl. | |
Mary remembered what a consolation and strength in all wakefulness had | |
been the glimmer of the light under her godmother's door. She smiled to | |
think that she herself, so desolate as she was, was able to afford this | |
innocent comfort to another girl, and then sat down and wept quietly, | |
feeling her solitude and the chill about her, and the dark and the | |
silence. The moon had gone behind a cloud. There seemed no light but her | |
small miserable candle in earth and heaven. And yet that poor little | |
speck of light kept up the heart of another,--which made her smile again | |
in the middle of her tears. And by-and-by the commotion in her head and | |
heart calmed down, and she too fell asleep. | |
Next day she heard all the floating legends that were beginning to rise | |
in the house. They all arose from Connie's questions about the old lady | |
whom she had seen going up-stairs before her, the first evening after the | |
new family's arrival. It was in the presence of the doctor,--who had come | |
to see the child, and whose surprise at finding Mary there was almost | |
ludicrous,--that she heard the story, though much against his will. | |
"There can be no need for troubling Miss Vivian about it," he said, in a | |
tone which was almost rude. But Mrs. Turner was not sensitive. | |
"When Miss Vivian has just come like a dear, to help us with Connie!" the | |
good woman cried. "Of course she must hear it, doctor, for otherwise, how | |
could she know what to do?" | |
"Is it true that you have come here--_here?_ to help--Good heavens, Miss | |
Mary, _here?_" | |
"Why not here?" Mary said, smiling as but she could. "I am Connie's | |
governess, doctor." | |
He burst out into that suppressed roar which serves a man instead of | |
tears, and jumped up from his seat, clenching his fist. The clenched fist | |
was to the intention of the dead woman whose fault this was; and if it | |
had ever entered the doctor's mind, as his mother supposed, to marry this | |
forlorn child, and thus bestow a home upon her whether she would or no, | |
no doubt he would now have attempted to carry out that plan. But as no | |
such thing had occurred to him, the doctor only showed his sense of the | |
intolerable by look and gesture. "I must speak to the vicar. I must see | |
Furnival. It can't be permitted," he cried. | |
"Do you think I shall not be kind to her, doctor?" cried Mrs. Turner. | |
"Oh, ask her! she is one that understands. She knows far better than | |
that. We're not fine people, doctor, but we're kind people. I can say | |
that for myself. There is nobody in this house but will be good to her, | |
and admire her, and take an example by her. To have a real lady with the | |
girls, that is what I would give anything for; and as she wants taking | |
care of, poor dear, and petting, and an 'ome--" Mary, who would not hear | |
any more, got up hastily, and took the hand of her new protectress, and | |
kissed her, partly out of gratitude and kindness, partly to stop her | |
mouth, and prevent the saying of something which it might have been still | |
more difficult to support. "You are a real lady yourself, dear Mrs. | |
Turner," she cried. (And this notwithstanding the one deficient letter: | |
but many people who are much more dignified than Mrs. Turner--people who | |
behave themselves very well in every other respect--say "'ome.") | |
"Oh, my dear, I don't make any pretensions," the good woman cried, but | |
with a little shock of pleasure which brought the tears to her eyes. | |
And then the story was told. Connie had seen the lady walk up-stairs, and | |
had thought no harm. The child supposed it was some one belonging to the | |
house. She had gone into the room which was now Connie's room; but as | |
that had a second door, there was no suspicion caused by the fact that | |
she was not found there a little time after, when the child told her | |
mother what she had seen. After this, Connie had seen the same lady | |
several times, and once had met her face to face. The child declared that | |
she was not at all afraid. She was a pretty old lady, with white hair and | |
dark eyes. She looked a little sad, but smiled when Connie stopped and | |
stared at her,--not angry at all, but rather pleased,--and looked for a | |
moment as if she would speak. That was all. Not a word about a ghost was | |
said in Connie's hearing. She had already told it all to the doctor, and | |
he had pretended to consider which of the old ladies in the neighborhood | |
this could be. In Mary's mind, occupied as it was by so many important | |
matters, there had been up to this time no great question about Connie's | |
apparition; now she began to listen closely, not so much from real | |
interest as from a perception that the doctor, who was her friend, did | |
not want her to hear. This naturally aroused her attention at once. She | |
listened to the child's description with growing eagerness, all the more | |
because the doctor opposed. "Now that will do, Miss Connie," he said; "it | |
is one of the old Miss Murchisons, who are always so fond of finding out | |
about their neighbors. I have no doubt at all on that subject. She wants | |
to find you out in your pet naughtiness, whatever it is, and tell me." | |
"I am sure it is not for that," cried Connie. "Oh, how can you be so | |
disagreeable? I know she is not a lady who would tell. Besides, she | |
is not thinking at all about me. She was either looking for something she | |
had lost, or,--oh, I don't know what it was!--and when she saw me she | |
just smiled. She is not dressed like any of the people here. She had got | |
no cloak on, or bonnet, or anything that is common, but a beautiful white | |
shawl and a long dress, and it gives a little sweep when she walks,--oh | |
no! not like your rustling, mamma; but all soft, like water,--and it | |
looks like lace upon her head, tied here," said Connie, putting her | |
hands to her chin, "in such a pretty, large, soft knot." Mary had | |
gradually risen as this description went on, starting a little at first, | |
looking up, getting upon her feet. The color went altogether out of her | |
face,--her eyes grew to twice their natural size. The doctor put out his | |
hand without looking at her, and laid it on her arm with a strong, | |
emphatic pressure. "Just like some one you have seen a picture of," he | |
said. | |
"Oh no. I never saw a picture that was so pretty," said the child. | |
"Doctor, why do you ask her any more? don't you see, don't you see, the | |
child has seen--" | |
"Miss Mary, for God's sake, hold your tongue; it is folly, you know. Now, | |
my little girl, tell me. I know this old lady is the very image of that | |
pretty old lady with the toys for good children, who was in the last | |
Christmas number?" | |
"Oh!" said Connie, pausing a little. "Yes, I remember; it was a very | |
pretty picture,--mamma put it up in the nursery. No, she is not like | |
that, not at all, much prettier; and then _my_ lady is sorry about | |
something,--except when she smiles at me. She has her hair put up like | |
this, and this," the child went on, twisting her own bright locks. | |
"Doctor, I can't bear any more." | |
"My dear, you are mistaken, it is all a delusion. She has seen a picture. | |
I think now, Mrs. Turner, that my little patient had better run away and | |
play. Take a good run through the woods, Miss Connie, with your brother, | |
and I will send you some physic which will not be at all nasty, and we | |
shall hear no more of your old lady. My dear Miss Vivian, if you will but | |
hear reason! I have known such cases a hundred times. The child has seen | |
a picture, and it has taken possession of her imagination. She is a | |
little below par, and she has a lively imagination; and she has learned | |
something from Prentiss, though probably she does not remember that. And | |
there it is! a few doses of quinine, and she will see visions no more." | |
"Doctor," cried Mary, "how can you speak so to me? You dare not look me | |
in the face. You know you dare not: as if you did not know as well as I | |
do! Oh, why does that child see her, and not me?" | |
"There it is," he said, with a broken laugh. "Could anything show better | |
that it is a mere delusion? Why, in the name of all that is reasonable, | |
should this stranger child see her, if it was anything, and not you?" | |
Mrs. Turner looked from one to another with wondering eyes. "You know | |
what it is?" she said. "Oh, you know what it is? Doctor, doctor, is it | |
because my Connie is so delicate? Is it a warning? Is it--" | |
"Oh, for heaven's sake! You will drive me mad, you ladies. Is it this, | |
and is it that? It is nothing, I tell you. The child is out of sorts, | |
and she has seen some picture that has caught her fancy,--and she thinks | |
she sees--I'll send her a bottle," he cried, jumping up, "that will put | |
an end to all that." | |
"Doctor, don't go away, tell me rather what I must do--if she is looking | |
for something! Oh, doctor, think if she were unhappy, if she were kept | |
out of her sweet rest!" | |
"Miss Mary, for God's sake, be reasonable. You ought never to have heard | |
a word." | |
"Doctor, think! if it should be anything we can do. Oh, tell me, tell me! | |
Don't go away and leave me; perhaps we can find out what it is." | |
"I will have nothing to do with your findings out. It is mere delusion. | |
Put them both to bed, Mrs. Turner; put them all to bed!--as if there was | |
not trouble enough!" | |
"What is it?" cried Connie's mother; "is it a warning! Oh, for the love | |
of God, tell me, is that what comes before a death?" | |
When they were all in this state of agitation, the vicar and his wife | |
were suddenly shown into the room. Mrs. Bowyer's eyes flew to Mary, but | |
she was too well bred a woman not to pay her respects first to the lady | |
of the house, and there were a number of politenesses exchanged, very | |
breathlessly on Mrs. Turner's part, before the new-comers were free to | |
show the real occasion of their visit. "Oh, Mary, what did you mean by | |
taking such a step all in a moment? How could you come here, of all | |
places in the world? And how could you leave me without a word?" the | |
vicar's wife said, with her lips against Mary's cheek. She had already | |
perceived, without dwelling upon it, the excitement in which all the | |
party were. This was said while the vicar was still making his bow to his | |
new parishioner, who knew very well that her visitors had not intended to | |
call; for the Turners were dissenters, to crown all their misdemeanors, | |
beside being city people and _nouveaux riches_. | |
"Don't ask me any questions just now," said Mary, clasping almost | |
hysterically her friend's hand. | |
"It was providential. Come and hear what the child has seen." Mrs. | |
Turner, though she was so anxious, was too polite not to make a fuss | |
about getting chairs for all her visitors. She postponed her own trouble | |
to this necessity, and trembling, sought the most comfortable seat for | |
Mrs. Bowyer, the largest and most imposing for the vicar himself. When | |
she had established them in a little circle, and done her best to draw | |
Mary, too, into a chair, she sat down quietly, her mind divided between | |
the cares of courtesy and the alarms of an anxious mother. Mary stood at | |
the table and waited till the commotion was over. The new-comers thought | |
she was going to explain her conduct in leaving them; and Mrs. Bowyer, at | |
least, who was critical in point of manners, shivered a little, wondering | |
if perhaps (though she could not find it in her heart to blame Mary) her | |
proceedings were in perfect taste. | |
"The little girl," Mary said, beginning abruptly. She had been standing | |
by the table, her lips apart, her countenance utterly pale, her mind | |
evidently too much absorbed to notice anything. "The little girl has seen | |
several times a lady going up-stairs. Once she met her and saw her | |
face, and the lady smiled at her; but her face was sorrowful, and the | |
child thought she was looking for something. The lady was old, with | |
white hair done up upon her forehead, and lace upon her head. She was | |
dressed--" here Mary's voice began to be interrupted from time to time by | |
a brief sob--"in a long dress that made a soft sound when she walked, and | |
a white shawl, and the lace tied under her chin in a large soft knot--" | |
"Mary, Mary!" Mrs. Bowyer had risen and stood behind the girl, in whose | |
slender throat the climbing sorrow was almost visible, supporting her, | |
trying to stop her. "Mary, Mary!" she cried; "oh, my darling, what are | |
you thinking of? Francis! doctor! make her stop, make her stop." | |
"Why should she stop?" said Mrs. Turner, rising, too, in her agitation. | |
"Oh, is it a warning, is it a warning? for my child has seen it,--Connie | |
has seen it." | |
"Listen to me, all of you," said Mary, with an effort. "You all know--who | |
that is. And she has seen her,--the little girl--" | |
Now the others looked at each other, exchanging a startled look. | |
"My dear people," cried the doctor, "the case is not the least unusual. | |
No, no, Mrs. Turner, it is no warning,--it is nothing of the sort. Look | |
here, Bowyer; you'll believe me. The child is very nervous and sensitive. | |
She has evidently seen a picture somewhere of our dear old friend. She | |
has heard the story somehow,--oh, perhaps in some garbled version from | |
Prentiss, or--of course they've all been talking of it. And the child is | |
one of those creatures with its nerves all on the surface,--and a little | |
below par in health, in need of iron and quinine, and all that sort of | |
thing. I've seen a hundred such cases," cried the doctor, "--a thousand | |
such; but now, of course, we'll have a fine story made of it, now that | |
it's come into the ladies' hands." | |
He was much excited with this long speech; but it cannot be said that any | |
one paid much attention to him. Mrs. Bowyer was holding Mary in her arms, | |
uttering little cries and sobs over her, and looking anxiously at her | |
husband. The vicar sat down suddenly in his chair, with the air of a man | |
who has judgment to deliver without the least idea what to say; while | |
Mary, freeing herself unconsciously from her friend's restraining | |
embrace, stood facing them all with a sort of trembling defiance; and | |
Mrs. Turner kept on explaining nervously that,--"no, no, her Connie was | |
not excitable, was not oversensitive, had never known what a delusion | |
was." | |
"This is very strange," the vicar said. | |
"Oh, Mr. Bowyer," cried Mary, "tell me what I am to do!--think if she | |
cannot rest, if she is not happy, she that was so good to everybody, that | |
never could bear to see any one in trouble. Oh, tell me, tell me what I | |
am to do! It is you that have disturbed her with all you have been | |
saying. Oh, what can I do, what can I do to give her rest?" | |
"My dear Mary! my dear Mary!" they all cried, in different tones of | |
consternation; and for a few minutes no one could speak. Mrs. Bowyer, as | |
was natural, said something, being unable to endure the silence; but | |
neither she nor any of the others knew what it was she said. When it was | |
evident that the vicar must speak, all were silent, waiting for him; and | |
though it now became imperative that something in the shape of a judgment | |
must be delivered, yet he was as far as ever from knowing what to say. | |
"Mary," he said, with a little tremulousness of voice, "it is quite | |
natural that you should ask me; but, my dear, I am not at all prepared to | |
answer. I think you know that the doctor, who ought to know best about | |
such matters--" | |
"Nay, not I. I only know about the physical; the other,--if there is | |
another,--that's your concern." | |
"Who ought to know best," repeated Mr. Bowyer; "for every body will tell | |
you, my dear, that the mind is so dependent upon the body. I suppose he | |
must be right. I suppose it is just the imagination of a nervous child | |
working upon the data which have been given,--the picture; and then, as | |
you justly remind me, all we have been saying--" | |
"How could the child know what we have been saying, Francis?" | |
"Connie has heard nothing that any one has been saying; and there is no | |
picture." | |
"My dear lady, you hear what the doctor says. If there is no picture, and | |
she has heard nothing, I suppose, then, your premises are gone, and the | |
conclusion falls to the ground." | |
"What does it matter about premises?" cried the vicar's wife; "here is | |
something dreadful that has happened. Oh, what nonsense that is about | |
imagination; children have no imagination. A dreadful thing has happened. | |
In heaven's name, Francis, tell this poor child what she is to do." | |
"My dear," said the vicar again, "you are asking me to believe in | |
purgatory,--nothing less. You are asking me to contradict the church's | |
teaching. Mary, you must compose yourself. You must wait till this | |
excitement has passed away." | |
"I can see by her eyes that she did not sleep last night," the doctor | |
said, relieved. "We shall have her seeing visions too, if we don't take | |
care." | |
"And, my dear Mary," said the vicar, "if you will think of it, it is | |
derogatory to the dignity of--of our dear friends who have passed away. | |
How can we suppose that one of the blessed would come down from heaven, | |
and walk about her own house, which she had just left, and show herself | |
to a--to a--little child who had never seen her before." | |
"Impossible," said the doctor. "I told you so; a stranger--that had no | |
connection with her, knew nothing about her--" | |
"Instead of," said the vicar, with a slight tremor, "making herself | |
known, if that was permitted, to--to me, for example, or our friend | |
here." | |
"That sounds reasonable, Mary," said Mrs. Bowyer; "don't you think so, my | |
dear? If she had come to one of us, or to yourself, my darling, I should | |
never have wondered, after all that has happened. But to this little | |
child--" | |
"Whereas there is nothing more likely--more consonant with all the | |
teachings of science--than that the little thing should have this | |
hallucination, of which you ought never to have heard a word. You are the | |
very last person--" | |
"That is true," said the vicar, "and all the associations of the place | |
must be overwhelming. My dear, we must take her away with us. Mrs. | |
Turner, I am sure, is very kind, but it cannot be good for Mary to be | |
here." | |
"No, no! I never thought so," said Mrs. Bowyer. "I never intended--dear | |
Mrs. Turner, we all appreciate your motives. I hope you will let us see | |
much of you, and that we may become very good friends. But Mary--it is | |
her first grief, don't you know?" said the vicar's wife, with the tears | |
in her eyes; "she has always been so much cared for, so much thought of | |
all her life--and then all at once! You will not think that we | |
misunderstand your kind motives; but it is more than she can bear. She | |
made up her mind in a hurry, without thinking. You must not be annoyed if | |
we take her away." | |
Mrs. Turner had been looking from one to another while this dialogue went | |
on. She said now, a little wounded, "I wished only to do what was kind; | |
but, perhaps I was thinking most of my own child. Miss Vivian must do | |
what she thinks best." | |
"You are all kind--too kind," Mary cried; "but no one must say another | |
word, please. Unless Mrs. Turner should send me away, until I know what | |
this all means, it is my place to stay here." | |
IX. | |
It was Lady Mary who had come into the vicarage that afternoon when Mrs. | |
Bowyer supposed some one had called. She wandered about to a great many | |
places in these days, but always returned to the scenes in which her life | |
had been passed, and where alone her work could be done, if it could be | |
done at all. She came in and listened while the tale of her own | |
carelessness and heedlessness was told, and stood by while her favorite | |
was taken to another woman's bosom for comfort, and heard everything and | |
saw everything. She was used to it by this time; but to be nothing is | |
hard, even when you are accustomed to it; and though she knew that they | |
would not hear her, what could she do but cry out to them as she stood | |
there unregarded? "Oh, have pity upon me!" Lady Mary said; and the pang | |
in her heart was so great that the very atmosphere was stirred, and the | |
air could scarcely contain her and the passion of her endeavor to make | |
herself known, but thrilled like a harp-string to her cry. Mrs. Bowyer | |
heard the jar and tingle in the inanimate world, but she thought only | |
that it was some charitable visitor who had come in, and gone softly away | |
again at the sound of tears. | |
And if Lady Mary could not make herself known to the poor cottagers who | |
had loved her, or to the women who wept for her loss while they blamed | |
her, how was she to reveal herself and her secret to the men who, if they | |
had seen her, would have thought her an hallucination? Yes, she tried | |
all, and even went a long journey over land and sea to visit the earl, | |
who was her heir, and awake in him an interest in her child. And she | |
lingered about all these people in the silence of the night, and tried to | |
move them in dreams, since she could not move them waking. It is more | |
easy for one who is no more of this world, to be seen and heard in sleep; | |
for then those who are still in the flesh stand on the borders of the | |
unseen, and see and hear things which, waking, they do not understand. | |
But, alas! when they woke, this poor wanderer discovered that her friends | |
remembered no more what she had said to them in their dreams. | |
Presently, however, when she found Mary established in her old home, in | |
her old room, there came to her a new hope. For there is nothing in the | |
world so hard to believe, or to be convinced of, as that no effort, no | |
device, will ever make you known and visible to those you love. Lady Mary | |
being little altered in her character, though so much in her being, still | |
believed that if she could but find the way, in a moment,--in the | |
twinkling of an eye, all would be revealed and understood. She went to | |
Mary's room with this new hope strong in her heart. When they were alone | |
together in that nest of comfort which she had herself made beautiful for | |
her child,--two hearts so full of thought for each other,--what was there | |
in earthly bonds which could prevent them from meeting? She went into the | |
silent room, which was so familiar and dear, and waited like a mother | |
long separated from her child, with a faint doubt trembling on the | |
surface of her mind, yet a quaint, joyful confidence underneath in the | |
force of nature. A few words would be enough,--a moment, and all would be | |
right. And then she pleased herself with fancies of how, when that was | |
done, she would whisper to her darling what has never been told to flesh | |
and blood; and so go home proud, and satisfied, and happy in the | |
accomplishment of all she had hoped. | |
Mary came in with her candle in her hand, and closed the door between her | |
and all external things. She looked round wistful with that strange | |
consciousness which she had already experienced, that some one was there. | |
The other stood so close to her that the girl could not move without | |
touching her. She held up her hands, imploring, to the child of her love. | |
She called to her, "Mary, Mary!" putting her hands upon her, and gazed | |
into her face with an intensity and anguish of eagerness which might have | |
drawn the stars out of the sky. And a strange tumult was in Mary's bosom. | |
She stood looking blankly round her, like one who is blind with open | |
eyes, and saw nothing; and strained her ears like a deaf man, but heard | |
nothing. All was silence, vacancy, an empty world about her. She sat | |
down at her little table, with a heavy sigh. "The child can see her, but | |
she will not come to me," Mary said, and wept. | |
Then Lady Mary turned away with a heart full of despair. She went quickly | |
from the house, out into the night. The pang of her disappointment was so | |
keen, that she could not endure it. She remembered what had been said to | |
her in the place from whence she came, and how she had been entreated to | |
be patient and wait. Oh, had she but waited and been patient! She sat | |
down upon the ground, a soul forlorn, outside of life, outside of all | |
things, lost in a world which had no place for her. The moon shone, but | |
she made no shadow in it; the rain fell upon her, but did not hurt her; | |
the little night breeze blew without finding any resistance in her. She | |
said to herself, "I have failed. What am I, that I should do what they | |
all said was impossible? It was my pride, because I have had my own way | |
all my life. But now I have no way and no place on earth, and what I have | |
to tell them will never, never be known. Oh, my little Mary, a servant | |
in her own house! And a word would make it right!--but never, never can | |
she hear that word. I am wrong to say never; she will know when she is in | |
heaven. She will not live to be old and foolish, like me. She will go up | |
there early, and then she will know. But I, what will become of me?--for | |
I am nothing here, I cannot go back to my own place." | |
A little moaning wind rose up suddenly in the middle of the dark night, | |
and carried a faint wail, like the voice of some one lost, to the windows | |
of the great house. It woke the children and Mary, who opened her eyes | |
quickly in the dark, wondering if perhaps now the vision might come to | |
her. But the vision had come when she could not see it, and now returned | |
no more. | |
X. | |
On the other side, however, visions which had nothing sacred in them | |
began to be heard of, and "Connie's ghost," as it was called in the | |
house, had various vulgar effects. A housemaid became hysterical, and | |
announced that she too had seen the lady, of whom she gave a description, | |
exaggerated from Connie's, which all the household were ready to swear | |
she had never heard. The lady, whom Connie had only seen passing, went to | |
Betsey's room in the middle of the night, and told her, in a hollow and | |
terrible voice, that she could not rest, opening a series of | |
communications by which it was evident all the secrets of the unseen | |
world would soon be disclosed. And following upon this, there came a sort | |
of panic in the house; noises were heard in various places, sounds of | |
footsteps pacing, and of a long robe sweeping about the passages; and | |
Lady Mary's costumes, and the head-dress which was so peculiar, which all | |
her friends had recognized in Connie's description, grew into something | |
portentous under the heavier hand of the foot-boy and the kitchen-maid. | |
Mrs. Prentiss, who had remained, as a special favor to the new people, | |
was deeply indignant and outraged by this treatment of her mistress. She | |
appealed to Mary with mingled anger and tears. | |
"I would have sent the hussy away at an hour's notice, if I had the power | |
in my hands," she cried, "but, Miss Mary, it's easily seen who is a real | |
lady and who is not. Mrs. Turner interferes herself in everything, though | |
she likes it to be supposed that she has a housekeeper." | |
"Dear Prentiss, you must not say Mrs. Turner is not a lady. She has far | |
more delicacy of feeling than many ladies," cried Mary. | |
"Yes, Miss Mary, dear, I allow that she is very nice to you; but who | |
could help that? and to hear my lady's name--that might have her faults, | |
but who was far above anything of the sort--in every mouth, and her | |
costume, that they don't know how to describe, and to think that _she_ | |
would go and talk to the like of Betsy Barnes about what is on her mind! | |
I think sometimes I shall break my, heart, or else throw up my place, | |
Miss Mary," Prentiss said, with tears. | |
"Oh, don't do that; oh, don't leave me, Prentiss!" Mary said, with an | |
involuntary cry of dismay. | |
"Not if you mind, not if you mind, dear," the housekeeper cried. And then | |
she drew close to the young lady with an anxious look. "You haven't seen | |
anything?" she said. "That would be only natural, Miss Mary. I could well | |
understand she couldn't rest in her grave,--if she came and told it all | |
to you." | |
"Prentiss, be silent," cried Mary; "that ends everything between you and | |
me, if you say such a word. There has been too much said already,--oh, | |
far too much! as if I only loved her for what she was to leave me." | |
"I did not mean that, dear," said Prentiss; "but--" | |
"There is no but; and everything she did was right," the girl cried with | |
vehemence. She shed hot and bitter tears over this wrong which all her | |
friends did to Lady Mary's memory. "I am glad it was so," she said to | |
herself when she was alone, with youthful extravagance. "I am glad it was | |
so; for now no one can think that I loved her for anything but herself." | |
The household, however, was agitated by all these rumors and inventions. | |
Alice, Connie's elder sister, declined to sleep any longer in that which | |
began to be called the haunted room. She, too, began to think she saw | |
something, she could not tell what, gliding out of the room as it began | |
to get dark, and to hear sighs and moans in the corridors. The servants, | |
who all wanted to leave, and the villagers, who avoided the grounds after | |
nightfall, spread the rumor far and near that the house was haunted. | |
XI. | |
In the meantime, Connie herself was silent, and saw no more of the lady. | |
Her attachment to Mary grew into one of those visionary passions which | |
little girls so often form for young women. She followed her so-called | |
governess wherever she went, hanging upon her arm when she could, holding | |
her dress when no other hold was possible,--following her everywhere, | |
like her shadow. The vicarage, jealous and annoyed at first, and all the | |
neighbors indignant too, to see Mary transformed into a dependent of the | |
city family, held out as long as possible against the good-nature of Mrs. | |
Turner, and were revolted by the spectacle of this child claiming poor | |
Mary's attention wherever she moved. But by-and-by all these strong | |
sentiments softened, as was natural. The only real drawback was, that | |
amid all these agitations Mary lost her bloom. She began to droop and | |
grow pale under the observation of the watchful doctor, who had never | |
been otherwise than dissatisfied with the new position of affairs, and | |
betook himself to Mrs. Bowyer for sympathy and information. "Did you ever | |
see a girl so fallen off?" he said. "Fallen off, doctor! I think she is | |
prettier and prettier every day." "Oh," the poor man cried, with a | |
strong breathing of impatience, "You ladies think of nothing, but | |
prettiness!--was I talking of prettiness? She must have lost a stone | |
since she went back there. It is all very well to laugh," the doctor | |
added, growing red with suppressed anger, "but I can tell you that is the | |
true test. That little Connie Turner is as well as possible; she has | |
handed over her nerves to Mary Vivian. I wonder now if she ever talks to | |
you on that subject." | |
"Who? little Connie?" | |
"Of course I mean Miss Vivian, Mrs. Bowyer. Don't you know the village is | |
all in a tremble about the ghost at the Great House?" | |
"Oh yes, I know, and it is very strange. I can't help thinking, | |
doctor,--" | |
"We had better not discuss that subject. Of course I don't put a moment's | |
faith in any such nonsense. But girls are full of fancies. I want you to | |
find out for me whether she has begun to think she sees anything. She | |
looks like it; and if something isn't done she will soon do so, if not | |
now." | |
"Then you do think there is something to see," said Mrs. Bowyer, clasping | |
her hands; "that has always been my opinion: what so natural--?" | |
"As that Lady Mary, the greatest old aristocrat in the world, should come | |
and make private revelations to Betsey Barnes, the under housemaid--?" | |
said the doctor, with a sardonic grin. | |
"I don't mean that, doctor; but if she could not rest in her grave, poor | |
old lady--" | |
"You think, then, my dear," said the vicar, "that Lady Mary, an old | |
friend, who was as young in her mind as any of us, lies body and soul in | |
that old dark hole of a vault?" | |
"How you talk, Francis! what can a woman say between you horrid men? I | |
say if she couldn't rest,--wherever she is,--because of leaving Mary | |
destitute, it would be only natural,--and I should think the more of her | |
for it," Mrs. Bowyer cried. | |
The vicar had a gentle professional laugh over the confusion of his | |
wife's mind. But the doctor took the matter more seriously. "Lady Mary is | |
safely buried and done with, I am not thinking of her," he said; "but I | |
am thinking of Mary Vivian's senses, which will not stand this much | |
longer. Try and find out from her if she sees anything: if she has come | |
to that, whatever she says we must have her out of there." | |
But Mrs. Bowyer had nothing to report when this conclave of friends met | |
again. Mary would not allow that she had seen anything. She grew paler | |
every day, her eyes grew larger, but she made no confession; and Connie | |
bloomed and grew, and met no more old ladies upon the stairs. | |
XII. | |
The days passed on, and no new event occurred in this little history. It | |
came to be summer,--balmy and green,--and everything around the old house | |
was delightful, and its beautiful rooms became more pleasant than ever in | |
the long days and soft brief nights. Fears of the earl's return and of | |
the possible end of the Turners' tenancy began to disturb the household, | |
but no one so much as Mary, who felt herself to cling as she had never | |
done before to the old house. She had never got over the impression that | |
a secret presence, revealed to no one else, was continually near her, | |
though she saw no one. And her health was greatly affected by this | |
visionary double life. | |
This was the state of affairs on a certain soft wet day when the family | |
were all within doors. Connie had exhausted all her means of amusement | |
in the morning. When the afternoon came, with its long, dull, uneventful | |
hours, she had nothing better to do than to fling herself upon Miss | |
Vivian, upon whom she had a special claim. She came to Mary's room, | |
disturbing the strange quietude of that place, and amused herself looking | |
over all the trinkets and ornaments that were to be found there, all of | |
which were associated to Mary with her godmother. Connie tried on the | |
bracelets and brooches which Mary in her deep mourning had not worn, and | |
asked a hundred questions. The answer which had to be so often repeated, | |
"That was given to me by my godmother," at last called forth the child's | |
remark, "How fond your godmother must have been of you, Miss Vivian! She | |
seems to have given you everything--" | |
"Everything!" cried Mary, with a full heart. | |
"And yet they all say she was not kind enough," said little | |
Connie,--"what do they mean by that? for you seem to love her very much | |
still, though she is dead. Can one go on loving people when they are | |
dead?" | |
"Oh yes, and better than ever," said Mary; "for often you do not know how | |
you loved them, or what they were to you, till they are gone away." | |
Connie gave her governess a hug and said, "Why did not she leave you all | |
her money, Miss Vivian? everybody says she was wicked and unkind to die | |
without--" | |
"My dear," cried Mary, "do not repeat what ignorant people say, because | |
it is not true." | |
"But mamma said it, Miss Vivian." | |
"She does not know, Connie,--you must not say it. I will tell your mamma | |
she must not say it; for nobody can know so well as I do,--and it is not | |
true--" | |
"But they say," cried Connie, "that that is why she can't rest in her | |
grave. You must have heard. Poor old lady, they say she cannot rest in | |
her grave, because--" | |
Mary seized the child in her arms with a pressure that hurt Connie. "You | |
must not! You must not!" she cried, in a sort of panic. Was she afraid | |
that some one might hear? She gave Connie a hurried kiss, and turned her | |
face away, looking out into the vacant room. "It is not true! it is not | |
true!" she cried, with a great excitement and horror, as if to stay a | |
wound. "She was always good, and like an angel to me. She is with the | |
angels. She is with God. She cannot be disturbed by anything--anything! | |
Oh, let us never say, or think, or imagine--" Mary cried. Her cheeks | |
burned, her eyes were full of tears. It seemed to her that something of | |
wonder and anguish and dismay was in the room round her,--as if some | |
one unseen had heard a bitter reproach, an accusation undeserved, which | |
must wound to the very heart. | |
Connie struggled a little in that too tight hold. "Are you frightened, | |
Miss Vivian? What are you frightened for? No one can hear; and if you | |
mind it so much, I will never say it again." | |
"You must never, never say it again. There is nothing I mind so much," | |
Mary said. | |
"Oh," said Connie, with mild surprise. Then, as Mary's hold relaxed, she | |
put her arms round her beloved companion's neck. "I will tell them all | |
you don't like it. I will tell them they must not--oh!" cried Connie | |
again, in a quick astonished voice. She clutched Mary round the neck, | |
returning the violence of the grasp which had hurt her, and with the | |
other hand pointed to the door. "The lady! the lady! oh, come and see | |
where she is going!" Connie cried. | |
Mary felt as if the child in her vehemence lifted her from her seat. She | |
had no sense that her own limbs or her own will carried her, in the | |
impetuous rush with which Connie flew. The blood mounted to her head. She | |
felt a heat and throbbing as if her spine were on fire. Connie holding by | |
her skirts, pushing her on, went along the corridor to the other door, | |
now deserted, of Lady Mary's room. "There, there! don't you see her? She | |
is going in!" the child cried, and rushed on, clinging to Mary, dragging | |
her on, her light hair streaming, her little white dress waving. | |
Lady Mary's room was unoccupied and cold,--cold, though it was summer, | |
with the chill that rests in uninhabited apartments. The blinds were | |
drawn down over the windows; a sort of blank whiteness, greyness, was in | |
the place, which no one ever entered. The child rushed on with eager | |
gestures, crying, "Look! look!" turning her lively head from side to | |
side. Mary, in a still and passive expectation, seeing nothing, looking | |
mechanically to where Connie told her to look, moving like a creature | |
in a dream, against her will, followed. There was nothing to be seen. The | |
blank, the vacancy, went to her heart. She no longer thought of Connie | |
or her vision. She felt the emptiness with a desolation such as she had | |
never felt before. She loosed her arm with something like impatience from | |
the child's close clasp. For months she had not entered the room which | |
was associated with so much of her life. Connie and her cries and | |
warnings passed from her mind like the stir of a bird or a fly. Mary felt | |
herself alone with her dead, alone with her life, with all that had been | |
and that never could be again. Slowly, without knowing what she did, she | |
sank upon her knees. She raised her face in the blank of desolation about | |
her to the unseen heaven. Unseen! unseen! whatever we may do. God above | |
us, and those who have gone from us, and He who has taken them, who has | |
redeemed them, who is ours and theirs, our only hope,--but all unseen, | |
unseen, concealed as much by the blue skies as by the dull blank of that | |
roof. Her heart ached and cried into the unknown. "O God," she cried, "I | |
do not know where she is, but Thou art everywhere. O God, let her know | |
that I have never blamed her, never wished it otherwise, never ceased to | |
love her, and thank her, and bless her. God! God!" cried Mary, with a | |
great and urgent cry, as if it were a man's name. She knelt there for a | |
moment before her senses failed her, her eyes shining as if they would | |
burst from their sockets, her lips dropping apart, her countenance like | |
marble. | |
XIII. | |
"And _she_ was standing there all the time," said Connie, crying and | |
telling her little tale after Mary had been carried away,--"standing with | |
her hand upon that cabinet, looking and looking, oh, as if she wanted to | |
say something and couldn't. Why couldn't she, mamma? Oh, Mr. Bowyer, why | |
couldn't she, if she wanted so much? Why wouldn't God let her speak?" | |
XIV. | |
Mary had a long illness, and hovered on the verge of death. She said a | |
great deal in her wanderings about some one who had looked at her. "For a | |
moment, a moment," she would cry; "only a moment! and I had so much to | |
say." But as she got better, nothing was said to her about this face she | |
had seen. And perhaps it was only the suggestion of some feverish dream. | |
She was taken away, and was a long time getting up her strength; and in | |
the meantime the Turners insisted that the chains should be thoroughly | |
seen to, which were not all in a perfect state. And the earl coming to | |
see the place, took a fancy to it, and determined to keep it in his own | |
hands. He was a friendly person, and his ideas of decoration were quite | |
different from those of his grandmother. He gave away a great deal of | |
her old furniture, and sold the rest. | |
Among the articles given away was the Italian cabinet, which the vicar | |
had always had a fancy for; and naturally it had not been in the vicarage | |
a day, before the boys insisted on finding out the way of opening the | |
secret drawer. And there the paper was found, in the most natural way, | |
without any trouble or mystery at all. | |
XV. | |
They all gathered to see the wanderer coming back. She was not as she had | |
been when she went away. Her face, which had been so easy, was worn with | |
trouble; her eyes were deep with things unspeakable. Pity and knowledge | |
were in the lines, which time had not made. It was a great event in that | |
place to see one come back who did not come by the common way. She was | |
received by the great officer who had given her permission to go, and her | |
companions who had received her at the first all came forward, wondering, | |
to hear what she had to say; because it only occurs to those wanderers | |
who have gone back to earth of their own will, to return when they have | |
accomplished what they wished, or it is judged above that there is | |
nothing possible more. Accordingly, the question was on all their lips, | |
"You have set the wrong right,--you have done what you desired?" | |
"Oh," she said, stretching out her hands, "how well one is in one's own | |
place! how blessed to be at home! I have seen the trouble and sorrow in | |
the earth till my heart is sore, and sometimes I have been near to die." | |
"But that is impossible," said the man who had loved her. | |
"If it had not been impossible, I should have died," she said. "I have | |
stood among people who loved me, and they have not seen me nor known me, | |
nor heard my cry. I have been outcast from all life, for I belonged to | |
none. I have longed for you all, and my heart has failed me. Oh how | |
lonely it is in the world, when you are a wanderer, and can be known of | |
none--" | |
"You were warned," said he who was in authority, "that it was more bitter | |
than death." "What is death?" she said; and no one made any reply. | |
Neither did any one venture to ask her again whether she had been | |
successful in her mission. But at last, when the warmth of her appointed | |
home had melted the ice about her heart, she smiled once more and spoke. | |
"The little children knew me. They were not afraid of me; they held out | |
their arms. And God's dear and innocent creatures--" She wept a few | |
tears, which were sweet after the ice tears she had shed upon the earth. | |
And then some one, more bold than the rest, asked again, "And did you | |
accomplish what you wished?" | |
She had come to herself by this time, and the dark lines were melting | |
from her face. "I am forgiven," she said, with a low cry of happiness. | |
"She whom I wronged, loves me and blessed me; and we saw each other face | |
to face. I know nothing more." | |
"There is no more," said all together. For everything is included in | |
pardon and love. | |
End of Project Gutenberg's Old Lady Mary, by Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant | |
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