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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10049 ***
+
+                             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 retards 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
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10049 ***
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
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+Project Gutenberg's Old Lady Mary, by Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Old Lady Mary
+       A Story of the Seen and the Unseen
+
+Author: Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
+
+Release Date: November 11, 2003 [EBook #10049]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD LADY MARY ***
+
+
+
+
+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 retards 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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