Old Lady Mary - Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
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.