Old Lady Mary

"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."