Mrs. Oliphant

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!" ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”