Mary Gray

“ The morning was gray and dull. He had sat up all night by Mary; for Rachel, exhausted with fatigue, had been unable to come. Poor little Mary, her hour was nigh; she knew it, and her young heart grieved for her father, so soon to be childless. She thought of herself too; she looked over the whole of her young life, and she saw its transgressions and its sins with a sorrow free from faithless dismay; for Rachel had said to her: "Shall we dare to limit for ourselves, or for others, the unfathomed mercy of God?" ”

“ Congratulate her and Robin and Robin's party! And not one word of congratulating Mary Gray! Was Caroline Ilbert mad?
However, the thing impressed her. It worked by slow degrees into her mind. She had listened often to such foolish heresies as that which declared brains more important than rank or wealth. In a general way she had not dissented. Brains were very important. Gerald had thought a good deal of brains. If he had lived he had meditated a book on Napoleon's Wars. She had often met writing and painting and musical people in her friends' drawing-rooms. ”

“ Gray and Jane went out. Rachel remained alone with Mary.
"Why, how merry you are to-day, Miss!" said Mary, looking with wonder at
Rachel, as she busied herself about the house, singing by snatches.
"It is such a fine day," replied Rachel; she opened the parlour window; in poured the joyous sunshine—the blue sky shone above the dull brick street, and the tailor's thrush began to sing in its osier cage. "A day to make one happy," continued Rachel; and she smiled at her own thoughts; for on such a beautiful day, how could she but prosper? ”

“ There were hours in which all the fears of the world seemed to be let loose on the unhappy child, when it seemed impossible to vanquish those powers of darkness with one poor woman's love and prayers. During these days Mary Gray hardly left Nelly's side. Fortunately she had ceased to direct the Bureau, and another capable, much more common-place, young woman had taken up her task. ”

“ She interests me, as I have said. Let me have her. When I no longer need her—I am an old woman, Mr. Gray—she will be fit to earn her own living. Everything I have goes back to my nephew Jarvis Lord Iniscrone. But Mary will not suffer. Think! What have you to give her but a life of drudgery under which she will break down—die, perhaps?"
She watched the emotion in his face with her little keen, bright eyes.
"It is not a fine lady's caprice?" he said. "You won't make my Mary accustomed to better things than I could give her and then send her back to be a drudge?" ”

“ Carruthers spoke cheerfully, but he could not keep the anxiety out of his face.
"You must have suffered a deal lately," he said pityingly. He had not forgotten what Lady Anne had done for him and his Mildred. She had been their faithful and kind friend from that propitious day when he had picked Mary Gray from under the feet of the tram-horses. His position was now an assured one, and he and his wife had a tender affection for their benefactress.
"I'm an obstinate old woman," said Lady Anne, with very bright eyes. ”

“ Mary Gray is going to live here. You should know her father. A quite remarkable man, I consider him. Now, about yourself. I have heard of you, Dr. Carruthers. I have heard that you are a very clever young man and devoted to your work, that you have all the knowledge of the schools at your fingertips, but very little experience, and no practice to speak of."
"Excuse me, Lady Anne. I was three years house surgeon at the Good Samaritan; and I have done a great deal of work since I have been here. I will confess that my patients have been of a poor class."
"Who have not paid you a penny. ”

“ At once, Mary flew upstairs to her room. In less than five minutes, she was down again, and merely nodding to her father as she passed through the shop, off she went, with the light, happy step of youth.
"It's natural," he thought again, "it's very natural," but he sighed.
Mrs. Gray took in high dudgeon the consent her daughter had given to the return of Mary Jones. She scarcely looked at that young lady the whole day, and when she was gone, and Jane had retired to her little room, and mother and daughter sat together, Rachel got a lecture.
"You have no spirit," indignantly said Mrs. Gray. ”

“ But the will, dated some years back, made no mention at all of Mary Gray.
"It seems clear to me," said Mr. Buckton, talking the matter over with Lord Iniscrone, her Ladyship being present, "that Lady Anne intended to make some provision for her protégée. In fact, the letter which she had begun writing to me, which was found in her blotter after her death, plainly indicates that. She was, apparently, on her way to my house when the lamentable accident happened. Dr. Carruthers had seen her that afternoon, and had told her that her heart was in a bad way. ”

“ The house where Mary Gray was born and grew towards womanhood was one of a squat line of mean little houses that hid themselves behind a great church. The roadway in front of the houses led only to the back entrance of the church. Over against the windows was the playground of the church schools, surrounded by a high wall that shut away field and sky from the front rooms of Wistaria Terrace. ”

“ He always came to it with a sensation of happiness, which was not lessened because he felt half-guilty about it. To him the room was the room which for certain hours of every day contained Mary Gray. What did it matter if the case was unlovely since it held her?
Presently the clicking of the machine ceased, and she looked up at him with a smile.
"You are very good to wait for me," she said.
"Am I?" he answered, smiling back at her. "There is not very much to do to-day. The House is not sitting, and my constituency has been less exacting than usual." ”

“ It is not an easy task to console, even the lightest sorrow, for it is not easy to feel sympathy. Yet little as her grave mind, and earnest heart could understand the troubles of Mary Jones, little as she could feel in reality for the childish fancy to which they owed their birth, Rachel felt for the young girl's grief, such as it was, and by sympathy and mild reasoning, she soothed Mary, and sent her home partly consoled. ”

“ Morres was looking benignantly, for her, at Sir Robin Drummond.
"Well, I must say I'm pleased to see you," she said. "It's very handsome of you, too, to give up the affairs of the nation for an old woman like me. How do you suppose things are getting on without you?"
"The House is not sitting this afternoon. You know it rises for the Easter vacation to-morrow."
"On Thursday I go down to Hazels. I wanted that bad person, Mary Gray, to come with me. She says she has to work at her book. Did you ever hear such stuff and nonsense? As though the world can't get on without one young woman's book. ”

“ There was a bruised sweetness in the atmosphere about them, which they discovered presently to be wild thyme. They were sitting on a bed of it. He thought of it afterwards as one of the sweetnesses that must be always associated with Mary Gray, like the smell of violets. The full golden sun poured on them, warming them to the heart. The bees buzzed about the wild thyme and the golden heads of gorse. Little blue moths fluttered on the hillside. The rabbits, lower down the hill, came out of their burrows again and gambolled in the sunshine. ”

“ Mary looked at Rachel surprised at the impressive and earnest tone with which she spoke.
"Well but, Miss Gray," she said, at length, "what is there like me in this story; I am not a leper, am I?"
"We are all lepers," gently said Rachel, "for we are all sinners, and sin is to the soul what leprosy is to the body; it defiles it, and we all should be glad to die; for Christ has conquered death, and with death sin ends, and our true life, the life in God begins."
Mary raised herself on one elbow. She looked at Rachel fixedly, earnestly; "Miss Gray," she said ”

“ Sir Robin presented himself unannounced at the little house in Wistaria Terrace, where the youngest but two of the Miss Grays opened the door half-way to him, and was visibly alarmed at the sound of his title.
The little house smelt of cookery, perhaps of washing, although doors and windows were open. But little Robin Drummond cared for that. Beyond the demure child who had admitted him he caught sight of Mary sitting on the shabby little grass-plot, in a wicker-chair, with a Japanese umbrella over her head. And roses could not have been sweeter than the atmosphere. ”

“ He's dreadfully afraid of losing his figure. A fat lawyer, he says, is the one unpardonable thing. Will you look after my mother?"
The General was only too glad to give his consent to the plan which had brought the colour to Nelly's cheek and the light to her eye. After leaving Nelly in Sussex he and Robin would go down to Southampton, get out the yacht and cruise about the coast till Nelly felt inclined for a longer run.
So Mary Gray was free to go. She went out in the afternoon, leaving Robin to look after his cousin. ”

“ Perhaps he found the human machine as worthy of interest as the works of watches and clocks. Anyhow, in his leisure moments, which were few, he would discuss curiously with Mary the hidden springs that kept the human machine in motion, the strange workings and convolutions of it. From the very early age when she began to be a comfort and a companion to her father, Mary had been accustomed to such speculations as would have written Walter Gray down a madman if he had shared them with the grown people about him rather than with a child. ”

“ She’s ay sae clean, redd up, and braw,
She kills whene’er she dances;
Blythe as a kid, with wit at will,
She blooming, tight, and tall is,
And guides her airs sae gracefu’ still,
O Jove, she’s like my Pallas.
Dear Bessy Bell and Mary Gray,
Ye unco sair oppress us;
Our fancies jee between us twae,
Ye are sic bonnie lasses;
Waes me, for baith I canna get,
To ane by law we're stented;
Then I'll draw cuts, and tak my fate,
And be with ane contented.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. ”

“ Who could believe that Wistaria Terrace was over the wall?"
"I have been missing Wistaria Terrace," Mary said. "You don't know how lonesome it feels for the children. I wonder how Mamie is getting on without me. I want to go home. Indeed, I feel quite able to. I don't know how I shall do without going home."
"If you went home," said Walter Gray, unexpectedly practical, "your arm would never set, Mary. You'd be forgetting and doing all manner of things you oughtn't to do. If Lady Anne is kind enough to ask you to visit her, stay a while and rest, dear. Indeed, you do too much for your size." ”

“ Cousin Mark. Forgive me, and may Heaven reward you! Mary.
I, who knew nothing of the matter then, was astonished to see tears in my uncle’s eyes, after reading this letter, and still more astonished when I saw him dash them hurriedly away, saying .
“God bless the woman! what on earth made her write to me in this way? It’s impossible—she can’t be dead. But in any case, I must be off to London at once. Take care of her child—of Mary’s child? Of course I will—twenty of them, if there were as many! Here, Charlie, don’t stand gaping at me in that way. ”

“ And though at first the young people were shy of Mary's lover they were quickly at home with him. The fine breeding of Walter Gray had passed on, to some extent, to every one of his children.
"It will be my privilege to look after them," Robin Drummond said to Mary. "As for the lad, he will never be a financier. He is too old for the Navy, but why should he not learn the seaman's trade on the yacht? ”

“ There Mary had found her and had been moved in her innermost humorous sense; but she had been glad to be friends with Robin's mother, and so had done her best to advance the reconciliation.
Lady Drummond had a surprising proposal to make. It seemed that her friend, Lady Iniscrone, had placed at Miss Gray's disposal for the wedding the big house on the Mall formerly occupied by Lady Anne Hamilton. Lady Iniscrone wrote that they had heard of Miss Gray from a friend of Lady Agatha Chenevix, and had felt interested in her progress ever since. ”

“ Over the wall, Lady Anne had said. But the wall that separated Wistaria Terrace and the Mall was in reality a high and a great wall. He would never have Mary in the old close communion again. All passes. How good the old times were that were only a few hours away, yet seemed worlds! Never again! They would never be all and all to each other in a solitude which took no count of the others. Yet it was for Mary's sake. For Mary's sake the wall was to rise between them. ”

“ Ah! here comes one of those black monsters to make the pair curvet a little. They are too fat, Mary. They have too easy a life. It is only on such an occasion as this that they remember their hot youth."
They reached the Court without mishap, although once or twice the horses behaved as though they meditated a mild runaway.
"You shall take the other road home, Jennings," Lady Anne said graciously, as she alighted in front of the great square, imposing house, amid its flower-beds of all shapes, its ornamental fountains flinging high jets of golden water in the sun. ”

“ It is a fine day—the walk will do you good."
Mary jumped up, charmed at the prospect. She tied her bonnet-strings before the looking-glass, and hummed the tune of "Meet me by moonlight alone." Mary was turned sixteen; and vague ideas of romance sometimes fitted through her young brain.
When she was fairly gone, Rachel rose, laid her work by, put on her bonnet and shawl, and quietly slipped round to the Teapot: ostensibly, she wanted to buy some tea: her real purpose was to call the attention of Mr. Jones to his daughter's state. ”