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.