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.