It was winter, and snow was on the ground.
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; the children, tied up in comforters and
caps, stealing in from the slides, and from the pond, where they were
forbidden to go; and, in the distance, the trees of the great House
standing up dark, turning the twilight into night. She had a curious
enjoyment in it, simple like that of a child, and a wish to talk to some
one out of the fullness of her heart. She overtook, her step being far
lighter than his, one of the men going home from his work, and spoke to
him, telling him with a smile not to be afraid; but he never so much as
raised his head, and went plodding on with his heavy step, not knowing
that she had spoken to him. She was startled by this; but said to
herself, that the men were dull, that their perceptions were confused,
and that it was getting dark; and went on, passing him quickly. His
breath made a cloud in the air as he walked, and his heavy plodding steps
sounded into the frosty night. 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. She stopped quite
cheerfully to bid her good evening, as she had done in her vigorous days,
before she grew old. It was a little experiment, too. She thought it
possible that Catherine would scream out, and perhaps fly from her; but
surely would be easily reassured when she heard the voice she knew, and
saw by her one who was no ghost, but her own kind mistress. But Catherine
took no notice when she spoke; she did not so much as turn her head. Lady
Mary stood by her patiently, with more and more of that wistful desire to
be recognized. She put her hand timidly upon the woman's arm, who was
thinking of nothing but her boys, and calling to them, straining her eyes
in the fading light. "Don't be afraid, they are coming, they are safe,"
she said, pressing Catherine's arm. But the woman never moved. She took
no notice. She called to a neighbor who was passing, to ask if she had
seen the children, and the two stood and talked in the dim air, not
conscious of the third who stood between them, looking from one to
another, astonished, paralyzed. Lady Mary had not been prepared for this;
she could not believe it even now. She repeated their names more and more
anxiously, and even plucked at their sleeves to call their attention. She
stood as a poor dependent sometimes stands, wistful, civil, trying to say
something that will please, while they talked and took no notice; and
then the neighbor passed on, and Catherine went into her house. It is
hard to be left out in the cold when others go into their cheerful
houses; but to be thus left outside of life, to speak and not be heard,
to stand unseen, astounded, unable to secure any attention! She had
thought they would be frightened, but it was not they who were
frightened. A great panic seized the woman who was no more of this world.
She had almost rejoiced to find herself back walking so lightly, so
strongly, finding everything easy that had been so hard; and yet but a
few minutes had passed, and she knew never more to be deceived, that she
was no longer of this world. What if she should be condemned to wander
forever among familiar places that knew her no more, appealing for a
look, a word, to those who could no longer see her, or hear her cry, or
know of her presence? Terror seized upon her, a chill and pang of fear
beyond description. She felt an impulse to fly wildly into the dark,
into the night, like a lost creature; to find again somehow, she could
not tell how, the door out of which she had come, and beat upon it wildly
with her hands, and implore to be taken home. For a moment she stood
looking round her, lost and alone in the wide universe; no one to speak
to her, no one to comfort her; outside of life altogether. Other rustic
figures, slow-stepping, leisurely, at their ease, went and came, one at a
time; but in this place, where every stranger was an object of curiosity,
no one cast a glance at her. She was as if she had never been.
Presently she found herself entering her own house. It was all shut and
silent,--not a window lighted along the whole front of the house which
used to twinkle and glitter with lights. It soothed her somewhat to see
this, as if in evidence that the place had changed with her. She went in
silently, and the darkness was as day to her. Her own rooms were all shut
up, yet were open to her steps, which no external obstacle could limit.
There was still the sound of life below stairs, and in the housekeeper's
room a cheerful party gathered round the fire. It was then that she
turned first, with some wistful human attraction, towards the warmth and
light rather than to the still places in which her own life had been
passed. Mrs. Prentiss, the housekeeper, had her daughter with her on a
visit, and the daughter's baby lay asleep in a cradle placed upon two
chairs, outside the little circle of women round the table, one of whom
was Jervis, Lady Mary's maid. Jervis sat and worked and cried, and mixed
her words with little sobs. "I never thought as I should have had to take
another place," she said. "Brown and me, we made sure of a little
something to start upon. He's been here for twenty years, and so have
you, Mrs. Prentiss; and me, as nobody can say I wasn't faithful night and
day."
"I never had that confidence in my lady to expect anything," Prentiss
said.
"Oh, mother, don't say that: many and many a day you've said, 'When my
lady dies--'"
"And we've all said it," said Jervis. "I can't think how she did it, nor
why she did it; for she was a kind lady, though appearances is against
her."
"She was one of them, and I've known a many, as could not abide to see a
gloomy face," said the housekeeper. "She kept us all comfortable for the
sake of being comfortable herself, but no more."
"Oh, you are hard upon my lady!" cried Jervis, "and I can't bear to hear
a word against her, though it's been an awful disappointment to me."
"What's you or me, or any one," cried Mrs. Prentiss, "in comparison of
that poor little thing that can't work for her living like we can; that
is left on the charity of folks she don't belong to? I'd have forgiven my
lady anything, if she'd done what was right by Miss Mary. You'll get a
place, and a good place; and me, they'll leave me here when the new folks
come as have taken the house. But what will become of her, the darling?
and not a penny, nor a friend, nor one to look to her? Oh, you selfish
old woman! oh, you heart of stone! I just hope you are feeling it where
you're gone," the housekeeper cried.
But as she said this, the woman did not know who was looking at her with
wide, wistful eyes, holding out her hands in appeal, receiving every word
as if it had been a blow,--though she knew it was useless. Lady Mary
could not help it. She cried out to them, "Have pity upon me! Have pity
upon me! I am not cruel, as you think," with a keen anguish in her voice,
which seemed to be sharp enough to pierce the very air and go up to the
skies. And so, perhaps, it did; but never touched the human atmosphere in
which she stood a stranger. Jervis was threading her needle when her
mistress uttered that cry; but her hand did not tremble, nor did the
thread deflect a hair's-breadth from the straight line. The young mother
alone seemed to be moved by some faint disturbance. "Hush!" she said, "is
he waking?"--looking towards the cradle. But as the baby made no further
sound, she too, returned to her sewing; and they sat bending their heads
over their work round the table, and continued their talk. The room was
very comfortable, bright, and warm, as Lady Mary had liked all her rooms
to be. The warm firelight danced upon the walls; the women talked in
cheerful tones. She stood outside their circle, and looked at them with a
wistful face. Their notice would have been more sweet to her, as she
stood in that great humiliation, than in other times the look of a queen.
"But what is the matter with baby?" the mother said, rising hastily.
It was with no servile intention of securing a look from that little
prince of life that she who was not of this world had stepped aside
forlorn, and looked at him in his cradle. Though she was not of this
world, she was still a woman, and had nursed her children in her arms.
She bent over the infant by the soft impulse of nature, tenderly, with no
interested thought. But the child saw her; was it possible? He turned his
head towards her, and flickered his baby hands, and cooed with that
indescribable voice that goes to every woman's heart. Lady Mary felt such
a thrill of pleasure go through her, as no incident had given her for
long years. She put out her arms to him as his mother snatched him from
his little bed; and he, which was more wonderful, stretched towards her
in his innocence, turning away from them all.
"He wants to go to some one," cried the mother. "Oh look, look, for God's
sake! Who is there that the child sees?"
"There's no one there,--not a soul. Now dearie, dearie, be reasonable.
You can see for yourself there's not a creature," said the grandmother.
"Oh, my baby, my baby! He sees something we can't see," the young woman
cried. "Something has happened to his father, or he's going to be taken
from me!" she said, holding the child to her in a sudden passion. The
other women rushed to her to console her,--the mother with reason, and
Jervis with poetry. "It's the angels whispering, like the song says." Oh,
the pang that was in the heart of the other whom they could not hear! She
stood wondering how it could be,--wondering with an amazement beyond
words, how all that was in her heart, the love and the pain, and the
sweetness and bitterness, could all be hidden,--all hidden by that air in
which the women stood so clear! She held out her hands, she spoke to
them, telling who she was, but no one paid any attention; only the little
dog Fido, who had been basking by the fire, sprang up, looked at her, and
retreating slowly backwards till he reached the wall, sat down there and
looked at her again, with now and then a little bark of inquiry. The dog
saw her. This gave her a curious pang of humiliation, yet pleasure. She
went away out of that little centre of human life in a great excitement
and thrill of her whole being. The child had seen her, and the dog; but,
oh heavens! how was she to work out her purpose by such auxiliaries as
these?
She went up to her old bedchamber with unshed tears heavy about her eyes,
and a pathetic smile quivering on her mouth. It touched her beyond
measure that the child should have that confidence in her. "Then God is
still with me," she said to herself. Her room, which had been so warm and
bright, lay desolate in the stillness of the night; but she wanted no
light, for the darkness was no darkness to her. She looked round her for
a little, wondering to think how far away from her now was this scene of
her old life, but feeling no pain in the sight of it,--only a kind
indulgence for the foolish simplicity which had taken so much pride in
all these infantile elements of living. She went to the little Italian
cabinet which stood against the wall, feeling now at least that she could
do as she would,--that here there was no blank of human unconsciousness
to stand in her way. But she was met by something that baffled and vexed
her once more. She felt the polished surface of the wood under her hand,
and saw all the pretty ornamentation, the inlaid-work, the delicate
carvings, which she knew so well; they swam in her eyes a little, as if
they were part of some phantasmagoria about her, existing only in her
vision. Yet the smooth surface resisted her touch; and when she withdrew
a step from it, it stood before her solidly and square, as it had stood
always--a glory to the place. She put forth her hands upon it, and could
have traced the waving lines of the exquisite work, in which some artist
soul had worked itself out in the old times; but though she thus saw it
and felt, she could not with all her endeavors find the handle of the
drawer, the richly-wrought knob of ivory, the little door that opened
into the secret place. How long she stood by it, attempting again and
again to find what was as familiar to her as her own hand, what was
before her, visible in every line, what she felt with fingers which began
to tremble, she could not tell. Time did not count with her as with
common men. She did not grow weary, or require refreshment or rest, like
those who were still of this world. Put at length her head grew giddy and
her heart failed. A cold despair took possession of her soul. She could
do nothing, then,--nothing; neither by help of man, neither by use of her
own faculties, which were greater and clearer than ever before. She sank
down upon the floor at the foot of that old toy, which had pleased her in
the softness of her old age, to which she had trusted the fortunes of
another; by which, in wantonness and folly she had sinned, she had
sinned! And she thought she saw standing round her companions in the land
she had left, saying, "It is impossible, impossible!" with infinite pity
in their eyes; and the face of him who had given her permission to come,
yet who had said no word to her to encourage her in what was against
nature. And there came into her heart a longing to fly, to get home, to
be back in the land where her fellows were, and her appointed place. A
child lost, how pitiful that is! without power to reason and divine how
help will come; but a soul lost, outside of one method of existence,
withdrawn from the other, knowing no way to retrace its steps, nor how
help can come! There had been no bitterness in passing from earth to the
land where she had gone; but now there came upon her soul, in all the
power of her new faculties, the bitterness of death. The place which was
hers she had forsaken and left, and the place that had been hers knew her
no more.