It was Lady Mary who had come into the vicarage that afternoon when Mrs.
Bowyer supposed some one had called. She wandered about to a great many
places in these days, but always returned to the scenes in which her life
had been passed, and where alone her work could be done, if it could be
done at all. She came in and listened while the tale of her own
carelessness and heedlessness was told, and stood by while her favorite
was taken to another woman's bosom for comfort, and heard everything and
saw everything. 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. Mrs. Bowyer
heard the jar and tingle in the inanimate world, but she thought only
that it was some charitable visitor who had come in, and gone softly away
again at the sound of tears.
And if Lady Mary could not make herself known to the poor cottagers who
had loved her, or to the women who wept for her loss while they blamed
her, how was she to reveal herself and her secret to the men who, if they
had seen her, would have thought her an hallucination? Yes, she tried
all, and even went a long journey over land and sea to visit the earl,
who was her heir, and awake in him an interest in her child. And she
lingered about all these people in the silence of the night, and tried to
move them in dreams, since she could not move them waking. It is more
easy for one who is no more of this world, to be seen and heard in sleep;
for then those who are still in the flesh stand on the borders of the
unseen, and see and hear things which, waking, they do not understand.
But, alas! when they woke, this poor wanderer discovered that her friends
remembered no more what she had said to them in their dreams.
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. When they were alone
together in that nest of comfort which she had herself made beautiful for
her child,--two hearts so full of thought for each other,--what was there
in earthly bonds which could prevent them from meeting? She went into the
silent room, which was so familiar and dear, and waited like a mother
long separated from her child, with a faint doubt trembling on the
surface of her mind, yet a quaint, joyful confidence underneath in the
force of nature. A few words would be enough,--a moment, and all would be
right. And then she pleased herself with fancies of how, when that was
done, she would whisper to her darling what has never been told to flesh
and blood; and so go home proud, and satisfied, and happy in the
accomplishment of all she had hoped.
Mary came in with her candle in her hand, and closed the door between her
and all external things. She looked round wistful with that strange
consciousness which she had already experienced, that some one was there.
The other stood so close to her that the girl could not move without
touching her. She held up her hands, imploring, to the child of her love.
She called to her, "Mary, Mary!" putting her hands upon her, and gazed
into her face with an intensity and anguish of eagerness which might have
drawn the stars out of the sky. And a strange tumult was in Mary's bosom.
She stood looking blankly round her, like one who is blind with open
eyes, and saw nothing; and strained her ears like a deaf man, but heard
nothing. All was silence, vacancy, an empty world about her. She sat
down at her little table, with a heavy sigh. "The child can see her, but
she will not come to me," Mary said, and wept.
Then Lady Mary turned away with a heart full of despair. She went quickly
from the house, out into the night. The pang of her disappointment was so
keen, that she could not endure it. She remembered what had been said to
her in the place from whence she came, and how she had been entreated to
be patient and wait. Oh, had she but waited and been patient! She sat
down upon the ground, a soul forlorn, outside of life, outside of all
things, lost in a world which had no place for her. The moon shone, but
she made no shadow in it; the rain fell upon her, but did not hurt her;
the little night breeze blew without finding any resistance in her. She
said to herself, "I have failed. What am I, that I should do what they
all said was impossible? It was my pride, because I have had my own way
all my life. But now I have no way and no place on earth, and what I have
to tell them will never, never be known. Oh, my little Mary, a servant
in her own house! And a word would make it right!--but never, never can
she hear that word. I am wrong to say never; she will know when she is in
heaven. She will not live to be old and foolish, like me. She will go up
there early, and then she will know. But I, what will become of me?--for
I am nothing here, I cannot go back to my own place."
A little moaning wind rose up suddenly in the middle of the dark night,
and carried a faint wail, like the voice of some one lost, to the windows
of the great house. It woke the children and Mary, who opened her eyes
quickly in the dark, wondering if perhaps now the vision might come to
her. But the vision had come when she could not see it, and now returned
no more.