Old Lady Mary | Page 3

and pay visits and have adventures, she had
none, but lived constantly at home. There was something much more
serious in her life, had she known, which was that she had nothing, and
no power of doing anything for herself; that she had all her life been
accustomed to a modest luxury which would make poverty very hard to
her; and that Lady Mary was over eighty, and had made no will. If she
did not make any will, her property would all go to her grandson, who
was so rich already that her fortune would be but as a drop in the ocean
to him; or to some great-grandchildren of whom she knew very
little,--the descendants of a daughter long ago dead who had married an
Austrian, and who were therefore foreigners both in birth and name.
That she should provide for little Mary was therefore a thing which
nature demanded, and which would hurt nobody. She had said so often;
but she deferred the doing of it as a thing for which there was no hurry.
For why should she die? There seemed no reason or need for it. So long
as she lived, nothing could be more sure, more happy and serene, than
little Mary's life; and why should she die? She did not perhaps put this
into words; but the meaning of her smile, and the manner in which she
put aside every suggestion about the chances of the hereafter away
from her, said it more clearly than words. It was not that she had any
superstitious fear about the making of a will. When the doctor or the
vicar or her man of business, the only persons who ever talked to her on
the subject, ventured periodically to refer to it, she assented
pleasantly,--yes, certainly, she must do it--some time or other.
"It is a very simple thing to do," the lawyer said. "I will save you all
trouble; nothing but your signature will be wanted--and that you give
every day."

"Oh, I should think nothing of the trouble!" she said.
"And it would liberate your mind from all care, and leave you free to
think of things more important still," said the clergyman.
"I think I am very free of care," she replied.
Then the doctor added bluntly, "And you will not die an hour the
sooner for having made your will."
"Die!" said Lady Mary, surprised. And then she added, with a smile, "I
hope you don't think so little of me as to believe I would be kept back
by that?"
These gentlemen all consulted together in despair, and asked each other
what should be done. They thought her an egotist--a cold-hearted old
woman, holding at arm's length any idea of the inevitable. And so she
did; but not because she was cold-hearted,--because she was so
accustomed to living, and had survived so many calamities, and gone
on so long--so long; and because everything was so comfortably
arranged about her--all her little habits so firmly established, as if
nothing could interfere with them. To think of the day arriving which
should begin with some other formula than that of her maid's entrance
drawing aside the curtains, lighting the cheerful fire, bringing her a
report of the weather; and then the little tray, resplendent with snowy
linen and shining silver and china, with its bouquet of violets or a rose
in the season, the newspaper carefully dried and cut, the letters,--every
detail was so perfect, so unchanging, regular as the morning. It seemed
impossible that it should come to an end. And then when she came
downstairs, there were all the little articles upon her table always ready
to her hand; a certain number of things to do, each at the appointed
hour; the slender refreshments it was necessary for her to take, in which
there was a little exquisite variety--but never any change in the fact that
at eleven and at three and so forth something had to be taken. Had a
woman wanted to abandon the peaceful life which was thus supported
and carried on, the very framework itself would have resisted. It was
impossible (almost) to contemplate the idea that at a given moment the
whole machinery must stop. She was neither without heart nor without

religion, but on the contrary a good woman, to whom many gentle
thoughts had been given at various portions of her career. But the
occasion seemed to have passed for that as well as other kinds of
emotion. The mere fact of living was enough for her. The little exertion
which it was well she was required to make produced a pleasant
weariness. It was a duty much enforced upon her by all around her, that
she should do nothing which would exhaust or fatigue. "I