Old Lady Mary | Page 7

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