Margaret Oliphant - The Two Marys

“You must not doze this time,” I said; “you must go right off to sleep, and never wake till morning. Everything is put right for the night, and I shall not go till you are asleep.”

“I was not dozing,” she said, with that natural resentment which everybody feels to be so accused; and then, after a moment, “Mary, I was thinking of you. If I were to die, what would you do?”

I was very much shocked, and rather frightened; but when I looked at her, and saw by the dim light that she did not look any worse, I felt rather angry. “How unkind of you!” I said, “to speak so! You frightened me at first. What would it matter what became of me?”

“It would matter a great deal,” she said. “It would make everything so much worse. I don’t want to die, Mary, though I daresay I should be a great deal better off, and get rid of all my troubles – ”

“Oh, it is wicked to talk so!”

“Why should it be wicked? I can’t help thinking of it,” she said, lying in her warm cosy bed. It made me shiver to hear her. I began to cry, rather with a chill, wretched sense of discomfort in the midst of all the warmth than anything else; upon which she put her hand on my shoulder and gave me a little shake, and laughed at me softly. “Silly child!” she said – but she was not angry. There was a very grave look on her face behind the smile. Dying was strange to her as well as to me, though she was very old.

“But, Mary,” she went on, “I want to read you something. I want you to think again about some one you once were very fond of. I have some news of Mrs Peveril – ”

“Oh!” I said; and then I went on stiffly, “I hope she is well.”

“She is quite well – and – your little brother. I wish you would see them. All that happened was so long ago; I think you might see them, Mary.”

“I never made any objection to seeing them,” I said, more and more stiffly, though my heart began to leap and thump against my breast. “You forget I had nothing to do with it. It was she who went away. She said it was a mistake.”

“You are an unforgiving child. You did not try to enter into her feelings, Mary.”

“How could I?” I said. “Did she wish me to enter into her feelings? Did she ever give me a chance? She said it was a mistake. What was there left for me to say?”

“Well, well,” said the old lady, “I don’t defend her. I always said she was wrong; but still I have been hearing from her lately, Mary. I have three or four letters which I should like you to read – ”

“You have been hearing from her without ever telling me!”

“Bless the child! must I not even get a letter without consulting her? But, Mary, I am a free agent still, and I can’t be kept in such order,” she said, half laughing. “Give me that blotting-book, and my keys, and my spectacles, and bring the lamp a little closer.”

Indignant as I was, I was comforted by all these preparations. And when she had put on her spectacles and opened the blotting-book, sitting up in bed, my mind was so much relieved that my indignation floated away. “It is a pretty thing for you to talk of dying, and frighten people,” I said, giving her a kiss, “with your cheeks like two nice old roses.” She shook her head, but she smiled too: she felt better, and got better gradually from that hour.

But in the meantime I had to listen to these letters. Perhaps if it had not been that my old lady was ill, I should have been offended to find that she had deceived me, and had known about Mary all along. It was a deception, though she did not mean any harm. “She had thought it best,” she said, “to let time soften all our feelings, before she told me anything about it.” However, I must not enter into all the discussions we had on this subject. It is only fair that Mary should have her turn, and tell her story as I have told mine. It is not a connected story like mine, but you will see from it what kind of a life hers had been, and what sort of a woman she was. She is different from the Mary I thought – and yet not different either – just as I am different from the girl I thought I was, and yet very like too, if you look into it. I cannot tell what my feelings were as I read first one bit and then another, and a great deal more which I do not think it necessary to quote here. One moment I was furious with her – the next I could have kissed her feet. These people who send you from one extreme of feeling to another, who do wrong things and right things all in a jumble, take a greater hold upon you, somehow, than better people do, who are placid and always on the same level – at least I think so. I started by calling her Mrs Peveril – and here I am already saying Mary, as of old, without knowing! And Mrs Tufnell wishes me to go and see her. She has even made me promise as a kind of reward to herself for getting better. Since she takes it in this way, I shall have to go – and sometimes I fear it, and sometimes I wish for it. Will it make any difference to me? Will the old love come back, or the still older feeling that was not love? Shall I think of that “Mary” that sounded always so much sweeter to her than to me? Or shall I remember only the time when she was everything to me – when she charmed me out of my grief and loneliness, and told me her secret, and made me her companion, and was all mine? I do not know. I begin to tremble, and my heart beats when I think of this meeting; but in the meantime Mary has a right to her turn, and to tell the story her own way. It is all in little bits taken from Mrs Tufnell’s letters, and sometimes may appear a little fragmentary; but I can only give it as it came to me.

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