The Two Marys. Oliphant Margaret

When one has been looking for a long time for a holiday, and something happens to spoil the holiday when it comes, it is worse even than if that something had happened on an ordinary day. I think Mary was glad to be left to herself, for instead of our ordinary companionship, she sat in the parlour at work all the long afternoon, and I in the schoolroom. One of the doors was half opened between us. She could hear my pen scratching on the paper, and the rustling of the leaves of my dictionary – and I could hear her moving softly over her work. It was autumn by this time, and the days were growing short, and neither of us cared to ring for tea; and I think Ellen was cooking dinner for Mr Durham and forgot us at the usual hour. We still sat as we had been all the afternoon when the twilight came on. I laid down my pen, having no light to write by, when I heard some one knock softly at the parlour door.

      Mary made no reply. She sat quite still, never stirring. The knock came again; then I, too, put my paper away from me and listened. The door opened, and some one came into the parlour. How well I knew who it was! I listened now so intently that nothing escaped me. How could it be wrong? He must have come to talk to her of me.

      “Mary!” he said. I rose up softly in my excitement, thinking it was me he was calling; but before I could move further a strange consciousness came over me that it was not me he meant. The old feeling with which I had heard my father call Mary came into my very soul – but worse, a hundred times worse. Oh, had he too another Mary besides me?

      “Mary!” he said, breathless, and then paused. “How has all this come about? Why do I find you here? What does it mean? There are many explanations which I have a right to ask. You disappear from me – sent away – I know not how; and then – not to count the years that have passed – after these three months, in which you must have known me, I find you by chance – ”

      She knew that I was within hearing, and that whatever she said to him must be to me too. If that was a restraint upon her, I cannot tell. I felt sorry for her vaguely in my mind; but yet I did not move.

      “I did not wish you to find me at all,” she said, very low. “Mr Durham, there is and can be nothing between you and me.”

      “Nothing!” he said; “what do you mean, Mary? Why, there is all the past between us – a hundred things that cannot be undone by anything in the future. You know how many things there are connected with you which are a mystery to me – things not affecting you alone, but others. How you went away, for instance; and what became of you, and how much my mother had to do with it? You must have known the moment I found you that all these questions remained to be asked.”

      “All these questions,” she said, “are made quite unimportant by two things. First, that I am the wife, though now the widow, of a man I loved dearly – and that you have begun to love, begun to think of, some one very different from me.”

      “Ah!” he said, with a strange brief utterance of distress. Whether he was grieved to think of the wrong he was doing me, or whether the strange position he stood in troubled him, I cannot tell; but there was pain in the cry he gave – “ah!” with a little shiver. “You have abundance of power to pain me,” he said, very low, “but it seems strange you should upbraid me. Yes, I have begun to think of some one else; but that does not prevent me from being deeply startled, deeply moved, by the sight of you.”

      There was a little silence then, and I came to myself slowly. I woke as it were out of a trance. She knew I was there, but he did not. I had no right to hear his secrets without warning him. I tried to get up, but could not at first. I felt stiff and weary, as if I had been travelling for days together. I could scarcely drag myself up from my chair. The sound I made in rising might have warned him, but I do not think he heard. Before I could drag myself to the door and show I was there, he had begun again.

      “Mary,” he said, lingering upon the name as if he loved it, “this is not a time for recrimination. Tell me how you left Chester Street, and what my mother had to do with it? and then, if you choose, I will never see you again.”

      “Is it for your mother, or for me?”

      I did not hear the answer. I could not stay longer. I got to the door somehow, and threw it open. I was too much bewildered to know what I was doing, or to think. I came out with a little rush as feeble creatures do. “I want to get away. I want to go out. I cannot stay there all day and hear you talking,” I said. I was not addressing either her or him. The sound of my voice must have been very piteous, for I remember it even now.

      “Mary!” he cried.

      Oh, what a difference in the sound! This time his voice was startled, pained, almost harsh, with a kind of reproof in it: not as he said Mary to her. Oh, papa, papa! it was you first who taught me the difference. I gave a hoarse little cry. I could not speak. Millions of words seemed to rush to my lips, but I could not say any of them. “I have been here long enough,” I managed to stammer out. “Let me go – let me go!” Next moment I was in the dark, in the silence, in my own little room, kneeling down by the bedside, crying and moaning to myself. I did not know why. I had heard nothing wrong; but it seemed to me that all my life was over, and that it did not matter what came next.

      And, indeed, I cannot tell what came next. She came up to me, and told me the whole story, and in a vague sort of way I understood it. She was not to blame. He had been fond of her (everybody was fond of her) when she was the governess in his mother’s house; and it had been found out, and his mother was harsh, and she had gone suddenly away. There was nothing in this which need have made me unhappy, perhaps – so people have said to me since – but then I was very young; and I had been happy – and now I was miserable. I listened to her, and made no answer, but only moaned. The night passed, I cannot tell how. I did not sleep till late in the morning; and then I fell asleep and did not wake till noon. Then what was the use of going downstairs? I stayed in my room, feeling so weary, so worn out. It was Saturday, a half-holiday, and there was nothing to do. She came to me and spoke to me again and again; but I gave her very little answer. And he took no notice – he sent no message, no letter – not a word of explanation. He never asked my pardon. In my misery I thought I heard voices all the day as if they were talking, talking – and he never sent a message or note or anything to me. And then, after a long talk, as I fancied, with him, she would come to me. “Mary, this must not be. You must get up. You must be like yourself. Neither Mr Durham nor I have done you any wrong, Mary.”

      “Oh, don’t call me Mary!” I said; “call me some other name. If you knew how different it sounds when it is said to you, not to me.”

      And then she would look at me with her eyes full of tears, and sit down by me, and say no more. And so passed this bitter day.

      CHAPTER V

      NEXT day was Sunday. When I woke up, early, I recollected all that had happened with a flush of overwhelming shame. How childishly, how foolishly I had behaved. I was very, very wretched; but I was ashamed, and pride got the upper hand. I dressed myself carefully, and went downstairs, resolved not to show my misery at least, to be proud and forget it. “If he does not care for me,” I said to myself, “I will not care for him.” I passed his room very softly that I might not wake him. There was early morning service in St Mark’s now, for the curate who had succeeded poor papa was very High Church. I stole out and went to this early service, and tried to be good, and to give myself up to God’s will. Yes, it must have been God’s will – though how it could ever be God’s will that anybody should be false, or unkind, or cruel, I could not tell. I know it is right, however, whatever happens that vexes you, to accept it as if it must be the will of God. I tried to do that, and I was not quite so miserable when I went home. Ellen opened the door to me, looking frightened. “I thought you was lost, too, Miss,” she said. “I have been to church,” I answered, scarcely noticing her words. Breakfast was laid in the little parlour. It was very, very tidy, dreadfully tidy – everything was cleared away – the basket with the work and all the little things, and every stray thread and remnant. All of a sudden it occurred to me how little I had been doing to help of late. Instead of working I had been spending the evenings with Mrs Stephens. I did not even know how far the “things” were advanced, and it seemed strange they should all be gone. Of course it was because of Sunday. After a while Ellen brought in the coffee. She had still the same frightened look.