“Enough of this, Henderson. Come over here tomorrow, for I 'm not strong enough to hear more to-day, and let Mr. Scanlan know that I wish to see him this evening.”
And Mary motioned with her hand that he should withdraw. Scarcely was the door closed behind him than she burst into a torrent of tears; her long pent-up agony utterly overpowered her, and she cried with all the vehemence of a child's grief. Her heart once opened to sorrow, by a hundred channels came tributaries to her affliction. Up to that moment her uncle's departure had never seemed a cruelty; now it took all the form of desertion. The bitterness of her forlorn condition had never struck her till it came associated with all the sorrows of others. It is not impossible that wounded self-love entered into her feelings. It is by no means unlikely that the sense of her own impaired importance added poignancy to her misery. Who shall anatomize motives, or who shall be skilful enough to trace the springs of one human emotion? There was assuredly enough outside of and above all personal consideration to ennoble her grief and dignify her affliction.
Her first impulses led her to regard herself as utterly useless; her occupation gone, and her whole career of duty annihilated. A second and a better resolve whispered to her that she was more than ever needful to those who without her would be left without a friend. “If I desert them, who is to remain?” asked she. “It is true I am no more able to set in motion the schemes by which their indigence was alleviated. I am powerless, but not all worthless. I can still be their nurse, their comforter, their schoolmistress. My very example may teach them how altered fortune can be borne with fortitude and patience. They shall see me reduced to a thousand privations, and perhaps even this may bear its lesson.” Drying her tears, she began to feel within her some of the courage she hoped to inspire in others; and anxious not to let old Catty detect the trace of sorrow in her features, issued forth into the wood for a walk.
As the deep shadows thickened around her, she grew calmer and more meditative. The solemn stillness of the place, the deep, unbroken quietude, imparted its own soothing influence to her thoughts; and as she went, her heart beat freer, and her elastic temperament again arose to cheer and sustain her. To confront the future boldly and well, it was necessary that she should utterly forget the past. She could no longer play the great part to which wealth and high station had raised her; she must now descend to that humbler one,—all whose influence should be derived from acts of kindness and words of comfort, unaided by the greater benefits she had once dispensed.
The means placed at her disposal for her own expenditure had been exceedingly limited. It was her own desire they should be so, and Lady Dorothea had made no opposition to her wishes. Beyond this she had nothing, save a sum of five thousand pounds payable at her uncle's death. By strictest economy—privation, indeed—she thought that she could save about a hundred pounds a year of this small income; but to do so would require the sale of both her horses, retaining only the pony and the little carriage, while her dress should be of the very simplest and plainest. In what way she should best employ this sum was to be for after consideration. The first thought was how to effect the saving without giving to the act any unnecessary notoriety. She felt that her greatest difficulty would be old Catty Broon. The venerable housekeeper had all her life regarded her with an affection that was little short of worship. It was not alone the winning graces of Mary's manner, nor the attractive charms of her appearance that had so captivated old Catty; but that the young girl, to her eyes, represented the great family whose name she bore, and represented them so worthily. The title of the Princess, by which the Country people knew her, seemed her just and rightful designation. Mary realized to her the proud scion of a proud stock, who had ruled over a territory rather than a mere estate; how, then, could she bear to behold her in all the straits and difficulties of a reduced condition? There seemed but one way to effect this, which was to give her new mode of life the character of a caprice. “I must make old Catty believe it is one of my wild and wilful fancies,—a sudden whim,—out of which a little time will doubtless rally me. She is the last in the world to limit me in the indulgence of a momentary notion; she will, therefore, concede everything to my humor, patiently awaiting the time when it shall assume a course the very opposite.”
Some one should, however, be intrusted with her secret,—without some assistance it could not be carried into execution; and who should that be? Alas, her choice was a very narrow one. It lay between Scanlan and Henderson. The crafty attorney was not, indeed, much to Mary's liking. His flippant vulgarity and pretension were qualities she could ill brook; but she had known him do kind things. She had seen him on more than one occasion temper the sharpness of some of her Ladyship's ukases, little suspecting, indeed, how far the possible impression upon herself was the motive that so guided him; she had, therefore, no difficulty in preferring him to the steward, whose very accent and manner were enough to render him hateful to her. Scanlan, besides, would necessarily have a great deal in his power; he would be able to make many a concession to the poor people on the estate, retard the cruel progress of the law, or give them time to provide against its demands. Mary felt that she was in a position to exercise a certain influence over him; and, conscious of the goodness of the cause she would promote, never hesitated as to the means of employing it.
Who shall say, too, that she had not noticed the deferential admiration by which he always distinguished her? for there is a species of coquetry that takes pleasure in a conquest where the profits of victory would be thoroughly despised. We are not bold enough to say that such feelings found their place in Mary's heart. We must leave its analysis to wiser and more cunning anatomists.
Straying onwards ever in deep thought, and not remarking whither, she was suddenly struck by the noise of masonry,—strange sounds in a spot thus lonely and remote; and now walking quickly onward, she found herself on the path by which the vicar on Sundays approached the church; and here, at a little distance, descried workmen employed in walling up the little gateway of the passage.
“By whose orders is this done?” cried Mary, to whose quick intelligence the act revealed its whole meaning and motive.
“Mr. Henderson, miss,” replied one of the men. “He said we were to work all night at it, if we could n't be sure of getting it done before Sunday.”