It was the chance of circumstance which gave me an example of that amazing truth that old people, when they have passed away, are given life whenever the young people think of them. To the hundreds and thousands who have been to see “The Blue Bird” there are hundreds and thousands to say, “How charming that idea is—the old people coming to life again whenever any one thinks of them!”
“And how amazingly true,” said I to one who had made the remark to me.
The lady looked at me as at one who has made a needless jest and then she laughed. Being a lady, she was polite.
But I hated that politeness. I hated the laugh which expressed it. If chance should make her eye to fall upon this page, she will see how I hated it. She will see also how earnestly I had meant what I said. For I have found a proof of the truth. I know now that the old people live. What is more, they know it too. When it comes that they pass that Rubicon which takes them into the shadow of those portals beneath which all the old people must wait until the Great Gates are opened—when once they near the three-score years and ten—then they know. But they may not speak. They may not say they know. They can only hint.
It was that an old lady hinted to me. Oh, such a broad hint it was! And that is how I know.
She was close on seventy. Another summer, another winter, and yet another spring, would see her three-score years and ten. The pension of the country would be given her then and this great ambition had leapt into the heart of her:
“I want to leave off work then, sir,” she said and a smile parted her thin, wrinkled lips, lit two fires in her eyes, making her whole face sparkle. “I want to leave off work then, sir, and I want to take a little cottage. I only work now so that my sons shan’t have the expense of keeping me. They’ve got expenses enough of their own.” Then her little brown eyes, like beads in the deep hollows, took into them a tender look as she thought of the trials and troubles which they had to bear.
“Will you ever be able to get a cottage and keep yourself alive on five shillings a week?” I asked.
She set her little mouth. She was a wee, tiny creature, shrivelled with age. Everything about her was little and crumpled and old.