Mary Gray Part 1

Mary Gray.

by Katharine Tynan.

CHAPTER I

WISTARIA TERRACE

The house where Mary Gray was born and grew towards womanhood was one of a squat line of mean little houses that hid themselves behind a great church. The roadway in front of the houses led only to the back entrance of the church. Over against the windows was the playground of the church schools, surrounded by a high wall that shut away field and sky from the front rooms of Wistaria Terrace.

The houses were drab and ugly, with untidy gra.s.s-plots in front. They presented an exterior of three windows and a narrow round-topped hall-door which was a confession of poverty in itself. Five out of six houses had a ramping plaster horse in the fanlight of the hall door, a fixture which went with the house and was immune from breakage because no one ever thought of cleaning the fanlights.

In the back gardens the family wash was put to dry. Some of the more enterprising inhabitants kept fowls; but there was not much enterprise in Wistaria Terrace.

Earlier inhabitants had planted the gardens with lilac and laburnum bushes, with gooseberries and currants. There were no flowers there that did not sow themselves year after year. They were damp, grubby places, but even there an imaginative child like Mary Gray could find suggestions of delight.

Mary's father, Walter Gray, was employed at a watchmaker's of repute. He spent all his working life with a magnifying gla.s.s in his eye, peering into the mechanism of watches, adjusting the delicate pivots and springs on which their lives moved. His occupation had perhaps encouraged in him a habit of introspection. Perhaps he found the human machine as worthy of interest as the works of watches and clocks. Anyhow, in his leisure moments, which were few, he would discuss curiously with Mary the hidden springs that kept the human machine in motion, the strange workings and convolutions of it. From the very early age when she began to be a comfort and a companion to her father, Mary had been accustomed to such speculations as would have written Walter Gray down a madman if he had shared them with the grown people about him rather than with a child.

Mary was the child of his romance, of his first marriage, which had lasted barely a year.

He never talked of her mother, even to Mary, though she had vague memories of a time when he had not been so reticent. That was before the stepmother came, the stepmother whom, honestly, Walter Gray had married because his child was neglected. He had not antic.i.p.ated, perhaps, the long string of children which was to result from the marriage, whose presence in the world was to make Mary's lot a more strenuous one than would have been the case if she had been a child alone.

Not that Mary grumbled about the stepbrothers and sisters. Year after year, from the time she could stagger under the weight of a baby, she had received a new burden for her arms, and had found enough love for each newcomer.

The second Mrs. Gray was a poor, puny, washed-out little rag of a woman, whose one distinction was the number of her children. They had always great appet.i.tes to be satisfied. As soon as they began to run about, the rapidity with which they wore out their boots and the knees of their trousers, and outgrew their frocks, was a subject upon which Mrs. Gray could expatiate for hours. Mary had a tender, strong pity from the earliest age for the down-at-heel, over-burdened stepmother, which lightened her own load, as did the vicarious, motherly love which came to her for each succeeding fat baby.

Mary was nurse and nursery-governess to all the family. Wistaria Terrace had one great recompense for its humble and hidden condition. It was within easy reach of the fields and the mountains. For an adventurous spirit the sea was not at an insuperable distance. Indeed, but for the high wall of the school playground, the lovely line of mountains had been well in view. As it was, many a day in summer Mary would carry off her train of children to the fields, with a humble refection of bread and b.u.t.ter and jam, and milk for their mid-day meal; and these occasions allowed Mrs. Gray a few hours of peace that were like a foretaste of Paradise.

She never grumbled, poor little woman, because her husband shared his thoughts with Mary and not with her. Whatever ambitions she had had to rise to her Walter's level--she had an immense opinion of his learning--had long been extinguished under the acc.u.mulation of toils and burdens that made up her daily life. She was fond of Mary, and leant on her strangely, considering their relative ages. For the rest, she toiled with indifferent success at household tasks, and was grateful for having a husband so absorbed in distant speculations that he was insensible of the near discomfort of a badly-cooked dinner or a b.u.t.tonless shirt.

The gardens of the houses opened on a lane which was a sort of rubbish-shoot for the houses that gave upon it. Across the lane was a row of stabling belonging to far more important houses than Wistaria Terrace. Beyond the stables and stable yards were old gardens with shady stretches of turf and forest trees enclosed within their walls. Beyond the gardens rose the fine old-fashioned houses of the Mall, big Georgian houses that looked in front across the roadway at the line of elm-trees that bordered the ca.n.a.l. The green waters of the ca.n.a.l, winding placidly through its green channel, with the elm-trees reflected greenly in its green depths, had a suggestion of Holland.

The lane was something of an adventure to the children of Wistaria Terrace. There, any day, you might see a coachman curry-combing his satin-skinned horses, hissing between his teeth by way of encouragement, after the time-honoured custom. Or you might see a load of hay lifted up by a windla.s.s into the loft above the stables. Or you might a.s.sist at the washing of a carriage. Sometimes the gate at the farther side of the stable was open, and a gardener would come through with a barrowful of rubbish to add to the acc.u.mulation already in the lane.

Through the open gateway the children would catch glimpses of Fairyland.

A broad stretch of shining turf dappled with sun and shade. Tall snapdragons and lilies and sweet-williams and phlox in the garden-beds.

A fruit tree or two, heavy with blossom or fruit.

Only old-fashioned people lived in the Mall nowadays, and the glimpses the children caught of the owners of those terrestrial paradises fitted in with the idea of fairyland. They were always old ladies and gentlemen, and they were old-fashioned in their attire, but very magnificent. There was one old lady who was the very Fairy G.o.dmother of the stories. She was the one who had the magnificent mulberry-tree in her garden. One day in every year the children were called in to strip the tree of its fruit; and that was a great day for Wistaria Terrace.

The children were allowed to bring basins to carry away what they could not eat; and benevolent men-servants would ascend to the overweighted boughs of the tree by ladders and pick the fruit and load up the children's basins with it. Again, the apples would be distributed in their season. While the distribution went on, the old lady would stand at a window with her little white dog in her arms nodding her head in a well-pleased way. The children called her Lady Anne. They had no such personal acquaintance with the other gardens and their owners, so their thoughts were very full of Lady Anne and her garden.

When Mary was about fourteen she made the acquaintance of Lady Anne--her full name was Lady Anne Hamilton--and that was an event which had a considerable influence on her fortunes. The meeting came about in this way.

Mary had gone marketing one day, and for once had deserted the shabby little row of shops which ran at the end of Wistaria Terrace, at right angles to it. She had gone out into the great main thoroughfare, the noise of which came dimly to Wistaria Terrace because of the huge ma.s.s of the church blocking up the way.

She had done her shopping and was on her way home, when, right in the track of the heavy tram as it came down the steep descent from the bridge over the ca.n.a.l, she saw a helpless bit of white fur, as it might well seem to anyone at a distance. The thing was almost motionless, or stirring so feebly that its movements were not apparent. Evidently the driver of the tram had not noticed it, or was not troubled to save its life, for he stood with the reins in his hand, glancing from side to side of the road for possible pa.s.sengers as the tram swept down the long incline.

Mary never hesitated. The tram was almost upon the thing when she first saw it. "Why, it is Lady Anne's dog!" she cried, and launched herself out in the roadway to save it. She was just in time to pick up the blind, whimpering thing. The driver of the tram, seeing Mary in its path, put on the brakes sharply. The tram lumbered to a stoppage, but not before Mary had been flung down on her face and her arm broken by the hoof of the horse nearest her.

It was likely to be an uncommonly awkward thing for the Gray household, seeing that it was Mary's right arm that was injured. For one thing, it would involve the dispossession of that year's baby. For another, it would put Mrs. Gray's capable helper entirely out of action.

When Mary was picked up, and stood, wavering unsteadily, supported by someone in the crowd which had gathered, hearing, as from a great distance, the snarling and scolding of the tram-driver, who was afraid of finding himself in trouble, she still held the blind and whimpering dog in her uninjured arm.

She wanted to get away as quickly as possible from the crowd, but her head swam and her feet were uncertain. Then she heard a quiet voice behind her.

"Has there been an accident? I am a doctor," it said.

"A young woman trying to kill herself along of an old dog," said the tram-driver indignantly. "As though there wasn't enough trouble for a man already."

"Let me see," the doctor said, coming to Mary's side. "Ah, I can't make an examination here. Better come with me, my child. I am on my way to the hospital. My carriage is here."

"Not to hospital," said Mary faintly. "Let me go home; they would be so frightened."

"I shan't detain you, I promise you. But this must be bandaged before you can go home. Ah, is this basket yours, too?"

Someone had handed up the basket from the tram-track, where it had lain disgorging cabbages and other articles of food.

"I will send you home as soon as I have seen to your arm," the doctor said, pushing her gently towards his carriage. "And the little dog--is he your own? I suppose he is, since you nearly gave your life for him?"

"He is not mine," said Mary faintly. "He belongs to Lady Anne--Lady Anne Hamilton. She lives at No. 8, The Mall. She will be distracted if she misses the little dog. She is so very fond of it."

"Ah! Lady Anne Hamilton. I have heard of her. We can leave the dog at home on our way. Come, child."

The Mall was quite close at hand. They drove there, and just as the carriage stopped at the gate of No. 8, which had a long strip of green front garden, overhung by trees through which you could discern the old red-brick house. Lady Anne herself came down the gravel path. Over her head was a little shawl of old lace; it was caught by a seed-pearl brooch with an amethyst centre. She was wearing a quilted red silk petticoat and a bunched sacque of black flowered silk. She had magnificent dark eyes and white hair. Under it her peaked little face was the colour of old ivory. She was calling to her dog, "Fifine, Fifine, where can you be?"

A respectable-looking elderly maid came hurrying after her.

"I've looked everywhere, my lady, and I cannot find the little thing,"

she said in a frightened voice.

Meanwhile, the doctor had got out of the carriage and had taken Fifine gently from Mary's lap. Now that Mary was coming to herself she began to discover that the doctor was young and kind-looking, but more careworn than his youth warranted. He opened the garden gate and went up to Lady Anne.

"Is this your little dog, madam?" he asked.

"My Fifine, my darling!" cried Lady Anne, embracing the trembling bit of wool. "You don't know what she is to me, sir. My little grandson"--the imperious old voice shook--"loved the dog. She was his pet. The child is dead. You understand----"

"Perfectly," said the doctor. "I, too--I know what loss is. The little dog strayed. She was found in the High Road. I am very glad to restore her to you; but pray do not thank me. There is a young girl in my carriage at the gate. She picked up your dog from under the wheels of a tramcar, and broke her arm, I fear, in doing it. I am on my way to the hospital, the House of Mercy, where I am doing work for a friend who is on holiday. I am taking her with me so that I may set the arm where I have all the appliances."

"She saved my Fifine? Heroic child! Let me thank her."

The old lady clutched her recovered treasure to her breast with fervour, then handed the dog over to the maid.

"Take me to see Fifine's preserver," she said in a commanding voice.

Mary was almost swooning with the pain of her arm. She heard Lady Anne's praises as though from a long distance off.

"Stay, doctor," the old lady said; "I cannot have her jolted over the paving-stones of the city to the Mercy. Bring her in here. We need not detain you very long. We can procure splints and bandages, all you require, from a chemist's shop. There is one just round the corner.